We got our first CSA box this week. The yield so far is manageable, but on Wednesday night, after the pickup, our fridge went from a vessel of condiments and leftover meatballs to a box filled with chard, kale, Chinese broccoli, arugula, and much, much more. It took about an hour to wash, prep, and store the whole yield. Work-but good work.
After that, there was a bit of prioritizing, weighing what I wanted to eat first with what would wilt and grow slimy if we didn’t cook it in twenty-four hours. Radish greens topped that list. Have you ever watched radish greens wilt in the fridge?
It’s gross. I wash, dry, and store them like this, which helps. But yesterday morning, I made a point of cooking them into my lunch. (You can also turn them into pesto.)
The onslaught of vegetables is going to change our cooking this summer, no doubt about it. I can’t wait to document it here! My first foray has confirmed what I suspected about our diet this season, though. We’re going to be eating a lot of bowl meals. All these fresh greens seem to beg for a simple preparation, a sauté, perhaps with herbs, set over a bowl of grains.
So before it’s too late, I wanted to share a base for bowl meals that’s not simply rice or quinoa but a mix of grains.
To make this combo, I set a pot of water to boil as if I were cooking spaghetti, and then pour in whichever grains, timing the cooking so that no one grain gets overcooked. I love the versatility of the method, because it accounts for the different cooking times of each element. The resulting dish also makes the lesser-loved grains, like millet, more palatable.