CSA Week Five: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

And then, my friends, there was the time I came home to this beauty beaming at me from the front of my house:

Do you see it there? On the right? Poking up at me in all its grandeur? Ready to feed my body and soul?

Karl’s Farm brought kale with CSA Week Five's delivery. And on a week I knew I would only be home to cook for a few nights, as I had a weekend trip planned with my husband to the Delaware shore, home of my best friend from college and baker extraordinaire, who also happens to be married to an insanely talented chef who taught me everything I know about Swiss chard. I could not disappoint them in allowing a single leaf to go to waste. Once I returned from that trip on Sunday, just 24 hours later I would be taking off to Cayman for a week, partly for vacation, and partly due to the Caymanian justice system since Crown Counsel wanted me to testify in a trial early in the week related to a terrible car accident my friend and I endured intact a few years back, where one other person was not so lucky. If ever there was a time to revel in delicious, life-affirming food, this was it. And Karl’s Farm helped me out by providing a massive harvest. This week’s share included this gorgeous bounty, from left going clockwise:

• Hakurei turnips
• Joi Choi
• Spring onions
• Green cabbage (ominous as ever!)
• Sweet, delicious, beautiful kale
• Red beets
• D’Avignon radishes
• A zucchini the size of my left leg (approx.)

This week is what makes participation in a CSA so freaking fun – I needed to get creative and get to work! By my calculation, I had two nights to cook this list of vegetables. Or most of it, anyway. The cabbage would keep over a week easily, and the zucchini would last at least a week, too, but the rest cried out for consumption. Immediately.

As soon as I took stock, I made a mental plan. I did not pass go, I did not pour myself a dark and stormy, I did not turn on music. I knew the turnips, the joi choi, and the radishes would make an excellent meal when I had less time the night between trips. I took one look at those beets and knew they were mine, but the clock was ticking. I set about preparing the beets the way I have grown to lovee – and once again offered a mental special thanks to my friend Nicole Rivera for teaching me the simplicity of this beet preparation, thanks to facebook and her ever-helpful husband Jimmy. I set the oven to 400 – which was a few degrees higher than my normal temp for roasting beets – but given the late hour approaching 8 o’clock and my desire to have all cooking, eating, and cleaning complete before Brandon made it home from school around 9:45, I did not want to risk waiting an hour and a half for the beets to roast and cool adequately to be peeled. I cut the greens off the beets to store in a Ziploc bag (soon joined by the greens from the turnips), trimmed the stems, and scrubbed the beets with a brush (some would say this is unnecessary, but I don’t like to cook in all that dirt).

Then got a crazy idea to start the beets as I often do with potatoes I bake – for a few minutes in the microwave.

After two or so minutes, I learned this is not the wisest idea.

So, I would have to rely on my hot oven. I laid the beets on aluminum foil and drizzled with a hint of olive oil, then folded the foil into a packet before placing it on a cookie sheet. Now, there is great debate about whether to cover or uncover beets when roasting. I tend to always cover. I find they cook quite evenly this way, and faster, I presume. If nothing else, covering contains the potential mess illustrated by the above failed experiment.

I grabbed my Tuesday night New York strip (grass-fed, organic), plopped it in a dish, sprinkled it with Penzeys garlic salt and Northwood seasoning, drizzled it with Worcester and left it to marinade and come to room temperature while I prepped the veggies, both those for immediate cooking and those facing a short life in the refrigerator.

And prep I did. First, I poured a dark and stormy with Goslings dark spiced rum. Next, I set the grill to high. Then, I cut the greens from the turnips and radishes to store with the beet greens and sealed the radishes and turnips in their own plastic bags. I drained the water that Karl’s Farm so lovingly includes in bags of greens from the joi choi, wrapped the base in a damp paper towel, and stuck it in the fridge, right in front of the baby-free cabbage. Next, I stared at the zucchini for a good three minutes and wondered how many people this thing could feed before adding it to the crisper. I then assembled the necessaries for the star of the evening – garlic, half of the spring onions (trimming and bagging the other half for the fridge), and my BFF kale.

After washing with a brush and slicing the onions, I trimmed the kale into ribbons and rinsed in 4-5 changes of water. I put a pot of water on to boil for the kale; went outside to clean the grill, reduced the flame, and threw on the steak; and then minced copious amounts of garlic – but not too small. When the water began to boil, I tossed in a smidge of salt and the kale, then allowed it to cook down for a couple of minutes before draining. Again, some would say this step is unnecessary and add the raw leaves to the step below, but I like to soften the kale up ever so slightly before cooking it in oil.

After a few minutes, I drained the kale, went outside to flip the steak, probably poured another dark and stormy, took my perfect beets out of the oven to cool (a butter knife sailed right through, but with enough resistance to show me no mush within), then whipped out an All-Clad skillet for the kale. The kitchen was a frenzy, but I was having a blast. After heating up olive oil on a medium flame, I added the onions and, after they started to turn slightly translucent, the garlic and a toss of crushed red pepper flakes. My kitchen smelled like heaven with anticipation.

After a few minutes, I added the kale ribbons and began to turn turn turn.

Then I grabbed the steak off the grill to set (very important step, people!) and checked the beet temperature. Cooked beets are infinitely easier to peel than raw beets. I have heard that beet peels “shed like sweaters” after cooking, but I have no idea what this means. Or maybe I just wear tight sweaters. I can confirm, however, that peeling cooked beets is quite simple. Most people use gloves to avoid bright pink finger stains, but I think the finger stains are kind of cool, so I use my hands. Often the temperature is too hot to hold the beet, so I scrape the peel right on off with a butter knife using my right hand while holding the beet (through a paper towel if necessary) with my left.

It was all I could do not to just sit down on the floor and eat those beets out of my hand. So, so delicious. Initially I mourned the absence of goat cheese in the house – the perfect roast beet companion – but these were so tasty that I was a bit relieved to have a reason to eat them pure.

With the steak ready and the beets sliced, all I needed to do was drizzle a touch of red wine vinegar on the kale and sprinkle with salt.

Finally, I could eat this phenomenal meal. And, truth be told, the steak was purely extraneous. I could have had just the beets and kale with onions and felt perfectly sated. As it were, the steak was a nice bonus – at least the small portion I enjoyed before saving the rest with leftovers for Brandon. Since this night, I might add, when all of the food I prepared disappeared in a New York minute, he has asked me to stop cooking so much ….