beet green spaghetti with raisins/cauliflower with hazelnut, pear and sage

This is this sort of meal I miss making now, in the dead of winter. God, I can't wait for spring! When the food co-op is in full swing, our fridge is chock full of all sorts of weird veggie odds and ends, and it's both a pleasure and a challenge to use that bounty as fully and creatively as I can. For instance: you don't often see them at the grocery store, but there are a lots of vegetables that come with a bunch of leafy greens growing out of one end. Most of the time, those go to waste, which is a shame because those greens can be really tasty, whether they come from turnips, radishes or yes, even beets.

fusilli with tuna, tomatoes and greens

This dinner came together around this delicious wasabi mayo that they serve with the tuna sandwich at Lure Fishbar. I work in the same building as Lure, and our magazine has a trade account there, which we always use to order food for meetings with different museum curators. One time, we ordered a couple of the tuna sandwiches, and they gave us a big tub of their housemade wasabi mayo to go with them.

After the lunch was over, and I successfully scavenged the leftovers, I brought home the big thing of mayo with the intentions of searing off a nice tuna steak to go with it for my dinner. Instead, I made this pasta.

beet risotto

So what do you do when you don't like beets and your food co-op keeps providing them by the bushel? (I have to admit, I don't actually know how much a bushel is, but I suspect it is rather a large amount, so even though we get lots and lots of beets, I am probably exaggerating here.) Make something that I really really really like, and hope that it makes the boring beets more enjoyable. And so, beet risotto!

minestrone

As I've discussed, kale is my least favorite food co-op veggie. I never know what to do with it, and it's always disappointing to get it from the food co-op.

I volunteered for a couple hours during distribution recently, and there were actually several people there lamenting the lack of greens this season. While I was in a different co-op last year, and was not among the members who complained about getting too many greens, I had to admit that I shared their sentiment. When I explained that I never knew what to do with all that kale, one woman suggested cooking it in oil with lots of garlic, adding chicken stock, red pepper flakes, cannellini beans and pasta to make a minestrone soup. When she put it like that, it sounded pretty good!


minestrone soup

I did pretty much exactly what she told me to. I used kale and beet tops, (which made it turn pink) as my greens, and threw in some carrot rounds as well. Nathan told me that minestrone is supposed to have tomatoes in it, so I tossed in some leftover tomato sauce. Then after it had been simmering for awhile, we tasted it. Nathan was worried that the chicken broth was too bland, so I told him to add some more red pepper flakes. He did NOT stop dumping them in when I said and thus the soup was far too hot, but STILL managed to be a little bland. Not terrible, but not that great. Next time I'll use a legit recipe, or maybe just add some onions. Also, I used canned beans and Nathan convinced me not to rinse off the bean gunk. That was probably a mistake. I think the beans tasted a little funky, especially on the reheat, and I've never had that problem with canned beans that I've rinsed.


spicy minestrone topped with grated romano cheese

beet top fried rice

ginger fried rice with beet tops and a fried egg

This is definitely one of those meals you make just to get rid of excess produce, so unless you've got an excessive amount of beet tops in your fridge, I doubt you'll want to replicate this at home. However, it was still damn tasty and fried rice is always easy and delicious.

I've covered fried rice a couple of times before, and aside from the addition of the beet tops, this dish was very similar to its previous incarnations.

I start with minced garlic and ginger, and crisp that up in some hot vegetable oil. Then I sautee whatever mix ins I am using— beet tops in this case, but that could very easily be mushrooms or pork or scrambled egg or even just frizzled scallions, (or leeks, as the Marc Bittman original called for).

In this instance, I kept the garlic and ginger in the pan and added my chopped beet tops, which were dripping wet from just having been washed. I let them get nice and wilty, and then I emptied the pan. I added more vegetable oil, and cooked the leftover rice until it got sticky. A dash of soy sauce, a splash of sesame oil, mixed to combine, and then add back in the greens, garlic and ginger. Topped with a fried egg, it was a typically yummy fried rice. The stems of the beets did start to turn things pink, which was funny and cool, but other than that it was fairly standard.


fried rice with beet tops