The Suburban Herbivore

This week we received turnips, spinach, lettuce, onions, beets, radishes, and strawberries. The strawberries were perfect, much better-looking than the previous batches and equally as delicious. I’ve been anticipating the arrival of the beets, positive that this year I will come up with something different to do with them. I stumbled on a great recipe for beet risotto that, though it is kind of a violent fluorescent pink, is pretty tasty. But I’d like to come up with a new recipe. Any ideas?

Well, it was efficient in vegetable usage, anyway, though it took a couple of hours to coordinate and pull everything together. All the recipes came from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.

The first part of last night’s meal was braised root vegetables with miso. I used the radishes, the turnips, and the kohlrabi. This turned out really well – the turnips and radishes turned creamy and yummy. The kohlrabi could have used a little more cooking, but was still flavorful.

While this was stewing, I steamed a big mess of greens – last week’s kale, plus the radish, kohlrabi, and turnip greens – for use on Sunday or Monday. I refrigerated them, and began chopping up the bok choi and last week’s tatsoi. I sauteed the stems in peanut oil for a while, and added the greens. Later on, I added fermented black beans, some green garlic, and tamari. I probably added too many black beans – the flavor of the overall dish was a little strong.

I’d planned to bake some tofu to compliment the meal, but was running a little short on time, so I tried poaching it. I have to say, putting a big block of tofu in a pot of boiling water seemed a little silly, but it wasn’t too bad with a little tamari drizzled on top. But I think I prefer baked.

So at this point, I have left: green lettuce, kale, and some green garlic. Not bad!

The first share of the year! Here’s what we got: asparagus, strawberries, red-leaf lettuce, green lettuce, bok choi, tatsoi, green garlic, and turnips. The share was supposed to also have kale, but I think maybe we got extra lettuce instead. Tatsoi is a new one for me. It’s an Asian green that is pretty similar to kale, so I will probably use it in the same way. The bok choi and turnips will be the most difficult to use – I’m not that fond of either.