I blogged shortly after new year's day on cooking to save the earth (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-years-notes-on-eating-to-save-earth.html). Among the reasons I wanted to blog about that topic in the new year is that, it seems to me, many folks nowadays aren't learning basic skills and wisdom rooted in the folk cultures of the world--skills and wisdom about food and eating. I suspect there is no lack of good will among many young folks in the developed areas of the world about eating to save the earth (and for health). What may be lacking is knowledge: wisdom essential to making good choices in this important area of human life is often not passed on by parents, by my generation.So there's a method to the madness of my occasional posts about a meal I happen to have cooked. I'm hoping that these notes might be helpful for at least a few readers searching for ideas about how to eat low on the food chain, while eating well and doing a bit to help the environment. It also occurs to me that many of us who are in need of ideas in this area also happen to be those of us living on the economic margins: we're those who find it hardest of all to pay for good food, to buy the kind of food that preserves our health while filling our stomachs.
The ideas I'll occasionally share about cooking will point to meals that are (I hope) not only tasty and healthy, but less expensive than many we might cook or buy at a restaurant.
So, with that as preface, here's a recipe I thought to share today. It's a dish I just cooked for Steve's and my dinner.
On the weekend, I had made borscht to share with our friend Mary, who has been struggling to recover from a horrible auto accident before Thanksgiving. Soups heal; I'm convinced of it (they do, that is, when they're well-made and made with love).
When I prepared two bunches of beets to shred for the soup, I set the greens aside and carefully washed them. I find that beet greens have to be washed vigorously, since sand packs down into the crevices where the stems grow from the beet. I soak the greens and their stems several times in a large bowl of water, shaking them when I put them into the water, and then letting them sit a moment for the sand to fall to the bottom of the bowl. After I repeat that process several times (changing the water each time), I give them a final wash of cold water, using the sink sprayer to dislodge any remaining sand.
I always shred a handful of beet greens for a pot of borscht. The greens I don't use in the soup, I then put aside for future use, wrapped in a clean cloth and placed in the vegetable bin of the icebox.
Today I decided to use the greens I'd set aside when I made borscht on Sunday. (Last night, I had actually taken a handful of the small, tender greens to put into an arugula salad.) I removed the stems and put them aside, then chopped the greens.
In a large skillet, I heated some olive oil and added to it half a bell pepper and half an onion I had found in the hydrator, both chopped. As they began to sautee, I added the beet greens, along with about a cup of cooked cabbage left from a meal yesterday.
Just as the beet greens wilted, I added a toe of chopped garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and a sprinkle of oregano. The moisture from the cabbage broth that clung to the cabbage leaves helped to make a sauce. I took the vegetables off the fire and added a handful of frozen peas--English peas, we say in the South, to distinguish green peas from the many varieties of field peas we enjoy.
As Steve walked home from work, I put pasta (orecchiette) on to cook, grated some fresh parmesan, and set out a bowl of roasted slivered almonds. That was our meal--the pasta topped with the sauce of beet greens and cabbage, with parmesan and almonds sprinkled on top. A delicious meal, a healthy one, and an inexpensive one, which made good use of a vegetable (beet greens) that many of us are tempted to discard when we buy fresh beets.
(The stems of the beet greens? Well, I'm experimenting. I cut them into pieces about two inches long and put them into a jar of pickled beets that I have on hand all the time in the icebox. If they pickle well, as I hope they will, they will add interest to future meals . . . .)
