Mustard greens, three ways

The colder it gets, the harder it is to shop for fruits and vegetables exclusively at the farmers’ market. I miss strawberries on my cheerios. I crave plantains like it’s my job. Eating seasonally is rough, but eating local is even harder. I can make do without asparagus until spring, but it’s clementine season and I don’t think there are any thriving groves in Chicago. Eventually I’m going to break down and buy more than the occasional lemon or lime, but I’m trying to stick to the market for now.

This week market shopping paid off as we picked up our first pound of mustard greens (not to be mistaken for “big parsley”). I know neither Alex nor I would ever have chosen mustard greens at the g-store, where the commonplace mixed-lettuce bag reigns supreme, but in a basket on a folding table, next to a big pile of sweet potatoes (because what else is there?), the mustard greens found their moment.

We’ve had three preparations of mustard greens this week, each showcasing a different element of their exceedingly pleasing character.

The first was a salad. Raw, these curly leaves are delightfully spicy and crisp, without being watery. They have more chew than your regular salad lettuce, but there is no lack of bite. I dressed the greens in olive oil, lemon juice, and salt, then added anything I found in the fridge in an attempt to disguise the raging pep of the mustard. Apples, toasted almonds, radishes, goat cheese. The apple/almond/goatcheese pairing was spot on, but not for the reason I’d thought. (The radishes were a mistake: unnecessary and out of place. I pushed them to the side (not pictured).) The toasty nuttiness, sweet juice, and creamy tang were just right with the peppery greens, intensifying the zing, not masking it. Alex described it as “light… with a bite... [and] topped with crunch.” Take what you will from that.

The real winner for me this week has been my lunch sandwich: sourdough toast, fresh goat cheese, and mustard greens. Tang and zing—bangarang! It is fantastic. It is such a simple sandwich, however, complex in flavor. The key is the quality of the ingredients. Bread, cheese, and veg are all fresh and local. These ingredients are like three fifth-grade girls with broken necklaces that say “Best” and “Friends” and “Forever.”

Thirdly, we had wilted mustard greens. The greens in this preparation are blanched in boiling water, then cooled to stop the cooking, drained of excess liquid, chopped, and sautéed in butter and garlic. (My own BFF, Sarah, sent me a recipe; clearly, I worked from different quantities.) With less than a pound of starting material, we had barely two servings of cooked greens but they were worth it. I’d describe the finished product with one word: Bitter—in a good way. On a plate with chicken in cider-mustard sauce (see what I did there?) and cheese-crusted squash, the bitter greens provided a much-needed balance. I’d go so far as to say, “They put the ‘must’ in mustard greens.” Except I don’t want to sound lame.

So I’ve discovered a new flavorite, and it’s been recipe-successipe here this week. I am planning on cheating soon, though. These are on my Christmas list:

Battle Kale

Every time I go to a farmers market, it's a live Iron Chef episode. What fruit or vegetable will be at almost every booth and in varied colors? This week's secret ingredient: KALE.

What are your favorite kale recipes? Do you have any recipes involving kale that you've been meaning to try? Have you ever even cooked kale? Like me, did you have no idea that it appears to grow like a flower?

Food in Our Food

There's something you should probably know about me. I'm what one would lovingly refer to as detail-oriented, but more accurately refer to obsessive. While I don't find the need to wash my hands repeatedly in multiples of fifteen, I can relate to those who do. I try to remind my husband that when I was in high school at least once every week I'd turn around and walk the three blocks back to school to make sure I shut my locker and he should therefore be grateful that all I'm asking him to do is confirm (without any doubts on the matter) that we locked our cars' doors. Every time we lock said cars' doors.

When it comes to food, this obsessive tendency of mine exhibits itself in the fact that if it were possible to healthily subsist on only digestive biscuits and wine gums, I would be the first person in line to do just that. Furthermore, I may or may not have conducted my own preliminary research experiment in conjunction with Sainsbury's on that same topic during my study abroad experience at the University of Bristol in early 2005.

Thankfully for us all, digestive biscuits and wine gums are not as easily available in Chicago as they are in England, and so I have been forced to consider nutrition and vitamin needs in my daily diet. However, that doesn't mean I don't eat a lot of the same food everyday. I could happily consume the same breakfast (toasted English muffins and peanut butter) for the rest of my life. And I eat whole wheat pitas, hummus, and spinach for lunch five days a week.

But where dinner is concerned, I have recently finally begun to mix up things. I used to make a lot of food that ended up all thrown together in one messy, often overfilled pot. Stir-fries and pastas almost every night. Lots of leftovers that a certain someone would refuse to eat and would ultimately go to waste. Within the past few months, however, we've been trying to eat more food in our food (Lloyd Dobler's sister would be so proud), and as a result larger servings of vegetables have replaced whole grain mega-bowls most nights. Leftovers are now fought over.

When I started branching out in the recipe department to non-served-in-a-bowl dishes, I immediately realized that I'd be required to get creative with recipes a lot of the time, since we are a dairy-free household, and almost every recipe ever has a dairy component. Lots of times I can just leave it out, which causes shock and horror to those who can digest cheese (read: Hanna), but not so much to anyone who has been eating their food without dairy in it for the past two years like us. Other times I substitute extra virgin olive oil or almond milk. I used to use soy milk, but we are trying to keep soy out of our food as much as possible where we can. I learned the hard way that rice milk does not work as a replacement when making corn bread, if you want the corn bread to form one solidified loaf and not be a crumbling avalanche when you bring it with you to Thanksgiving dinner at your in-law's.

The interest in more food food and less filler food in our daily diet was supported by how we felt in the aftermath of watching the documentaries No Impact Man and Food Inc. this past year. It was legitimately hard for me to eat any meat for the first week after I saw Food Inc., and it ultimately resulted in my only purchasing free range chicken meat and eggs, despite the significant price difference, ever since. Those films also piqued my interest in local farmers markets. However, it was my locavore of a sister who truly inspired me to start actually frequenting and making purchases at farmers markets almost every week this past fall.

To anyone who thinks they can't get up early, that the food won't taste any better, or that they don't want to carry two pounds of Russian fingerling potatoes and half a dozen Spigold apples picked yesterday back to their office and then home on the train, all I can say is I wish I had made the effort and taken the time years ago. The experiences and food have made this past autumn one of the tastiest, most inspired, and healthily obsessed seasons I've ever enjoyed.