Thursday, June 25, 2009

What to do with.....

...collard greens? We got a big bunch in our CSA box and, while I can turn most leafy things into smoothies when out of other ideas, I was afraid that tough collards might just do in my blender.

I did a quick blog search for ideas and came across fresh365, a food blog that's new to me but has already joined the crowd in my RSS reader. I enjoyed browsing through the varied vegetarian recipes and ogling the lovely photos. Yesterday's entry was a collard green and green olive pesto which sounded, frankly, a little odd so I had to look closer. Upon reading the recipe it was clear how it could work and I jumped into action.

Of course I was missing various key ingredients like pine nuts and sun dried tomatoes and didn't want to dash to the store. I improvised with roasted cashews for the nuts, but couldn't think of anything to replace the tomatoes. The cashews worked well, and the final dish was quite good, but I can see where the tomatoes would balance out the tang of the vinegar and the salty olives.
I served this spread on crispy toast as part of our patio lunch today. Surprisingly, my kids liked it quite a bit. It was definitely a bigger hit than the regular old basil variety, which I thought was very interesting. I have leftovers and I'm thinking about how it might work over a good whole wheat pasta with tiny tomatoes. The idea has potential, for sure!

The printable recipe is here, with permission from fresh365. Thanks, Erin!

4 comments:

fresh365 said...

So glad you enjoyed it! I am thinking pasta for my leftovers as well...

Ali said...

Can I just say how much I love that you're doing the CSA? I'm looking forward to recipes for those hard-to-embrace veggies all summer long!

We like collards cooked the old fashioned way, but that probably wouldn't work for you. We all love pesto-ish things, though, so I'll definitely be giving this one a try at some point.

And I realize that you do lunch like some of us do dinner, but I'm feeling totally inadequate lately with your patio feasts while I slap peanut butter on bread for Evan and let Ben make himself Ramens.

Magpie Ima said...

Remember, Alison, I'm not even home for dinner much of the week. But I've been loving having all my kids around again. The patio lunches are a celebration of that, I guess.

I'm enjoying the new recipes, too. So far my biggest CSA challenge has been radishes. I just can't get excited about radishes.

Ali said...

Radishes: Elizabeth grates them and puts them in salads, and Catherine (I think?) & the other Elizabeth sometimes roast them. Both work pretty well for toning down the sharpness.