Week 2 -- June 26th

This week brought summer squash, beets, arugula, green oakleaf lettuce, broccolini, rainbow carrots, cucumbers and sugar snap peas.

I used the slow cooker roasting method on the beets again, which continued to work great, although this week I had the more traditional red beets rather than the golden hued beets of last week. As a result the peeling was a bit, um, redder. Not too bad though; my fingers were only stained for a couple handwashings.

This time I prepared the beet greens differently, using this recipe. The dish reminded me of another recipe I like to use for collard greens and I thought it was quite tasty, but my mother didn't love the sourness from the vinegar.

The broccolini is different from broccoli rabe/raab or rapini, I learned. I had previously used the terms interchangeably. Broccolini is a cross between broccoli and Chinese kale (which we call gai lan in our family); broccoli rabe is a relative of the cabbage and turnip families and is bitter. I stir-fried the broccolini with olive oil, garlic and sea salt.

The sugar snap peas were added raw to salads, as were the carrots. I was unsure whether the carrot greens were edible (some bloggers say yes) but the idea really didn't appeal so I tossed them. They were lush and beautiful though.