Collard Greens

The CSA that I am part of loves their greens.  We were members of the same CSA last year and received greens every week for the full season, which here is about 17 weeks.  Don't get me wrong, I like greens too, but I find that I like them especially fixed this way.  Sadly, I neglected to take a picture of this one.

Serves 2
12-16oz bag Collard Greens, veins removed and leaves chopped
Salt to taste
2 strips bacon, chopped
Salt, pepper, and garlic salt to taste

1. Place chopped collard greens in a large saucepan.  Cover with water.  Salt the water liberally (about 1-2 tablespoons).  On high heat, bring water around greens to a boil.  Cover and reduce heat, keeping the water to a simmer.  Simmer for 10 minutes or until greens are no longer bright green.
2. Drain greens well.  Return to pan.  Return pan to high heat.  Once pan is again steaming, add bacon to pan.  Stir and cook until bacon is cooked through and enough oil is released to saute the greens.  If greens stick to the bottom of the pan, add a tablespoon of water to the pan and return cover for 2-5 minutes off of heat to loosen.
3. Season greens with salt, pepper, and garlic salt as desired.  Serve hot.

Faux Alfredo with Spinach

I'm not entirely certain when the idea came to me that sour cream might be able to double for actual cream in alfredo recipes.  It was probably some night when Husband or I really wanted alfredo, I didn't want to go to the grocery store, and I realized that I had sour cream in the fridge.  Either way, it's a fall back that I have made a number of times in many different manners.  Don't be fooled, it isn't as creamy and rich as real alfredo made with heavy cream.  But it does give a nice creamy finish to whole-wheat pasta and tempers strong vegetables well.

Serves 2-4
2 cups small whole-wheat pasta (I used rotini)
1 spring onion, finely chopped
2 garlic scapes, finely chopped
1 10 oz bag spinach, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup sour cream (I used light)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt, pepper, and garlic salt to taste

1. In medium saucepan, bring water to a boil.  Cook whole-wheat pasta according to package directions.  Drain and set aside.
2. In same saucepan, melt butter over medium heat.  Saute spring onion and garlic scapes until soft.  Add spinach and cook until dry, about 3 minutes.  Remove from heat.

3. Toss pasta in saucepan with spinach-onion-garlic mixture.  Top with sour cream and Parmesan cheese.  Stir until pasta and spinach is evenly coated.  Season with salt, pepper, and garlic salt to taste.

Week 2 Box

Second CSA box of the year has arrived!  Our CSA is delivered on Fridays, so some weeks it might take me a bit to actually post what is in the box.  The contents of the boxes follow a slow evolution, so many of these items will be repeats from last week.

• Spinach (bigger leaves this week, really only good for cooking)
• Spinach (smaller leaves, courtesy of my mom's garden, for salads)
• Turnips
• Garlic scapes
• Collard greens
• Snap peas
• Snow peas
• Mint
• Cilantro

Beef, Snap Peas, and Asparagus Stirfry

This recipe is a bit of an adaptation, but it was such a hit that it only needed a few tweaks.  I would guess that any dark green vegetable would work here, but I'm listing what I had.  This is also another of those sneaky healthy recipes, since the majority of the stir-fry is vegetables and the rice has whole-grain.  The fact that it tastes good is just a nice bonus. A note on woks:I like to use a wok for this recipe because I think it heats more evenly.  Mine is nothing fancy, but it does a good job for smaller recipes like this. See it here Calphalon Commercial Nonstick 10-Inch Stir Fry.

Serves 2-4

1 lb asparagus, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 cup snap peas, stems removed
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 lb sirloin tip steak, cut into strips against the grain
4 garlic scapes, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
Pepper, and garlic salt to taste
Brown rice, for serving

1. Mix together rice vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce in a measuring cup.  Stir in cornstarch until smooth.  Set aside.
2. Heat olive oil in a skillet or wok.  Saute beef and garlic scapes in oil until seared and cooked through, about 3-5 minutes.  Remove from wok with slotted spoon.
3. Saute snap peas, asparagus, garlic, and ginger in beef leavings.  Cook and stir until vegetables are bright green but still crisp.
4. Mix beef back into wok with the vegetables.  Top with vinegar-soy sauce sauce.  Cook and stir until sauce is thickened and clear, about 1-3 minutes.  Add pepper and garlic salt to taste and serve over the brown rice.

Chicken Spinach Lasagna

I actually made up this recipe a few weeks ago, but it seemed like a good way to use up excess spinach.  Husband is not a huge fan of cooked spinach, but he likes it if I cover the taste with garlic so this has become a common practice in my house.  My absolute favorite thing about this recipe, other than the fact that it is tasty, satisfying, and relatively easy, is that it tastes a lot less healthy than it is.  Sneaky healthy food is always a winner, in my book.


Serves 4-6

12 lasagna noodles
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
10 oz spinach, chopped
10 garlic scapes, chopped
1 container ricotta (I use the part-skim)
1 cup Parmesan cheese, divided
1-2 cups mozzarella cheese (the amount is based on preference)
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
Salt, pepper, and garlic salt to taste

1. Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions.  Drain and set aside.
2. Saute chicken breasts, seasoned lightly with some salt, pepper, and garlic salt.  I like to give them a nice sear in the pan and then cover them until they are cooked through.  Set aside on a cutting board to cool.
3. Using the drippings from the chicken, saute garlic scapes and spinach until the garlic scapes are tender and the spinach is dry.  While these are sauteing, you can cube the cooked chicken.  Cool slightly and transfer to a heat-proof bowl.  Stir in ricotta and 1/2 cup Parmesan.  Season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside.
4. Stir flour into milk until smooth.  In a saucepan, stir four and milk mixture constantly over medium heat.  Cook, stirring constantly, until sauce simmers.  Simmer for 5 minutes or until thick and smooth.  Stir in remaining Parmesan cheese and season to taste with salt, pepper, and garlic salt.
5. Grease a 9x13-inch-pan.  Pour 1/2 cup sauce into bottom of pan.  Top with three lasagna noodles (enough to make a layer).  Spread 1/3 of the spinach-ricotta mixture on top of noodles, then sprinkle with 1/3 of the chicken.  Place on desired amount of mozzarella cheese.  Create another layer of noodles, ricotta-spinach mixture, and chicken.  Pour 1/2 of the remaining sauce over this layer.  Top sauce with another layer of noodles, remaining ricotta spinach mixture, chicken, and a sprinkling of mozzarella cheese.  Place remaining noodles on top of this third layer and top those noodles with remaining sauce.  Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
6. Cover lasagna with foil and bake for 35 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  Remove foil and bake for an additional 35 minutes.

Week 1 Box

Box this week contained:

• Spinach
• Mixed field greens
• Collard greens (which for me is a blanket term that includes kale, just so you know)
• Rhubarb
• Garlic scapes (this might not be the real name, but it's what my CSA calls it when they cut the tops off garlic cloves; they are green shoots that look like scallions but taste like garlic)
• Turnips
• Butter lettuce
• Spring onions
• Snap peas

Introduction to CSA 2010

I am a bit late posting on Week 1, but I will attempt to catch you up.  First, a note about the structure here.

Since I receive one CSA box a week (for the record, on Fridays), I plan to update on Fridays with what the box contains.  As I make meals out of the produce I receive, then,  I will post pictures and recipes.  The posts with meal pictures and recipes will be labeled with whatever I used from the CSA box.  The idea is that if you have a bunch of, say, tatsoi but have no idea what to do with it, you can find it in the labels and bring up the meal I made with tatsoi.

For the record, my mom also keeps an organic garden which she overplanted this year, so her stuff might appear on here as well.  My parents live on land that has wild black raspberries and gooseberries, as well as cultivated blueberries, so a lot of pictures and recipes for these objects might appear on here as well.  Consider yourself warned, the black raspberry images might be overwhelming; last year we picked 14 gallons of the little buggers.

I also love love love baking and making up baking recipes, so those might be thrown in.  Those will be labeled with something like baking: cookies and also be searchable.  I sometimes like to make cupcakes based on cocktails as well, which will be labeled with the term Drunken Cupcakes.

Questions?  Comments?  Concerns?  OK, here we go.