All the chard....

I really like rainbow chard, it's so pretty!  It also tastes great.  Like most greens, if you get some Italian sausage involved, it's very tasty.  I can't believe I hadn't posted this one last year with the CSA, but at least here it now....

Penne with Sausage, Chard and Pine Nuts This is from Fine Cooking, I'm really surprised at how awful the photo in the article is! However the recipe is great.

What did I change?  Well, I used 6 oz of pasta, not 8.  Also, I probably used more chard, since I had a bunch from week 1 and week 3.  I soaked the week 1 chard in some water for about an hour or two to freshen it up, and then cut off the stems and rolled it and chopped it up.

 See?  Pretty!  I also used turkey sweet Italian sausage instead of pork sausage.  Other than that, it pretty much went as described in the recipe (only one tablespoon of olive oil, though - 1/2 tbs to start the sausage, then 1/2 tbs to saute the onion).

Looking pretty good:

And I also have all these stems...

Some interesting pickles to come...

Week 2 and 3....salad, salad, and the mysterious kohlrabi.

So I got a little behind last week.  No photos of the whole box from week 2, but here's a lovely photo of the mysterious kohlrabi:

What was in the box with this beautiful thing?

Week 2

1 lb salad mix

1/2 lb arugula

1 bunch radish

1 head cabbage

1 lb collards

1 head green leaf lettuce

3 small heads romaine lettue

1 bunch garlic scapes

So, we might have eaten a bit of salad this week!  But not enough, as we've still got the romaine left over and week 3 dropped today:

Week 3

1 head Cherokee lettuce

1 lb salad mix

1 bunch radish (these were much bigger than last week!)

1/4 lb cilantro

1 bunch rainbow chard

2 heads romaine

1 bunch kale

1 broccoli crown

2 cucumbers

One thing we did with week 2 box was to make some of this Zesty Avocado Cilantro Dressing, but instead of adding 1 garlic clove and 2 tbs chopped scallions, I subbed in 3 of the garlic scapes, roughly chopped.  That made it a nice vibrant green:

It also tasted pretty amazing.  This is a throwback to the grilled chicken salad I posted the recipe for here. I've been told however, that this dressing isn't just for salad, it's good on tacos, chips, or just eaten directly from the container with a spoon.

The mysterious kohlrabi, what did I do with that?  A brief internet search informed me that "kohlrabi" is German for "cabbage turnip", and since the head of cabbage wasn't quite enough to make a batch of sauerkraut, I decided to add the kohlrabi to it.

I cut the kohlrabi into matchsticks:

Combined it with the chopped cabbage, salted and massaged it as described in this post and packed it into a mason jar to ferment:

I let it ferment for 6 days, then popped it in the fridge.  Unfortunately, my kitchen was a little too warm, as the brine turned brown on top.  According to the blog www.makesauerkraut.com, that's perfectly normal in warm weather and not harmful, just unappetizing (and if you can't trust a blog named makesauerkraut.com, who can you trust? Anyhow, it smelled and tasted fine, so I think I'm good to go.

Sheet Pan Dinner: Sausage and Potato Roast with Arugula

So, who doesn't love a sheet pan dinner?  Well, I guess I do, though I'm not really sure I've made that many, so it's hard to tell.

Anyhow, there was this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, which I DO actually love (the blog in general, not just this recipe).  It does the first thing I want to do, which is to use.up.greens.  It also does the second and third thing I want to do: be tasty, and not too unhealthy.

So, first step, toss the potatoes and shallots with some oil.  I used 2 tablespoons rather than 3. Also, I don't know where she's buying her tiny shallots but I had two that added up to 8 ounces, so I cut them (and peeled them) into several pieces:

Roast that for about 15 minutes, then add your sausage.   I used hot

Italian sausage from PTB farms, very delicious.Roasted for 30 more minutes.
Once you've done that, drop the whole mix onto some arugula, or spicy salad mix from the Guilford College farm, with a tablespoon of lemon juice.

Toss it up and then plate it up:

Delicious.

Moar Pizza - and greens

So, I'm a big fan of pizza.  Also a big fan of anything that uses up the greens.  So both were on display in this recipe from Smitten Kitchen for Crispy Spinach Pizza.  Modifications I made:

• I used my usual pizza dough from Bittmann.
• I didn't have fresh mozzarella so I made do with the shredded stuff in the bag.
• I used 2 oz less of the mozzarella.
• I sliced the garlic, poured a Tbs of olive oil over and microwaved it for 30 sec, fished it out to put on the pizza dough.
• I cooked the pizza for 5 minutes on parchment, then pulled it out to finish.  

Yes, it looks like we "melted Oscar the Grouch" on a pizza, but it still tastes pretty darn good.

 Some pics!
Pull the stems off the spinach:

The dough with all the cheeses:

Pile up the spinach:

Melted Oscar:

Tasty!

This is still good!  Especially if you have the romano cheese called for in the original recipe: https://guilfordcsachallenge.blogspot.com/2018/10/mustard-greens-pasta.html

It's not easy being green...

Ok, so we were not fooling around this week with the greens.  A reminder of what we're dealing with here:

It's like >5 lbs of greens!  Two of the pounds were salad mix and something labeled "stir fry mix"

I dropped a handful of these in some scrambled eggs yesterday, but was looking for some other ways to use them up as...well, there is a LOT.  The internet provided (eventually) as I found this recipe on the NY Times website for Provencal Greens Soup, and I thought a soup that described the greens ingredient as "...wild greens that you might forage on an afternoon’s walk, such as nettles, watercress and dandelion greens." would fit the bill nicely for these guys - don't they look like something you'd gather during a walk in southern France?

So, a couple of leeks in hand, I set off to make the soup.  A few changes I made were to use 4-cups of chicken broth that I had in our malfunctioning 2-month old freezer in the garage that I needed to empty (yes, I'm bitter) as well as add a parmesan rind as suggested in the comment on the recipe.  There were many, many other suggestions in the comments, as well as a general feeling that tempering eggs is harder than it sounds.  At any rate, I thought it was tasty, and I used about 3/4 of the greens!  Yay!  (I probably could have squeezed all of them in)

Provencal Greens Soup (adapted from the New York Times)

Ingredients:

1. 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2. 2 leeks, sliced in half lengthwise and sliced thinly crosswise, then washed and drained. (I used leeks that were about 1" in diameter, and only the white and light green parts).
3. 4 garlic cloves, sliced
4. Kosher salt
5. 6 cups chopped greens. I didn't measure this very carefully, I filled up a bowl (see pic below) w/ about 5-6 large handfuls, then put them on the cutting board and ran a knife through them a few times to chop. 
6. 4 cups chicken stock
7. 2 cups water  
8. parmesan rind
9. Black pepper to taste
10. 2 large eggs
11. Slices of good bread (whatever is good to you - I used some pane di casa from the Teeter, any "sturdy" bread will do. If I'd realized I'd be making this I'd have bought some bread at the Curb Market yesterday.) 
12. 1 clove garlic cut in half
13. Additional grated parmesan for serving.

What to do:

1. Heat up the olive oil in a heavy pot over medium heat, add the leeks and saute 5 minutes until tender. Add the garlic and about 1/2 teaspoon salt, and cook about 1 minute until the garlic is fragrant.  Add the greens and stir until they wilt a bit.  Add the water and stock and parmesan rind, and bring the mixture to a boil and reduce to a simmer.  Simmer partially covered for 15-20 minutes until the greens are tender.  Add more salt and pepper to taste.
2.  Beat the eggs. While whisking the eggs, drizzle in 1-2 ladles (about a cup or two) of the hot soup.  Whisk the egg soup mixture back into the rest of the soup.  This is "tempering" and is supposed to avoid scrambled egg soup.  If they scramble, don't panic, call it egg drop soup with greens and move on with your life.
3. To serve:  Toast a slice of bread (brush with olive oil if you like).  Rub the toast w/ a cut clove of garlic.  Chop toast into bite sized chunks and put in the soup bowl.  Ladle soup over.  Grate some parmesan on top.  You can skip the bread if you like.

Some pics!  Your mise:

Sauteing the leeks:

Adding the greens and simmering:

Soup's on!

And, while I'm playing with my phone, here's the strawberry shortcake we had for Mother's Day lunch dessert.  Strawberries from Rudd Farm, biscuits (shortcake) from Smitten Kitchen, and ice cream from last week's barbecue for our seniors.  And hey, the biscuits are too easy, you don't even need a sifter, just whisk all the dry ingredients together and add the cream.

Spring CSA 2019!

Aaaand we're back!

Yes, it's time for another 22 (!) weeks of produce from the Guilford College Farm (need to update the subtitle of this blog).  School is out for the spring semester (Congratulations Class of 2019!) and the campus is beautiful and green and so is this box of produce:

What do we have?  Well, starting on the lower right and moving counter clockwise

• 1 lb "stir fry mix" a mix of greens that will be best in a quick saute with rice or eggs
• 1/2 lb spinach
• 1 lb salad mix
• 1 bunch rainbow chard
• 1 lb mustard greens
• 1 head lettuce
• 1 bunch kale
• and in the middle next to the rainbow chard stems, 1 pint microgreens (radish sprouts)

So dinner will have something green in it tonight, just don't know what yet! (and so will every breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next few days!)