GREAT GRATED BEETS – from the Corbin Hill CSA Newsletter

GREAT GRATED BEETS
2 T rice or balsamic vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 T agave
Coarse sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
4 med. beets, grated
4 med. carrots, grated
1/2 C thinly sliced basil leaves
2 T finely shredded fresh cilantro
1 scallion, thinkly sliced diagonally, for garnish (optional)

In a large bowl, combine the vinegar, lemon juice, agave, an a large pinch each of salt and pepper. Whisk to combine.
Gradually whisk in oil.
Add beets, carrots, basil, and cilantro. Toss to combine. Taste, and adjust seasonings.

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9/26/13 CSA SHARE: What we got, what I took, and what I’m going to do with it

POST #976
WHAT THEY PROMISED           WHAT I TRADED FOR
Salad Turnips – 1 bun
Baby Bok Choi – 2 pcs
Spinach – 1 lb
Arugula – 1/2 lb                              1 bun turnips
Toscano Kale – 1 bun
Long Red Peppers – 2 pcs
Make-up Item 1 green pepper      2 long red peppers

I know I have said that I am going to use everything in the box, but sometimes (okay, most times) I just can’t.
I am not a real salad girl — I mean, if I am in a restaurant with people, sometimes salad is all there is; and, if I am invited to dinner, and they serve salad, or I am at a meet-up and all there is besides what I brought, is salad I’ll eat it; but, at home, I do not go for salad. You may think this strange for a raw foodist, but that is who I am. I am a lazy chewer. Leaves are work. I avoid them if I can. That’s not to say that I cannot make cool food with leaves – it just means that things that work best in salads and nothing else don’t normally get on my menu.

So, all that said, I sniffed the arugula, and put it aside. I looked in the “trade” box (where we can put what we don’t want and take something someone else didn’t want – I usually go at opening time so I can get good picks from the trade box, but, yesterday, I arrived just before closing time, so the pickings were slim). There was a nice bunch of white turnips with good greens. I grabbed them and put the arugula in the trade box. Then, I looked at that green pepper. I used to like green pepper a lot, but, I much prefer red pepper now. I don’t care which kind: it can be sweet red pepper, it can be spicy red pepper – I don’t care. One small green bell pepper versus two fair-sized long red peppers (sweet)? No question there. Those were the trades.

Now, what am I going to do with the goodies?
KALE: I am going to take a few of the leaves and make a small batch of kale cashew cheeze (I checked before I went, and I still have about 2 C of cashews)
SPINACH: I saw a spinach/cashew mix which was basically my kale/cashew mix and sounded interesting, so I think I’ll take about half of the spinach and make another cashew mix/cheeze
BEETS: These salad beets are fairly large, so I can peel them and then grind them up and add some apple cider vinegar and garlic -Yum! The greens are very nice, so I will make them into marinated greens, adding some onion, garlic, and apple cider vinegar to sweeten them up. I may even add in some red pepper in for more flavor. Since I have two bunches, I may make a small jar of fermented beets.
BOK CHOY: I discovered a new way to deal with bok choy last week (that was the first time I decided to keep the bok choy, if truth be told). I took a bunch to work and tore off the leafy part, rolled it up, and dipped it in cashew/thai curry mayo. That was a nice lunch. I dipped the bok choi ends, too.

This weekend, I think I’ll wrap up the kale/cashew cheeze in the bok choi. If I have time, I may make some thin slices of red pepper and add them to the mix.

SAUERKRAUT & SAUERRUBEN: fermented cabbage and fermented turnips

POST #768

I’m being good this week. I said I was going to make sauerkraut and sauerruben (fermented turnips), and, indeed, I am doing it.  I think it took me about 4 hours last night to do all the work, but I did.   Part of my impetus was that my half-full jar of sauerkraut (made about 4 weeks ago) fell out of the refrigerator and shattered  — big mess, dead jar, no sauerkraut this week!

Some raw foodists are concerned about fermented foods.  I am on the side of people like Ann Wigmore (pretty much the “mother” of raw food), and others, who think that it is useful to supplement pro-biotics (yes, you could go and buy capsules or powders, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could get the same benefit through your food?)  I use New Life All-Flora probiotics to jumpstart my ferments.  Some people object to fermented foods as “rotten”, but I don’t happen to be one of them.  I understand that, when you ferment raw vegetables, nuts, and seeds, you create a food product that is rich in probiotics and good for you.

I had 2 small-ish heads of cabbage in the refrigerator for 2 weeks.  When I dug them out and cut them in half, I found, interestingly, that the center of each was going bad, while the outside (about 3 inches worth all around the center) was perfectly fine.   I cut away and discarded the centers, and shredded the rest.

STEP BY STEP SAUERKRAUT (no video, just do it)

• I shredded the cabbage in my wonderful Cuisinart Food Processor.
• I put all the shredded cabbage in a large bowl, mixed in 1 tablespoon sea salt, and then mooshed/squeezed it all around with my hands, until the cabbage gave up its juice and was reduced in volume by about 1/2.
• Then I put all of the shredded cabbage and juice into a quart mason jar (I used the wide-mouth funnel of my Champion juicer to get it in neatly), and smooshed it down until there was about 1/2 inch of space above the juice on top of the cabbage.  (The idea is that you want to pack the cabbage very firmly into the jar.  I do it with my fingers — my fist is a little too large to fit inside a quart jar.  The juice rises above the cabbage.  I do this in the sink, because some of the juice -and a little of the cabbage– might seep out.)
• After I had the cabbage packed into the jar, I emptied 2 capsules of New Chapter All Flora Probiotic Capsules
  into @1 tablespoon of water and mixed well.  Then I poured the probiotic/water mix into the jar, and used a chopstick to make holes down into the cabbage so the probiotics would go down into the cabbage (I don’t know if this is necessary, but it seems logical, so I do it).
• Then I put the jar in a bowl and set it in a cool corner of my kitchen (cool? ha ha! It is summer in New York City, and we don’t have air-conditioning. Suffice it to say that I put it in the corner of the stove top — we don’t use the stove, anyway.  That is probably the coolest place in the kitchen).  That was about 7  pm last night.

SAUERRUBEN (fermented turnips)

While I was gearing up to make the sauerkraut, I decided to read through Sandor Katz’s book, Wild Fermentation again.  This time, since I had a slew of turnips in the refrigerator, I noticed the “sauerruben” recipe for fermented turnips.  I held back from my irresistible desire to add stuff to a recipe since I’ve never tried to ferment turnips, and since Sandor says that plain fermented turnips are delicious, and I made the straight recipe with just one addition – I added probiotics, which I always add to fermented foods because, when I do,  my product never ever fails.

STEP BY STEP FERMENTED TURNIPS (SAUERRUBEN)  (no video, just do it)

I honestly can’t tell you how many turnips I used.  They were the “Japanese salad turnips” (smallish, all white).  These were medium-sized turnips – large enough to make it worthwhile to peel them.

• I peeled then chopped the turnips.
• I shredded the turnips in my food processor
  (with the S blade) (normally when I do turnips, I grind them to a fine texture somewhat similar to applesauce, but this time, I shredded them a little less, to a chunkier texture — but not by much — I hate to chew)
• I placed the shredded turnips in a large bowl and added 1 tablespoon of sea salt.  I mixed it all around, then squished/mooshed/squeezed all of the turnip/salt mixture, until it yielded a lot of juice and reduced in volume by about half.
• Then, I placed the turnips in a 1 pint jar.  At first it seemed the turnips would not all fit in, but, after a lot of mooshing/pressing (which I did in the sink, in case of overflow, of which there was some), I got all of the turnips into the 1-pt jar, with a little space at the top.
• I emptied 2 capsules of New Chapter All-Flora Probiotic
  into @1 tablespoon of water and mixed well.  Then I poured the probiotic/water mix into the jar, and used a chopstick to make holes down into the turnip mix,  so the probiotics would go down into the turnips.
• Then I put the the 2-part lid  onto the mason jar (I’ve used recycled jars with plain lids, but the two-part lids of the mason jars are traditional, and you do get some feedback if you use them — as the vegetables ferment, some juice seeps out, which lets you know that your product is successful), and I put the jar in a bowl in the coolest corner of the kitchen, beside the sauerkraut jar.

This afternoon, when I came home about 4 pm, I checked the jars, and I was happy to see in that a little less than 24 hours, they had bubbled out about half a bowl-ful of liquid each.  That is a good sign. Actually, I have never seen so much liquid bubble out in one day before — it could be because I used 2 caps of probiotics instead of just one — whatever the cause, I am happy, and I am excited.

I know that my sauerkraut will be ready in 3 days (although I can leave it for longer — I’ve left it for up to 2 weeks.  I suppose I could leave it for longer, but I like the 3-day flavor).

Since this is my first time with fermented turnips, I will go with Sandor’s suggestion of one week of fermentation (although he ferments without probiotics).  I’m sure it will be fine.  (After my first batch, I will understand what I want to do, i.e., what I might like to add, and how long I will need to ferment it.)

After I finish the turnips, I am going to ferment the beets I have in my refrigerator.  I am sure they will work like the turnips, so I will already have something to go on at that time  (I am imagining that I will add garlic and/or something else to beets)  I’m imagining that the beets will turn out to be really delicious.  I can’t wait.

WHAT WE GOT & WHAT I AM DOING WITH IT

Here’s the breakdown from Thursday’s share

Kohlrabi – 1 pc    actually we got several pieces
Fennel – 1 pce       I traded for a big kohlrabi
Carrots – 1 bun     the carrots were kind of small. I put them through the juicer
Cilantro – 1 bun    a big bunch
Escarole – 1 hd      this was a large head
Scallions – 1 bun    traded for more cilantro
Arugula – 1 bag       we got choggia beets
Green Romaine Lettuce – 1 hd    traded for more beets
Green Boston Lettuce – 1 hd

I put the carrots through the juicer and got a small juice glass of carrot juice. I froze the pulp for use in something later.

I’ve made a couple of different versions of raw ravioli, using the large kohlrabi.  I cut it in half and sliced it with my thin slicer (looks like a vegetable peeler, but it’s very wide).  I put my cashew-kale pate and cilantro in the raviolis, and I also made the “chicken pate” recipe from Ani Phyo’s first book and put it in the wraps with some cilantro.

I used the escarole in some wraps with the cashew-kale pate, onion, tomato, cilantro, and lentil sprouts.   I also made a soup with lentil sprouts by dehydrating chopped up  escarole leaves to tender, then adding garlic, olive oil, a little sea salt (!) and black pepper, cilantro, and some red pepper flakes, and dehydrating for a few hours until it was warm.

Well, the lettuce has gone into salads, duh. I also threw some of it, along with some escarole, and an apple, into the blender for a smoothie.  Yuck.  I drank it anyway.  It’s good for me, right?

The beets, you ask?  My beet salad (beets into the food processor along with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, onions, and garlic – with some cilantro!).  I also made a “slaw” with some kohlrabi, beets, apple cider vinegar, onions, extra virgin olive oil, garlic,  and – yes! cilantro! — I put the kohlrabi in the food processor first, and ground it to almost apple sauce consistency, removed it, then put the beets and everything else in, then tossed all in a bowl — the idea was to have white color, but the beets in colored the kohlrabi anyway

My room-mate and I are tentatively back on a two-day meal share plan, so I am planning some fancy kohlrabi raviolo (not sure what will go in them yet), with a sauce of some sort – likely sun-dried tomatoes with something;  a lettuce, escarole, seaweed salad with lentil or sunflower sprouts and a vinaigrette of some sort. I might make the escarole soup again, as well – I liked it, and I will have enough time on Wednesday to do all of the dehydrating.

I’m glad to be back to a one day a week meal share because it gives me a chance to use up stuff I won’t eat all of by myself (I mean, I have been eating all of my share because I have no money to buy other food, but it sure would be nice to have a helping hand, and my room-mate loves salads.)

Of course, we do expect the appearance of sauerkraut somewhere in all of this.  I still have 1/2 qt jalapeno sauerkraut.  I’ll be making more sauerkraut by week end.

6/14/12 CSA SHARE: What they say we will get

POST #753

WEEK #3 CSA SHARE

This is what they say we will get.  I’m happy to see something I would want to trade if I could score an extra bunch of kale – I really like this toscano, or dinosaur, kale for chips.  If the beets are a reasonable size, I will make my raw beet salad.

Baby Spinach – 1 bag
Scallions – 1 bunch
Toscano Kale – 1 bunch
Romaine OR Red Boston Lettuce – 1 head
Cilantro – 1 bunch
Red Beets – 1 bunch
Bok Choi -OR- Japanese Salad Turnips – 1 bunch

Now,  I’m all about the logistics of getting in there first, to have the best chance at the kale I want.  Tomorrow I’m working until 3pm and it is payday.   I guess I could get the check, run home, change clothes and drop excess baggage, run up to pick up the share, go home and drop the bags, then turn around and go to the bank to make my deposit.  Sounds like a plan! (You are wondering why all the stops at home: I’m in NYC. No car to leave stuff in, and anyway, there would be no place to park it, if I did have one.  I could go to the bank before I go home, but then I would have to stop at the CSA on the way home, with an extra 10 lb bag to carry in addition to the vegetables and fruit.  I could go to the bank before I go home from the CSA, but I’d be carrying a bag of vegetables. I vote for the many forays. Hope I have the energy.)

6/7/12 CSA SHARE: WHAT I ACTUALLY GOT & WHAT I AM GOING TO DO WITH IT

I love it when the CSA is in season. It is so nice to go there and see so many happy people picking up their shares. Sometimes they are even friendly.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to pick up my share (early shares are always slim pickings, and overloaded with lettuce-t kinds of things, but… hey! That’s the way it is — they really really want me to start liking salads.

Yesterday, we got:
Baby Arugula – 1 bag
Romaine Lettuce – 1 head
Boston Lettuce – 1 head
Swiss Chard – 1 bunch
Garlic Scapes – 1 bunch
Japanese Salad Turnips – 1 bunch
STRAWBERRIES!  We got strawberries in the box, and I also got strawberries as my fruit share! Yum! Smoothies!

ARUGULA – I decided to keep it. I’m not overly fond of arugula, but I decided to make a raw version of the Greek beet, arugula, and goat cheese salad (I’ll post it later
ROMAINE – I kept it. I think I’ll make some wraps.
BOSTON LETTUCE – I like this stuff well enough.   I can deal with a salad or two a week.  This is a fairly big head, so I might be having three salads. I like to mix in seaweed (I stalk the Japanese supermarkets for sales on the mixed, or else I just get wakame when it is in the bulk bins at Integral Yoga Foods, my favorite natural foods store) and sauerkraut, along with onion, and, if I have it, some red bell pepper.
SWISS CHARD – I am still not ready to even try to like this stuff.  It is high on my yuck scale. I traded it for more turnips.
GARLIC SCAPES– these look weird, but they are GREEN, and they taste like garlic, so I like them.  I chop them up or grind them in the food processor,  and put them in everything as a garlic (they are a part of one kind of garlic).  These will get chopped or ground and put in salad, or go into pates.  Since I was lucky and got two bunches, I will probably experiment with my next sauerkraut, and put some sliced garlic scapes in there with lots of sliced jalapeno.
JAPANESE SALAD TURNIPS – I have no clue why they call them Japanese Salad Turnips (my Japanese room-mate did not recognize them.  When I was testing a recipe with them, she said she had never seen them before).  So, okay, they are all white, where other turnips have some purple on them. Never mind. They are turnips and they taste like turnips. I grind them in the food processor to almost an applesauce consistency, then add apple cider vinegar, olive olive oil, and any seasonings which strike my fancy (usually garlic, sometimes coriander, sometimes Spike)
STRAWBERRIES – These are going in smoothies. I am not really into eating right now, but I know I need some protein, so I will put these into a hemp or soy protein shake in the morning. I am also thinking of making some strawberry leather in the dehydrator.

So! I have things to do with all these vegetables!  I got into a use- everything -in-the-box a few years ago, when the CSA issued a challenge.  I continued it when my job went south – the CSA box was my food for the week (I’d have maybe $5 more to get other food.  Good I have that experience because I am back there now. Smart people who have full-time work tell me about all the things I should do, like save money, or invest in a 401K, but, when you can barely pay the rent, and you have to think twice about what food to get, and you can’t afford your health insurance and medicine copays on top of all that, well, the CSA is very very important — at least I will not die from malnutrition. I feel so blessed that my CSA has jumped in this year and allowed me to make payments as I can.)

12/2/10 CSA SHARE: this is the last one for the year

This is the last share of the season. Boo hoo!  On top of that, it looks like I won’t be able to afford to pay for the winter share before the cut-off date (paying for the airline ticket home for Christmas wiped out my last paycheck’s discretionary funds, and rent will wipe out my next paycheck — oh well. I will have to get used to shopping for food again)

This is what they say we will get:

Potatoes – 2 lbs
Sweet Potatoes – 5 lbs
Carrots – 3 lbs
Red Kale – 1 bunch
Rutabaga – 1-2 pieces
Watermelon Radish – 1-3 pieces
Cilantro – 1/8 lb bag
Kohlrabi – 1 piece
Butternut Squash – 1 piece
Broccoli – 1-2 pieces

This share is good because many of these vegetables will store for a while.
My Thanksgiving sweet potatoes came out so well that I will be happy to have more sweet potatoes to do up that way(I did the “Amazing Sweet Potatoes” recipe in my holiday recipes). I think I want to add walnuts the next time.
Kale Chips? probably
Kohlrabi makes good ravioli, as do larger radishes (will have to wait and see what the radishes look like.
Rutabaga works up nicely with my beet recipe
Squash and an apple and some spices… yummy soup. Put some cilantro on it.
I’ll trade off the broccoli if I can (I’ve just come to learn that broccoli is not all that good for me — that explains why I have been steadfastly avoiding my former favorite vegetable this year — I had been wondering about why I *just didn’t want broccoli*!)

10/28/10 CSA SHARE: What they say we will get and what I think I will make

Here’s what they say we will get:

Arugula…1/4 lb.
Golden Beets…..1 bun.
Daikon Radish….2 pcs
Sweet Potatoes….3.5 – 4 lbs
Green Cabbage…1 hd
Toscano Kale…..1 bun.
Guy Lon (Chinese Broccoli)… 1 bun.
Leeks….2 – 3 pcs
Mixed Red and Golden Delicious Apples

I love golden beets – mainly because they don’t stain your hands.  One of my students has reported that she added lemon juice and ginger to her grated beets – that sounds like a good thing to try out.

Toscano kale is also called lacinato kale and dinosaur kale.  I wonder why it has that many names.  I find it funny.  Regardless, I think I will make some more kale chips .  The chili/cheddar-cheezy ones I made a few weeks ago were really yummy, and the “smoked jalapeno” cheezy ones I made were very nice and spicy.

It’s time to make Amazing Sweet Potatoes again.  Yumm!

I’ll be making sauerkraut this week, of course.  What else to do with cabbage?  Perhaps I’ll make a little coleslaw, as well. We’ll see.

Daikon Cheeze Bites!  I’ll use my usual cheddar cheeze instead of the fancy one I originally posted – the usual one has fewer ingredients, so is cheaper and easier, and I like it better.

RAW BEET RECIPES

I love beets.  Always have, even when they only came from a can.  Now that I know about raw beets, I love them all the more.Although I keep trying new recipes, I have my favorites that, when I get beets in my CSA box, show up on my table at least once a week.  I am very partial to my very simple “Famous Beet Salad”– it is easy to prepare, and tastes divine (even people who don’t like beets like it)

Here are my five favorite beet salads.  (In the interest of not repeating the same blog entries again and again, I’ve given links to the pages the recipes are on.)  Enjoy!

KOHLRABI/BEET/CARROT SALAD

MARINATED MASSAGE GREENS

MY FAMOUS BEET SALAD

SOUTHERN PICKLED BEETS

BEET/CABBAGE/CARROT/APPLE SALAD

CSA WINTER SHARE INFO: What it is about, what might come

Here is how my winter CSA Share is supposed to work, according to the newsletter announcement:

WINTER “VEGETABLE” SHARE
20+lb share each delivery
$28 per delivery
5 deliveries
$140 TOTAL PRICE

1 – Week of December 15th
2 – Week of January 5th
3 – Week of January 26th
4 – Week of February 16th
5 – Week of March 9th

Contents of share may include:
Butternut Squash, Sweet Potatoes, Potatoes (white & yellow varieties), Carrots, Red Beets, Celery Root, Rutabaga, Watermelon Radish. First share may include: Cabbage, Kale, Leeks (depending on the weather– no guarantees on this!)

I also signed up for a Mixed Apple Share ($21.25 total for 3 lbs per delivery) and 2 Cider Shares ($20 total for 1/2 gallon per delivery). It came out to a little over $200 for December through March organic fruit/vegetable/cider delivery. All I will have to get from the market will be greens and onions, as I see it. (I have a boatload of dehydrated tomatoes from the summer tomato share.) Oh, but I have already finished 1 of the cider bottles. Yum!

I got the job of “coordinator” (or whatever they are calling it) of the Winter Share Distribution, which is at a local community center. Yea!!! One of the interesting things about the job is that I have to count people and children, so that the center can get funding. Good! Probably more than half of the members come in bearing children. Some come with three or four. Good numbers!