top three!

CSA'ers.

change the title to 11 best foods you ARE eating and give yourself a pat on the back. here you are: chard, cabbage, and beets!
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/the-11-best-foods-you-arent-eating/

and a few quick suggestions for you on cooking with these three.

1) cabbage: make kraut. you get the benefits of the cabbage PLUS the benefits of the organisms you cultivate in your own kitchen. sandorkraut has a great tutorial. mixing red and green cabbage together makes for gorgeous pink kraut. i recommend throwing in slices of garlic for its anti-inflammatory, potential heart health contributions, manganese and selenium.
http://www.wildfermentation.com/resources.php?page=sauerkraut

2) beets: grate and toss with plain yogurt, mint, lemon juice, and salt/pepper for a tasty lunch.

3) chard: affectionately termed "chard-y pie" by friends, this stuff is amazing! i'd recommend kicking up the amount of chard in the filling (and feel free to throw in kale, beet greens, onion tops, etc). enjoy!

Swiss Chard Tart with a Potato Crust (from Stonewall Kitchen's cookbook "Harvest")
This tart makes two. If you want to save one for another day, cook them both in the oven, and store the second one in the fridge to reheat for dinner later in the week.

1 ½ lbs Swiss chard, stems trimmed and leaves washed and coarsely chopped
¼ c. plus 2 Tbs. olive oil
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
Salt and pepper
2 large potatoes
3 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 heaping c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 large eggs
2 c. ricotta

1. In large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Cook chard and garlic (half first, then the other half), stirring frequently. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring until the chard is just tender. Blot excess liquid with a paper towel and let cool.
2. To make the crust, slice the potatoes very thinly. Create a thin layer of the potato slices on the bottom and the sides of two pie plates, slightly overlapping them to make a solid “crust”. Drizzle 2 Tbs. of oil over each crust, swirling the pan slightly so the oil drips to the bottom. Sprinkle each crust with ½ tsp. thyme, some salt and pepper, and a heaping ¼ c. of Parmesan.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk eggs in a large bowl and whisk in the ricotta, the remaining 2 tsp. thyme, and the remaining ½ c. Parmesan. Season with salt and pepper. Add the cooled sautéed chard and mix well. Divide the filling between the two crusts and press down lightly.
4. Bake the tart for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 10 minutes. The potato curst should turn brown and crisp, and the filling should feel solid and firm when gently touched. Let cool about 5 minutes.

be well!
dana

Pesto whole wheat fusilli, with dark greens, carrots, and chicken

I wrote this post on my own blog during week 3 of CSA. However, since the New York Times just did a piece about beets, I thought I'd share it with you all.


"No strawberries this week, but instead we got beets. I love beets, for the nice bloody red color they bleed into the food. I don't roast the beets, just wash well, and then slice the heads into nice half moons and chop the leaves and sautée in a pan with garlic and vegetable oil. This makes a very nice and beautiful side dish, no boring colors on the plate. So this week we'll have a lot of salads again, maybe tomato-less because of the recent salmonella scare, but Maryland tomatoes seem to be ok; Last night for dinner I made Pesto whole wheat fusilli, with dark greens carrots, and chicken. It's as simple as it sounds: sautée the carrots (sliced in nice ovals) and the dark greens in oil, with red hot pepper flakes and garlic, add a quarter cup of white wine (or however much you can spare from that glass you've been sipping from while cooking...) and let it cook until the carrots are almost done, still a bit crunchy (I don't like mushy carrots). When it's almost ready add the cooked chicken ( I had leftovers from a whole chicken that Tim barbecued on Sunday). Season with salt and black pepper. The pasta cooks in salted boiling water in a different pot, and when it's al dente , drain, add to a serving dish, mix in a bit of pesto and chopped herbs . Serve right after salad. Speaking of pasta, we had an authentic Italian dinner recently with A&L and L's Italian parents. It started with pasta (Pesto linguine) , the second course was a slice of roast with bread and cheese, and we ended with salad. This (salad ending) was most surprising , but then it makes sense, you sort of clean your palate, get it ready for desert. Then I remembered that I grew up in Romania and had salad only as a side dish to the meat course. I still remember my surprise my fist lunch at Marlboro College, when I saw people had salad for lunch (as lunch, with maybe a cookie as desert). I think people's eating habits and cultures are fascinating. Bon Appétit!"

Emerald broth, ochre beets, and other olitory* indulgences

My soup recipes are hardly the sort that belong among the culinary masterpieces of Wolfgang Puck. If I'm lucky, my creations might someday qualify for publication on the back of a rusty, dusty, dented Campbell's soup can, the sort that one might find hidden behind the eerie, pickled remains of once-ambulating porcine limbs (pig's feet and soup cans are disconcertingly juxtaposed at my nearest grocer). That said, I do love cabbage, and I'm rather proud of my seemingly bottomless pot of emerald broth and nourishing, rubbery foliage. Throw in a few sliced yellow beets and a sprinkle of salt, or perhaps a nugget or three of some free-range antibiotic-free chicken sausage (for carnivorous folks, of which I am not, except for those every third mondays or so when I partake in the luxury of a meleagrine** indulgence; but keep that between you, me, and the lamppost).

*Of, like, or pertaining to kitchen vegetables.

**Of, like, or pertaining to turkeys. If you've ever felt the urge to use absurd vocabulary like cnidarian (of, like, or pertaining to a jellyfish), I'll share with you my most coveted secret: http://phrontistery.info/genitive.html