Waste Not

The farmers market is in full swing, and one of my favorite purchases are beets. I'm obsessed. Usually I just roast the and eat them plain, with maybe a bit of salt and pepper. Or make a simple salad, like this one. There's just something about these earthy root vegetables, their abundance (all the vendors have them) and the act of roasting a whole mess of them at once. Beets encapsulate everything I love about the farmers market.

The one pea in my mattress is what to do with the beet greens. The leaves are usually discarded, and since I haven't set up a composting system yet (soon, soon) they've always gone to waste. But no more! Beet greens are slightly bitter, slightly beety and super easy to cook up. They don't require the long cooking time of collard or mustard greens, so there's no excuse not to make them.


I started with a tiny red onion sauteed in a bit of olive oil. While that was going, I chopped the tops off my beets (red and golden) and rinsed the greens, letting them soak for a while because they were going limp. Then I sliced them into half inch ribbons and threw them in the pan with some salt and a chopped up clove of garlic. After they started to wilt in went a few generous shakes of red wine vinegar. After five more minutes, they were done. That's it. Seriously. I made some sort of Morningstar Farms veggie cake thingy and that was dinner.


Next time I'll experiment with flavorings (because you know there will be beets in my future). Red pepper flakes, ginger, etc.

Everything Grows

When I was seven or eight, I danced to Everything Grows, a Raffi song, in ballet class. "Everything grows, anyone knows, that's how it goes."

But not for me. I have a black thumb. I can usually keep aloe alive, but that's just because it doesn't need much watering. I've never tried very hard, and have a habit of forgetting my plants completely until they're shriveled up and brown. But I've always wanted to give it a go, and have fantasies about home grown vegetables, lush flowering bushes and rich brown soil.

In the new house, I've made very little effort in the garden, but it's something. I've got some tomatoes going, a pepper plant and some lovely herbs that were a gift from my garden-goddess sister-in-law. Still, the tomatoes don't have cages around them and there are weeds that are healthier than the basil. Every time I muster the effort to totter around in garden, I can sense Jim rolling his eyes. "Sure honey, I bet you'll plant zinnias along the side of the garage. Sure."


Despite the doubt of my darling husband (and myself, let's be honest here) I keep hoping one day I'll turn into the kind of person who can reasonably care for another living thing. The cat hasn't died yet, so that's progress. And I have a pepper growing. I don't remember what kind of pepper plant I bought, so I'm not sure how big it's supposed to get. But it's definitely a pepper. If I can manage to keep this pepper going a little while longer, maybe I'll try to get those zinnias going next. That's how it goes, I guess.