I am Finding it Very Difficult to Keep Myself from Making a Presto/Pesto Joke Here, So Instead I Will Give this Post an Unnecessarily Long Title

Is your refrigerator overflowing with greens? Big greens, small greens, curly greens, flat greens? Are you starting to wonder whether it's even possible for a person to eat this many greens? There is a solution for your problem! You can make your greens tasty all through the long CSA-less winter! PESTO IS YOUR FRIEND!

Now I know there are some skeptics out there who are thinking "Pesto? That stuff is made out of basil. I have plenty of good ways to use basil." Not so, my friend! All your lovely leafy greens can be mushed and crushed and grinded into a tasty paste! Today I used arugula and kale with walnuts, but let your imagination go wild combining greens and nuts and cheeses! Pesto making is not by any means an exact science, but somebody asked me for a recipe for this stuff so I'm going to do my best to tell you exactly what I did.

Start by peeling garlic - I used about half of a large head. Toss it in your food processor with a big pinch of red pepper flakes and a teaspoon of salt, and give it a quick pulse. When the garlic is in nice little pieces, throw in your nuts - I used about two big handfuls of walnuts. Depending on the greens you're using, you might choose the traditional pine nuts, walnuts, cashews, almonds, pistachios, or even sunflower seeds. Grind it all into a thick, nutty garlic paste. Mmmmmmmm.

And now in go the greens! I used three bundles of kale, stemmed and coarsely chopped, and a small bundle of arugula. I used to think that the tougher greens like kale needed to be cooked before putting them into pesto, but it's not true! Works just fine raw. Put a handful or two at a time into your food processor and pack it down. 

Sometimes you might need to scoop up a bunch of the already-pureed stuff and put it on top of your greens to get the kale down where the blades will find 'em and chop 'em. Keep adding greens and pulsing until it's a uniform paste, and then grate some tasty parmesan cheese and add that in too - I used about 1/4 cup. Now turn your food processor on low and slowly pour in olive oil until you reach the consistency you want.

Now you have a whole lot of pesto! Before the summer's over you'll probably have a whole lot more, and that's AWESOME! Don't just put it on your pasta - smear it on your sandwiches, spead it on your pizzas, stir it into your soups and grain salads, or do what I did tonight and just throw a little onto some fresh sauteed veggies for a quick and easy meal. You cannot go wrong with fresh corn, crisp green beans, and some delicious fresh pesto.

But even with all those way to use pesto, you'll probably have some left over. Lucky for us all, pesto freezes beautifully and can last you all winter! Freeze it in ice cube trays to make little pesto bricks that are perfect for two servings of pasta, and enjoy all winter long!

The end of last year's pesto.

And today's fresh batch!

Grain Salaaaaaad!

All summer long I'm chewing on piles and piles of grain salad. They're the perfect summertime meal - no oven necessary, quick and easy, good served cold - and that's part of why they're one of my favorite ways to use up those CSA veggies. They're also healthy and super versatile - eat 'em up hot or cold, mix in leftovers, pour different dressings over them - a grain salad doesn't have to feel boring by the end of the week. And they're great for potlucks - this one came with me to a house concert in my friend Khrysti's backyard.

Whenever I'm getting to the end of the week I take a look around at my vegetable leftovers, and usually they can be pulled together into something new. Maybe they can go into a frittata or an omelet, maybe they would be great tossed with some pasta or cooked onto a pizza, maybe they would make a good centerpiece for a leafy green salad. But usually the first thing I think to do is to throw them in a bowl with some yummy whole grains. I try to stop by a local co-op every few weeks during the summer to stock up on bags of bulgur, barley, kasha, quinoa, or wheat berries so that there are always some good choices in my cupboard  ready to be mixed up with my CSA veggies.

This week when I looked around my fridge I found a couple of already-roasted beets left over from a meal, a little pile of sauteed green beans left from a different meal, and a couple of nice fat little cucumbers. Chopped 'em all up and threw 'em in a big bowl.

In my cupboard there was a bag of quinoa that I cooked up with a little salt, tossed in there with the veggies, and mixed together. The beets made the whole thing turn a pretty pink color, especially after a night in the fridge. For a dressing I mixed together some apple cider vinegar, lime juice, olive oil, and plenty of chopped garlic. And done! So easy, super filling, and a great way to use whatever's left in your fridge.

Picked up another big box of veggies this afternoon - here's a peek at what will go into my meals next week! Tomorrow I'll let you know how I prep my fridge, get my veggies ready once they've arrived, and make a plan of attack so that all the fruit and vegetable goodness will find a good home in my freezer or my belly before they go bad.

My Mediocre Meals

There are kitchen days when all the recipes just turn out right and it feels like everything my whisk touches turns to gold. Then there are days like Sunday. Sunday was a kitchen day where everything my whisk touched turned to "meh."

I started the day turning some of my beautiful CSA blueberries into a batch of vegan blueberry muffins for a picnic brunch with friends.  And since I was all out of egg replacer after last week's glorious chocolate beet cake, I looked to the internet for a new vegan muffin recipe. I found this one, which uses the reaction between baking soda and vinegar to get the muffins to rise and turn nice and fluffy. Sadly, even after almost half an hour of extra cooking time my muffins were still a little soggy in the middle and did not rise properly. The taste was good, but the texture just wasn't cutting it. Luckily, everything is better when it's served (and chopped to pieces!) by an adorable baby.

After a lovely brunch with some mediocre muffins, I came home to make something tasty and full of veggies that could come to work for lunches all week. Ah, I said, a cheesy baked thing with layers of polenta and chard! That sounds perfect! I decided to double the chard and add in some zucchini, and things seemed to be off to a nice start.

But sadly, even with extra veggies and the addition of some herbs and extra garlic and red pepper flakes, it turned out kind of bland and very mushy, with a layer of mozzarella on the top that was so tough I could barely chew through it. Also unattractive!

Seriously, this was the best picture I could get of this pile of mush. Pretty it's not!

But I had a plan to salvage something out of this unfulfilling day in the kitchen. Monday night I cooked up a good, quick standby - chicken sausage and green beans sauteed together with plenty of garlic and a little salt. It would be hard to mess this up!

I made sure there were plenty of leftovers, and I mixed them into that mushy polenta mess. Sausage fat and garlic added a punch of flavor, and between the chewy sausage and the crunchy green beans my meal now had some texture! I think I can stomach eating it for a few more days so I don't have to feel guilty about wasting food, hooray! I hope your kitchen time has been tastier than mine, and I hope I'll have something more pleasant to share soon.

Loooong Day Dinner

Let's say that it's Monday night. Let's say that it's the kind of Monday night that makes you wonder if there's any way to make it through the rest of the week that doesn't involve hard drugs or playing hooky. Let's say that it's the kind of Monday night when the thought of working hard for a meal is the WORST THING YOU CAN THINK OF, and when a salad for dinner is definitely not going to cut it.  Take a deep breath, open a beer, chop up some bacon and toss it in a pan. The bacon, not the beer. You are drinking the beer. Ahhhhh. Aren't you feeling better already?

This is one of my go-to-lazy-night-but-gotta-use-some-of-those-CSA-veggies meals. Leave a little bit of the bacon grease in your pan and throw in a sliced onion. Let that sucker simmer along with some red pepper flakes, whatever herbs you're feeling, and enough garlic to make your house smell like heaven. And while it simmers, start up a big pot of pasta. When your onion is beautiful and caramelized and making your mouth water, toss in a nice big pile of chopped greens. Chard is my favorite, but half of your CSA can probably go in here - kale, beet greens, spinach, collards! After your greens wilt, pour in a tablespoon or two or balsamic vinegar and however much salt and pepper you need, and let the whole thing simmer for a few more minutes.

Toss your pasta with some olive oil and then dump it into your pot of greens. Throw in those crumbly bits of bacon and give it a stir. Grate a boatload of parmesan on top. 

Ahhhhh. You're going to make it through the week after all.

tonight's adventure...

included: sautéing green and wax beans to save, boiling potatoes (to make potato salad tomorrow), and drinking a beer while making a crazy rice dish with everything else in my veggie store.


to keep a CSA without wasting vegetables, ya gotta go for the rule of three (brain-child of l.koenig):

- cook
- keep
or
- share

*Cook is pretty self-explanatory: Ya cook it! or else make a plan for your meals in the week. *Keeping can be trickier-- this is where you preserve said vegetable somehow to prevent it from rotting. Your kept food is to feed yourself at a later date (possibly web it's too cold for fresh veggies arriving in bushels on your doorstep). *Sharing may be the best on the list. Also pretty self-explanatory, this is where you gce your lovely local fresh veggies away (and spread the fresh/local food movement, by proxy).

Tonight I went for cook and share. the remainder of my CSA this week will go to my adorable Portuguese grandmother to become all manner of delicious; though, probably with more meat!

Now I just gotta learn how to keep!

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Tonight's rice dish: