Beet Green Omelets

I've never been a big fan of breakfast for dinner, but as we've gradually been consuming less meat over the past year or so, I'm always looking for ways to fit protein into my dinners. So, omelets have become a go to dinner for us. Now that we've got all kinds of greens coming to us every week, I have a feeling we'll probably be making omelets weekly.

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Beet Green Omelets
Makes 2 omelets
1 bunch of well-rinsed leafy beet greens & stems
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 dozen eggs
1/4 cup lowfat milk
1 medium onion, chopped

Cut the stems from your beet greens and set the leaves aside. Chop your beet green stems and garlic; set aside. Then, cut your leafy greens into bite-sized pieces and chop the onion (keep the onion separate, since it's not going to cook with the greens).



Heat olive oil in a saute pan over medium high heat. Once heated, add the garlic and chopped stems to the pan, along with the crushed red pepper, and saute until tender, about three minutes. Then, add the leafy greens. Saute, stirring frequently, until the leaves have wilted and everything is tender but firm. Remove from heat and set aside.




While the beet greens are cooking, whisk the milk and eggs in a mixing bowl. Feel free to throw some fresh herbs in there if you've got 'em.

Add a small pat of butter to the pan. Once melted (which should be pretty quickly, since the pan is still hot from cooking the beet greens), add 1/2 the onion and saute until translucent, 3-5 minutes. Add 1/2 the beet greens and mix in with the onions. Make sure everything is evenly distributed in the pan (or, if you're like my boyfriend, Matt, throw everything on one side - your call!). Then, add half the egg mixture to the pan.



Keep your eye on the omelet as it cooks. Cooking time should be relatively short - I usually give it about five Minutes. If you're skilled at making omelets, feel free to fold 'n flip. Repeat, using the other half of the stuff, to make your second omelet.

Serve with a whole wheat bagel & enjoy.

They can't all be winners

For the first time in quite a while, my dinner didn't quite come out as I had hoped/planned.

I wanted to make this recipe, since I thought there would be a good chance I'd get more chard in this week's box. But, as I'm learning quickly, there's no telling what will come each week (I HAVE TURNIPS!?!). So, when I didn't have chard this week, but instead a purple-y, unidentified vegetable that looked like it belonged to the kale family (seriously, I've eaten this vegetable and I still have no idea what it was), I had to roll with it. I also didn't have the lovely, soft ricotta the recipe calls for, but instead your standard Sargento tub of the stuff.

It turned out OK, but it wasn't great. The ricotta was too heavy and stiff to really work like the recipe describes, and the vegetable I had on hand was much more bitter than chard is. Matt liked it, but it was too heavy for me. Maybe I'll try it again when I have the correct ingredients on hand.

Week Two - Pickup

Lots of lettuce this week, as well as some stuff I can't easily identify (are those turnips??!). Should be an interesting week!

Nick o' Time Kale

One thing I'm quickly learning about CSAs is that you have to use your veggies pretty quickly, since they're coming fresh from a farm without all of the preservatives and chemicals you'll find on grocery store produce. So by midweek, you'd better have used everything or have a plan to preserve it. Last night I used up both my kale and swiss chard, in two different dishes. For the chard, I used a favourite recipe to quickly prepare it for a later meal (most likely a nice large lunch on Saturday). Where the kale was concerned, I modified a recipe I found online to use up all of the kale and some other ingredients I had laying around in the fridge & pantry.

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Nick o' Time Kale with Andouille Chicken Sausage
Modified from the Kitchn's recipe.

1 pound pasta - I used cavatappi
2-3 links of andouille chicken sausage
1 tbsp Olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1 large bunch of *WELL-RINSED* kale torn into bite-sized shreds (no stems!)
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan or Pecorino

Heat a large pot of salted water to boiling and cook the pasta until al dente, draining and reserving 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Return the pasta to the pot and set aside.

Now, while the pasta is cooking, begin by cutting the chicken sausage into bite-sized pieces while you heat the olive oil over medium high heat in a large sauté pan (I used my trusty wok for the job). Add the chicken sausage to the oil and let it brown a bit on both sides; if you're using raw sausage, make sure it's cooked through. (I was using Trader Joe's pre-cooked chicken sausage, so I only needed to cook it for a couple of minutes.) Add the garlic and red pepper and cook until garlic has softened a bit.

Add the kale, broth, and white wine. Cover and simmer for about 7 minutes, until the kale is wilted and tender. Stir to make sure the garlic, chicken sausage, etc. are well-distributed in the pan.



Remove from heat and add the cooked pasta to the pan, mixing well. Add the Parmesan and reserved pasta water and stir well, adding salt and fresh pepper to taste.

Beet Salad Goodness

As I mentioned yesterday, last night I wrapped all of my beets in foil and baked them in preparation for tonight's beet salad. I had them in the oven for about 45 minutes at 400, and when they were done I threw them (foil and all) into the fridge to cool. Here is what they looked like when I took them out of the fridge to make a small beet salad to go with tonight's homemade pizza dinner:



Preparing a beet salad from here took all of five minutes.

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Beginner's Baked Beet Salad

A half dozen or so baked beets, chilled
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon sherry vinegar (or another vinegar of your choosing)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
fresh ground pepper to taste
A small fistful of parsley (or another herb of your choosing)

Unpeel all of the beets and chopped each beet into eighths, give or take.



Place the beets into a bowl and add the olive oil, lemon juice, and vinegar. Sir well so that all of the liquids are evenly distributed. Add sea salt and pepper and stir again. Finally, add your herbs (in my case, parsley from my windowsill herb garden) and, you guessed, stir one more time. Voila!

Beating beet apprehension

Lame confession time: I've never prepared any part of a beet, ever. In my life. I've definitely eaten my share of beets (pickled, roasted, or otherwise), but I've always been intimidated by this weird-looking vegetable.

Now, I can say with certainty, I have vanquished these feelings far, far away, and I will prepare and devour all beets I receive in my CSA, worry-free. I followed the sage advice of my big yellow cooking bible and baked the beets in foil so as not to make a mess. They're in the fridge now, cooling off for tomorrow night's chilled beet salad.

Tonight, I decided to tackle the greens. I had never eaten beet greens before, so I was unsure of how they'd even taste. A quick read of the CSA newsletter informed me that they were a bitter green, good for sauteing with butter and garlic, so I decided to take their advice and keep it simple.

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Simple Sauteed Beet Greens



1 bunch of beet greens (cut the beets off, leaving about an inch of stem attached, then cut from stem to greens)
2 pats of butter
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice
sea salt & fresh pepper to taste

The first thing to know about the beet greens in your CSA box is that they tend to be sandy and gritty as heck. Rinse them VERY well before even approaching a cutting board, or you'll end up putting your clean greens on a sandy cutting board like I did. Easy enough to fix (flip the cutting board and re-wash your greens), but false starts in the kitchen are irritating.

Set aside your roughly-chopped greens and get to work on your garlic cloves. For this type of dish I prefer roughly chopped garlic, but if you're not a fan feel free to finely chop or mince.

Melt the butter in a sautee pan over medium heat; once it's mostly melted, add the garlic and crushed red pepper. Let the garlic and pepper bask in the butter for a minute or two, so that the butter will be imbued with their delicious flavor.

Add the beet greens to the pan and sautee for about three minutes, stirring regularly. Add the lemon juice and continue to sautee the greens for another few minutes, until any stems in the pan have softened to the point of being edible.

Toss on a dash of sea salt, bust out the pepper grinder, and enjoy.

Week One - Pickup

What's in the box?

* Beets
* Lettuce
* Swiss chard
* Kale
* Strawberries

Week one of our CSA was a bust due to crazy weather that caused the farm to get pelted with hail. So we're starting a week late, but I could not be more thrilled to pick up our first "box"!



In reality, it's not a box so much as a reusable bag we can bring back every week to fill with our share.

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Thinking ahead, here are some ideas I'm floating for our menu this week:

* Tunisian-style greens & beans. My boyfriend would disagree (because he's a marathon runner who eats like he doesn't know when he'll see food again), but paired with crusty bread, this makes a satisfying dinner. I have a feeling I will be making this a LOT over the next few months.

* Salad with roasted beets. Of course. I've never roasted beets before, but how hard can it be?

* A kale & chicken sausage dish of some kind. We have some leftover Trader Joe's andouille chicken sausage in the fridge that could come in handy here.

* Sauteed greens. I can make these as a side for our more meat-oriented meals this week. I've got a big pot of tomato sauce and meatballs simmering right now, so this side dish should come in handy.

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Do you have an amazing that incorporates any of the ingredients in my CSA box this week? Please share!