CSA #1: an update

[taylweaver]

So, I'm not so into this past week's share, and my attempts to eat my way through it have met with mixed results.

Since it's been an entire week, I may be misremembering when I ate what.

Things I learned along the way:
- arugula is incredibly bitter
- sauteed arugula is considerably less bitter
- sauteeing flat greens (like turnip greens) doesn't work

Comments

[debka_notion]

Recipes I'm fond of for using beets:
1. Boil beets. Dress with oil, vinegar, and some salt. They're sweet enough that this is really nice- I eat it as snack.
2. Borsht- saute your basic soup veggies, then boil, adding the beets. Give it a glug or two of vinegar, toward the end, and serve with sour cream or plain yoghurt. It's a favorite of ours, hot or cold.

Scallions go well in stir fry, for me, or in salad. I also throw them in with other veggies to amplify my tomato sauce, when I do pasta and sauce- makes it healthier and tastier. But that doesn't use all that much of your CSA stuff.

Maybe try the arugula salad with a sweet dressing? Or is it too sharp a bunch for that?

[taylweaver]

I'm not going to try borsht - too many negative associations from Passovers past. But #1 is a possibility.

Scallions in stir fry may also be useful.

The arugula, I will be sauteeing, because yes, it seems to be pretty sharp. It's the other lettuce that may need a sweet dressing.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[shirei_shibolim]

Turnip greens are more or less interchangeable with mustard greens. You can look up recipes for one and apply them to the other without modification. Another equivalency: beet greens and adult spinach.

Arugula softens when it's cooked in any way. You can chop it up and put it in a hot soup in the final minute of cooking. I sometimes make pizza and put chopped arugula on to after taking it out of the oven, because even the ambient heat from the pie wilts it, but I'm not sure if you're a pizza making type.

Ditto what debka_notion said about scallions: They're very useful for the beginning of a stir-fry, especially if combined with minced garlic and ginger (garlic powder is not interchangeable with fresh in this case). I sometimes use a whole bunch of scallions in a recipe that calls for sautéing an onion; you get a different texture and flavor, but it's rarely a bad thing. (We recently discovered that this works well for shakshouka.)

Are you one of the people who has trouble liking cilantro? If so, using it in cooked dishes can soften the

[masteraleph]

Arugula can also work nicely in a salad with sweet things- Noidue, for example, does an arugula salad with honey vinaigrette, gorgonzola, apple, marinated zucchini, walnuts and dried apricot (of which everything but the gorgonzola is a little sweet). The gorgonzola, of course, has an even stronger taste than the arugula, and therefore contrasts nicely with the sweet flavors (but blue cheese may be too strong for your palate).

[shirei_shibolim]

Probably the best pizza I ever made (to judge by Terri's reaction) included arugula and chopped dates. Same deal.

[noam_rion]

Yum!

Mature arugula tends to be better for cooking. Save the salad for "baby" arugula.