Green Questing and Veg Box Questions

What Color is Your Diet?

A few years ago there was this huge push for people to eat by color. Of course, a few years ago there was also this push to get people to eat five servings of fruit and veg a day, to get people to drink wine for their health, to eat chocolate for their health, drink tea for their health, eat blueberries for their health… Seeing a trend, here? Right. Here’s my take: Food. It’s generally healthy, and if it’s fresh and/or raw, it’s even better. Sure, you should eat a lot of purple, and orange food contains all those yummy hard squashes (and what is life without sweet potato bread?), and red food is generally chock full of Vitamin C and nutrients, but it’s ridiculous to be trying to count and rationalize and figure out how many colors you’ve had (is my beet purple? Or red? Are we counting color before or after cooking?) I think it’s time to default to what Mom said: Eat Your Greens.

Fruit Green: It’s the season for kiwifruit here in the UK, “season” being kind of a generic way of saying that these fruit are now really inexpensive in grocery stores and being stocked by organic grocers as well. Italy, New Zealand, Chile, France, Japan and California are among the leading commercial producers of kiwifruit, so it’s likely actually in season somewhere nearby. The exotic golden kiwifruit, the more familiar green — all of these fruits are full of antioxidants, and some studies have shown that they help stop asthmatic kids from wheezing (unless they’re wheezing because they’re allergic to kiwifruit). Loaded with Vitamin C, potassium and fiber, these Chinese gooseberries, as they were originally called, are green gold.

Kiwifruit, though, is tough to work with — it destroys collagen, and so it’s not one of the fruits easily made into gelled desserts (regular Jell-o with kiwi won’t set! Agar jelly should be fine, though, I’m thinking). Kiwifruit also curdles milk, so ice creams are out of the question unless the kiwifruit is cooked first — and I’ve never had kiwifruit any way but raw. People use kiwifruit to tenderize meat, I’ve read, and with judicious application of pectin and a lot of sugar, kiwifruit boils up into a bright green jelly — often paired with lime and strawberries, two of the flavors that many people claim to taste in the kiwifruit themselves. I’m sure there must be other creative uses for this fruit. A refrigerator cheesecake? A cold fruit soup with mint? What do you do with them?

Spicy Green

Biostar Gartenkresse, the box said.

We peered at the close packed little bits of greenery. It looked rather like a doll-sized patch of lawn. “Well, it’s cress,” we decided, and tasted some. After all, all of the British novels we read had people having watercress sandwiches for tea, right? And, okay, this didn’t look like it grew on water, but…

The tiny green stems packed a seriously startling punch of horseradishy flavor. We were excited to receive ours in our veggie box, but were briefly at a loss at how to use it. The box had suggestions — in Dutch and in Deutche. Gartendress Tips: als Beilage im salat als Brotaufstrich Kombination mit Käse, Tomaten und Ei, oder Fleischwaren. We easily picked out most of those words, but a couple hung us up. Brotaufstrich Ei? Flesichwhat? Google Languages rescued us – cress, the growers explained, is a salad supplement and can be eaten in combination with tomatoes and egg and other flesh products — like, on a meat sandwich. Right. We timidly tossed a bit of cress in a salad, and… that was the depth of our creativity. They kind of seem like bean sprouts, which we pile on sandwiches and salads in California — but what else does one do with cress? Why would people eat them by themselves in sandwiches? What are we missing? Anyone?

Dark Green Leafy: These are the greens my Mom always said we should eat. Dark green leafies — full of iron, lutein, zeaxanthin and fiber. Many greens slow or prevent macular degeneration, supply energy-boosting supplies of iron, and contain enzymes to stimulate the production of cells that fight liver cancer.

In California now, the farmer’s markets are just beginning to show those first signs of the autumn greens season. Chard, pungent mustard greens, collard greens — the greens grow best in the waning days of summer, enjoying the warmth, but not the high heat which causes them to bolt. In cool and moist Glasgow we’re enjoying loads of bok choi and curly-leafed kale. Kale — also called Tuscan kale, black cabbage, cavolo nero, dinosaur kale, and flat black cabbage — is the king of greens to us. Greens and so very easy to enjoy. Just a quick stir-fry with onions, bell peppers and tofu or chicken and you’ve got something to go on top of noodles or rice. (Add a splash of coconut milk and some curry paste, and you’ve got a whole ‘nother dish. And then there’s the mae ploy sauce…) Since we’re partial to tofu, tempeh and other veggie options, we sometimes eat greens just as a side dish with just a bit of garlic and lemon juice.

The basic way to cook kale, if you’re not doing a stir-fry, is to clean it, and chop it into one-inch pieces, then drop it into boiling water for six minutes. Once it’s drained, it’s ready to be anything — a side by itself, or added to sautéed mushrooms and garlic atop polenta (once your mushrooms and garlic are sautéed, add the kale back to the pot, and simmer it for six minutes with a bit of lemon zest and a half cup of white wine vegetable broth). When it’s rainy, we like to add our kale to the last ten minutes of a white bean soup, after the beans have been simmered with onions, garlic, bay, rosemary, and a rind of Parmesan. Because kale has very firm leaves and a hearty flavor, it’s very versatile, and pairs well with smoky flavors (many people use pancetta and bacon) and strong flavors like garlic. Yum.

How do you like your green?

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