Beet greens for supper

I've never cooked beet greens before, and probably never would now except that I got a bunch of them in my CSA (community supported agriculture) box yesterday. Below are beet greens on the left, baby bok choy in the middle, and a humongous head of lettuce on the right. On the plate below, I've started to separate the leaves from the stems because the stems take longer to cook.

By the way, when I picked up the box yesterday, I had to ask why we were only getting beet greens. What happened to the beets? Well, these greens get pulled to thin out the beet patch. The beets are there, but they're tiny.

(Beet posing with spice bottle for perspective. Sorry about the blurry cell phone pic.)

The recipe included sauteed scallions and garlic (which also came from the CSA), then water and chopped beet greens. And it was MARVELOUS! Tasted somewhat like cabbage, but milder, and it picked up the flavors it was cooked with (onion, garlic and OIL). But a bunch (actually, 1/2 bunch) of beet green cooks down to about 1/4 of a bowlful.

(Beets posing with tea kettle for perspective.)

Yup, oily and good.


Oh yeah, last week Ward got a tick from the CSA box. This week he held it at arm's length and put it in the trunk.