thoughtful consumption

• basil
• garlic
• parsley
• Leiden cheese
• bok choy (or is this tatsoi or choy sum?)
• zucchini
• butternut squash
• sweet potatoes
• apples
• spinach
• field peas
• eggs

I also got some sorrel from the store.

So far

I had a delightful afternoon snack: goat cheese wrapped in sorrel leaves.

A few repetitions of this fun little snack, and there won’t be enough sorrel left to make sauce. Oh, well!

Later, I made pesto with the basil. I usually end up making pesto with my basil because it’s safe and delicious. Once it’s pesto, I don’t have to worry about the declining status of the basil leaves. In addition, Chris likes pesto but doesn’t seem to like fresh basil. Whenever I use fresh basil on dishes, he makes a deceptively neutral comment that means, “Too much basil.”

Last night, Chris and I shelled field peas. Some of the peas are pretty young; I bet the farmers had to pull them in before the frost. Shelling young peas is a pain. I got the best results using a paring knife to score the greenest ones. Then the pods would split without the contents dispersing rapidly.

I cooked the field peas with some onions, and we had a nice supper of field peas, sweet potatoes, spinach salad and goat cheese.

While the picture shows the foods all nicely divided, I mixed my peas and my salad together as soon as I sat down. Vinaigrette does wonderful things for peas. So does goat cheese, but then goat cheese is a magical food.

Asian greens

We’ve been eating our baby Asian greens raw lately, but there’s a lot of other stuff you can do with them.

Wilted Asian Greens

Stir-fried Asian Greens and Chiles

Here’s something less Asian-inspired that I made last fall and really enjoyed. I don’t think you’d need to blanch this week’s baby greens – just chop them up and let them wilt in the pan.

“I separated out the mustard greens, blanched and chopped them. Then I heated some butter, olive oil, pine nuts, minced garlic and lemon zest on medium heat. When the butter was sizzling, but not yet brown, I added some shrimp, the chopped greens, some Parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper. I sauteed everything for about three minutes until the shrimp was cooked and served it over pasta. “

If you’re trying to identify Asian greens, this guide might help.

Plans for later

I may add some of the baby greens raw to our spinach salads. Some I may wilt over pasta. They seem a little too cute to dump into fried rice, but I might try a real stir-fry with some chicken or pork. If I have stems or pieces left over, that’s when I’ll turn to fried rice.

I’ll probably make Stir-fried Zucchini or add some zucchini to the bok choy stir-fry.

The Leiden cheese will go great with spinach salads – especially as cheese toast. The cumin flavor is nice for fall.

I don’t think the butternut squash will get cooked this week. I’m certainly not in a hurry after Patricia’s email explaining that butternut squash can last months. And this specimen is very pretty and unblemished so it should last a good long time.

Lucy has two great butternut squash ideas if you’ve had enough Easy Winter Squash.

1. Butternut Squash and Bulgur Salad

“… a salad of roasted, cubed butternut squash, cooked bulgur wheat, and a scattering of raw spinach leaves. The squash is the main ingredient–I would say its 85 per cent squash, 10 per cent bulgur, and 5 per cent spinach. There is probably a very light oil and vinegar dressing, too, but you really don’t taste the dressing very much, the dominant flavor is roasted squash. I like this salad, primarily because I feel like it’s hard to find something healthier to eat for lunch, and, secondarily, because it’s great diet food–very, very filling. It really has saved me many times from potato chip binges. ”

2. Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Crisp

Another egg idea

Some of the eggs will end up as Vanilla Custard based on this recipe.

I made a half recipe along with these changes:

• substituted whole milk for skim and sugar for Splenda (Woo-hoo!)
• didn’t strain through a fine mesh sieve. Cleaning a fine mesh sieve is not fun, so I prefer to keep mine clean and safely tucked away in a drawer. I just mixed everything together and divided it into three custard cups.
• topped the custards with cinnamon instead of nutmeg. We like cinnamon better.

We ate two of the three custard cups when they were barely chilled, and they were delicious.

But it was even better when we split the third one after it had chilled overnight. So rich and creamy! It tastes like somebody loves you.

When Chris gets excited about a non-chocolate dessert, it’s definitely a keeper.