Inspired by Erin, I decided to join in with Jen's 7 Posts in 7 Days Blogging Challenge. I don't promise to write anything epic, mind you. I just promise I will blather about SOMETHING every day unless I completely forgot or life throws me a curveball.
I think I mentioned already that this year I have subscribed to a CSA for the first time? I've tried to garden up here in the mountains in the past few years but without much success past a bit of lettuce. So I decided that if I can't manage my own farm at least I can support a local farm and get the good vegetables from them.
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| This week's crop |
It's been a challenge, but in a good way, trying to integrate new vegetables into my recipe repertoire. It's actually been easier than I thought it would be, because vegetables can be worked in with almost anything, and they make an ordinary dish much more interesting especially when the vegetables are ones I'm not used to. Armenian cucumbers? Turnips? Even summer squash are new to my kitchen.
And it also turns out that Aidan loves interesting new vegetables and can often be found hovering covetously over my tuna-tomato-cucumber-olive salad, for example. I can't say any of the other boys are often in the hovering-over-vegetables mode, though Brendan shows up when I cut up the CSA canteloupe and watermelon.
Even common pantry fare can be touched up with vegetables. For example, when I came home from our local Catholic Bible Study this evening, I wasn't very hungry, and didn't feel like getting out the taco fixings the boys had for dinner, so I got out a can of Campbell's low sodium chicken noodle soup, and added some leftover chicken cilantro wontons, and chopped up some turnip greens to go in there. Turned out pretty good.
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| Campbell's Plus -- hi-carb goodness with some dark green leaves at least |
This is just how naive I was about vegetables.... I didn't know till about two weeks ago that you can eat the greens of some root vegetables like beets and turnips. So I was throwing the greens away. Sigh. But somehow I stumbled across a beet green recipe when I was looking up recipes for beets (beets are the one product I am having trouble eating or foisting on my family) and found a recipe for preparing beet greens. So now whenever my CSA box comes with the greenery still attached to its produce, I look up the greenery to find out it is edible, because I LOVE eating leafy dark green things.
As for the beets themselves, the only way I have found to get them down is to grate them along with some carrots (I am not too fond of carrots either) and then toss them with a bit of lemon, crispy bacon if I have it around, and bits of cold fried chicken. This is actually pretty good. The sourness of the lemon offsets the weird (to me) earthiness of the beets. This looks good too.
Tomorrow I've promised Aidan I will make a vegetable soup since we have turnips and purple basil and summer squash and carrots and tomatoes that got a bit squashed by the watermelon on the way home. He is very excited. He adds pasta and parmesan and ground pepper to the basic soup and is totally in his comfort zone. Funny to think that he ate nothing but bits of potato chips and M&Ms until he was over four years old (he had a G Tube and used to gag when he saw us eat -- he's come a long way!)
The Bible study has been on Fr Robert Barron's Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Lively Virtues. I meet with a few ladies from our local station chapel, and we watch the DVD then discuss the study questions. Recommended.
So nice I inspired:) Very intrigued by a Catholic Bible Study, intrigued actually by any study with parish folks, have been thinking about this for a while.
ReplyDeleteBeets are not my favorite either, but I grow them......because they taste wonderful roasted with other root veggies.....that I also grow. I roast them in the oven almost exactly like my potatoes....and you already have that recipe :) I also like to add minced garlic and medium cut onion sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI cut them up in small cubes.......turnips, beets, carrots, rutabaga, sweet potatoes.
This is a cool website for your needs:
http://localfoods.about.com/od/preparationtips/tp/rootvegetables.htm
We tried making beet chips several times and they just have not worked out for us.
Try roasting like my potatoes......with a couple of other veggies. Yum. And so much better for you than those plain potatoes. :)
Oh, and good luck with that seven days of blogging! ;)
ReplyDeleteI am hoping for TWO days!!
I do the same thing with beets as Chari does. Drizzle with some olive oil, salt and pepper, roast them in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes and they turn out very sweet. I usually pair them with carrots. I will say, though, that everybody seems to prefer golden beets to red beets, so that's what we grow. And I always feel guilty for having to toss the beet greens because I didn't get around to them in time. They're good sauteed in olive oil and garlic with fried eggs.
ReplyDeleteI roast my beets and then slice them into my green salads. But last time I made beets I had a bunch leftover and I made a beet bisque that was heavenly. I cooked onion and celery and then added the beets and some thyme and white wine and chicken stock and then pureed it and added some sour cream at the table. It was surprisingly good.
ReplyDelete