d. & i have been overwhelmed with two weeks of uncontrollable vegetable bounty. i haven’t had a chance to photograph them properly – last week i was out late on a tuesday and a wednesday and had little time to strategize, and this week everything arrived soaking wet from a rainstorm, so i had to cook it & freeze it, just cook it, or eat it immediately.
i fought my way through rinsing, chopping, blanching and freezing a huge bunch of kale, one of spinach, two beet greens, three radish greens, a huge bunch of swiss chard, some collards.
then i made a big dinner for us that used up the beets, two heads of lettuce, a green apple, about a pound of fresh cherries, half an onion, the better part of a block of tempeh and a small mountain of fresh grated asiago. but don’t worry, it didn’t all go together…it was just a battle against wasting food, fought in appetizer sized skirmishes. we ended up with so many dishes and such a wonderful mess.
the best part of the night’s battle with the co op portion this week was the lunchbox i packed us for the next day. it was classic restan i krumpir, which is a croatian dish of mashed potato with greens and olive oil, or cream, depending on what is around. some folks use lard but we don’t keep lard in the house over here.
to make your own restan i krumpir, mix together the following, but only with a fork. no need to over-mash or pulverize the potato too much because it’s better with a little texture!
2 large white or gold potatoes, either boiled or microwaved
1/2 cup sour cream
generous pinches of salt and pepper
garlic powder, or minced sauteed garlic
3/4 or 1 cup cooked chopped kale, spinach, or other green leafy thing, depending on how much potato there is
couple of tablespoons of olive oil
…that made for a solid lunch today, supplemented with a coop apple.
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it was tonight’s dinner that’s more cohesive and a not a series of little things. i liberated a couple batches of frozen greens from the freezer, defrosted them, chopped them, and applied them to a whole wheat pizza dough from trader joe’s, along with a nice drizzle of olive oil, a can of diced tomato, a generous sprinkle of light mozzarella, some parmesan from the can (costco!), dried oregano, hot pepper (not pictured, it was a condiment). and the requisite salt and pepper. i also defrosted a head of green garlic that i had roasted in the oven and frozen the other week, and chopped a bit of that up and mixed it in with the greens. here’s a photo of this beast ready to go into the oven:
leave those stems on. they're good for you. that oven'll tender them up.
this will also make for a nice lunch tomorrow! next week i might try a white pizza with ricotta/mozzarella/asiago and caramelized onion, greens and garlic; we’ve got an extra dough thawing in the refrigerator, and those greens need someone hungry to get to them before the freezer burn sets in.
