farmshare of delight and deliciousness

[snugglekitty]

On Tuesday night we got our first farmshare, and YUM! Lots of green things, since it's that time of year. Many lettuces, kale, spinach, pea tendrils, and broccoli raab.

Now, I'm not planning to do a Julie/Julia thing. But I would like to start having Wednesday be the Day That I Cook Stuff, and to write about it here. My hope is that this will get me to use more of what we get in the farmshare, and be more experimental.

Yesterday, the stuff that was getting me hot was the pea tendrils and the raab. For lunch, to go with some leftovers of baked haddock and potatos, I made a pea tendril dish - wilted pea tendrils with onions, pine nuts, and goat cheese. For dinner, I made a variation on my famous Red Wine Spaghetti.



Pea tendrils are neat. They're extremely fibrous greens that taste like peas. The stalks can be a bit woody, so after I washed and spun them, I removed the lower couple of inches with leaves. At the same time, I was sauteeing a sliced onion and some pine nuts. Once the onion was tender, I seasoned the whole thing with thyme salt and then put in the pea tendrils on top. Sautee! Sautee! I kept going until the pea tendrils were mostly dark green. Then I stopped, added some goat cheese, and ate. Num num num! This is great as a light meal or you can make it with chicken or tofu or have it over pasta.

So, with red wine spaghetti, you chop up some broccoli. You blanche it in boiling salted water for two minutes. Then you remove it and put the pasta in the broccoli water for five minutes. You pour out the water and drain the pasta. Then you boil down some cheap red wine in the same pot, add a little sugar, and finish cooking the pasta in that. You make a simple sauce of oil, garlic, and chili flakes and grate parmesan over everything. The end! It's delicious and really pretty. The pasta turns purple and the green vegetables look so inviting.

I had that recipe in mind. But I knew I wanted to use broccoli raab, we were out of red wine except for one nice bottle I've been saving to drink, and we were out of spaghetti. So, I did the same thing, but boiled a bit less water. I chopped up and threw in the raab, some mushrooms, and some actual broccoli. I made the pasta.

After some distraction, 7j was kind enough to complete the meal for me, with some cheap port. The pasta-to-veggies ratio was much lower than what the original recipe called for, which actually wound up working out well. It was very good. Apparently this recipe can be substituted well, and it's so pretty and tasty and FAST.

Today I think I'm going to follow this up by making myself a gynormous spinach salad for lunch. Traditional, with beets, walnuts, and goat cheese.

Comments

[leatherfish.livejournal.com]

I never heard of pea tendrils before--they sound good. I wonder if we have them around here?

What is a farmshare?

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Love your icon!

Pea tendrils are basically the other parts of the pea plant. The stalk, the leaves, the blossoms. If there are peas in your area there should be pea tendrils too.

A farmshare is part of what's called CSA - community supported agriculture. Basically, at the beginning of the year, you give a farmer in your area some money, and then you get a weekly delivery of vegetables or fruits for whatever the growing season is. It's a cool way to eat organic food and support local farmers. We get ours through barter, which is also cool.

more pea tendrils

[trouble4hire.livejournal.com]

The boy and I cooked our pea tendrils last night. He was gleeful that the tendrils had edible flowers. I cooked some onions and carrots, and then added the pea tendrils and cooked them until they changed color. They turned a really pretty green. I had no pine nuts, so I added some pistachios, and then put a slice of herbed brie on top to be melted later. It will be an appetizing lunch for later in the week. I'm saving our goat cheese for the mega spinach/varieties of lettuce salad I am making later in the week. The kale went into a fake beef and real potato soup.
Yay farmshare!