Whole Health Dietitian — Tastefully Fueling Active Transportation
Although it’s a rather frequent occurrence around our table, I love it when I sit down to dinner and realize that a majority of the food came from our garden.
In the kitchen, we transform plants . . .
. . . into dinner.
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Of course, some of us start eating the plants before they make it to the dinner table (ahem, Sir).
I’m taking this eating for two thing very seriously. After all, I do have a big baby to feed (10 lbs, 2 oz at birth and 10 lbs, 5 oz at 1 week). Fortunately, we have an abundance of delicious food in our refrigerator (and freezer).
We have tons of amazing stuff coming in from the garden — tomatoes, potatoes, Swiss chard, kale, summer squash, onions, cucumbers, green beans — and we’ve found time to do a bit of cooking here and there. We’ve also had family and friends deliver some delicious food, which has been very helpful 🙂
Hungry baby, hungry mama!
We have lots of produce coming in from the garden right now, but in sheer bulk, greens, namely, Swiss chard and kale, take the day.
While I get stressed about refrigerator space every time Matthew returns from the garden with a huge bag or cooler-full of greens, they do make for some tasty, healthy eating.
What do I do with these greens?
This Garlicky Greens recipe from 101 Cookbooks is a great starting point for either kale or Swiss chard. We cooked up a big batch and used it in multiple ways throughout the week — it makes a quick and easy side dish, or pile some cooked greens on top of a piece of toast or a bed of grain, then top with a fried egg for a main dish.
Soups are also a great way to use a bunch of greens. We currently have a bunch of kale earmarked for this Kale and Black-Eyed Pea soup recipe. And for something very easy (and tasty and nutritious), check out Emily’s One-Pot Quinoa and Greens. (The coconut oil is key to this recipe. Tomatoes also make a good addition to this dish.)
I also made a big batch of crispy kale/kale chips, this time using tips from the Steamy Kitchen for the best way to get a nice, crispy result. Another hint: Putting too much kale on the tray will prevent the desired crispiness — for best results, do small batches. Crispy kale is delicious simply salted, or with a drizzle of homemade catsup (okay, pretty much anything is delicious with our homemade catsup, but that’s another story).
Finally, when life gives you Swiss chard (and not spinach, which we’ve never had success growing in quantity), make Swiss Chard Spanakopita! We followed the Swiss chard prep tips from this recipe*, and then just subbed the appropriate quantity of Swiss chard in our tried-and-true spanakopita recipe.
*Don’t discard the stems! Unlike some greens (like kale), that do have rather inedible stems, Swiss chard stems are not only 100% edible, they are super delicious. If the stems are large, you may want to chop them and prepare them separately to ensure adequate cooking. For this recipe, we blanched the chopped stems for a bit longer than the leaves.
Sauce Magazine, my favorite StL foodie mag, scores high points for the recipes in its February 2011 edition. On Sunday night, we made Acquacotta, a delicious and hearty soup, though it left us wondering what kind of Italian peasants can afford 10 oz. of dried porcini mushrooms. We made it with our homegrown celery, herbs, leeks, and tomatoes, plus some local dried mushrooms — though we did not have 10 ounces!
Last night, Matthew made Navratan Korma, an Indian vegetable dish. We both enjoyed it and think the leftovers will be even better, as the flavors have more time to meld. Matthew dug into our freezer for garden/local green beans, carrots, yellow squash, and cauliflower, plus potatoes from our crop and our canned tomatoes.
This is the time of year when all the work of chopping, blanching, and canning, plus Matthew’s work in the garden really pays — in delicious dividends!
. . . (on a Saturday), someone worked hard in the garden.
Matthew lined our garden paths with the coffee bean sacks that I painstakingly procured on my “day off” last week (the coffee bean sack saga merits another post). Among other tasks, there was harvesting to be done. We finally have tomatoes!
We made Caprese salad sandwiches with the cream of the tomato crop. We also made gazpacho and a big batch of sauteed yellow squash with onion, garlic, tomato, okra (from the farmers’ market), and fresh thyme & dill — lunch for the week ahead!
Her Green Life