Part 2 of What Do I DO with all these vegetables?: How the New Mom learned to stop worrying and make lots of pesto.

                                                 (Stock picture of garlic scape pesto)
This week's share consisted of carrots, beets, radishes (all with their tops), scallions/green onions, a head of lettuce, snow peas, and garlic scapes. It all went into a shopping bag and the shopping bag went straight into the refrigerator because I had errands to run (The New Mom is all about keepin it real). I figured sometime between Saturday and (not ideal, as those tops tend to start getting droopy) Sunday I would get to them.

Surprise, surprise, then, when I did not have to wait for baby to nap or for my husband to get home to break down, store, and prepare  the whole share--in 50 minutes! I don't think every week will be like this, but I lucked out for the inauguration of this project! Recipes follow after my long-windedness!


My first step, after setting the baby up with some toys nearby, was pesto. I had pooh-poohed the garlic scape pesto idea during distribution day, as that is pretty much the only recipe you frequently see on websites and I have eaten more garlic scape pesto in the past three years than I ever thought I would. But I remembered my dear friend Danisha had given me a recipe for Carrot Top pesto that not only sounded intriguing, but was another way to use carrot tops and did not use a bath of olive oil. I fired up the food processor. I used all of my carrot tops and 3/4 of my scapes, as well as some parmesan cheese that was hanging out in my refrigerator like a guest who had stayed at the party for too long.

Next was chopping the rest of the scapes and most of the green onions and combining them in a jar to use as a "saute/fry mix" instead of regular onions...which I didn't have in the house...because I had forgotten to buy any, so it was quite fortuitous. I took a handful of the mix out of the jar and put the handful at the bottom of a large bowl for my salad/green mix.

 I gave the baby some veggies to play with, as I usually do, and she quickly used one of the scapes to make an arm bracelet, and then put the green onion in her mouth. She immediately decided she liked the taste and texture, and after a panicked trip to google to make sure it was okay, I let her continue to chomp like a baby cow (I really need to take pictures).

Next was the carrots. I took half of the carrots and used a peeler to peel long, thin strips of carrot into the large salad bowl in front of the baby's high chair, a method I learned from this excellent Jamie Oliver lamb salad recipe. The baby stopped chewing on the green onion just long enough to watch the "magic". Who needs toys when you have vegetables? The other half of the carrots I reserved for later,since they tend to last longer whole than other vegetables or greens.

I gave the baby a clean radish to play with and sliced the radishes thinly (away from her, obviously!) and added them to the salad bowl. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a good use for radish greens so they went iinto the trash-- any suggestions?

The beets came next; I reserved the beet tops and worked on the actual beets. There were only three so I decided to add them all to the "salad mix" except for half a beet, which I put in a ziploc bag to snack on during my weekly work meeting (I am pretty sure my coworkers think I am mad). I didn't really want to peel them, so I julienned them instead, which involves creating a square or rectangular shape by cutting pieces off all the ends of the vegetables. This also effectively gets the peels off. I gave a hunk to the baby, who was not impressed, and then cut the rest of the squares into "planks" which then became beautiful little matchsticks of beets. I like to add different shapes to a salad mix to provide different textures!

Beet greens are tough to know what to do with; most people cook them and eat them as they would any sauteed green. I have found they are great raw if you prep them correctly. I slice the leaves away from the stems and discard the stem, then I stack and finely slice the leaves, lengthwise and then crosswise so you never get a huge chunk of leaf.

I think the beet was the point at which the baby decided she was starting to have enough of playing with food and wanted some of the real stuff. I sliced the lettuce lengthwise; this week's lettuce is very tender so it doesn't need much more than that, just enough so that you get a bite-size porton and not a huge leaf. I added the lettuce and the sliced beet greens to the salad mix and combined. I use this salad mix for everythng--- I top tacos with it, I put it in sandwiches (try it with hummus in a wrap!), saute it, and yes, use it as salad too. Speaking of which, I had wanted to make a low-fat Green Goddess dressing using some of the scapes and green onions, but I did not have time.

Now the baby was really not having it, so I rinsed the snow peas and put them in tupperware and called it a day!

Here are some recipes in which I used this week's vegetables!

Garlic Scape and Carrot Top Pesto
(Inspired by Danisha's recipe!)
makes ~4 cups of pesto

1 bunch carrot tops
6-8 Garlic scapes, bulby ends removed, chopped into smaller pieces
2/3 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of parmesan
2 cloves of garlic
Salt to taste

Process (you may have to do it in two batches!) in a food processor.

Uses for pesto:
Serve on top of whole wheat pasta with meatballs or chicken.

Combine 1/3 cup of pesto with 1/3 cup reduced fat mayonnaise and 2 tbsps chopped sundried tomatoes or half a chopped, seeded tomato; serve with shredded chicken breast (or some sliced fresh mozzarella) from the crockpot and rolls for a great sandwich (mixture makes 6-8 sandwiches)!

Slow cook 1.5 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs with 1/2 cup of pesto and 2 tbsps of chicken broth, on low for 6-7 hours. You can also add sweet potaoes to the bottom of the pot for a complete meal!

Chicken and Snow-Pea stir-fry (Serves two)
1/4 cup garlic scapes and green onions, chopped
1 cooked chicken breast, diced (you can use raw too, just add at the beginning!)
3/4 lb of snow peas
1 tsp Xiaoxing rice wine or sherry (Xiaoxing is available at chang li)
1 tbsp dark soy sauce (available at Chang Li, otherwise, use regular soy sauce)
1 tbsp sweet thai chili sauce (available at Foodtown)
Olive oil cooking spray or 1 tbsp peanut oil
Combine dark soy sauce and chili sauce and set aside.

Heat oil in wok or skillet until quite hot. Add garlic scapes and green onions and stir until fragrant. Add raw chicken if using and cook until browned, add snow peas. Continue sirring until snow peas are a vibrant green color and crisp-tender.  Add soy sauce mixture and combine thoroughly. Serve with brown rice or rice noodles.

 Make it vegetarian! Add half a pound of pressed tofu or seitan.