Get to know your veggies—Cabbage

 

I know that things are going to “get wild” around here pretty soon, so I’m getting a head start on “vegucation” about the vegetables grown on the farm.  This article is about cabbage.

The cabbage grown at Wild Things is a mix of mini-cabbages including a purple cabbage, savoy cabbage, and green cabbage.  The heads are about the size of a softball, and are a great size for a meal, without tons of leftovers to deal with.  Cabbage is a cool-weather crop, so it’s planted in the spring and the fall.

Cabbage is an excellent source of vitamin C and a good source of vitamin K, which both benefit the liver.  Cabbage contains indoles, naturally occurring nitrogenous compounds known to lower the risk of a variety of cancers, including lung, colon, breast, and ovarian.  Cabbage also contains manganese, calcium, potassium and magnesium, as well as vitamins B1, B2, B6, folate, vitamin A, omega-3 fatty acids, protein, and tryptophan.

The potent sulfur-containing compound sinigrin in cabbage helps detoxify carcinogens in the body, but this is also partly responsible for the strong odor when cooking cabbage.  To get the maximum health benefits from cabbage (as well as other vegetables), thinly slice the raw leaves and eat them raw in recipes, or saute or steam them quickly with other veggies and herbs to retain their freshness and flavor.

Cabbage can be stored in the crisper for several weeks.  I like to wrap it in a plastic grocery bag so it can breathe, but still maintain moisture.  If some of the outer leaves get a little wimpy, just peel them off and toss in the compost pile. 

One of my favorite ways to prepare cabbage is to pour 1 or 2 tbs evoo in a pan, heat it on medium heat, add a sliced onion, sliced cabbage and stir it around a little to get the veggies coated with oil and they start to cook a little.  Add a dash of water and put a lid on the pan.  Steam the cabbage until tender, add salt and pepper, dash of hot sauce if you like, and serve. 

The statistics on cabbage were gleaned from The Herb Companion, March 2009.

 

Playing with Polenta

I had my first experience with polenta about 8 years ago.  My oldest son had been on a backpacking trip and someone brought polenta for their meal and he wanted to make some.  He bought a 5 pound bag of cornmeal, got my biggest pot, mixed water with the entire bag, cooked it, and then it was supposed to go in the  fridge overnight.  I’m not exactly sure just how much polenta he made, but let’s just say that it was probably the amount that a very busy restaurant, running polenta for the special of the day, would have made!  I let him “do his thing” and I finally had to throw the biggest majority of it out a week or so later. 

Back to the present.  I made a batch of polenta the other night.  I used 1 cup yellow cornmeal and 3 cups of water. I added a tsp of salt also.   Bring the water to a boil then slowly whisk in the cornmeal (so it won’t make lumps).  Cook it for 10 or 15 minutes on med/low heat, until the meal is soft.  Pour the mixture into a greased round cake pan and press it down.  It goes in the fridge overnight.  You can also make like a sausage roll and wrap it in plastic, then slice it off as you need it. 

Polenta is kind of like rice or pasta; it’s a good foundation for sauces, vegetables, or cheesy things.  That same son came by for lunch the other day and I sliced a couple of slices of polenta, browned them in a skillet, sautee’d a couple of slices of onion and a sliced poblano pepper in a tablespoon of Evoo, then threw a handful of spinach leaves just for the heck of it.  After the spinach was wilted, I served the grilled polenta topped with the sauteed veggies as a side dish to great northern beans I had cooked the day before.  He said it was fabulous!   I think it would be good to deglaze the pan with balsamic vinegar also. 

You can also put cheese, garlic, or peppers in the polenta before it’s cooled.  

If you’ve priced polenta at the store, then priced cornmeal and look at how simple it is to make, it’s like a no-brainer.  Make your own!

p.s.  My son is a most excellent cook now 🙂

Chickens, Goat Cheese, Winter, Great Danes

You might be wondering what in the world do goat cheese, chickens, great danes, and winter have in common?  Well, the goat cheese is something I’ve been wanting to try for quite some time but just haven’t done.  Yesterday, a friend and I did our grocery shopping together (it’s  more fun to do this deed with a friend) and we decided to split a package of goat cheese because neither one of us had ever tried it.  Today I made the most awesome salad for lunch with spinach, a thin slice of onion, about 4 sliced up mushrooms, a small handful of walnuts, 1/2 apple sliced up, and about 2 TBS of goat cheese crumbled over the top.  I like honey mustard dressing, so that’s what I used.  It was very tasty.  The cheese has a very strong flavor and is somewhat salty; I’m anxious to find a recipe to use the rest of my half package.  It’s really pretty good–you ought to try it if you haven’t. 

The chickens have to do with winter, as does the great dane.  I’ve got a light bulb on in their roost (upstairs part of the tractor pictured above) to keep them warm during these frigid days.  I’ve also had to swap out their waterers twice a day because they have been freezing pretty quickly.  Chickens drink a lot of water and take extra time during frigid temps!   I’ve also not been able to move them around the pasture very much the last few days ( like there aren’t a lot of bugs out right now anyway!) 

Today it reached 33 degrees; the first time it’s been above freezing since New Year’s Day.  I know other parts of the country get that cold every year, but we usually don’t get that cold for that long.   The great dane is very old (his name is Buck) and he shivers and chatters his teeth (he does it in the summer too), so I feel sorry for him even though he has a nice warm doghouse.  I’ve been letting him stay in the house during this really cold weather, along with Reuben the Catahoula, Angus the Boxer, and Cooper, the bad-haired terrier (he’s a shelter rescue).  We’re all snug and cozy in the house waiting for warmer weather—oh, and waiting for eggs too!  Yep, that’s why I got chickens 🙂

Cabbage Rolls

The members of the Wild Things CSA Farm get to enjoy “baby cabbages” rather than a full head of cabbage when it’s in season.  A baby cabbage is just about the right size for a meal and you don’t have all that cabbage left over to deal with for weeks on end (it seems like anyway).  Last night for supper I fixed Sweet and Sour Pork with Brown Rice and these yummy cabbage rolls.  A lot of people are afraid of using egg roll wrappers, but they are really not as scary as they seem. 

The ingredients and preparation are as follows:

1 head baby cabbage (green), sliced into thin slices

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

1 carrot, grated

dash of soy sauce

dash of garlic powder

I used a pork chop left from supper the night before that I had put in the blender but you can use chicken or shrimp, or any kind of meat (I’ve never used beef, but I suppose it would be tasty).  A vegetarian cabbage roll would be perfectly fine too, you could add tofu maybe…..

Saute’ all of these ingredients in either a wok or a frying pan until it’s all limp, but not quite done (it will finish cooking in the wrapper)

Take an egg roll wrapper and lay it out on a flat surface.  I use a small bowl of water on the side to dampen my fingers then run them around the edges of the wrapper to moisten them.  Put a heaping spoon of the cabbage mixture in the middle of the wrapper (about 1/4 cup or so).  Fold the bottom third of the wrapper up over the cabbage and kind of tuck it in under the cabbage mixture then roll it all the way up and stick the top part of the wrapper to the roll.  Take the ends and mash them till the wrapper seals together then fold them over towards the middle about 1/2″ or so and voila’, you have a cabbage roll!  Roll all of them out; this recipe made 14 rolls.  You can keep the extra wrappers in the fridge and use them later.  They also freeze well.

Back to the rolls–heat up about 1/2-1″ oil in a wok or frying pan (I used the same one from the cabbage mixture, just wipe it out).  If you use a wok it takes less oil.  Place the rolls in the oil, a couple at a time, and turn them when the bottom side gets brown.  It only takes a couple minutes to cook them.  Drain on paper towels and serve with duck sauce, sweet and sour sauce, hot mustard, or whatever you choose.

Broccoli Salad

Fall veggies are almost a pleasant memory.  There are a few stray heads of broccoli and cabbage still trickling into the kitchen, but they are about to succumb to freezing weather.  A couple of small heads of broccoli were scavenged from the garden a day or so ago, and I have a wonderful recipe for broccoli salad that any broccoli lover has to try!

Broccoli Salad

In the bowl on the left I mixed about 4 cups of washed broccoli broken up into pretty small florets, about 2 tablespoons of bacon bits, 1/2 cup chopped onion, and 8 ounces of cheddar cheese, cut into small chunks (less than 1/2″)

In a large measuring cup I put 1 cup mayo, 2 tablespoons white vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.  Mix this all together to make a dressing.

Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss well.  Put in the frig for at least 1-2 hours, better overnight.  Try not to eat it all at once!

 

Turnips

I think there should be a new crayon color called “Turnip”.  Isn’t that a beautiful color?  Five years ago I wouldn’t have “touched a turnip with a 10-foot pole”, but now I look forward to pulling the first ones out of the ground.  I have a new recipe, that’s why!  I never understood how anyone could eat a boiled turnip (and  I still don’t like them) but I was taught a new way to fix them:

Fried Turnips

Peel the turnips and slice them about 1/4″ thick, maybe just a shade thinner, moisten them with water, then bread them with dry pancake mix (you can use flour if you want).  Fry them in hot oil until they are browned and tender.  Dip them in honey mustard or that really hot Chinese mustard.  They are wonderful appetizers; it’s just hard to quit eating them to save room for supper!

I did roast some turnips the other night with small potatoes, cubed sweet potatoes, an onion, and several cloves of garlic, all coated with a couple of  “glogs” of olive oil, sea salt, and pepper.  (A glog is one of the squirts that comes out when you shake the olive oil bottle).   Roast them for 10-15 minutes then roll them around and cook until tender.  After I started eating I realized I should have added carrots….oh well, it was still yummy!

Eggcellent Eggplant (aka Eggplant meatballs)

In spite of the extremely wet weather this gardening season, the eggplant did very well.  To help members find creative ways to use eggplant, I tried this recipe and it is quite tasty.  I did freeze a few of them to see how they fare when being thawed and reheated, but that hasn’t happened yet.  Will let you know how they do.

(post edited on September 15, 2013)

I have since “tweaked” this recipe to work much, much, better.  When the eggplant was sauteed in a pan via the orginal recipe it came out wet and soupy, so I “became the eggplant”.   Roasting on paper in the oven cooks it much drier so it makes the meatballs stick together a LOT better.  The original recipe also calls for baking them in the oven which works okay, but doing them on a covered grill works better and gives them great flavor.  ALSO, I made up a BUNCH of these and froze them, prior to cooking.  I have taken some out and cooked them from frozen and they were delicious, so there you go–a great way to use up extra eggplant!

Eggplant Meatballs

1 large or several small eggplant
1 tsp garlic powder
2 beaten eggs
1 tsp onion powder
1/3 cup parmesan or romano cheese
black pepper, to taste
1 tsp mixed Italian herbs
sea salt, to taste
1 cup breadcrumbs

Peel and slice eggplant and sprinkle with salt.  Let sit 10 minutes to draw out water.  Rinse and pat dry.  Place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and bake at 300 degrees for about 10 minutes or until the eggplant is soft.  Remove and let it cool then chop finely (I used a food processor).  Mix everything but the breadcrumbs.  Add breadcrumbs and mix until you get the consistency you want to form the balls (I had to add quite a few more breadcrumbs to get them as “stiff” as I wanted.  Form into balls and place in a generously olive-oiled pan about 1 inch apart and bake at 400 degrees until golden brown, about 40-60 minutes.  Turn halfway through baking to ensure even browning.  I did them in the oven once and in the grill once.  I liked them from the grill better–it seemed to dry out more of the moisture.

Serve as you would regular meatballs.

 

from Recipezaar.com