NOTE: That cauliflower thing mentioned above is a super easy, super delicious side dish that even "I can't cook" people can make. I know, I thought I hated cauliflower too, but the roasting really takes it to another level and turns it into something you've never known before. Basically just cut two heads into florets and such, toss them with olive oil, garlic, and a bit of salt, then throw them on to a baking sheet and roast in a pretty hot oven for 25-30 mins, until they get a little char on them but not so that they're mushy. Then just take 'em out, toss with paprika, chili flakes if you want some heat, and more salt to taste. Voila, there you go. This also works great with broccoli.
Speaking of having vegetables lying around: I would like to urge all of my loyal readers to join a CSA! CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and is a wonderful scheme implemented by small, local farms to great success in the past five years or so. Basically, you find a farm you like and pay up front for an entire season of produce delivery, which consists of a box of veggies (or whatever) every one or two weeks, mostly. Most have options for a small box or a large box; some farms offer home delivery, for a fee, but more likely there will be a drop-off spot somewhere in your city - so it's important to find one with a drop-off close to where you live or work. Some weeks are light, some weeks are heavy, but every week is delicious.
It's definitely a little more work than what many people are used to, as you have to work with what you get (i.e. no special requests, generally), which requires that you try out some new recipes with products you may have never tried before. But honestly, it made my last fall a lot of fun. Every week was a little more exciting, not knowing what was going to come out of the box. I ate a whole lot more salad than I was doing, given that I always got a ton of winter lettuce and spinach, which turned out to be a very good thing. I'd never really eaten squash or kale or radishes or beets or really most of the things I got; but now I eat them all and have great recipes in my book for each one of them.
The great thing about this system is that the farms have a little bit more security in a sometimes insecure line of work. They get some cash up front - so it's sort of like a mini investment on your end - and they have a consistent outlet for the produce that's coming out of the fields. And of course, the farmer gets the full dollar - as opposed to when one buys food at the grocery store, where the farmer receives, on average, 11 cents on the dollar. Of course, if you can't commit to a full CSA, head over to the farmer's market for the same reasons! They usually run until the middle of October! It does indeed tend to be a bit more expensive, but knowing now what it is to pluck each individual green bean by hand, I'm even more convinced that supporting a living wage and good working conditions for the people growing our food is a truly worthwhile investment. Not to mention (a) you're going to have way less worries about salmonella and e. coli and all those terrible things in the news, which almost always stem from large-scale processing centers and (b) you're getting the best quality produce, eggs, meat, cheese, etc. around.
If you are interested in the CSA thang, check out this website to get started: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/. I don't know if it's too late to sign up for a summer CSA, but like a said, fall vegetables are a lot of fun to work with as well.
Phew! That took a lot of energy. Hopefully you all aren't bored to tears. In closing, I'm going to make a plug for chard, an unsung hero of the vegetable world. It's a "leafy green," one o' them "superfoods" folks talk about, and it has many excellent attributes. First of all, it's one of the coolest looking plants I've ever seen, coming in colors ranging from white to yellow to bright orange to magenta.
Seriously though that picture doesn't halfways do it justice. It's like that experiment you did in third grade where you put carnations in blue water so the petals turned colors, except on drugs and forealz. In any case, both the stems and the leaves can be eaten, and it's mad full of nutrients. Have you ever had a recipe tell you to use three stalks of celery, and you're like, "What the good goddam am I going to do with the rest of this celery? I guess I'll let it rot in my refrigerator drawer."? I'm going to go ahead and suggest that next time, you should buy some chard! Use the stems instead of celery, then sautee the leaves and whatever's left of the stems with some garlic and olive oil and salt for a simple and tasty side dish. I was skeptical, as well, seeing as I HATE sauteed spinach, but chard is waaay milder and way more delicious and I actually really liked it.
Okay dear reader that's all for now. It's 8pm and I'm ready for bed.
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