Week 3 of plowshare produce

As will be my regular weekly posting for the next several months, this is the third week of our 24 week CSA with Plowshare Produce!

This Week’s Veggies: lettuce mix, spinach, carrots, Chinese cabbage, hakurei turnips, kale, kohlrabi, cabbage, garlic scapes, cilantro and scallions



This week there was an abundance of kale, so we opted to take extra kale, and leave the (very delicious-looking) swiss chard for another family. Hopefully there will be some more chard to come! But, in the meantime, we'll be experimenting with the four bunches of kale we have.

Bunch 1: First up, tonight, I made a variation of the rustic potato soup we made a couple weeks ago. Again leaving out the butter and bay leaf, substituting Giant's spicy chicken sausage for kielbasa, and this week I 1) used 2 small yellow onions and 4 scallions instead of the leeks and 2) added 6 chopped carrots.

Again, it was fantastic!



Bunch 2: We tried kale chips again this week, but I just sprayed a little oil on them and tried cooking them at a lower temp (300F) for longer (20 minutes, stirring every 5 min), but I think I overcooked them a little without enough oil. They're okay, but have a similar taste to slightly burnt popcorn.



(You'll notice the little doggy tail wagging below the bowl, hoping I'll drop a few. Surprisingly, the dogs LOVED these chips!)

Bunch 3: One last recipe for the kale, tonight, I decided to make the crustless quiche again, this time:
6 whole eggs, beaten with 1/2 c. skim milk
1 bunch kale, washed, de-stemmed and chopped
1 small onion, diced
3 scallions, sliced thin

1 cup cheddar cheese, to sprinkle on top, 5 minutes before finished baking. (I think you lose a lot of the cheese flavor when you mix it in the quiche, so hopefully we'll get a lot more flavor out of a lot less cheese this way.)



In my business cleaning veggies and making soup, I did forget to pre-heat the glass dish, though, and didn't oil the pan, so we'll see if it sticks in the morning - I hope not!

Bunch 4: For the last bunch, it is washed, de-stemmed, chopped, and in a plastic bag in the freezer. I think it might be really good mixed with chickpeas and masala spices, over rice, but that will have to wait for another night.

In the works for the other veggies:
I cooked a bunch of brown rice tonight (since it takes so dang long!), with vegetable broth and some of the scallions cut up in it. I'm planning to use it later this week as a side with the lettuce, and black beans with the cilantro and garlic scapes.

Still need ideas for the Chinese cabbage - think of kimchee soup, but open to suggestions.