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.

Chain of Foods

The Toronto Star says university researchers tested the DNA of 100 supermarket and restaurant fish and found 25% was mislabeled. This isn't terribly surprising considering how many stops there are in our food supply chain, and how hard it is to tell fish apart once it's been filleted.

And speaking of Ontario, an outbreak of Listeria there has killed four people. Same story as we've seen here in the states with tomatoes and peppers -- huge recall, not sure about the source, large food company had to close to clean up anyway took a dive in its stock price. Our food safety really is much better than it was years ago, but it could be better still if only the industry would slow down a little, keep better records and do more training.

Here's a good example. NaturalNews reports the FDA wants to start irradiating lettuce and spinach to kill e.coli. The problem is irradiation may destroy nutritional value. I can see why the FDA is doing this -- bacterial outbreaks are deadly and very hard to trace. The last one was devastating to tomato growers before we found out that Mexican peppers, not U.S. tomatoes were the culprit. So a decision which supports business and kills a deadly bacteria seems like a win-win. Nutrition? Well, many people believe Americans already get a nutritious diet. But we don't, and the big win-win would be that modification to our food supply chain mentioned above.

Weekly Wrapup - The Weirdness of US

From yesterday's NC17: Tyson Foods recalled 51,000 pounds of frozen raw chicken breast tenderloin because it may have contained undeclared soy. Are we the only country in the world whose raw chicken breast actually contains other food?

From last week's N&O: IBM received $750,000 in incentives from Durham County to build their new cloud computing network center in RTP. The Center will employ 10 people. That's $75,000 in taxpayer money per employee. Worth it? Some old time IBMers I know said those 10 employees will be offshore folks working remotely. They may have been joking, I don't know.

From last month's AP: "An AP-Yahoo! News poll found that pet owners favor McCain over Obama 42 percent to 37 percent, with dog owners particularly in McCain's corner." Before I vote, I want to know how the numbers change when you include Cyber pets and Chia Turtles.

Eating at the Fourth Level of Bliss

When you bring home meat from the grocery store and use it in your most favorite dish, it's wonderful. But that's only eating at the first level of bliss.

Go to the butcher section, or someplace like Fresh Market, and get that same cut of meat (beef, chicken, pork) without antibiotics or hormones and use that in your favorite dish. If you're old enough, you'll say it tastes like meat you remember. Also there are now less antibiotics and hormones in the population. That's the second level with a bonus bliss for all.

Now take it up another notch. Go someplace like Whole Foods and get an organic cut. This may spoil you for grocery store meat because the final dish will be moister with more flavor then you're used to. It may just be healthier too. Third level bliss additions for all: less agricultural pollution, less reliance on foreign oil, better treatment of the animals.

Ready for the fourth level of dining bliss? Look for locally produced and slaughtered, grass-based meat. (Try a farmer's market, or do a web search for CSA or Metropolitan Buying Club.) You are now eating what five-star chefs serve. The bliss bonus: Natural and humane treatment of the animals, much more efficient use of resources, even less reliance on foreign oil, and improved local economy. The best thing? You know where your meat comes from the next time there's an e-coli scare.