Farm share, week 7

[magid]

• ten new potatoes, red-skinned or what looks like Yukon Gold, ranging in size from merely small to minuscule
  
• seven pickling cukes
  
• seven summer squashes (I took all zukes again.)
  
• a head of garlic with greens
  
• a bunch of carrots with greens
  
• four radishes with greens
  
• a head of lettuce (I went for red leaf again.)
  
• five tomatoes (small ones that look like overgrown grape tomatoes (not having a pointy enough tip for Romas, I think)
  
• a bunch of onions with some greens on
  
• a bunch of parsley
  
• a bunch of a cooking green related to broccoli that I'd never heard of before; the name on the list of what to take was something like kalutzumos, but that can't be it, with Google not having any hits. The bottom looks like a narrow, unridged head of celery, with the stalks being light green and that U shaped cross-section, rather than round. The top looks more like regular cooking leaves, a darker green, the sort of oval shape of bok choi, but flat, nor ridged or notched or curly at all. Anyone have an idea?
  
  
• fruit share: a pint of blueberries

And the Boston Organics delivery. Small box, half veg.

• a head of cabbage
  
• four red onions
  
• three summer squashes (MA grown)
  
• a cucumber (MA grown)
  
• three Valencia oranges
  
• a huge cantaloupe
  
• a bag (1/3 pound?) of Bing cherries

Plus a dozen eggs.

I've been out of bulb onions for over a week; I'm so glad to have some!

Comments

[bitty.livejournal.com]

You need DSL already.

[(Anonymous)]

What have you been doing with the greens of the carrots, beets, radishes over the past few weeks?

[magid.livejournal.com]

I've heard that somewhere before...

[magid.livejournal.com]

The greens of beets I cook like chard (sometimes with chard, even). I didn't get radishes until this week, but I cook them just like turnip greens. And I admit that I've done nothing with the carrot greens, though I know they're edible. My bad.

[(Anonymous)]

You cook the radish green like turnip greens, but how do you cook the turnip greens?

Carrot greens . . . soup?

Have you found an efficient method for washing greens?

[magid.livejournal.com]

I cook greens by either sauteeing with some combination of onion, garlic, mushroom, nuts, and/or preserved lemon; or putting into soup (especially with sweet potatoes, or in chicken soup). If I sautee them, the leftovers usually get transmogrified, being added to a pasta dish, or put in a quiche, or made into not-quite-spanikopitas.

I've been thinking about chicken soup this Shabbat, partly to put the carrots in... putting the greens in would be interesting. (And if I put in lots of ginger and lemongrass too, the flavor won't be overpowering).

No particularly efficient method, just wash leaves as I go, chucking them in the colander afterward to drain for a bit.

[(Anonymous)]

It's neat to know that beet, radish, and turnip greens can all be prepared in the same manner in which you have described preparing chard and kale and such. Thanks.

You wash leaves as you go, but in what way? I have a terrible time getting greens clean.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, greens are mostly interchangeable for cooking purposes, in that any green will do, modulo longer times for thicker greens (kale, collards), as long as you don't mind the variation in flavor. Oh, and beet greens tend to bleed color some, with the redness in the stem and veins.

I suspect you're much more meticulous than I am. I run each leaf under water on both sides, looking to see if there's any bugs or obvious dirt. That's it. I know many people do multiple washes, or use vinegar, etc., but I don't.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm probably not so much more meticulous; I'm simply no good at cooking efficiently.

Leaf-by-leaf is time consuming, but what can be done? I suppose it's more difficult the smaller the leaves are, the more crevices they have, the more little segments, and the more they have parts that are already past their prime.

I had one type of greens once that was very bland and didn't taste so edible. I don't recall what it was. So it is interesting to know that some of these root-vegetable-top greens are on the level with chard and kale.