thoughtful consumption

Here’s this week’s cache of goodness. Combined with some celery from last week, it’ll be a good week for salads.

cabbage, green onions, and apples

Green onions are good in salad and pretty much everything; we’re happy to have these. Green cabbage lasts so long that I can’t work up the energy to devise a plan for it yet. I’ll get around to it next week. I think we’re finally getting to the bottom of the barrel with last season’s apples. Mine are a little blemished. No real problem – I’ll just cut off the spots.

chard

Chard sure is pretty. I don’t have a lot of experience with it, but I’m going to separate the leaves and the stems. Then I’ll cook the leaves with raisins and walnuts and dice the stems for a beef casserole dish. None of my leaves are baby enough to mix in with a salad. You could also cook the leaves well and mix them up with some creamy cheese and some herbs and then use the mixture for manicotti stuffing of veggie lasagna.

2 kinds of lettuce

The lettuce on the left looked a little softer than the one on the right, so I washed and spun it first, and it’s waiting in the fridge. I would have mixed them, but my salad spinner’s too small.

sweet potatoes

These sweet potatoes were a little damp from the box, but they’re drying nicely on the table. We’ll peel and cube these for roasted sweet potatoes. Yum!

garlic chives, cilantro, chervil, Johnny-jump-ups, and costmary

I’m getting to be a fan of cilantro, but Chris still isn’t. I usually add it (and a beaten egg) to a bowl of ramen for an afternoon snack.

Johnny jump-ups are best for salad. (Unless you want to go crazy and candy them.) Because they don’t last long, I’ll try to use them tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve lashed them together with a twisty-tie and put them along with the rest of the herbs in a glass of water.

Then I’ll cover this with the plastic bag they came in and put it in the fridge. The cilantro will last a couple of weeks this way; the chervil, several days. I’m not sure of the others. Turning the bag inside-out regularly to keep the moisture lower helps, too.

Chervil is great in salads. Take a little taste to see what it’s like. It’s also good in scrambled eggs. It’s very delicate, so whatever you do with it, add it very late in the cooking.

Garlic chives are good in salad, too. Or chop some up and blend it with butter and spread it on hot bread. And serve with salad.

Not so sure what to do with the costmary. No one seems to think it’s good for cooking; better to dry and use it in potpourri for its minty smell. I did read here that dried costmary leaves were used as bookmarks – perhaps because the odor kept away icky silverfish and such. I guess I’m going to dry mine and see what happens. Better get it out of the glass of water, in that case.

ground beef, pear-blueberry juice, and eggs

This week or next, I’m going to make a casserole with at least half of this beef, some onion, garlic, celery, and chard stems.

The juice is new and exciting. Can’t wait to try the pear-blueberry combination. It sounds like it would be great with seltzer and perhaps a little vodka, depending on the time of day.

Enjoy your food!