Green Options

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Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes designed to showcase produce gathered from local farms or grown in my own garden.  

I’m really putting my lavender plants to work already this summer.  First a bubbly lavender lemonade, and now lavender scented ice cream!  I’m running to catch up to the bandwagon here, flagging it down like a speeding city bus.   Many folks have long been touting how sublime the marriage of lavender and cream is.  But I hadn’t bought into it until this batch of ice cream.   

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes designed to showcase produce gathered from local farms or grown in my own garden.  

We’re in full swing with the growing season in the mid-Atlantic region.  I certainly enjoy all the fresh produce spilling out of my garden, but none tickle my taste buds quite so much as Swiss chard and sorrel.  For those of you not familiar with these delightful greens, here’s a little primer that should get you well on your way to enjoying both!

This week, I made a decision to incorporate more raw foods into my diet. My new goal is to eat at least one raw meal a day, and to transform my kitchen into an entirely raw one. I’ll be documenting the steps I’m talking, and go further into the reasons why in my next several posts.

My first step though is getting rid of all of the wonderful food I’ve got stored up, but will now be eating less of, like grains, beans, and soy products. I can’t think of a more delicious way to clean house than this red lentil recipe I created last night.

I’m still stuck on what to name this dish. My husband called it “Mediterr-Indian” because of the spices that borrow from both cultures. It’s pretty low on fat, and good for people with food allergies, as it’s nut, soy, and wheat free, and of course, vegan. The recipe for the lentils, and the roasted cauliflower after the jump:

Opah! The Greek God of Spanakopita smiled down favorably this week here in Wisconsin, providing tender green spinach along with the first of our dill — which means it’s spinach pie time. The Greeks sure know how to pack in the healthy, iron punch with an abundance of greens alongside poignant feta cheese. And while spinach pie can be made just fine with frozen spinach, you just can’t beat the tender flavor of fresh.

Like other mainstay international dishes, this Greek dish has various versions — and spellings: “Spanakopita” for “spinach pie” and “spanakotyropita” for the more detailed “spinach and cheese pie.” But the short gist is an abundant bowl of cooked spinach and herbs mixed with feta and eggs, nestled in between buttered layers of phyllo. By accident once, we bought puff pastry sheets instead of phylo dough which worked surprisingly well. Combinations of spinach and Swiss chard work equally well.

Harvest those local greens and enjoy!

Recipe after the jump.

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes designed to showcase produce gathered from local farms or grown in my own garden. 

“Hot. So very hot.”  These words, or some variation of them, echo through my head at least a dozen times a day now that summer is officially here.  Interspersed among them are a sundry of other fleeting thoughts, most prevalent among them being, “Is it lunchtime yet?”   You see, laboring as I do outside so much of the day in my horticulture work, I tend to quickly get a little parched and hungry.  Concocting refreshing icy beverages has become a priority.

This desperation for refreshment brings us to a truly revitalizing Lavender Lemon Soda that is the ideal remedy for a sweaty brow.  It is downright cleansing with its effervescent flavors. I have been intrigued by herbal sodas since last summer when I had one at a local café, but I surprised even myself with how tasty this particular combination turned out to be.  

What is your favorite summer kale recipe? 

Here’s one of mine . . .
Kale is not one of my favorite veggies, but somehow Green Diva Jen, (AKA Jenifer O’Neill) has been slowly converting me. She contributed this recipe as well as the actual dish for our wonderful staff picnic last year (photo was taken on my back deck!). She seems to find great ways to get more kale into the mix!

Ingredients

1/2 head kale (any variety)
1/2 head green cabbage
1/2 head red cabbage
4 large carrots
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar or umeboshi plum vinegar
1 cup your favorite mayonnaise
1 tablespoon honey
Freshly ground pepper
Splash of water

Instructions

My husband recently turned 30, and to celebrate the momentous occasion, we treated ourselves to a dinner at our favorite restaurant, Millennium. The all upscale San Francisco eatery frequently wins awards for best vegan restaurant, wooing a largely non-vegan clientele who don’t miss the meat. They use organic, local foods when possible, and recycle and compost.

The dishes have such complex flavors, in combinations I’d have never thought up. One of my favorites was a lemon basil sorbet we had for dessert that was outstanding. They sell several cookbooks, but I’ve always shied away from it, as I’ve heard (and would have to imagine) that the recipes would be too complicated.

Instead during our meal this weekend, I tried to guess how some of the dishes were made and see if I could emulate them myself. This recipe is based on an appetizer we had, but I paired it with a side salad as a full meal.

A few years ago, I was walking through our farm gardens, when all of a sudden I turned around, and there stood a hungry tiger, licking his chomps. “Hmmm, that’s a peculiar non-native species to roam the Wisconsin countryside,” I said to myself, and then ran like hell across the field.

All of a sudden, I came to the edge of a cliff, staring down into the deep canyon below. ‘Hmmm, this canyon wasn’t here yesterday,” I noted, as the tiger quickly caught up to me. As I looked down, at the bottom of the canyon stood a second tiger, ready for dinner. I saw a small branch growing out of the edge of the cliff, and I quickly jumped and grabbed the branch, dangling precipitously over the cliff drop off, but hey, I figured I’m still alive.

I look up to see not only tiger number one snarling down at me, but two voracious mice, chewing away on my branch. But as the branch started to crack and my life flashed before me, my eye catches a strawberry, dangling from its vine. Not just any strawberry, but a perfectly ruby red ripe beauty, moist with morning dew. And I reach out, picked it and ate that strawberry.

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden.  

With the rising costs of food (and everything else to boot), I’m sure I’m not the only one who has vowed to be more frugal with menus by using up what’s already in the fridge before heading to the market.  To this I say, “here, here!!”   That was until I started looking around my own fridge and realized I should have taken on this resolution about four months ago - moldy cheese, sad-looking shriveled carrots, and dried out halves of onions that I was sure I’d use up the next day but forgot all about and ended up cutting a fresh onion.   Frugal I am not.

Instead, those bright and shiny new bunch of beets I’d plucked from the farmer’s market immediately caught my attention.  I know I had opened the fridge with the intention of salvaging something that might otherwise go to waste, but as it was, I thought I’d give the beets a chance before they too shriveled up in the crisper drawer.  After all, the spring beet season is fast drawing to a close. 

Well, after my last post on eco-friendly junk food, I feel like I need to redeem myself a bit with another healthy salad. (See, my Kale, Quinoa and Avocado Salad recipe for the first installment of this series.) This recipe came about when I had a craving for home made spring rolls, but couldn’t find any sheets of rice paper in the five block vicinity of my apartment that I was willing to walk.

I changed up the ingredients a little bit, and Spring Roll Salad was born. Depending on what you’re in the mood for, you can make this more of a green salad and go heavy on the lettuce and cabbage, or more of a pasta salad, heavy on the vermicelli.

I’ll simply list my ingredients and let your taste guide the quantity.

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden.  

Kohlrabi season is upon us!  Rejoice and partake! And it looks like I’m not the only one finding locally grown kohlrabi in the kitchen.  I am ridiculously fond of kohlrabi, perhaps somewhat in part due to its alien appearance.  It’s crisp and refreshing when sliced thin and eaten raw or grated into a slaw, but I actually like it even better when sauteed.  It releases its juices and becomes almost buttery in texture. 

As for the squash, it’s not quite here yet in the Northeast so if you don’t have it locally grown, just use the kohlrabi by itself or add another in-season vegetable.  At the time I created this recipe, I was desperate to use up as much squash as possible.  I figure I’ll give you a head start with ideas for this summer’s onslaught!