Next week better not involve turnips

[listersgirl]

I'd like to take a moment to bask in some self-congratulations. Basically, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself right now, mostly because there has been cooking going on at the apartment lately.

vestra and I get organic veggie delivery. It's a great concept - nice fresh organic fruits and veggies that come right to your door with very little effort. There's a random selection of stuff each week, local as much as possible, and you can make a couple of substitutions if there are foods you don't like. The best (and worst) part is that sometimes we get something we've never tried to cook with before, and have no idea what to do with it. I mean, the broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, kale, chard, lettuce, tomatoes, celery...those are all easy. The fruit is pretty easy, too, although it can be hard to get through, since neither of us are big on oranges, and we're very picky about apples (who eats Macintoshes, anyway?). Sometimes, though, there's something like Daikon radish, or mustard greens, and we get kind of stumped.

Last week's box originally had green peppers and beets, which were vetoed immediately (and automatically - we hate them so much that we've asked for them to be replaced no questions asked whenever they show up). It also had eggplants and leeks. I love eggplant, but I cannot cook with it to save my life. And I have no idea what to do with leeks. But (and look, we finally made it to the point of the post) we used them, and used them well. I made potato leek soup (a very low-fat version with soy milk) - thank god for the blender - and vestra made this seriously tasty eggplant...thing. It's similar to a bruschetta topping, with baked eggplant, olives, capers, tomatoes, and probably other stuff, but I was so in love with the capers that I didn't notice.

So, yeah, this was all just to say that I battled the leek and lived to tell about it. House: 1, Veggies: 0.

Comments

[eanja]

My sister gets fresh veggies too; I like the idea, but w/ just me I know I could never use them up. I completely agree w/ you on the subject of beets and peppers (I wish I could like beets, they are such a pretty color, but I just can't.)

Daikon radish you grate and eat as salad - when I was in Germany, all the house salads would have a little pile of it on top of the greens next to the grated carrot.

Is there any possibility of your passing on the eggplant recipe? I also love them, and also get stumped what to do. I mostly make them into pasta- fry up ham and onion, then add diced eggplant, some savory, a bay leaf, water, and wine or port if you want, cook till the eggplant goes quite mushy, then stir in half-and half or light cream, and correct w/ a bit of vinegar. Not low-fat, I'm afraid (I've never used soymilk, so I have no idea if it would work), but very good, even if it sounds sort of weird. Or there's always rataouille.

Caponata

[listersgirl]

The recipe is from The New Laurel's Kitchen

1 big eggplant
1 onion
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped celery
1 1/2 cups tomatoes (peeled, seeded, chopped)
1/4 cup capers
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup chopped olives
1/4 tsp salt
ground pepper to taste

Half eggplant and bake at 350 degrees. Set aside to cool.

Chop onion fine and saute in olive oil. Chop celery fine and add to onion when onion begins to get translucent. Cook onion and celery until onion is soft and slightly golden.

Add tomato, capers, honey, vinegar and olives. Simmer until most of liquid has evaporated.

Peel and dice eggplant. Remove tomato mixture from heat and add eggplant, salt, and pepper. Serve chilled.

And, of course, enjoy :)

Re: Caponata

[eanja]

Mmm. Sounds good. Thank you.

[girldetective.livejournal.com]

My favourite way to eat eggplant is in eggplant parmagiana. It's a bit high maintenance, but sooooooo good, and it freezes and reheats really well. You slice up the eggplant, bread the slices in egg and breadcrumbs, fry them in about an inch of oil until they're golden, let them cool, then assemble what is essentially lasagna with as much cheese as possible, but with the fried eggplant instead of pasta. Or you can just eat the fried eggplant as they come out of the oil...that's pretty tasty, too.

Mmmm...eggplant parmagiana...

[listersgirl]

Wow, that sounds tasty. I'm sure there will be more eggplant coming our way, so I'll have to remember this.

[kylegirl.livejournal.com]

Macintoshes are my favorite apple!

[listersgirl]

You can have my share of the world's Macintoshes, then :)

[ladycoreopsis.livejournal.com]

Hi there! I'm peeking in through sensational's journal. That organic foods to your door thing sounds awesome! I wanted to tell you that you can use leeks in pretty much anything that you'd cook with onions. Here in Finland we have these HUGE leeks and I just slice them and use them in my cooking like onions. I also thought I'd show you an alternative recipe for potato leek soup. It has no milk at all (so probably lower fat). I substitute chicken broth with veggie stock and the butter with olive oil and it comes out great. The only thing is, you have to have a food processor to do it.

[ladycoreopsis.livejournal.com]

Oops! Forgot the link!

Potato Leek Soup no milk (http://www.souprecipe.com/AZ/PotatoLeekSoup.asp)

[listersgirl]

That looks tasty. Might also be a little less thick than the recipe I used. Thanks!

[starfishchick]

Getting scary veggies that I don't know how to cook is my big fear, and most of the reason not to get organic veggies delivered to my door.

[listersgirl]

Yeah, it is scary sometimes :)

Luckily, we have an enormous collection of cookbooks, so anything that we've never used before means that we just sit down and read the indexes until we find a recipe that looks feasible.

And sometimes good things happen - I'd never bought kale before it showed up in the veggie box, and now it's one of my favourites.

[sandrylene.livejournal.com]

Leeks are cake to use. And they're really good fried - think onion rings. Though obviously not as healthy as we all might want, if we're the type to hvae organic veggies delivered. :P

You want bad? I just saw burdock root for the first time yesterday. I cannot even imagine what you'd do with that. Haven't heard of a use for it outside a cauldron in some fantasy novel.

[listersgirl]

A what? Okay, I would definitely have to admit defeat if something like that ever showed up in the box.