Along with the many pounds of greens from our CSA last week, we also received a lovely eggplant. It could have been sautéed with the greens or included in a pasta dish at some point in the week, but I wanted to let it be the star. Baba ghanoush is always good, but I found a slightly different idea on Epicurious. This is a version of the Greek traditional eggplant spread known as melitzanosalata. Walnuts are used here instead of tahini.
By halving the recipe, the one eggplant made just enough puree for a snack for two with raw vegetables and toasted, sliced, whole grain ficelle. The green pepper was also from the farm, but the orange cauliflower came from the grocery store. The puree was fresh tasting, and the walnut flavor was just as good if not better than sesame. And, the recipe’s tip about using just a touch of sweetness worked well. The slight eggplant bitterness disappeared after a half teaspoon of honey was incorporated.
I drizzled a little olive oil on top and spattered about a bit of chopped Greek oregano for serving. A note with the recipe states that this spread hails from the northern part of Greece and that country bread is traditionally dipped into it. Any toasted bread would be good with this, especially pita, but the whole grain ficelle worked nicely with the eggplant and walnut flavors.
Have I mentioned the greens I’ve been cooking? I have. More than once? Well, then, I’ll just mention one more meal involving them this week. Thankfully they’re delicious in addition to being healthy, and they have inspired some creativity in my kitchen. Supplied with a big bag of cute and peppery tatsoi leaves, I had a couple of ideas. I thought they would make a good side for a simply seared salmon fillet, and I imagined some sweet persimmon slices would provide a nice flavor and color contrast. Then, I decided to make things just a tad more complicated.
In my head, I pictured the salmon fillet resting atop a thick sauce with a light and leafy composition on top with a garnish of persimmon slices. So, I thought back to a recent experience with broccoli rabe pesto, and decided to try a tatsoi, pecan pesto minus the cheese. To start, I blanched about four cups of the tatsoi leaves by placing them in a sieve, lowering the sieve into boiling water for one minute, and then moving it immediately into a bowl of ice water. The leaves were then squeezed to remove as much water as possible. Blanched leaves were placed in the blender with about a half cup of pecans, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and half a cup of olive oil. This was pureed and seasoned with salt and pepper. I left the bowl near the stove for it to keep warm while the salmon was prepared.
Wild Coho salmon fillets were seasoned and quickly cooked on the stovetop. I made a lemon and rice vinegar vinaigrette with shallots and dijon, and tossed a handful or two of fresh tatsoi leaves in it. I also cut some daikon into matchsticks and tossed them in the vinaigrette with the tatsoi. The tatsoi puree was pooled onto the center of the plate and received the salmon. The leaf and daikon combination was set onto the salmon, and then, persimmon slices found their place.
This was one of the quickest meals I’ve prepared lately. I kept looking around the kitchen thinking I’d forgotten something. It was a somewhat light and very nice meal. The vinaigrette and the oil in the puree added just enough richness to the greens. The blanched, pureed greens had less pepperiness than the fresh leaves which made for a good balance. And, the persimmons brightened up the plate literally and figuratively. Their flavor was outstanding with the salmon, and all the components together behaved exactly as I’d hoped. The daikon added nice crunch but wasn’t entirely necessary. If I were to make this again and couldn’t get tatsoi, arugula would work very well.
When your CSA gives you greens (lots and lots of greens), make, well, make greens several different ways. Here we have quesadillas with greens and then polenta with greens and blue cheese. First, the quesadillas, and that begins with a story. A few years back, I attended a Tyler Florence cooking demonstration at a wine and food festival here in Austin. He sent someone with a microphone into the audience so questions could be asked while he cooked. There was a lot of excited giggling among the ladies, and one pointed, culinary question asked was “boxers or briefs?” He feigned embarrassment and continued cooking his spicy black eyed peas to which he had added some salt pork. Then, a serious question was asked regarding how to add flavor to the peas yet make it a vegetarian dish. Tyler began his answer with something about life without pork and then said that if you really want to leave out the pork you could use a smoked turkey wing. The woman who asked the question gave him a quizzical look, and he said, oh right, vegetarian! You could add chipotles instead for smoky flavor. I’m so glad that stuck with me. That’s exactly what I did to impart a smoky character to the greens that I cooked for the quesadillas.
Multi-grain tortillas were layered with shredded dry Jack cheese and a little shredded cheddar along with the chipotle sautéed collard greens and some seeded and chopped tomatoes. The quesadillas were fried until golden on each side and served with a homemade chipotle tomato salsa and fresh guacamole with cilantro. Our CSA provided the tomatoes this week as well. Getting local tomatoes in November is one more reason to really like Austin. Shoe leather would probably taste good melted into a cheese-filled quesadilla, but these fresh, spicy, cooked greens were especially delicious in them. To about four cups of chopped collards, I added one big finely chopped chipotle as they sauteed. For the salsa, I had two ripe, medium tomatoes which I chopped and plopped into the food processor along with two chipotles, about a quarter of a cup of finely chopped onion, and the juice of one large lime. I also added chopped cilantro and salt after pulsing a few times. This was a rather hot salsa, so you could start with one chipotle and add more to taste.
The next day, greens were sauteed with garlic and served over polenta with parmigiana topped with Maytag blue cheese. I’m afraid I don’t have a story to go with this one. I just blatantly stole this idea from the amazing Herbivoracious site. I used collard greens here again, and this time they were sautéed in olive oil with sliced garlic and crushed red peppers. The polenta was simply cooked with water, and parmigiana was stirred in when it was done. The greens paired very well with the creamy, mild polenta, and the crumbled blue cheese amplified the overall flavor. This was a great dish. It was hearty and filling, and the cheeses worked perfectly with the slight bitterness of the greens.
We also received tatsoi, arugula, eggplant, daikon, green peppers, carrots, and cilantro from our share. The quality has been fantastic, and I’m having fun coming up with new and different ways to use every bit of what we receive.
