Posts Tagged ‘Kale’

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CSA Week #14

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 by virginia

Sorry for the lack of posts lately; we spent most of Labor Day weekend in NJ, and now we’re back again to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. We’ve been eating nonstop and spending lots of time with family/friends. Josh stayed in the city today just long enough to do some volunteer truck unloading and to pick up our CSA share. He also arranged the produce this week and took the pics, so they may look a little different. This week our vegetable contents included:

Watermelon – 1/2
Onions – 3/4 lb
Greens – 1 lb
Tomatoes – 2 lbs
Squash – 2 lbs
Radishes – 5 each

Kale, tomatoes, watermelon, radishes, onions, squash

The original contents list we received also said celery, but unfortunately they weren’t delivered. For the greens, Josh picked kale instead of swiss chard, since we’ve had a lot of chard lately. The watermelon was another half of a yellow watermelon, which we ate with dessert tonight. It wasn’t as sweet as the previous watermelon, but everyone was fascinated by the bright yellow flesh.

The fruit share this week was basically a repeat of last week, and we really do have an overpopulation of peaches in our fridge. Claire just sent us a book about canning and preserving foods (thanks Claire!) so I’ll need to look into that, and I also heard that freezer jam is pretty good as well. This week our fruit share contents included:

Plums – 1 lb
Apples – 11 each
Peaches – 3 1/4 lbs

Apples, peaches, plums

It’s crunch time for us because we have a week and a half to go before we leave on our two-week trip to Peru. We’re really excited about our trip but we want to make sure that we use up all of our veggies and fruits before we leave, or at least find ways of storing them so that they’ll still be good when we get back. We made a pretty good dent last week so I’m confident that we won’t let anything go to waste!

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CSA Week #8

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 by virginia

It was a hectic CSA Wednesday for me, as Josh is currently in Las Vegas and I had a softball game right after work so I had to run out and pick up our share during the day. It was really hot out and I was a sweaty mess by the time I got back to my office, but I didn’t want to take the chance that I wouldn’t get back from the game in time to get our veggies and fruit.

This week our share did match what was sent in the email, and I was happy to see cucumbers on the list. Our vegetable contents this week included:

Squash – 2 lbs
Fava Beans – 1 lb
Carrots – 1 lb
Cucumber – 3 lbs
Eggplant – 1 each
Greens – 1/2 lb
Beets – 3 each

Cucumbers, fava beans, carrots, eggplant, kale, beets, squash

The greens this week was kale once again, and I look forward to making more kale chips. I also plan on making ratatouille with the squash and eggplant, something that I’ve never tried before. And of course, braised cucumbers, because I want to see what all the fuss is about!

We got lots of fruit this week as well, and our fridge is just bursting at the seams right now. We’ve actually found a great use for most of the plums we’ve been getting, making a really wonderful plum salsa that I’ll be posting about. This week our fruit share included:

Shiro Plums – 1 1/2 lbs
Apricots – 1 quart
Blueberries – 2 pints

Shiro plums, blueberries, apricots

I don’t know the difference between Shiro plums and sugar plums, since they look very similar. Maybe they taste different? We’ll see. And two pints of blueberries doesn’t sound like a lot but I feel like we have an abundance of them right now. Josh wants me to bake a pie so maybe I’ll consider doing that, or just making a big batch of blueberry pancakes. The possibilities are endless!

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CSA Week #7

Friday, July 23rd, 2010 by virginia

No, I didn’t forget about CSA Wednesday. Due to a previous commitment for the church where we pick up our shares, this week our distribution was moved to Thursday. I was super excited when we got the email this morning that listed our share contents, as there were lots of new vegetables for us to try. Much to our dismay, however, when we went to get our share, three items were missing – basil, cucumbers, and purslane. We’re not really sure why those items weren’t delivered, and while our share was still pretty robust, I had already been thinking about the basil pesto I wanted to make, and I was looking forward to trying braised cucumbers, the highly touted Julia Child recipe.

Oh well. We did get some things that weren’t on the emailed list, like lettuce and greens, so I guess it works out in the end. Our share contents this week included:

Squash – 3 lbs
Fava Beans – 1 lb
Carrots – 5 each
Turnips – 4 each
String Beans – 1lb
Lettuce – 1 head
Greens – 1/2 lb

Turnips, string beans, lettuce, greens, fava beans, carrots, squash

For the lettuce, it looked like we had a choice between green leaf and Boston lettuce. Because we’ve already tried the green leaf lettuce before, we chose the Boston even though the heads were tiny. The greens turned out to be kale, which means we can make kale chips again! For the squash, there were lots of different varieties so we picked up a standard yellow one, a smaller, round yellow one, and a large, pear shaped pale green one.

Our fruit share this week was the best one yet, with several different items. The contents included:

Sugar Plums – 1 quart
Apricots – 1 quart
Red Plums – 1 pint

Sugar plums, apricots, and red plums in front

The apricots look gorgeous, and I really liked the sugar plums from last week, though the skin is a bit tart. Josh made a lovely salsa with it that I’ll be posting about. Unfortunately, Josh will be on the road for work the next two weeks, which makes it tough for me to enjoy our bounty. I don’t want him to feel like he’s missing out, but then again, he’s going to have a lot of access to great restaurants while he’s away so I’m the one who’s going to end up feeling jealous. I’ll just have to figure out some really awesome things to make so that maybe he’ll have incentive to travel less!

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Kale Chips

Monday, July 19th, 2010 by virginia

Kale

During week #3 of our CSA share, we received 3/4 lb of kale. I knew exactly how I wanted to prepare it, something that I’ve read about in many places but never tried. I knew I absolutely had to make kale chips. Most people who have tried it say that they’re better than potato chips, and better for your health too. While I don’t dispute the health claim, I did want to see if I would prefer these to potato chips since I love spuds in all forms.

To prepare the chips, I washed the kale leaves and thoroughly dried them. Then I cut out the thick stem that runs all the way up the leaf. Once the stems were removed, I cut the leaves into more manageable pieces and tossed them with some olive oil and kosher salt (we couldn’t find the sea salt). After preheating the oven to 300 degrees, I spread the leaves out on some baking sheets, trying to get them into a single layer as best as possible. A little overlap is ok, as the leaves shrink after being baked.

Kale leaves tossed in olive oil and sea salt, laid out on a baking sheet

We baked the leaves at 300 degrees for approximately 20 minutes, watching them carefully the last 5 minutes so that they didn’t burn. If they do burn a little, they tend to get bitter so just be warned. After we pulled them out of the oven, they were thin as paper and delicately crispy.

Freshly baked kale chips

We seasoned them with a bit more salt and eagerly dug in. The chips had a concentrated kale flavor and shattered wonderfully in our mouths. It was kind of like an explosion of flavor, and the sensation was addictive. We couldn’t stop munching on these chips, eating them nonstop as batch after batch came out of the oven.

Kale chips - not so photogenic, but delicious!

To go with the chips, we cooked up some burgers that we topped with swiss cheese and tomatoes, as well as some onion from our CSA share.

Swiss burger with tomato and CSA onions

Not exactly the most conventional burger and chips dinner, but the verdict on kale chips? Fantastic! Better than potato chips? Yes and no. I could definitely see myself eating kale chips more often, since I know how bad potato chips are for me, but when I’m craving potato chips? Kale chips aren’t going to cut it. Not because they’re not delicious and not crispy/crunchy, but because when I want potato chips, nothing else will satisfy. Regardless, kale chips are really easy to make, filling, and absolutely worth trying.

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CSA Week #3

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 by virginia

Yet another week has gone by and you know what that means: CSA! We’ve got veggies bursting out of our fridge but we still can’t get over how great they are. Farm fresh really does make a huge difference. Our share this week included:

Lettuce  – 1 large head
Garlic – 3 bulbs
Garlic scapes – 5 stalks
Radishes – 4
Onions – 4
Greens – 3/4 lb

We had a choice between romaine lettuce and red leaf lettuce so we chose the romaine, because we still had red leaf left over from last week. We also had a choice between ruby chard and kale for the greens, and we went with the kale because we had chard last week.

From left to right: onions, radishes, garlic, romaine, kale, garlic scapes

In even more exciting news, our fruit share started this week!! The email that we received regarding the contents was a bit confusing, and so we thought we were getting three pints of juice. Not exactly fruit, but we figured it was because it’s still early in the season. Turns out that we got three pints of cherries, plus a juice. There were several juices to choose from and we opted for rhubarb apple, since it seemed to be the most unusual option.

Cherries – 3 pints
Juice – one bottle

Cherries and rhubarb apple juice

The cherries are slightly tart but have a great firm, juicy texture. They’re good for snacking on their own, but I’m hoping to bake with some as well, since three pints is quite a lot of fruit.

Oodles of cherries

We’re still trying to cook more each week, and we’re getting much better about it. More recipes to come!

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