CSA 2012: Week 2 — Little White Orbs of Yum

More lettuce!

We hadn’t even gotten a chance to get through all of our previous greens and now we have more! I’ll tell you everything’s official name at the bottom of this post. It’s a challenge to use up all the food and a reminder that if you eat seasonally, you will eat more healthy foods. This week we also got these fantastic little turnips:

They are terrific oven-roasted with just olive oil and sea salt (my favorite roasting combo — please enlighten me if you do something else). What I did was quarter the bigger ones and roast the little ones whole. I doused them in olive oil and salt and cooked them for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Because I wasn’t sure if they were done, I then increased the over temperature to 425 and kept the turnips in for an additional 15 minutes. They were so tasty.

Spinach

Spinach is easy — just heat a little water in a pot and put the spinach in with a touch of salt. Yes, I boil/steam my spinach. Thankfully my whole family likes spinach this way as a side at dinner. I know that it has to be the most common way to cook/serve spinach. I would love your input if you have any other “go-to” spinach recipes.

I did some stir-frying of this veggie — you can see that it *looks* like there are two different kinds. I didn’t realize this at first and cooked them all at once. Each tasted differently. My son wouldn’t eat the green on the left, under the bok choi-like veggie. Lastly:

One little bitty bag of the pretty purple lettuce. It is great in a little side salad. We made it through another week!

Official names of the veggies in the box: “Lettuce”, Hakurei turnips, Spinach, Vitamin Green, Bok Choi, Red Rain

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19 thoughts on “CSA 2012: Week 2 — Little White Orbs of Yum

  1. A dash of nutmeg is awesome on wilted spinach.

    We are trying a CSA for the first time this year. Ours hasn’t started yet though.

  2. My dad used to oven-roast turnips until done, and serve them with roasted rye flour (medium heat on dry frying pan until a sort of nutty aromatic flavour), melted butter, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper.

    The recipe dates back to before the potato migrated from the Americas to Europe, and makes for a good appetizer, or a side to a rustic meat dish. 😉

  3. Have you ever made lettuce and peas? I LOVE it. You just take some frozen peas and saute them just a little bit till they turn bright green. Then toss in chopped lettuce and stir it until the lettuce is wilted. Add salt and pepper and you are done. I love this as a side dish.

    I’ve never boiled spinach. I always just saute it in olive oil with some chopped garlic, red pepper flakes and sea salt.

  4. The one below the bok choy is choy sum. It’s a bit bitter if you’re not used to it. Quite often paired with noodles. Stir fried with oyster sauce works well too.

  5. Here are some of my fave recipes that use these veggies. Enjoy!

    bok choy – http://allrecipes.com/recipe/spicy-bok-choy-in-garlic-sauce/
    & (less ingredients) – http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robin-miller/stir-fried-bok-choy-with-ginger-and-garlic-recipe/index.html

    spinach – http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2011/04/smoked-mozzarella-and-penne-salad.html
    http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2010/01/tortellini-spinach-salad-with-balsamic-tomato-vinaigrette.html
    http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-spinach-and-lemon-soup-71789

    any lettuce – http://www.abirdandabean.com/2011/06/blt-pasta-salad.html

    and if you get some decently sized leaves you can fill them with anything & eat like a wrap. Here’s one of my family’s faves http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/asian-lettuce-wraps-2/detail.aspx

    I love to throw spinach into most soups I make – even chicken broth with some litte shapes if my kids aren’t feeling well- throw in some spinach & they get some veggies too.

  6. A drizzle of balsamic vinegar is really good on just about any roasted vegetable, after they come out of the oven. I’ve never tried it on turnips though.

  7. I second the spinach sauteed with chopped garlic and olive oil method. This is probably my son’s favorite veggie of all time. If you’re serving anything asian you can add a dash of soy sauce instead of salt, or (if you can find it) ponzu sauce — tastes divine on anything stir-fried (my husband loves it so much I can barely keep it in the house!)

  8. I eat roasted vegetables nearly every day for supper and I love EVOO, salt, and dried dill weed on them. Very lovely. Last night was a sliced roasted potato and a quartered onion. 🙂

  9. An easy way to use up fresh spinach is smoothies! I toss into my vitamix frozen bananas and berries, fresh berries if any, a huge handful of spinach leaves and orange juice.. blend away and toss at my kids with a straw! My Neighbor could not believe my kids would drink that.. I told her they had no idea! I made a mixer full the next day and poured for the entire backyard of kids.. GONE! She was shocked her kids were drinking spinach!

  10. My family is Irish so I normally do turnips and potatoes together (neeps and tatties). where I chop and boil them till tender then drain them dry and fry them in a skillet with butter, gently pressing them down and crushing them a bit with the back of a wooden spoon and letting them get crispy and brown.

  11. If you can learn to enjoy the dark bitter greens, you’ll live forever. The beneficial phytochemicals that are missing from the average American’s diet come from lots of greens, especially the dark bitter ones; I’m convinced that if we all ate a few generous servings of dark greens every day, we’d still be able to consume a fair amount of junk and not pay the price.

  12. Oops forgot the most important tip. Don’t bother with boiling spinach in water on the stovetop. Just nuke your spinach for a minute or so with some garlic slivers (even garlic powder works), a pinch of salt, and a little olive oil or a pat of butter. Delicious, and you can’t beat cooking and serving food in the same container (I use a glass or Corningware casserole or serving bowl. Never plastic.) And you’re not losing nutrients to the boiling water. This method works for any leafy green, strong lettuces are also good this way. Swiss chard, collards, turnip greens and kale will need an extra minute or two but also taste great. You can even use this method on sturdier cruciferous veggies–shredded cabbage (red, green, or both), halved or shredded brussels sprouts, broccoli. Just increase the nuking time to 3-1/2 or 4 minutes, especially if you’re doing a lot at a time. Delicious and sooooo easy.

  13. I eat a lot of spinach salads. It’s also great to add to pasta (I just put it in the colander and then drain the pasta over it to wilt it).

  14. We’re boring; we just use spinach in place of lettuce on sandwiches. It’s a great way to amp up the vitamins on something we’re eating anyways. 😉

  15. Hello, My family like Indian style spinach. Why style? Because the original Palak Paneer (spinach and cheese) recipe was simplified a lot. The method is to boil spinach leaves with small amount of water for couple of minutes, add sauteed onion, 3 tables spoon of crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce and spice it. With salt, cumin, turmeric and garam masala. Add squeeze of lemon. Blend with hand blended. Serve over rice. Add mozzarella or feta cubes. Or sprinkle with grated Parmezan cheese.

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