Adventures in eating, weeks One and Two

So, the CSA... For the past two Tuesdays we've gotten a delivery of fresh veggies, and while I thought this would be the hardest part (the beginning, when we get lots of greens), it's really been okay! Last week we again received two kinds of kale, three kinds of lettuce, some turnips, and radishes. Hubby doesn't like radishes, which is good for me, because I really like them! Last week we did wind up cutting the tops off the turnips and storing them in the crisper...they are still there...we'll probably roast them for dinner tonight.

Though I like greens, I've never really cooked them before. I add them to soup a lot, but not much else. It's been kind of fun to think of ways to eat them...easy also.

Some things I've made:
* sauteed greens over cous-cous and chickpeas: pretty good...added parm cheese on the top and wasn't impressed with the cheese addition..it just wasn't needed. Also, there was nothing added into the greens, so the flavor was kind of flat. This was my first attempt at cooking mixed greens, and it was okay but needed some work.

* pizza: we made pesto from Kale and turnip greens, spread it on pizza dough, added feta cheese and roasted vegetables (potatoes, turnips, parsnips and shallots). The roasted veg was DELICIOUS. I should have blanched the greens before making the pesto...the flavor was a little sharp. This would be great with goat cheese, also.

* Ravioli, cheater style: We used frozen ravioli, but I served it with carmalized shallots, toasted pinenuts and sauteed greens...delicious. Just delicious.

And last night? I made veggie Lasagna...oy....so good. It was a typical lasagna recipe: noodles, a ricotta mixture. The veggie part was a large onion sliced and carmalized, mixed with sauteed greens. I diced the greens up a little so the pieces were smaller and the Lasagna was easier to cut. I also added some breadcrumbs to help absorb any extra moisture from the vegetables, but it wasn't needed. I found the crumbs stayed pretty crunchy...that wasn't to bad, either. :)

I have to say that the carmalized onion or shallot really complements the taste of greens well...I can see why you can really use any kind of flavorful green interchangeably: chard, kale, rapini, turnip greens, radish greens...they are all really good. This is going to help us branch out from spinach!

As far as lettuce goes, we've been eating it on sandwiches and as salad. The salads we eat are dressed lightly, if at all....the varieties of lettuce we're getting are pretty flavorful, so a little olive oil and lemon juice with some salt and pepper are all that's really necessary. I really like that, it's much lighter and a nice change from "what kind of dressing do you want" as I peer into the ten bottles of salad dressing in our refrigerator. I did make a chicken salad last week, and it went well, but probably needs a "stronger" lettuce leaf like romaine.