Dear Chard, I Forgive You

Dear Rainbow Chard,

I forgive you for being bitter. I am sorry I took you to the smoothie party. Those berries are not your kind. You don't belong with them. They are nothing like you! I've learned my lesson. I can't love you unless I am willing to love you as you are. I can't find out more about you unless I am willing to enter into your own world.

I promise from now on I won't continue to force you to be so out of place just so we can be where I love to be. I promise I will meet you half way. Tonight when I blanched you, so much of your bitterness left, and I am glad I gave you the time of day. I saw how many sides you have today, chard, and I am interested.

You have to understand: I let you nourish me. That is so hard for me to do. You have no idea the history I have with leafy greens. So much time I have wasted by allowing my previous relationships to interfere with ours. So much time I have wasted trying to make you into something you aren't.

I can't change you. I know that now. But I hope you can forgive me for trying and we can move on from here. I want to know who you are.

Love,
Masasa of becausethatisthewaymylifeisrightnow.blogspot.com

CSA: Day 3

Yesterday we ignored the veggies in our fridge, but today we came back on board. G. says she is going to make "eggs in purgatory" tonight (a big bow to the Italian side):



http://www.tomatocasual.com/2007/09/23/recipe-eggs-in-purgatory-eggs-in-tomato-sauce/
http://menuinprogress.com/2007/11/eggs-in-purgatory.html
http://www.thepauperedchef.com/2007/03/eggs_in_purgato.html

She will be making her own sauce I am sure, so I am assuming/hoping this means she will use up some of our basil. She will likely throw in some of the squash too.

I tried a "green smoothie" this morning with G. and the kids. Hmmm. Not sure what to think. It was more purple than green because it included blueberries (which were too brilliant to be overwhelmed by the green) and strawberries. I only used about a leaf and a half of the swiss chard in a blender full of fruit and yogurt, fearful I couldn't tolerate more.

Sure enough, I definitely tasted the green leafy-ness, and it was bitter and a turn off. I was happy, at least, to be thinking of us all getting some good nutrients, until M. drank for a while and then said firmly, "not good." Argh. But he did finish it off and even had a little more after a break when he saw K. having some (they always want what the other has). So maybe it was bearable. K. seemed to like it, and she asked for seconds. I had to make another pitcher to accomodate her request. However, G. then finished the second pitcher because K. lost interest.

In the second pitcher I added some honey. We did not have any juice, and I thought perhaps we needed some more concentrated sweetness to balance the bitter. Honey made no difference, and apparently the leaves I picked for the second pitcher were more bitter than the first.

I really don't know what I am going to do with all this chard.

I Ate It Before I Could Even Take a Picture! (And it had cabbage in it!!!!)

Note: This is not my picture. I, along with the rest of my family, ate mine up too quickly to even think of getting the camera to snap a shot. Besides, this is made from a much more dressed up version of the recipe. Ours was simpler, and looked simpler too. It was not nearly as colorful, but plenty tasty and relatively nutrient-dense for a comfort food. The picture came from: http://kitchen-parade-veggieventure.blogspot.com/2006/03/day-328-potato-cabbage-rapini.html


CSA Day One Report

One thing I learned from my new book, Greens, Glorious Greens is that cabbage keeps longer than most other leafy vegetables. If it hasn't been sliced (which causes vitamin C loss anyway), it keeps for at least four weeks in the fridge. Apparently some gardeners are even able to store some cabbage away for use in the winter. Who knew?!

Because cabbage is the longest lasting out of the veggies we received yesterday, I probably should have tried to cook with the others first. But I found a tempting recipe in the book for cabbage, and it served as too much of a draw. It was for a milkless (???!) version of colcannon. I went online and dug around and found a great variety of colcannon recipes.

Colcannon is an Irish dish that is basically, when it comes down to it, mashed potatoes with sauteed cabbage or kale. Though the version in the book is without milk, many descriptions of the dish include milk as a defining feature of the dish. I found only a handful of recipes for colcannon with milk alternatives, ranging from sour cream to a thick broth. That said, some recipes called for cooking the cabbage in the milk while most involved putting the milk in the mashed potatoes as you might usually. I opted for the latter because it was a much more common recipe and also because I wanted to make absolutely sure I didn't have soggy cabbage on my hands.

The potato most recipes recommended was the yukon gold. I did red potatoes instead because that is what I had on hand. It was very flavorful and I have no regrets at all. In fact, I'd recommend them.

I followed the common recipe using butter for sauteeing the cabbage. Thank goodness! This would have been a very different dish with my usual olive oil sautee. Butter was the right choice for this dish. Along with the cabbage, I also sauteed thinly diced yellow onions. No recipes recommended this, to my recollection, though a few suggested slicing in some chives. I rather liked the diced onions (about 3/4 of an onion), and dare I say they made the dish complete. Not sure I would have liked it without the onion, actually.

For the cabbage, I did not core it as is recommended, in case we wanted to store it for a while for other uses. Instead, I just pulled off a number of leaves, including some of the stiffer inner leaves. I sliced these thinly-- and in some cases chopped them for smaller peices as well-- fearful that the cabbage would overwhelm the dish (it did not). The trick is to sautee these on medium heat just for a few minutes. My onions had not yet started to turn brown. The idea is that the cabbage should add a nice, mild flavored crunch to the dish rather than being a smelly overcooked mess.

I chose a recipe without any spices other than salt and pepper. I am not sure whether having more or fewer spices is more traditional, but because of the move I have few spices on hand right now. I decided to keep it simple. I did not regret this either. If I had expected this dish to be something unlike mashed potatoes, I would have needed to opt for a more spiced version. But I went into this thinking I was going to have something like "enhanced mashed potatoes," and thus the salt and pepper was a perfect, simple pair of spices.

Speaking of treating this dish like a special type of mashed potatoes, it is even simpler to make than the recipes read. Basically, all one needs to do is to make some mashed potatoes (in my opinion, hand mashed was especially tasty), and sautee some green cabbage (or another cabbage, or kale) lightly at the same time. Then mix. The most time consuming part truly was hunting down the right recipe.

In the future, I think I might try making this as a layered dish, rather than mixing the cabbage and onions in with the mashed potatoes. This would better preserve the crunch (though there definitely was still a crunch in some of the cabbage, even after mixing), and it would make the dish a less challenging sensory experience (when there isn't crunch, getting a peice of floppy green stuff in your mashed potatoes may be tasty but can take a lot of adjustment). I also understand that if mixed without any milk at all, the dish can be formed into patties and fried like a pancake for a breakfast version. That sounds yummy too.

I think using this basic green cabage was perfect (might it be "spring cabbage"??). The taste was mild but sweet, there was little if any odor, and the color made me envision making it as a St. Patricks Day dish. By the way, the color holds strong through the sauteeing.

I realized later I could have thrown in some of the parsley for another dimmension for the dish, but I am glad I tried a very simple version first to really get to know the basic dish before begining to experiment. It is truly an ultimate comfort food.

I would be happy to finish off this whole head of cabbage in this same manner. The kids liked it too. M. didn't want any of the bigger chunks of cabbage or onion, but ate a few bites with smaller bits in there. K. ate the whole thing right up, no second thoughts! I like the idea of having some especially Irish food in our diets. Up until now, I thought the Irish diet was mostly meat, meat, and more meat, with a few potatoes and some cabbage thrown in on the side. I had no idea there was anything we'd particularly take a liking to, and I had no idea I could take this much joy in cabbage. This is an ode to the Irish side!

There is a video here where you can see the dish being made. Enjoy!

CSA Week One

There were delays, but we got our first CSA box this week. It had to sit outside for a while because we were out of town when we got confirmation that we were IN, but oh well. We can pick it up more fresh next week.

Here's what we have in terms of the green leafy things (we also got some blueberries, carrots, summer squash, zucchini, and cucumbers). Continued suggestions...and education...welcome:

This seems to be a pretty straight-forward case of green cabbage.

Here's some swiss chard. This one was labeled.

At first glance we thought this was romaine or green leaf lettuce,

but after getting it out and taking a closer look, we decided it is most likely bok choi.

This does appear to be a lettuce. I am assuming green leaf. Maybe romaine???

I wish I could photograph SMELL. Mmmm. Parsley and basil, of course.

Okay, so not sure about these. We'd assume either is a red leaf lettuce, but there are two, and if you look at the photo, the leaves are distinctly different. Hmmmm(???)

Help! Help! I am joining a CSA and I HATE leafy greens!

I am two weeks late, but they said they would let me in for a full share. The price is normally $550, but they took $50 off for the first two weeks. I have to confirm tomorrow. Among my many feelings (Hooray! I found one where I can WALK to the delivery location on a cool enough day!), I am unsure where I will come up with the $500 by tomorrow. I am also doing this, so far, without having consulted G. Finally, I am terrified because I am seriously not a fan of leafy greens. I can put up with small doses of romaine and iceberg lettuce, but that is the extent of it. The problem? In New England, at this time of year, that is pretty much what you get. Eeeeeewwww! Leafy, leafy greens!

Anyone with survival tips on cooking with leafy greens when you generally don't like them? "Oh laaawd, the drama!" you say? I probably am being a little overly-dramatic, but I guess I just need my moment to do the juvenile thing. I am already collecting some smoothie recipes, that apparently folks love even when they hate greens. But what else? I can stand a small, single leaf of almost any type of green on a sandwich with many other flavors. Spinach can go in lasagna if there is a day cool enough to heat up the kitchen making it. (I guess I could blanch and freeze in the meantime???).

But cabbage, chard, and kale have been known to make me vomit...or nearly so! What will I do if they want to send me cabbage? I've only eaten one coleslaw I could stand-- and yes, believe me, I am going to be contacting this church member for the recipe.

I don't want to sautee up a bunch of leafy greens because the slimey texture will make me gag. If I chop it up small enough, I might be able to add small doses to soups and stews, if not now, maybe in the winter (can I freeze everything but lettuce?). What else?! What else?! I am having CSA panic!