What do I do with all these vegetables?!
That is the refrain of the Community Supported Agriculture shareholder. Sometimes it is said tongue-in-cheek. Other times, it is said with all seriousness. What DO I do with all these vegetables? A week or two of not keeping up with the influx of deliveries and suddenly the fridge is full. You have to face the reality: either you do some serious veggie-eating or start throwing things out. It sports terms, that's the difference between the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. This week, we hit that wall, and we choose victory. We choose to EAT!
The Challenge
Every day this week, we will eat a meal that uses a signifcant quantity (if not all the available quantity) of at least three available CSA ingredients. To facilitate maximum use of vegetables, extra store-bought ingredients will be kept to an absolute minimum.
Day 1: Greens & Things with a Side of Taters
The first day, I chose a grab-and-go strategy. Rather than cooking a specific recipe tailored for the available ingredients, I just grabbed ingredients that I knew I could competently cook and serve together. Then I went to town. It was a lot of "that looks like enough" and "that seems done cooking." So I'm not going to present a recipe. I'm just going to describe the process.
The simple: Boiled potatoes
I'm not even sure exactly what kind of potatoes they are. We have two or three brown bags in the pantry filled with smallish potatoes of different colors. These had redish skin. Maybe new potatoes? Maybe not. Either way, they cook the same. I washed & chunked them (halved, quartered, or whatever to get large chunks of similar size), put them all in a big pot and covered them with water. Then I brought the whole thing to a boil and continued boiling for 15 minutes. I got this started first, and then turned my attention to prepping the rest of the meal while they cooked. Once finished, I served them with butter and salt. Easy-peasy.
The less simple: Greens & Things
The premise here is simple. Sautee some greens with a few other complementary veggies. The ingredients were rainbow chard (1 "bunch"), golden beets (2 big ones), shallots (2), and garlic (2 cloves). In hindsight another shallot or two might have been good. How did they all get brought together? Glad you asked...
Step 1: Slice & dice! Peel the beets. Cut in half lengthwise, then slice thinly (thin is key). Peel and slice the the shallots (also good & thin). Mince the garlic. We'll get to the chard in a minute.
Step 2: Sweat the shallots. Pour some olive oil in a big skillet (2 - 3 tablespoons). Heat it up. Toss in the shallots, stir things up good, then reduce heat to low. Let the shallots sweat in the skillet while you head back to the chopping board.
Step 3: Prep the greens. Prep the chard by washing (before or after cutting), slicing the fibrous stalks out of the middle of each chard leaf (but don't discard!), and cutting the chard across the leaf into strips about 1" wide. Remove the top part of the stalk that was attached to the leafy parts and discard. Keep the thick, bottom end of the stalks, except for a tiny cut at the bottom to clean them up. Chop the stalks into lengths about 1 - 2" long.
Step 4: Cook the beets and stalks. Remove the shallots from the pan, leaving as much oil in the pan as possible. Keep the shallots - they'll come back later. Add more oil to the pan if necessary. Increase heat to mid-high/high. Add sliced beets and chard stalks to the pan. Saute until everything is tender (beets will probably take the longest), stirring frequently. This might take 5 minutes. Might take 10. I didn't keep track. It depends on how thin the beet slices are. When things are just about as tender as you want them, add the garlic and stir things up for 30 - 60 seconds.
Step 5: All together now! Time to add the greens. Depending on the size of your pan, you'll need to add a handful at a time, stir a bit to reduce the greens a little, then add another handful. Once all the greens are in the pan, add the shallots back in. Now stir, stir, stir! It should only take a couple more minutes to get the chard to where you want it. Bright green, shrunken down a little, but not mushy.
Step 6: SERVE! I went with a bit of salt and a very light sprinkly of basalmic vinegar (a greens standby of mine). In hidsight, I'm not sure the vinegar really complemented the beets. But it was still tasty. You should just season things however you like it (salt, pepper, hot sauce--pick your poison).
Final verdict: Tasty. Five veggies used. Mission accomplished.
There you have it. It took a little while, but it was all prep work: cleaning, peeling, and chopping. It's hard to escape that when you're using 5 different fresh vegetables. The actual cooking time on this one is short however.
Come back tomorrow to see how Day 2 turns out.
