Ravioli with homemade pesto sauce

Nate made homemade pesto sauce, but changed it up a bit by adding kale and broccoli raab.  Here is his recipe:

Add into the food processor in no particular order:

• Frozen CSA basil from our summer overload (handful)
• Fresh CSA kale (handful)
• Fresh CSA broccoli raab (handful)
• Rosemary (three twigs full)
• Lemon juice (from 2 lemons)
• Garlic (about 8 cloves)
• Roasted Walnuts (about three handfuls, toasted in a cast iron skillet)
• Olive oil (probably a cup or more)

As you add stuff, keep adding olive oil to keep the moisture level up and the food processor working.  Add it all in no particular order, but add it at a slow enough pace that you don’t clog up the works, and use the olive oil as a moisture keeper.  Just add it in until you get that pesto consistency.

 

Then Nate put some of the pesto in a skillet, added some chicken cut into bite-sized pieces, and cooked until the chicken was done.  Meanwhile he cooked some spinach and cheese ravioli, added that into the skillet, and topped it off with chopped tomatoes.

 

Unfortunately I did not capture a very good picture.  But trust me, it was amazing!   It tasted great leftover too.

 

This recipe only used a small portion of the pesto sauce Nate made.  Here is a cool pesto trick: use what you need, then pour the rest into an ice cube tray.  Once it’s frozen you can crack the cubes, put them in a baggy, and keep the frozen bundle.  Pull out one cube and throw it in your hot noodles whenever you want pesto.  It’ll melt and be just the right amount.  An easy, healthy way to have dinner on those weeknights when you only have a few minutes to cook!

Week 5 veggies

This week we got:

- a bunch of kale
- a bunch of mizuna
- a large bag of dill
- a large bag of spinach
- green onions
- a large bag of broccoli
- 5 oranges and/or tangelos
- a huge bag with green and red leaf lettuce

Kale chips and salad with beets

The other night we made kale chips and beet green chips as an appetizer while we prepared a big salad.  To make the chips, tear pieces of kale and beet greens (or any type of green) into medium size pieces.  Don't make them too small, because they will shrink as they cook, and you want good-sized pieces to eat.  Toss the pieces in olive oil, salt & pepper, and any other seasoning you might like - we added a dash of cayenne pepper.  Put the greens on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, until they get nice and crispy.  Thicker greens will take a little longer.  Turn the greens over a few times during baking so they cook evenly.  This pic only shows kale chips, and it's kind of hard to see, but you can get the idea:

Next we made a big salad with lots of stuff in it.  I don't normally blog salads, but this one was a little different so I thought I'd share.  It was almost entirely made up of CSA veggies!  For greens we used red and green leaf lettuce and spinach.  Then we added chopped radishes, salad turnips, broccoli, raisins, walnuts, and warm cooked beets, then topped it off with fresh grated parmesan.  The dressing is a simple olive oil and red wine vinegar.

It was delish!  We made a bunch and ate it leftover for lunch the next day (store the leftovers without dressing) and it was still just as good.

We eat lots of salad, and it's a great way to use CSA veggies, and to fill up while staying healthy.  The trick to keep salad from getting boring is to mix up the toppings.  Adding beets to this salad made it a very different meal.  You can change it up a lot by adding fruits (oranges, cranberries, strawberries), nuts (almonds, walnuts, pine nuts), and of course different veggies.

Winter season, week 4 veggies

This week we got:

- 4 beets (this is one of Nate's favorite foods, so he was happy!)
- a bunch of kale
- a bag of cilantro
- 2 large daikon radishes
- a big bag of spinach (gosh I love this spinach!)
- a bag of broccoli
- 4 oranges
- 2 heads of lettuce

The beet greens and radish greens look really good this week, so we will try to use those too.

Twice baked turnip

This week I had the challenge of making something yummy out of the biggest turnip you ever saw.  It was roughly the size of a large cantaloupe!  Since you can basically do anything with a turnip that you can do with a potato, Nate had the idea of making a twice baked turnip.  First I cut off the root and stem and washed the turnip, then I put olive oil and sea salt all over it.

Now it's ready to bake!  I wrapped it in aluminum foil and baked it in the oven at 400 for about 2 hours.  Yeah, that's a huge turnip!  Then we sliced it in half crosswise and scooped out the insides, and mashed those up with grated cheddar, chopped up bacon, chives, and heavy cream.

The mashed turnip was then put back into the shells and baked at 350 for about 15 minutes.

We saved some of the cheese, bacon and chives for topping, plus sour cream.

We put the toppings (except the sour cream) on the turnip halves, and put them back in the oven on broil for about 5 minutes.  Each half was topped with sour cream, and finally ready to eat!

Can I just say YUMMMMM!?!?!  I am a huge fan of twice baked potatoes, but I love turnips and this was excellent.  And it was so big, I could only eat half of a half for dinner, and I'm pretty excited to eat the other half for lunch!  Turnips do have a stronger flavor than potatoes, which is one of the reasons I like them, but some people may need to get used to it at first.  Definitely consider adding turnips to your diet, as they are high in fiber, vitamin C, and flavonoids (and other good stuff), and low in calories.

Ravioli with homemade pasta sauce

Another great way to use a lot of veggies is to make a pasta sauce.  In this case we used the pasta sauce on some spinach and cheese filled ravioli.  The pasta sauce is actually pretty easy, it's mostly a lot of veggie chopping.  Nate chopped up a lot of tomatoes (use the juiciest ones you can find), sweet onion, green bell pepper, baby portabella mushrooms, kale, collard greens and basil (from the freezer, from the fall's CSA bags).  He added some garlic (probably a lot of it) and dried oregano, then simmered the whole bunch in olive oil until it was all cooked, around 30-45 minutes.  If you like it a little saucier you can add a small can of tomato paste.

And we topped it off with fresh grated parmesan.  Sooooo good!  And there was plenty of sauce leftover, for a weeknight when a quick dinner is needed, just boil up some pasta and add the heated up sauce - easy!

Winter season, week 3 veggies

Wow I love winter veggies!  We got a great CSA bag this week:

We got:
- the world's biggest turnip
- 2 grapefruit
- a bag of "queen red turnip" that are sweeter than standard turnips and supposed to be great in salads (can't wait to try them!)
- a bunch of arugula flowers (can't wait to try them either!)
- a large bag of dill
- a bunch of carrots, including 2 wrapped around each other
- 3 radishes
- a bag of broccoli raab
- a bag of kale
- a bag of spinach
- a huge bag with 2 heads of red lettuce

Wow that's a lot of food!  We better get eating!

I had to share a closeup of the 2 "lovers" carrots that grew around each other:

So cute!  I almost don't want to eat them.

And I have to share a closeup of how enormous this turnip is!  Here it is next to 2 normal sized grapefruit:

It weighs over 2 pounds!  There will definitely be a blog post when we cook that one up.

Oven roasted mixed veggies

Sometimes you need to use up a lot of different veggies in one night, so putting them all together in the oven is a great solution!  For this dish we used daikon radish, bok choi, and broccoli from the CSA, and added onions, garlic, carrots, red potatoes and mushrooms to round it out.  Toss the whole mixture in olive oil and spices (we used Creole seasoning this time) and roast in the oven until the veggies get soft.  

We removed the greens at this point because they were done, then set the oven to broil and put the other veggies back in for 10 minutes or so to brown up.

Really good, healthy, and great leftovers too!

Winter season, weeks 1 and 2 veggies

It sure is hard to get back into the swing of things after the holidays!  The winter CSA season started 2 weeks ago, and I have been using all of the veggies, but have not been photographing the dishes.  I did take pictures of the veggies, so I'll post below what I got.  Also, this season Nate & I are sharing a full CSA share, so you'll notice that the quantity of veggies has increased.  More yumminess!!

Week 1:

We got: a huge head of lettuce, a bag of spinach, several oranges, 2 daikon radishes, some turnips, some dill, broccoli raab, and kale.  Broccoli raab was new to me - it is related to broccoli but is quite different.  It is very leafy and has small florets like broccoli, but they are in very small bunches throughout the leaves.  They do not form heads like normal broccoli.  It tasted somewhat different too.

Week 2:

We got: another huge head of lettuce, plus a smaller head of red lettuce, more spinach, collard greens, easter egg radishes, 2 grapefruit, broccoli, baby bok choi, cilantro, and 3 large turnips.  So much food!  

With all this lettuce and spinach we have been eating lots of salads and omelets.  The greens like spinach, kale and collards, go really well in a big omelet, and it makes a great dinner, not just breakfast.  We used the larger bok choi in a stir fry.  With the rest we have done roasted, sauteed, and grilled veggies as side dishes.  Tonight we are going to use some of the greens (collard probably, maybe some kale) in a tomato pasta sauce.  And I want to try making turnip fries.  I will work on taking pictures and posting some dishes this week!

Black bean soup

Even though Phoenix is not getting it (it's been in the upper 70s), it is winter time, which means it's Crock Pot time!  I have made plenty of roasts and stews in the CP, but I've never made a soup, so I decided to try one.  I had some dry black beans in the pantry that I'd been itching to use, so I went for a black bean soup.

I soaked 1 pound of beans overnight, then the next morning I added them to the Crock Pot.  I added diced onions, celery, half a bell pepper (leftover from another recipe, diced and frozen!), and diced tomatoes.  Then I added a bunch of greens - I basically used up whatever I had in my fridge - mustard greens, arugula, spinach, not even sure what else!  Then in a bowl I combined spices - cumin, celery seed and turmeric - with chicken broth, and poured it into the CP.  I added enough broth that it did not quite cover the greens.  This made the greens nice and steamed but not super soggy.  I cooked it on Low while I was at work, about 9 hours, and when I got home I stirred it all together.  I had some leftover roasted greens and quinoa from prior meals, so I added those in too, and cooked it on Low for another half hour or so.  Then I served it with grated white cheddar cheese and toast.

It came out really well!  There is a subtle flavor of mustard greens and spices, but it's definitely a black bean soup.  It also made quite a lot of leftovers, and tasted just as good reheated.

I can't wait to try more soups in the CP!  And I've found that a soup is a great way to use up all those greens that can pile up from the CSA if you aren't using them.  They added color and nutrients without changing the flavor much.  Good idea if you have kids or other family members who aren't good about eating their greens!

Salmon with sweet potato mash

Nate made this dinner so I can't take the credit for it, but I had to blog it!  He made a pesto walnut salmon on a bed of bok choi and greens, with a side of quinoa with tomatoes and a sweet potato, turnip and carrot mash.  It was really realllly good!

I don't know all the details of how he made it, but here is the general idea, and he can comment if I get something wrong.  For the salmon, he baked it in the oven, and it looked just like the picture.  Spray a dish with cooking spray, lay down a bed of greens (pretty much anything will work, the bok choi was really good, also I think there was arugula and/or spinach).  Put the salmon on top, add pesto sauce, onions and any other seasonings, then add walnuts on top and bake for 30 minutes or so.

The mash is fairly simple - boil sweet potatoes, turnips and carrots (or any root veggies of your choice).  In this case Nate threw in some sliced ginger while it was boiling.  Then mash everything up with a masher - don't use a hand mixer!  Add in seasonings of your choice and a little milk and butter, and yum!

Nate prepared the quinoa based on package directions, but added some chopped tomatoes in for the whole cooking time, to add a little color and flavor.  Easy, good idea!

It was a great, healthy, filling meal, and there were lots of leftovers.  And it used a lot of CSA veggies!  The sweet potatoes, turnips, bok choi and greens were all from my CSA bag.

Week 11 and 12 veggies

Wow, it's been hard to find the time to blog during this season!  December is always so busy with Christmas shopping, vacation planning, etc.  But I have gotten some yummy veggies the past couple of weeks so I have to share.  No more veggies after this until the first week of January!

Week 11 veggies

I got turnips, mustard greens, radishes, bok choi, dill, an acorn squash, and a bag of oranges (yum, they were gone fast!)

Week 12 veggies

This week I got spinach, dill, swiss chard, radishes, green garlic, turnips, and a grapefruit.  Very different stuff than what I had been getting!  I'm really looking forward to seeing what veggies I get in January and February!

Week 9 and 10 veggies

I didn't have much time to cook veggies or blog during the Thanksgiving break, but here are the awesome veggies I got!

Week 9:

acorn squash
radishes (purple, red, white)
sweet potatoes
dill
mizuna
turnips (red)
arugula


Week 10:

baby mustard greens
turnips (white)
kale
dill
sweet potatoes
radishes (purple)
green garlic

Grilled veggies with oven roasted greens

A few weeks ago I bought a skillet for my propane grill so I decided to try some veggies on the grill.  I chopped up some turnips and the daikon radish, and also a few carrots from the store.  I tossed them all in a mixture of olive oil, minced garlic, salt, pepper and celery seed, then cooked them in the skillet on the grill for 15-20 minutes.  Incidentally I was also cooking a steak on the grill so it worked out well.  

I decided to also use the greens from the turnips and radish, so I tore them into smaller pieces and added a few pieces of arugula, then tossed them in the same olive oil mixture.  Then I laid them out on a cookie sheet and roasted them in the oven for about 15 minutes -- thanks for the tip Bryan!

The veggies had a great grilled flavor and were still nice and crunchy, and the greens were cooked but crispy instead of soft like when they are sauteed.  Overall a very easy, tasty and nutritious dinner!  I meant to capture a picture of it all put together on my dinner plate, but it all looked and smelled so good, I had to eat it right away!

Mixed greens and veggie saute

If you aren't sure how to use up all the greens in your CSA bag, just throw them all together in a skillet!  Last night Nate & I combined some of our leftover greens and veggies into a big saute, and it was really tasty.

We started with a combination of butter and oil, then added these veggies and sauteed for 10 minutes or so: minced garlic, shallots, anaheim chile, green onion, beets, carrot, and radish.  Then we added these greens on top and put the lid on for 5-10 minutes: kale, beet greens, arugula, purslane, mustard greens, and mixed braising greens.  Purslane is an interesting green which is considered a weed much of the time, but is actually a quite tasty succulent green!  I've also read that it contains some great nutrients.  Who knew a weed could be so good!

After the greens were nice and wilted, we stirred everything together and added some seasonings: paprika, celery seed, dried basil, ginger and black pepper.  This all cooked together for a few more minutes, then we served it with a splash of lemon juice to enhance the flavors.

There were so many flavors in this dish!  If we had more carrots and radishes it would be even more colorful, and could make a very pretty side dish to serve to guests.  The moral is: don't think too hard about what to put together, just look in your fridge!

Week 8 veggies

I got some fun new stuff this week!  I got:

Baby bok choi (I can't wait to try this!)
Turnips
2 eggplants
radishes
arugula
okra
mustard greens
dill

No basil this week, maybe that season is ending, but I have some frozen from previous weeks.  Which is a good note for me to make - you can freeze basil leaves!  First place the individual leaves around your freezer for a couple of hours, then you can place them all together in a plastic bag.  Freezing them individually for a couple of hours first keeps the leaves from freezing together in a big clump so you can pull out individual leaves for use later.  They defrost on the counter quite quickly and can be used for cooking almost as well as fresh.  They won't make a very good caprese salad though!

Broiled salmon with sauteed kale

Time to try out that lovely kale!  I've only had it before in restaurants so I was curious to try it at home.  I decided to make a sauteed kale mixture with marinated broiled salmon and brown rice.

I started with the salmon marinade - soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic powder, celery seed and black pepper.  Since I was using a salmon fillet, I put the marinade in a bowl and put the salmon upside down in it, then put it in the fridge for about 45 minutes.  An hour would have been even better, but I did not have that much time.  Then I started the brown rice cooking because it takes about an hour, then took a break for a few minutes.  Then I started chopping the veggies - I decided to mix some arugula in as well so I chopped up a few kale leaves and some arugula.  I also chopped one anaheim chile (all seeds removed, so it really was not hot, almost like a green bell pepper), half a tomato, 1/4 large yellow onion, and a large garlic clove (I decided to dice it rather than mince).  I put the salmon fillet in the oven under the broiler for about 10-12 minutes, basting it once with the marinade about halfway through.  To cook up the greens, I added some butter and olive oil to a heated skillet, then sauteed the garlic and onions for a few minutes.  I seasoned it with salt, pepper, cumin and celery seed, then added the chopped anaheim chile and sauteed for a couple more minutes.  Then I added the tomato and sauteed for a couple more minutes, and finally added the kale and arugula, stirred it all together really well and let the mixture cook for a few more minutes.  To serve I added a splash of lemon juice and some black pepper.

For the picture I kept everything separate, but I ended up putting the kale mixture on top of the rice and eating it all together.  This was a pretty good meal, and hopefully mostly healthy, especially after eating quiche for a few days!  The kale was pretty tasty - now that I am cooking greens a lot, I've learned that the trick is not to cook it too much, or they turn mushy and tasteless.  If you just do a light saute for a couple of minutes, and add the right seasonings, you will bring out the great flavor of the greens, instead of cooking it all out.  Greens are SO good for you!  For example, 1/2 cup of chopped cooked kale (about what I ate last night) has only 18 calories and less than 1g of fat, but has 5% of your daily fiber, 175% of your daily Vitamin A, 45% of your daily Vitamin C, and (get this) 650% of your daily Vitamin K!

Mixed greens quiche

I am a cheese lover, so one of my favorite dishes is quiche.  I finally got brave enough to try making it myself.  I really like spinach quiche, but with all the greens in my house from the CSA I decided to make it a mixed greens quiche.  I also had a few different kinds of cheese left from the arugula lasagna so I used multiples cheeses as well.

I started with a store bought, uncooked pie crust.  On a weekend day I might have tried making my own crust, but for a Tuesday, the store bought kind sufficed.  The ones at Sprouts came in a tin baking dish and were quite small, so I decided to make 2.  I chopped up my greens into strips - spinach, arugula, a little bit of mustard greens, and some radish greens.  The greens cook down quite a bit, so while I started with a large pile, I wish I had used more.  Then I cooked the greens for about 3 minutes, then spread them out on some paper towels to start draining.  Then I mixed together the cheese - ricotta (I had about 2/3 cup leftover), grated peccorino romano (in retrospect I used a little too much of this strong flavored cheese, about a cup grated), grated asiago (I only had a few tablespoons leftover), and grated white cheddar (about 1/2 cup).  I reserved some of the grated peccorino and cheddar for the topping.  I also mixed in a cup of heavy cream, 4 eggs, nutmeg and black pepper.  You can tell this is not exactly a low fat recipe!  Then I squeezed as much water out of the greens as I could, and put about half of them onto the pie crusts.  They were a little hard to spread out after squeezing the water out, so next time I will try to keep them more separated instead of a huge pile of cooked greens.  Then I poured the cheese mixture on top, spread the rest of the greens on top of that, and sprinkled the remaining grated cheese on top.  Both quiches went into the oven for about 40 minutes until they were nice and puffy.  I let them cool off and settle for about 10 minutes and most of the puffiness went away, here is the final product:

The only thing is the bottom of the crust was not totally cooked, so I'm thinking about how to remedy that next time.  And there will be a next time, this was sooo good!  I could eat this for breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack.... or all of the above.  It was actually pretty easy, and a good way to use up greens and cheeses in your fridge.  Then go for a run or to the gym :-)

Week 7 veggies

I got some great new stuff this week!  Here's what I got:

a large armenian cucumber
a daikon radish (looks like a white carrot but tastes like a radish)
a bunch of kale (yay!)
more okra (oh my goodness)
sweet basil
bag of mizuna
bag of arugula
bag of mustard greens
2 eggplants

This is a lot of food!  Luckily I have some people helping me eat it later this week.

Sauteed turnips and greens

I could not resist those turnips for dinner last night!  I used the turnips and the greens as side dishes for a simple baked chicken.  I chopped half an onion, chopped the turnips, and removed the stems from the greens.  I decided to cut the turnips into chunks rather than slices, I feel like you get more turnip flavor out of them that way.  I cut some of the bigger greens into smaller pieces, and did the same with some arugula leaves.  Then I sauteed some minced garlic in olive oil in a skillet (the way most of my recipes seem to start these days!) then added the chopped onion and cooked that for several minutes until the onions almost started to carmelize.  I added the chopped turnips and cooked them for a few more minutes, then added some seasonings (salt, pepper, Italian seasonings) and the greens.  I turned the heat down and put the lid on to let the greens wilt, for 5-7 minutes.  That was it!

 I chose to keep the greens separate but you could just as easily mix them all together.  I added some more salt and pepper at the end, and was thinking the greens would have tasted even better with a little lemon juice, but I didn't have any.  The turnips were oh so yummy!  

One thing to note - I did not completely peel the turnips, I only peeled off the parts that were not smooth and clean.  I did not notice any difference in the taste, probably because these were young, fresh turnips and were well cooked, but there seems to be some controversy out there about peeling turnips.  If you are trying them for the first time, and especially if they are store bought, you should probably peel them first.  I'm just not a big fan of peeling vegetables and try to avoid it whenever possible.  With many root vegetables (like potatoes) there are nutrients in the skin, plus I like them!

Another point - I never thought that I would enjoy "greens".  I have seen them in restaurants, stores, etc, and thought that just looks awful!  But I am definitely gaining an appreciation for cooked greens, they are really quite good!  With the greens I have been using, there is a lot of flavor, and if you just wilt them instead of cooking them to death, the texture is much better.  I always thought they looked soggy and bland, like eating grass, but this is nothing like that.  I encourage you to try try try!  You never know until you try :-)