Pasta with beet greens, tomatoes, and pancetta

The beets keep on coming and I keep on not being too thrilled about that. The first week we had them, I was virtuous and used the greens as well as the beets, and no one was very happy with the result. This week's recipe is an attempt to remedy the problems with my previous attempt by adding bacon. I think it was a success. I was inspired by these two recipes and, of course, what happened to be in the fridge tonight.

The plan for the beets themselves is brownies, or maybe cupcakes. If chocolate and bacon can't fix beets, nothing can.


Pasta with Beet Greens, Tomatoes, and Pancetta

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 4 oz diced pancetta
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 cups halved grape tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 small bunch beet greens, stems removed, sliced into strips width-wise
• 8 oz spaghetti
• shredded Parmesan

Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Add the pancetta and cooking, stirring occasionally, until crisp. Remove the pancetta with a slotted spoon and drain off all but 2 tbs of the fat.

Add the shallots and saute them until they begin to caramelize. Add the tomatoes and garlic cloves, and cook until the tomatoes begin to soften, about 2 minutes. Add the beet greens and cook until they begin to wilt, about 3 minutes. Season to taste.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti. Reserve about 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Add the drained spaghetti back to the pot, and stir in the greens mixture. Add as much water as needed to make a smooth sauce. Serve with Parmesan cheese.

Quesadillas with chard, zucchini, and black beans

Our first zucchini of the summer came in this week's CSA box, along with some more chard, which coincided perfectly with this recipe that my mom had just emailed to me. It made a perfect summertime dinner and would have been better only with a cold beer, but I'm still figuring out Pennsylvania's liquor laws.

Quesadillas with Chard, Zucchini, and Black Beans
adapted from Cultivating Sustainability

Ingredients:

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 1 large zucchini (or any kind of summer squash)
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 medium bunch of chard, chopped, including stems
• 1 15oz can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• 12 oz shredded Mexican cheese blend
• 8 flour tortillas
• sour cream and/or salsa, for serving

In a wok or other large frying pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and zucchini and saute until they begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another 2 minutes. Add the chard and beans and saute for another 4 minutes, or until the chard is tender. Season with salt to taste.

Lightly oil another frying pan or skillet, and heat over medium heat. Assemble the quesadilla (either right in the pan, like me, or on a cutting board if you are better than I am at transferring it): sprinkle some cheese over the tortilla, add about 1 cup of the chard mixture and spread it out evenly, then top with more cheese and another tortilla. Cook until the bottom tortilla is browned, then flip the quesadilla and continue cooking until both sides are browned.

Serve with sour cream, salsa, and/or any other toppings or sides you like.

Two fennel salad recipes

Based on a single experience with a roast chicken and fennel recipe, we were pretty sure that we didn't like fennel. So I wasn't too thrilled to get a bulb of baby fennel in our first CSA box, but decided to make the best of it. And it turns out that fennel is not so bad, especially raw in salads. We got another fennel bulb in our Week 3 box, so I tried another salad variation. Both are good, and I apologize to fennel for judging it so harshly before.

Fennel Salad with Spinach, Orange, and Feta
adapted from these two Bon Appétit recipes

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tbs rice wine vinegar
• 2 tbs finely chopped shallot
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 6 oz baby spinach
• 1 small fennel bulb, very thinly sliced
• 3 oranges, segmented
• 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

Whisk the first four ingredients in a small bowl, and season with salt and pepper.

Divide the spinach among four plates. Scatter the sliced fennel and orange segments over. Sprinkle with feta and drizzle with the dressing.

Beet, Orange, and Fennel Salad

adapted from Bon Appétit

Ingredients:

• 5 baby beets*
• 3-4 oranges
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 2 tbs lemon juice
• 1 small fennel bulb, very thinly sliced
• 1/4 red onion, very thinly sliced
• olive oil
• sea salt

*This was all we had, and for me it was enough, but use more and/or larger beets if you like.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Wash the beets, place them in a small baking dish, and cover them with foil. Add 1/8" water to the dish. Roast beets until tender when pierced with a knife, about 30 minutes for baby beets.

Meanwhile, segment the oranges. The instructions from the original recipe are: "cut all peel and white pith from all oranges; discard. Working over a medium bowl, cut between membranes of 2 blood oranges to release segments into bowl; squeeze juice from membranes into bowl and discard membranes". What I did was cut the oranges into segments, slice off the peel from each segment, and squeeze the little bit of juice from the inside of the peel into a bowl. Whatever works to give you a couple tablespoons of orange juice.

Add orange zest and lemon juice to the bowl.

When the beets are done, run them under cold water to cool and peel them. Slice thinly.

Divide fennel, red onion, beets, and oranges among four plates. Drizzle with orange juice mixture and olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt.

Bonus! Tomato and Fennel Salad with Feta

This isn't really a recipe, just something I did to use up the leftover fennel from the first round. I chopped up about four tomatoes, then mixed them with the leftover fennel slices (maybe about 1/4 cup by that point), a handful of the fennel fronds, 1/4 cup of feta, and balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing. Pretty good.

Beef stir fry with snow peas & green onions

For a while now, I've been posting links to recipes I've tried as @foodlings over on Twitter. I've let it lapse for a couple of months, first because of the move, and then because of the CSA. Not that I haven't been cooking a lot these days, but I have to use what's in the box, which means I'm modifying recipes or just sort of making things up. It's hard to convey all of that in a tweet, and I can't just link to a single page all of the time now.

Except, I have a blog! Yes, it's taken me this long to realize that I could explain all of my variations or write out recipes here, and link to my own posts. I've shied away from posting recipes for a long time because there are so many good, well-tested recipes out there from so many experienced cooks/bloggers. And, I don't usually have any food pictures to post, my excuses being a) I don't have any nice serving dishes or plates and b) I'm too hungry by the time I'm done cooking to stage a photo shoot.

But I don't want to let my foodlings Twitter lapse, or lose track of all the things I've made this summer, so here we go.

I can offer this picture, where you can sort of see the two things I used in tonight's dinner:

Beef Stir Fry with Snow Peas and Green Onions

Ingredients:

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced
• 1 small bunch of green onions, cut into 2-3 inch strips
• 1 lb beef, sliced into strips
• 1 pint snow peas
• 2 tbs rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbs cornstarch
• 2-3 tbs soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

In a bowl, whisk the rice wine vinegar, cornstarch, soy sauce, and red pepper flakes. Set aside.

Heat 2 tbs oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the ginger for another 30 seconds.

Add the green onions and saute them for 2-3 minutes or until they start to get soft. Add the beef and cook until browned, about 3-4 minutes. Add the snow peas for 2-3 minutes.

Pour the soy sauce mixture into the wok and stir it in well with the beef and vegetables. Let it cook another 1-2 minutes, then serve with rice.

Since this is a stir fry, there are really no rules. For example, I like my green onions pretty soft but if you want them crispier, you could cook them for less time. Adjust cooking times and ingredients as you like.