How To Disguise Vegetables | Round 2

Although not official, Round 1 would have been that awesome soup I made up the other day in my effort to use up the farm share vegetables.

Round 2 is just as simple as the soup but involves noodles and sauce instead. Actually, when you think about it, soup is kinda like noodles and sauce, too, since I put noodles in my soup. I guess you could call this Really Thick Soup. Really thick. Or pasta if you want to be like that.

Here goes:

• 1 bunch Red Russian kale, chopped up just a bit so you can fit it in the pan without dropping it all over the floor and having to wipe up the resulting slobber from the dogs who thought they were getting something good and then realized they were eating KALE

• 2 leeks, sliced (most of green tops removed and discarded; a little green is OK, though) - remember to wash those babies thoroughly lest you end up with gritty pasta... EW.

• some leftover breakfast sausage (flesh-free pasta would be fine, but I had like 1/4 lb. left in the freezer and I'm reeeeally trying to not let food go unused. I'll probably get fat because of this.)

• a handful of nuts (I used both walnuts and slivered almonds because I didn't have enough of one kind)

• garlic, minced

• some butter

• some olive oil

• some grated Parmesan

• a sturdy type of noodle (I used linguine)

• salt and pepper, to taste

• lemon juice, optional

Put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta. Make yourself a cocktail.

Meanwhile, in a medium-sized pan over medium heat, saute up the sausage until cooked through. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Don't forget to add your noodles to your boiling water. Sucks when you make crazy good sauce and it's all ready to slather on your noodles and then you realize that you forgot to cook them.

Using the same pan but over medium-low heat, toss some butter in there and add the leeks. Let them sizzle around for a bit until they start to brown and get creamy.

Add the kale and stir it around until it starts to cook down. Ignore Hub's That Looks Gross face and continue with your dinner plan unfazed.

This would not pass for dinner as is.

Add your garlic and finish sauteing for just a few minutes, then remove from heat and transfer mixture to a food processor. Add some olive oil, Parmesan, and nuts a little at a time and puree until you think it looks like pesto. Observe Hub's look of relief now that he realizes you're making pesto and he likes pesto and thank goodness you're not making him eat those nasty greens in any recognizable form.

Pesto. For reals.

Season the pesto with salt and pepper. Add some lemon juice if you have it on hand. Of course, add lots of Tabasco. People who don't like Tabasco are un-American.

Drain your pasta and combine it with the kale mixture and sausage. Stare at Hub in disbelief when he exclaims that this is one of your better dishes. Polish off the rest of your cocktail to celebrate.

Not that I care, but I'm pretty sure you could get kids to eat this, too.

Looks safe, tastes delicious.

Making Use of the Farm Share

I feel much better today. I feel that I have a grasp on how to consume all these crazy vegetables. Soup is an amazing thing.

I didn't take a picture of the soup because, well, I was hungry and impatient and the soup had been cooking for an hour and a half already, and Husband wasn't really going to wait any longer.

But it was DELICIOUS. And Hub actually ate the chard and Red Russian kale that I cleverly camouflaged in the soup. I'm totally getting better at this.

Because this was so bomb, here's how to put it all together. As with all soups, it's pretty adaptable:

Step 1) Open refrigerator.
Step 2) Grab whatever vegetables need to be eaten TONIGHT.
Step 3) Throw it all together with some stock (or bouillon), salt, pepper, and some acid (preferably lemon) and cook that baby down until it's yum.

OK, here's the more technical version. I get my kick-ass soup-making skills from my Ma, just so you know.

You will need:
1) Those last few pieces of bacon that are almost freezer burned because you just didn't feel like cooking the whole package the last time you made bacon for breakfast. Like 4 pieces or so. Cut 'em up into manageable pieces (easier done when the bacon is semi-frozen).

2) A few leftover sausages from last weekend's BBQ. 4 links is perfect. Slice 'em up.

3) Some of the garlic that's been sitting on the window sill and is starting to sprout because you have been lazy and not chef-ed it up lately. If you married an Italian like me, you will be using 4 to 5 cloves.

4) You could add some diced onion. But I didn't think to do that, and I do not regret it, but it would have been better because onion adds, like, mad flavor.

5) The whole FRIGGIN bunch of chard AND Red Russian kale. Seriously, it's crazy big, but it WILL cook down. Cut it all up into ribbons. I cut out the center rib of the chard because I read somewhere that you're supposed to do that.

6) Some beef stock + some beef bouillon because you're making Big Batch Soup tonight and want lots of leftovers.

7) Maybe four red potatoes. You really don't remember how long they've been in the fridge, but you remembered to put them in your Debbie Meyer Green Bag, so they will still taste good. Cube 'em but don't bother peeling because that's way too much work.

8) Whatever pasta is in the pantry - the one where you made 3/4 of the box because it seemed like a whole box would be too much last time you made pasta but now you're stuck with only 1/4 of a box of pasta and know that it's never going to get used because you wouldn't just cook pasta for yourself and not the two of you because that would be lame. I think I used Campanelle?

9) One of the lemons you remembered to buy today. Cut it up so you can squeeze it.

10) Some red wine vinegar, salt, and lots of pepper, to taste.

11) Two drops of Dave's Insanity sauce. Do not use ONE DROP MORE or you will regret it.

12) A toasted English muffin because you forgot to get French bread today and you must have some sort of bread to dip into your soup.

OK! Here we go:

Saute bacon until browned.
Add sausage.
(Add onions if you have them).
Add garlic.
Add greens (see? told you they would cook down).
Add beef broth, 6 cups of water, and 2 bouillon cubes.
Add potatoes.
Add pasta.
Squeeze that whole lemon in there.
Season it with salt and pepper.
Add Dave's.
Let it simmer until the potatoes start to fall apart and the starch from the pasta starts to make everything all thick and good.

Consume.

Rejoice.

Picture-Free Monday

It's not my fault that I have no pictures for you this morning. OK, maybe it is my fault because I certainly had plenty of opportunity to take many a picture but was just so FN busy, what with Husband's brother in town all weekend and Husband's b-day on Saturday (where we ended up with 20+ people in our house on Saturday night that I did not prepare adequately for).

Anyway, due to all this busyness, I have not even made a dent in the farm share that I picked up last Wednesday, and I'm stressing myself out with trying to figure out how to use it all without wasting anything.

We have eaten the apples and carrots at least, but all the leafy greens remain unused in their Debbie Meyer Green Bags in the vegetable crisper but Hallelujah! I did find some recipes that I can make between tonight and tomorrow night that will hopefully finish them all off (I see myself making LOTS of soup) and THEN WE GET TO START THIS FARM SHARE MADNESS all over again on Wednesday.

I was not prepared for the sheer volume of food that I signed up for, but I promised myself I would stick with it, and so we'll see whether I'm tearing my hair out next Monday. Maybe I'll have a picture at least.

So, here's a non-photograph-y description for you, dear reader, to let you know just how innovative I'm being with consuming this large volume of vegetables:

I'm currently eating sunflower sprouts wrapped in salami. Yes, you read correctly.

I accidentally left the sunflower sprouts unrefrigerated in my car on Saturday so they got all wilty on me, and I was too lazy (and lacking the necessary bread) to make a sandwich this morning, and sunflower sprouts are a bit gnarly to eat by themselves, so I'm bunching up a handful and smashing them into a piece of rolled salami, and whatdoyouknow, it's actually totally good.

So there! I'm happy that I'm being clever like that but also a little disconcerted with the direction my culinary progression is taking me. I hope to provide you with better news (and a picture for Pete's sake) tomorrow so you can see that I really do know how to cook.

Live Earth Farm CSA

OK, check out the sheer awesomeness of my vegetable and fruit bounty.

Where's a cornucopia when you need one.

No, I did not grow all this myself, but I like to think that I'm on my way to more enlightenment in the way of growing food because I joined the Live Earth Farm CSA program (aka, farm share) this year and picked up my first weekly order yesterday. Nevermind the fact that I am totally flummoxed as to what I could possibly make with all these leafy greens (currently furiously searching Epicurious with the keyword "red chard"), but we ARE going to eat all these vegetables in some way or other, even if this means disguising the collard greens in pizza or ice cream in order to get Husband to eat it. He's never been too pumped on vegetables, but I got pretty good at feeding them to him when I was a vegemetarian because I like to cook, and I've learned over the years what will and will not be consumed in my household.

I did get him to take an apple with him to work today.

Hub was excited about the romaine lettuce (behind the Crazy Big Leeks) because he likes Caesar salad.

One thing I don't understand though is why organic vegetables always have to look like shit compared to the shiny, mass-produced supermarket counterparts. Now, I know the big chains wax their apples and grow their grapes in gnarly pesticides and what-have-you, but really, can't organic carrots be uniform in shape, too? Sometimes, I think the hippies do it on purpose.

Don't hate us because we're malformed.

I'm excited and terrified at the same time at the thought of finding creative ways to use vegetables I would not normally purchase (quick tutorial on how a farm share works: you pay a weekly fee for a box of whatever vegetables and fruit are ready to be harvested, so you never really know what you'll end up with). At any rate, I'll be culinarily challenged, and that's always a good thing in my book.

There must be another way to use radishes other than in salads? I will need to thoroughly research this.

These bad boys are going on sandwich tomorrow. Sunflower sprouts are YUM.

Red Russian kale = busting out the Polish cookbook.

The wings are outta control

Yea, I know, you're tired of hearing about the chickens. But I'm not! So, we're going to celebrate their two-week birthday today with more pictures. Because you do not understand how crazy fast their wing and tail feathers have grown, and I know you require photographic evidence.

Funny story: Gravel managed to slip into the bedroom where the brooder is set up yesterday and just couldn't quite grasp the concept of keeping birds (birds!) in the house. I'm sure he would get all Sylvester on them if left alone for even a minute, but he was actually just totally perplexed and surprised that we would be so nice as to keep his favorite treat alive in a box in the house for him to gleefully pick from whenever given the chance. Unfortunately for him, this is not the case, and the brooder room remains off limits to some certain kitties until the chickies are big enough to defend themselves.

"We are not your lunch, Gravel."

Yes, that is the chicken strut.

McNugget is starting to look a bit chubby.

Another Vegetable Bed + Composting

Despite entertaining our dear friends visiting from Oregon all weekend, I managed to get some yard work done yesterday after they left and am sore, sunburned, and happily tired today from all my busyness.

A long time ago, there used to be a brick chimney that connected to a fireplace in the living room of our house, but it collapsed during the '89 earthquake (or maybe it was when the tree fell through the house - I can never remember). The bricks were never really cleaned up, and I have found many throughout the years scattered throughout the property. Some were put to use by husband's parents in the form of borders in the yard (in addition using to random pieces of wood that were mostly completely rotted through), but at one point a few weekends ago, I decided to tear them all out and start over with a clean slate in the front yard.

I needed a place to transplant my butter lettuce and chive seedlings and hadn't really figured out where to put another raised bed in the backyard, so I figured I might as well built one in the front yard instead in an effort to keep myself motivated to work in both yards. The front yard tends to get neglected because I'm all about soaking up the spring and summer sun, and it's not as sunny as the backyard.

I think I will be able to fit three raised beds comfortably in the front yard and then will add bark mulch or maybe some pea gravel around them as well as some random ornamental plantings eventually. Hopefully, it will be sunny enough; if not, I'll need to rethink my plan for this area.

The butter lettuce is on the back half of the bed, and the chives are at the front.

Trouble kept me company for a while.

Last summer, I attended a free composting workshop sponsored by the county. Once you've completed the workshop, they give you a free Smith & Hawken Biostack composting bin! Unfortunately, I didn't know where to put it and didn't have the yard in any kind of shape that I wanted it to be in, so it sat out on the deck up until last weekend, when husband and I finally put it together.

The Biostack.

Future compost.

We had tried to make a compost bin out of a Rubbermaid garbage can many many moons ago, but we didn't really do it right, and it ended up being a big rotting mess. So we put the lid on it and forgot about it. Six years later, I opened it up and found some crazy rich humus soil in there, so after I finally finished cleaning up the brush pile (that has been sitting there for 2+ years), I dumped it in the spot where the brush pile was and where I plan to build some more vegetable beds.

No more brush pile!

Of course, the dogs had to check it out.

Despite the fact that I used plain ol' top soil and didn't add any fertilizer or amendment to my first vegetable bed, everything seems to be growing quite nicely. I did buy some Foxfarm plant food made specifically for vegetables, so next weekend, I plan to give the seedlings a much-needed boost.

Beets!

Peas!

Spinach!

The carrots are camera shy and just starting to poke through, so I didn't bother with pictures of them. More tales of amazing backyard transformation tomorrow!

Food Growing Aspirations

Let's start out today's adventure with me being perfectly honest with you: I have a black thumb. I have gone through endless houseplants, only to end up buying more because I'll get all motivated when I see pretty plants and think to myself, "Self, you can make that plant grow and you know it." And then it dies. I've managed to grow a few tomato and pepper plants before, but my former housemate was the primary caregiver, so I really can't take too much credit for those. So, I figured I would never have the perseverance or inspiration even to try my hand at vegetable gardening.

I have always wanted to have a nice backyard but have been stumped as to where to begin in the overhaul process since the forest insists on constantly trying to take it back whenever I attempt to get things under control. I knew I wanted something modern and clean and easy to maintain - definitely not an old English rose garden or something froofy like that. I'm also ridiculously cheap and want to do things myself because someday I fantasize about owning a farm but know that if I'm ever going to get there, I first need to conquer my backyard.

What I would like my backyard to look like someday
(original drawing circa 2002 - click for larger view).

It was in January that I made an amazing discovery: BARK MULCH. Now, in and of itself, bark mulch is nothing special, but it is the hiding properties of this wonderful recycled product that send my heart aflutter. I spread it all over my backyard and it instantly transformed it into an un-muddy, pleasant-to-walk-around-on, easy-to-scoop-poop-on oasis. Even more, importantly, it INSPIRED me to do more more more in my yard and I finally realized that I don't want landscaping - I want something that produces something in return for all my hard work. VEGETABLES. When it comes right down to it, bark mulch is the reason for and first step in my backyard homesteading pursuit.

Since that eye-opening day in January, I have built and planted a raised vegetable bed with cool-weather veggies, started warm-weather veggies indoors, built a chicken barrow, brought home baby chicks, started whittling down the burn/brush pile in the backyard (and got to use my new chainsaw/tree limber courtesy of my Pops), set up my composting bin, scooped poop on a weekly basis (something I would always procrastinate on because it friggin SUCKS), and started the long process of natural (aka, by hand) weed eradication. Future plans include building a hoop-house style greenhouse (very similar to the chicken barrow), more vegetable beds, a simple, handmade fountain, making hypertufa planters, and a bunch of other ideas that I have bookmarked but am too lazy to provide links to right now.

Another source of inspiration for me is Jan Nelson at The Plantworks Nursery in Ben Lomond. She writes a weekly column on gardening in the Press Banner, and a recent article of hers outlined the correct planting times for various vegetables in our microclimate. I decided to send her an email asking her opinion on my plans to grow vegetables as well as advice on a few inexpensive, easy-care ornamental plants to round out the garden landscape. She emailed me back with a wealth of information and invited me to come see her personally at her nursery. What a gal!

Additionally, I made friends with two of the guys that work at Central Home Supply in Scotts Valley, so it's less intimidating now to go in there and ask their advice on landscaping materials or what I should do next in my transformation plans.

My pride and joy.


Future delicious chives.


Butter lettuce.

That's all for today, folks, and I have the day off tomorrow, but come Monday, I know you will be waiting with bated breath for the latest progression in my backyard transformation. Carry on!