when life hands you kohlrabi and radishes...

...make....er...something.

I was commenting over on Twitter that I really love picking up my CSA share every week, as it's a good challenge in finding ways to use everything up during the week.

(As an aside:  there is an older couple who have a share, and they came on Tuesday to pick things up, and spent the time being upset because they didn't know what any of the vegetables were or how to prepare them and they were really only there for the "hard" vegetables.  I don't know what was meant by "hard" vegetables.  But they made me feel sad.  On the one hand, they've contributed to the farm.  On the other hand -- well, they just make me feel sad. But on to happier things.)

Maybe next week I'll blog the list of stuff in the share and describe how I approach it all, but for this week, I'll just talk about these:

Oh my, aren't they beautiful?  Kohlrabi and radishes.  Now, I *knew* what the kohlrabi was, but I've never used it before.  And I needed to figure out what I could do with two of them, and two radishes.  Okay, a few more radishes than that, because in addition to these lovely violet ones, I have some French Breakfast radishes from our own garden plot to add into the mix.

So I started by doing a little research on the kohlrabi.  Turned out the green tops are edible, too, so I cut those off and set them back in the fridge.  I'll use them later on to make rice pasta and salmon with greens.

The radish tops can also be used, apparently, but these ones seemed to have barbs, like....ortie....sorry, I can't pull the English word out of my head today.  But a planty thing with barbs.  So I didn't want to use them in salad.

After looking at a bunch of really tempting ideas for cooked kohlrabi, I decided that really what I wanted was a salad, and that would be perfect for two of them plus a few radishes.

So, I peeled the kohlrabi -- this is pretty easy to do.  Then I sliced it into thin matchsticks.  I sliced all the radishes into thin bits as well.  I put them all in a bowl.

Then I added 2 tsps of lemon juice, a pinch of sea salt, a little fresh ground pepper, a half teaspoon sugar, a tablespoon of olive oil, and a tablespoon of Italian parsley from my container garden, chopped fine.  When done, it looked like this:

And it was *really* tasty, too.

Comments

[Todd Tyrtle]

It sounded good when you mentioned it after you made it but it looks *delicious*.

I am *so* emailing you the list of what comes in our produce box so you can tell me what to make. :)

[k]

It was surprisingly delicious -- and really simple, which is what I wanted. The cooked recipes were good (there was an Indian one that I think would be great in the fall), but fresh and crunchy in a salad...yum.

I'll happily look over the list in your box -- but be prepared for me to blog about it.

[zydeco fish]

It looks very good, I have to say. I once got deliveries from Front Door Organics, but I could never figure out what to do with all of that kale.

[k]

So far, I've been impressed with the variety of greens in the first three weeks of the CSA share -- it seems that they've planned the harvest really, really well.

I was going to comment further, but maybe I'll write a post on it....

[Keith Burtis]

So, one of those things that goes around blogs all the time is "Things you don't know about me"

I, Keith Burtis, used to be a chef. Actually to be honest without bragery, I was a very talented chef of many years. I would be glad to help out anyone looking for ideas. Just send me an email or hit me up on my blog. It's not my main topic, as woodturning is my passion, but when it comes to food there are many ways to prepare. Like the recipe above; the simplest ways are usually the best! Let your ingredients speak.

And as long as I am on the soapbox, I might as well tell you my vegetable theory. I class them in one of two classes. "Sponges" or "Spices", and no these are not technical terms, but it's the way I used them in the kitchen for years.

A vegetable like a sweet potato would be a spice, and a vegetable like a green zucchini would be a sponge. The sweet potato carries and holds it's own flavors, where the zucchini sucks up the flavors of the other things around it.

Cook the "Spice" vege's seperate, and highlight the flavors while using the sponges to carry the flavor of a marinade or stirfry.

Cool Post :)

[Susanne]

I remember as a kid my mom would always slice Kohlrabi and radishes and eat them raw. I like to steam sliced Kohlrabi with a few potato cubes and the Kohlrabi greens. Just add salt and pepper.
Susanne