Kale 2 Electric Boogaloo, This Time with Garlic

We picked up some kale again this week, although this time it was Russian red kale. I'm really not sure what the difference between regular kale and Russian red kale is, except that Russian red kale looks suspiciously like a kind of lettuce.

While regular kale, if you recall, does not.

Brian pointed this out when he got home that evening, and I swore up and down that I grabbed the bag labeled "kale" at the farm stand. In his defense, this wouldn't have been the first time I mistakenly grabbed the wrong veggie, but I was extra careful this time. "I swear I grabbed the kale. Like there was an arrow pointing to it with the word 'Kale!' With exclamation points and everything."

So we agreed to just cook it as if it were kale, and, lo and behold, it worked. Because it was kale.

To mix things up a little, we did not use bacon this time, but whipped up a delicious garlic butter kale. It also happens to be an Insanely Easy Recipe.

Butter and Garlic Kale:

Ingredients:
Kale
Garlic
Butter
Salt and Pepper

Steps:
1. Melt butter in pan
2. Add minced garlic and kale
3. Sautee, stirring frequently, until kale is wilted
4. Add salt and pepper
5. EAT

The mysterious case of the disappearing green garlic

We are both quite familiar with garlic. There is little we cook that does not have garlic. Green garlic is simply the young shoot of garlic that, if it were left to mature, would turn into the big bulb of garlic that ends up in your marinara sauce. It has a milder garlic flavor, or so the literature informs me. It looks a little like this:

Garlic is garlic, so we chopped it up nice and fine, and tossed it in the slow cooker to make roast beef and French onion soup.

Slow Cooker Roast Beef and French Onion Soup

Beef roast - any size you want

Beef stock

1 large Vidalia onion

2 bulbs green garlic

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Steps:

1. Mince garlic into small pieces

2. Chop onion - you can use whatever size onion you'd prefer, but Brian and I use strips of onion about 1-2 inches long

3. Toss roast, onion, and garlic in slow cooker. Add Worcestershire sauce, and fill remaining space in slow cooker with beef stock

4. Cook in slow cooker until roast beef is falling apart

This recipe is flexible. If you want more soup, use a smaller roast. If you want more beef, a larger roast. You can adjust the amount of onion, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce as needed.

The fresh green garlic was amazing in this dish. It's a recipe we've done before, with regular garlic. The green garlic was indeed milder, and added an almost delicate note to the broth, without being overpoweringly garlicky. If you can get your hands on some green garlic, I highly recommend it in this dish.

The Loot: Week 1

Our vegetable share for week 1 was surprising.  Having never been a part of a CSA before, we were not sure what to expect.  More specifically, we were not sure how much to expect.  Certainly, it was not this much:

What a bounty!  We have green garlic and chives, kohlrabi and turnips, arugula, fava beans, a head of lettuce, and the biggest bunch of kale I've ever seen.  Granted, I've never cooked kale before, so it's possible that kale simply comes in very large bunches.

We also have a flower membership.  Every week we will bring home a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers.  (This may or may not be the primary reason that I wanted to do this in the first place.)  This week there are sunflowers, orange poppies, and a lot of unidentified white, yellow, and blue blossoms.  The photo doesn't do it justice.