thoughtful consumption

Check out this week’s haul…

Tomato and arugula

Sometimes, I find arugula overpowering, but this is wonderful stuff. I’m currently cooking down the tomato with some garlic, olive oil, and wine. Tonight, we’re going to have tomato, arugula, and goat cheese pizza.

Lettuce and broccoli

I split up the broccoli into florets and stems. The stems are just as good as the florets, in my opinion. The only problem is they need longer to cook, so they really have to be separated. We’ll steam the florets first. The stems will last a long time in the crisper.

Pac choi (or a close relation)

I also split the leaves and stems for this pac choi variety.

The leaves will probably get cooked with the spinach we got. They’re about the same consistency, and there’s not a lot of either of them. The stems are crisp and delicate. I may chop them up and use them like celery or in some kind of stir-fry.

There are more artistic and loving ways to use pac choi, I guess, but sometimes the point is just to eat everything, you know?

Spinach

I separated the larger leaves from the babiest ones. The large ones, I’ll probably blanch for some pasta or casserole dish. The smallest ones, I tossed in the salad spinner…

Lettuce, broccoli leaves, arugula, baby spinach, and baby pac choi

This is my new trick. When I’m sorting through the week’s produce, I have the salad spinner at the ready. In goes any lettuce and then any bits and pieces from other greens. Presto! Tasty and healthy salads.

Fava beans

I like fava beans a lot. They’re easy to shell because they’re tough enough that you can just tear into the pods. After you shell them, they look like this.

Then you cook them in boiling water for about three minutes and remove these shells. You’re left with pretty, bright green beans.

In the past, I’ve sautéed fava beans in olive oil and garlic. This time, though, I’m considering making a pesto with the cooked beans, olive oil, garlic, and yogurt. Chris found some French bread on sale and bought three loaves. So this week has been crostini week. I’m thinking fava bean-yogurt pesto sounds good. Goat cheese has been great, too. Especially with a little arugula.

Yogurt, granola, blueberries, pecans, and eggs

The yogurt didn’t last ten minutes. We put some of the blueberries in it and gobbled it up!

I placed a small store order, too.

Goat cheese, brown rice, and feta cheese

The feta is for a pasta salad Chris likes a lot. The goat cheese is delicious – I wish I’d gotten two packs. The brown rice is because I want to learn to like brown rice.

Enjoy your food!