thoughtful consumption

Behold my new yellow kitchen wall!

And the produce on the table, too.

• Asian turnips with greens
• garlic
• coffee
• lettuce
• arugula
• butternut squash
• eggs
• radishes with greens
• basil (In mid-November? Wow!)
• green onions
• honey flax wheat bread
• blueberry oat mini-loaf
• apples

Fall food: the easy and the greens

I like fall food. So much of it seems self-evident. Apples, you eat. Squash and sweet potatoes, you bake. Arugula, lettuce, radishes, Asian turnips, and green onions, you make into salads. Not a lot of fancy cooking to be done here. Just fun and easy food.

It’s the greens that get you down.

I’m facing a bit of greens overload this week. We’ve got some of last week’s arugula and Chinese cabbage and most of last week’s kale left. Now I have turnip and radish greens to wedge in the crisper somehow.

Here’s my plan. I’ll increase the size of our arugula salads and add any baby kale or radish greens I can find. I’ll make fried rice again (mmm… with green onions) to use up most of the cabbage. And I’ll cook the kale with raisins and pine nuts. I’m hoping that will use most of the kale.

I think the secret to consuming all these greens is cooking them. It’s amazing how much they cook down. A terrifyingly giant bag of greens becomes a couple of handfuls of cooked stuff. Unfortunately, Chris and I aren’t particular fans of the cooked green, so we want to eat what we can raw. But the raisins and pine nuts recipe is a good place to start learning how to eat cooked greens. I’ve also made it with arugula, mustard greens, and at least one other I can’t recall now. Increase the ratio of raisins and pine nuts to greens if you’re really greens-shy.

As for collards, I can’t help you there. Collards are on my “hate list.” But if you’re really stuck, here’s Paula Deen’s collards recipe.

For the turnip and radish greens, I’ll turn to my two favorite greens recipes for people who don’t like greens:

• Greens-artichoke dip
• Greens (mock) Alfredo

I’ll blanch the radish and turnip greens along with whatever kale is left. Then I’ll combine them before splitting them between the two recipes. Maybe I’ll add some shrimp to the Alfredo as a reward for eating all those greens.

I know the Alfredo recipe freezes fine, too. So I might make it now and then pull it out of the freezer for a nice winter supper in January.

Other plans

The green onions are quite a treat. In addition to fried rice, I’m hoping to make a beef and green onions stir-fry – sort of like Mongolian beef. Here’s a recipe. But, first, I have to figure out if I have any flank steak in the freezer. (It’s definitely time for a freezer inventory, but I’m procrastinating until after the last delivery next month.)

The Asian turnips are much easier to eat than the purple top kind. They’re mild, and you can even add them sliced to salad.  Don’t put radishes and Asian turnips on a salad, though. It’s too much. Trust me. I’ve tried it. These turnips also work well in fried rice and stir-fries. Slice thinly and pretend they’re water chestnuts.

I’m going to cook the butternut squash this week even though I have two others in storage from earlier deliveries. This week’s squash doesn’t look as smooth as the others, and I’m guessing it won’t store as long. Plus it’s smaller, so it’ll be easier to finish up.

The honey wheat flax bread is delicious. I’m already dreaming of gourmet peanut butter and honey sandwiches. With a glass of milk, it’s the perfect late night snack.

Tonight’s plan

No peanut butter sandwiches tonight, though; our supper will be too big. I’m off to make pesto pasta with today’s basil and (big) arugula salads with sliced radishes, green onions, and goat cheese in a strawberry vinaigrette.

Wish me luck!