If there is one thing that I hope you can take away from this entire experience from joining a CSA farm, I hope it is that you learn to eat more green food. I’m not really just talking about a side salad with dinner, or even a kohlrabi here and there (although this is a wonderful change in your life to make if even the side salad is a new accomplishment), but I mean rich, loaded, dark-green cooking greens like kale, chard, and collards that have the potential to not only improve your health in drastic ways, but your culinary experience at large.
Every year, at the end of the season when we send out a survey to get your feedback about your CSA experience, I often hear comments like “too much kale” and “too much chard”. This is hard for me. I take information like this on a very personal level and it makes me feel like I’m not doing ‘the educator’ part of my job well enough. So I’ve decided to devote a newsletters in the honor of green foods to see if I can somehow use words and the enticing beauty of the greens themselves to convince you to get out that chopping board and chop up some chard!
Because you have to admit, they are beautiful. When you first pulled those shiny, smooth, and colorful chard leaves from your box this week you paused to admire them from just a second, I know you did! For some of you, I’m sure you thought, “Darnit, what am I going to do with these?”, and for the seasoned green veterans out there, your mouth watered and you thought of quiche, lasagna, or more simply sautéed greens with garlic scapes, olive oil and tamari. Greens are gorgeous! We’re drawn to them. Greens exist so abundantly in nature that they’re screaming out to us “Oooh, OOOH, eat MEEEE!”. We’re walking on them, yanking them from our flower beds, or even spraying chemicals (god forbid) on them just to make them go away! We have dandelion greens, lambs quarters, plantain, yellow dock leaves, and so much more that try in every way they can to seduce us into cleaning them up so that they make it onto our dinner table while we turn a blind eye towards the inner aisles of the grocery store shelves to food that comes in boxes.
I will admit, now this is a real confession; I never used to like chard. I was prejudice towards it because I thought it had an earthy flavor and truthfully, I didn’t know how to prepare it and wasn’t willing to try. This is the real deal here folks, I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO PREPARE IT! One thing I did know for sure is that I could sell almost 50 nice-sized bunches of it off of my Farmer’s Market table for $2.50 a bunch on nearly any given Saturday morning. I knew people ate the stuff and ate lots of it and would get up very early in the morning, drive through city traffic, pay for downtown parking and remember to bring their own bags to market just to fill them up with Chard and other leafy greens. I started taking their suggestions on how they liked to prepare it and tried giving it a second go for myself. Because truly, anything prepared in the right way can be delicious. You can even trick a small child into liking broccoli if you pour enough cheese sauce over it. I believe it has everything to do with how it is prepared!
Spinach stuffed shells (I’m a sucker for Italian food and plenty of cheese), is what did it for me. We subbed the spinach for swiss chard and I was in heaven. To this day Chard Stuffed Shells will bring me to my knees. It’s the dish that I request on my birthday, blanch and freeze greens for to make all winter long for, prepare for honored guests and feel it is my duty to share with the world. But my pallet has matured to some level and now a simple lightly sautéed greens with garlic, olive oil and soy sauce (no need to mask the flavor with cheese anymore) is a very quick, easy and delicious side dish. But I will admit that it took some time for me. I would be very interested in hearing what recipes turned you into a lover of greens so that we can share them with everyone else. Send me your favorite greens recipes, kid-friendly greens recipes or greens recipes that you grew up with. Next week I’ll post them in the recipe section. The recipes can be for chard, kale, spinach, collard, mustard greens, and so forth! Green up your life!
Kohlrabi– Now we’re picking from our second succession of kohlrabi and some of these guys are looking pretty big! Peel them, chop them up and eat them with your favorite veggie dip.
Garlic Scapes– More scapes off the top of the garlic plants to hold us over until the real thing gets here!
Broccoli– Really a nice broccoli harvest this week! We have at least a couple more weeks of broccoli coming up as well. Stores best in a plastic bag in the fridge.
Fennel- A unique licorice flavored bulb for adding to stir fry, roasts, or even shaved very thinly over cold salads raw. Our fennels were wanting to bolt on us, so you may have received one that was showing some signs of bolting. We tossed out over 2/3 of the harvest because of this. See a fennel recipe below from one of our veteran CSA members whome I know happens to be a wonderful chef and mother.
Lettuce- More lettuce to go around! Two heads for everyone. A rich week of romaine lettuce varieties and green leaf varieties. Lettuce keeps best in a plastic bag in the fridge.
Peas– We’re not positive, but this may be our last pea giving for the season. All good things must come to an end! A nice size bag of peas this week compared to the last couple weeks!
Parsley– Another green super food to incorporate into your diet raw! If you don’t think you can use it up while it’s still fresh, you could dehydrate it in your dehydrator and seal it dried in a small mason jar to add to sauces and soups.
Zucchini/Yellow Squash/Cauliflower- The zucchini and summer squash harvest is just beginning. It’s going to be a long season of zucchini, summer squash and patty pans are coming up. Soft summer squashes like zucchini and yellow squash prefer to be stored in a 50 degree environment. They may even store better on your counter when they’re fresh like this than in your fridge, we’ve noticed. They don’t seem to like too cool of refrigeration. If you didn’t get a squash, you may have received a cauliflower in it’s place.
Swiss Chard- The best for last! Swiss Chard is in the same family as spinach and beets. It’s a nutrient-dense cooking green. The stems on this green are also quite nice when cooked soft. Swiss chard is not chewy or bitter once cooked, but can be bitter raw. It is also high in oxcilic acid when raw and this acid is neutralized when cooked.
Radicchio– Some of our members did receie a radicchio. This is a bitter green-not a head of lettuce, that is nice shaved very thinly into salads raw in small quantities, or cooked to reduce some of it’s bitter flavor. We had about 125 radicchio and 175 members. We tried to give extra on other items for those who did not get radicchio.
Next Weeks Projections: (Please keep in mind that this is a guess. It is never a guarantee, with the unpredictableness of mother nature, what crops will mature or go down hill in one week)
Green Cabbage, Zucchini/Summer Squash, Lacinato Kale, Green leaf and red leaf lettuce, broccoli, garlic scapes, basil sprigs.
Cream of Broccoli and Fennnel Soup
Baked Radicchio and Mozzarella Pasta
Spicy Potato Sausage and Greens Soup
