kohlrabi and other csa vegtables

I began to lose my patience for salads and uncooked meals. With kohlrabi, zucchini and spring onion waiting to be used, I decided upon two things. First, zucchini strips sautéed quick with garlic and almonds. Second — and yes, this spikes the temperature in your kitchen by a good twenty-five degrees — gratin of kohlrabi, spring onions and fennel.

Take one decent sized kohlrabi bulb, one onion and one small fennel bulb. Slice all very thin (a mandoline, one of those compact Japanese ones, is perfect for this. Or a sharp knife). Blanch the kohlrabi in salted water. Drain, toss with other vegetables and a dose of cream. Season. Place in a gratin dish, cover with a bit of cheese (maybe something Swiss — this was that aged "Finlandia" cheese) and some fresh breadcrumbs. Bake at 300º until bubbly, then pass under the broiler for a minute. It'll still have a nice crunch to it.

Then sauté some almonds and garlic in olive oil and butter, add zucchini in spaghetti-like strips. You want to just heat this through. Season. The zucchini should be just warmed. Use maybe one small zucchini per person, one large for two, etc. Sprinkle with fresh tarragon. Or maybe thyme.

Perfect with bitter greens (such as mizuna, tatsoi and mustard greens) tossed with nothing more than oil and vinegar.

ravioli with tarragon beurre noisette

I started with three cloves garlic, a small onion, a small carrot and lots of greens (more than shown, in fact, I probably doubled that) : mizuna, komatsuna, kabura turnip greens ans mustard greens, all chopped very fine.

Make your pasta: 1 2/3 - 1 3/4 cups semolina, 2 eggs, salt. Cover with a damp towel.

Sauté the garlic, onions and carrots until slightly translucent in 2 tbs butter/1tbs olive oil. Add the greens, cook until they've lost a good deal of moisture. Add 1 tbs cream and season with salt and pepper.

Roll the pasta out until its pretty thin. Shape ravioli free form (like I did) for large ones or use a mold.

While prepping the beurre noisette, let the ravioli rest on a grate to dry slightly.

Heat 6 tbs butter, skim. Cook until it starts to brown (it will get darker even once poured out)., then pour into another container. Add 2 tbs fresh tarragon. Deglaze the pan with 1½ - 2 tbs vinegar and reduce to 1½ tsp. Pour butter back into pan, turn off heat.

Meanwhile, poach the ravioli.

Top with the beurre noisette.

Very very good. And pretty simple. The idea came from sorrel-turnip green raviolis with beurre noisette that I had once. Tarragon makes it even better.

(nota bene: At $7.99 a bottle, the wine in one of those photos, La Poule blanche, is great. It's Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier: a little minetally — not much — with fruit and a nice finish. Perfect for summer.)

crucifers

The CSA has brought many wonderful things this far into the season: komatsuna (a wholly new green to me), tatsoi (ditto), mizuna, turnips, bok choy... Thinking about it, I wonder if that actually counts as any diversity in my diet as all five of those plants are the same plant: Brassica rapa. (It's amazing that we've managed to get so much out of one species in a few thousand years). There has also been lettuce, radishes (pictured at left with baby turnips and salt as a crudité — the calendula and other flowers also from the CSA), arugula, kale, kolrahbi and broccoli. (Those last three are one plant—Brassica oleracea—, and close relatives of that first group).

This simple salad was actually quite good, I was extremely happy with it. It's mizuna and argula, chopped, with thinly sliced young turnips. These turnips are sweet and pair very well with the spice of the arugula and the bite of mizuna. A little sprinkle of salt, some mild olive oil and some (raw) red wine vinegar (not much!) made it perfection.

Here's to a summer of eating food grown less than two miles from home!

(Oh... and there were six quarts of strawberries for picking. Looks like I have to make jam!)