Recipes and food ideas

Got my first CSA box this week! I may need help with the Problem Children:

  • Red Russian Kale
  • A whole bunch of fresh Dill (I have whole fat [not greek] plain yogurt and a cucumber as well)
  • 2 Beets (will also check earlier in thread for Beet discussion)

edit: 2 beets! There was another one hiding under everything else.

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Dill will ofc go well in a raita/tzatziki-esque sauce, which will be great with pretty much anything (including bean dishes). Dill is also amazing with lemon on basically any meat, or as part of salad dressing. Also – dill bread!

In the summertime, I like beets cut into chunks and steamed as part of a leafy salad.

The kale could go in a salad or could be sauteed and served with eggs/toast for brekkie, or as part of a stirfry (we do kale + sweet potato stirfries sometimes).

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Dill can also be frozen for later use!

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If it’s not too hot there, I love roasted beets. I just cover in olive oil, salt, then whatever spice I want, then roast at 350 until a fork goes in them easily. That would go great with a tzatziki dipping sauce!

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I picked up some flour sack towels last night so I could make Greek yogurt so I could make tzatziki!

When you roast them, are you roasting them whole? Or taking the skin off and cutting them up first?

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@Illathrael I boil beets skin on and then when they’re done the skin literally slides right off. For roasting I would peel, chop, then roast (like a potato). Since you only have one beet though, I’d just peel it and grate it (like with a cheese grater) and use that as topping for salads and sandwiches and stuff. Raw beet is underrated!

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I don’t know why, but I prefer to peel them before roasting vs. after. I cut them into maybe 1.5" cubes.

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Funny enough, I have two beets! There was one hiding under the others. So I think maybe for #1 I’ll try some of it raw, and #2 I’ll roast it.

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Well that sounds very fair, and scientific. :laughing:

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I am in experimentation mode. I love that I have carrots and green onions, I know what to do with those! Everything else is new and different.

Also, the garlic scapes sauteed in butter were delicious.

And I finally picked up a pair of kitchen shears last night - it made prepping the kale and beet greens so much easier!

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If you shredded the beet and carrot together and made a vinaigrette of olive oil, lemon juice, and cumin, it would be very delicious!

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Kale chips! Tear leaves into little pieces, toss with a little olive oil, just enough to coat, add seasoning (I used garlic powder), bake at 350 until crispy and no longer soggy. I just did this, it was lovely and made a satisfyingly crunchy workday snack. Watch them closely, though, they go from crisp to burnt really quickly.

You can dry dill for later use, I’ve done that when my plants produced a LOT (like, I’m still using last summer’s dried stash and didn’t bother planting any this year as I’ll never get through all this). I just put it in a paper bag with the top folded over and leave it in a cool dry place. Then you can crumble it and store it, I use a mason jar.

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@bucketsofrain um that sounds AMAZING and I just picked up some more lemon juice!

@TrisPrior I’m not a crispy crunchy kinda gal, but I’ll give the kale chips a try! Also I think I’ll definitely be drying the dill, there’s just too much here for me to use all at once!

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Warning…I am a crunchy girl and have had highly coated kale chips, but homemade ones do not taste good to me and I love kale! So try like one baking pan of kale chips, and try some salted, some boiled then buttered and maybe lemon juice and some as salad and experiment with it allllll

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Beets update:

Turns out I don’t have a peeler? I thought I did, but that’s how infrequent I actually use one (basically never), so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I carefully peeled the raw beet with a knife, shredded it, added shredded carrots, and tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette.

This is delicious.

So that’s one beet and two carrots down, and tomorrow I’ll probably add it to the red lettuce and kale for a salad, or I might toss the same ingredients in a wrap, we’ll see.

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I want to make banana bread, but it’s hot. If I make the batter and put it in loaf pans, then refrigerate, can I bake in the morning? Or will it all collapse since it’s baking soda and not yeast?

I think the leavening power of baking soda would poop out before you baked. What if you measured everything out tonight, mixed all the dry ingredients so that you can mix it up quickly tomorrow morning?

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I have done this with pancakes. Everything but the baking soda, then do baking soda in the morning. I think my pancakes turned out a little different (like, 97% what I was expecting) but this could entirely be because sometimes I go off memory rather than by the recipe book.

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Mixing is the fastest part but I suppose I would have to wait for the oven to preheat anyway. :thinking:

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I have beer, beet greens, kale, and all required sugar/spices. I do not have collard greens. Will this recipe work for beet greens and kale?

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