Simple Kale Chips

A New Year's Greeting from long time customer Jane H. included this recipe she recently tried and found it delicious.  Thank you, Jane!

 

1 Bunch kale
1 Tbls organic olive oil
1/2 teasp. vinegar
1/2 teasp. sea salt to taste

Preheat oven to 300.
Line a non-insulated cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Remove the leaves from the thick center, cut into small pieces. Wash and thoroughly dry kale.
Toss kale with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and seasons.
Arrange kale on baking tray in a single layer.
Bake until the edges brown but not burnt, (10 - 20 min.or until crisp).

 

Happy New Year! Enjoy...

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Maintaining Freshness of Your Greens

Long-time customer Vivi S. from Gulfport recently shared with me how she keeps her greens fresh for up to 3 weeks by introducing

Ragtime Salad Mix

Syncopate your palate with a wonderful mix of crispy Okinawa Spinach, Ceylon spinach, tart cranberry hibiscus, and chartreuse sweet potato leaves. We recommend a ginger type dressing for this salad. Here is one from All recipes. This dressing will keep well when refrigerated for 2 - 3 weeks.  These greens can be purchased on our Market. 

Rita's Kick Start Bread

Here are the essentials of my bread.

I do not use any flour, sugar or wheat

The whole grains I use are buckwheat steel cut oats, rice grits, sesame seeds, chia seeds, teff, flax meal.  The ratio is up to you.

I use 2 cups steel cut oats, 1 cup buckwheat, 1 cup rice grits, 1/2 cup teff, 1/4 cup flax 1/4 cup chia and sesame seed.

Recipe makes:  10 servings.

5 1/2 cups of grains
3 1/3 cups powered milk
3 1/3 cups egg either whole or egg whites
5 cups  fruit puree,  either apple sauce, pineapple, pears, banana or vegetable puree

optional:
cinnamon and or ginger or pumpkin pie spice
rasisins,nuts dried fruit

Mix these together 

Divide the batter between two flat baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees

Whe done flip bread into cooling rack and pull paper off.  I use this  paper over and over.

The bread is designed to provide a  cup of grain, cup of milk,  1/2 cup fruit,  and 1 serving of protein.

I Hear a Symphony!

Presenting a sister salad for our popular "salad jazz" mix. This symphony of greens plays out with a wonderful mix of tart

Tri-Color Sweet Potato Leaf Salad

Thanks to Jeff Yentzer of Vibrant Health for some great footage of Nathan's backyard garden and a recipe using our Market's tri-color sweet potato leaves in his dinner salad. See how @ Jeff's website.

Chartreuse Sweet Potato Leaf

Dig That "Salad Jazz"! and Dress It Up...

Jazz up your salad greens with a wonderful mix of delicate lime basil, crispy Okinawa Spinach, moist Red Malabar Spinach, crunchy Egyptian Spinach, and purple sweet potato leaves. And here is THE PERFECT DRESSING to make these new greens "pop":  All measurements are approximate. In a blender, whip up a dressing of organic extra virgin olive oil (1 cup), apple cider vinegar (max 1 - 2 tsp: "less is better"), red balsalmic vinegar (2 TB), fresh squeezed lemon juice (2 - 3 TB), grey sea salt (1 tsp), fresh ground pepper (1/4 tsp), and a clove (or two) of garlic.  This dressing will keep well when refrigerated for 2 - 3 weeks. It ROCKS!

BTW, If you are buying store bought lettuce, the greens above a perfect combo you can mix 50-50 with store bought lettuce UNTIL, of course, the season changes and we start selling the freshest and the most beautiful lettuce grown right here in St. Petersburg.  Here is just a sample of what's coming! 

"Wild Peachy Smoothie" from Jeff Yentzer

Jeff Yentzer of Vibrant Health Videos shares a new video using purple sweet potato leaves and lime basil in a “Wild Peachy Smoothie”. After watching the 2-minute video below, please comment on Jeff’s blog, explore the ads, and give it all a "thumbs up" by forwarding to your friends. Veggies contributed courtesy of StPete.LocallyGrown.Net to shows it commitment to educating local consumers on using what’s grown locally for better health! 

Freezing an Abundance of Greens

Customer Renee O. has researched a way to store overage from bags of  Smoothie Bundle and Greens to Saute  purchased from our Market.   "While the bags are very large and I can see them being a problem for those who don't eat their greens immediately or everyday, here are some suggestions on how to utilize such large bags"

For the smoothie bundle:
"Finished making bagged smoothie packs for the freezer. Cube up your fruit & veggies, portion out into your baggies for individual (or double) servings, and pop in the freezer. You can dump and go in your blender easily in the morning! *I bought a bunch of organic fruits&veggies in season for CHEAP...great way to MAXIMIZE YOUR BUDGET!*" (source credit: 100 days of real food blog).

I started doing this, mixing different fruits with

Florida Spinach Smoothie by Jeff Yentzer

What follows is a demo for a Florida Spinach Smoothie containing two types of spinach that we sell on our Market: Red Malabar spinach and Okinawa spinach. This spinach is grown by a variety of our local Growers in St. Petersburg.

Red Malabar Spinach

Okinawa Spinach

Jeff Yentzer of Vibrant Health Videos is helping our Market customers learn how to use the summer greens grown right here in St. Petersburg.  Please help us reward Jeff for his contribution--after watching this 2-minute video --by exploring the ads on his website, commenting on his blog, and giving it all a "thumbs up" by forwarding to your friends. Most importantly, from the video you will gain access to all of Jeff's other fine videos to get better informed on transforming your health! Thanks to Jeff for such a fine job... enjoy what we hope is the first of many videos showcasing St. Petersburg produce available from StPete.LocallyGrown.Net!

Eggplant Jam?

At last I found a recipe that I can get excited about using up alot of the fresh homegrown eggplant we have on hand right now.  As a "feed" fan of David Lebovitz, I received an email today with just the ticket for creating something truly different and seemingly very tasty as well.

Our Culinary Expedition to Rita's

Dinner at James & Rita's is anything but average.  Rita puts everything she's got into her culinary creations and I just had to document it all on film!  I am hoping she is going to add her comments to this blog so we all know what and how she made it all look and taste so incredibly delightful.  In addition to a simple fresh salad, I have never tasted sweet young cauliflower so flavorful, potatoes so delicately cheesy, bok choy chicken so tenderly appointed, and a fruit dessert so sprite. Gracious hosts and hostesses take note!

 

Breakfast at The Levy's

We are on an egg kick lately and any vegetable that can be roasted is fair game for our breakfast plate.  I roasted okra one day and served it as a side. The eggs were scrambled with some roasted onions. The next day I chunked up the leftover okra and scrambled it with eggs.

For this morning's breakfast, I scrambled some wonderful roasted white lady turnips into eggs and topped it all with chives.

No doubt you've noticed that we are also on a tomato kick.  We will enjoy them as long as they are available! Sliced in slabs, adorned with cottage cheese, drizzled with a little EVOO, salt and pepper. Tomatoes and cottage cheese add a nice complement to scrambled eggs.   Most everything you see on the plate on the plate was purchased through our online Market at StPete.LocallyGrown.Net!

Roasted Golden Beets

We devoured these roasted beets a few days back. (I stir-fried the beet greens separately with some onion.) While preheating our mini-oven to 450 degrees, I washed the beets and cut into large chunks. I tossed them with some olive oil, sprinkling with kosher salt and ground pepper.  I mixed it all with my hands and then spread them out in a metal roasting pan. 

It was my first taste of these golden beauties and they were delicious!  They don't taste much different than red beets but they are so pretty.  OK, they look like they may have over-cooked a bit but I got busy with something else. Not to worry, the caramelization just makes them taste sweeter!  They really should come out sometime between 20 - 30 minutes depending on how soft you like them. YUMMMMM....

Radish Ribbons on Rice Cakes

The garden is filled with delightful surprises

So, I had some of those watermelon radishes from St Pete Locally Grown. I have found that I like to use my potato peeler and slice ribbons of the beautiful watermelon radish.

Then a rice cake, smeared it with a bit of hummus, layered the radish ribbons then a bit of Greek yogurt, chives and a shake of curry powder ... yum

From Raccupine Farms: Eating what’s “hot” when it’s hot!

This is a post I published in another blog of mine called Raccupine Farms... Since it is time to start thinking about what are we going to eat for local vegetables when summer arrives, I thought I would share this piece with you.  It's not too early to start planning AND planting for this summer.  Enjoy...Raccupine Farms: Eating what’s “hot” when it’s hot!:

Tina's Morning Green Smoothie

A few recommendations first. If you are going to use kale and collards I recommend removing stems from kale and collards and using them in cooking or for making a stock or tea.  Also, my experience with green smoothies is that they will rarely come out with a milkshake consistency.  The good news is, I've been told, that having to chew a few small nuggets in your smoothie is excellent for your digestion because chewing triggers digestive juices that will better process the nutrients you are ingesting.

My disclaimer: I am not an expert on smoothies. I experimented and made this one up to be palatable for me.  The first ones I tried from the internet were pretty bad. They were too watery for me and tasted just WAY too green.  You'll know what I mean when you taste mine. It's green as all heck but it contains lots of ungreen flavoring.  I don't like the brown color that beet greens bring to it (red & green = brown) so I tend to ignore those.

Let's go! Into the blender I pour 2 - 3 cups of spring water, add a small clove of garlic (don't overdo it!), and a teaspoon of bee pollen.  When I know I am going to use collards, in particular, I also add about 1/2 cup of grapefruit juice or two hefty starfruit that will counteract any bitterness from the collards. I blend that up on medium speed and then start adding my greens on high speed (whatever you use to crush ice - LOL). I literally keep stuffing my greens in through the whole in the blender cover. In they go, (approximate portions) two large collards leaves with stems removed, a bunch of kale with stems removed, and maybe a small bunch of swiss chard.  Other times, I use a whole head of bok choy (like I would add celery if we grew it) and then a little swiss chard.    Once the greens are well blended, I like to throw in just a bit of cilantro. I add a few tablespoons of organic peanut butter and a few small frozen bananas and blend until the machine goes back to purring.  It's important not to over blend the last two ingredients because you don't want the bananas to warm up from all that mixing.  This chilly smoothie fills my blender and I drink the entire thing--straight from the blender--which takes at least half my morning.

So what are your smoothie recommendations?

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The Giant Diakon Radish

I was the lucky recipient of the giant diakon radish. I pickled 1/4 of it in vinegar and herbs. The balance I sauteed in olive oil with garlic, onion and red bell pepper. When nicely browned I added vegetable broth and simmered it until very tender. It is sweet and tasty. The pickled radish is doing its thing in the frig and will be tasted later.

How to add to this Blog

If you want to add something to our blog, just watch this useful 7-minute video.  The first few minutes demonstrate how to create your own blog which is good for those who may want to start blogging on their own. The remainder of the video gives basic instruction on how to create and post to our blog.  We are interested in healthy recipes, especially focused on using produce and products you have purchased through stpete.locallygrown.net.  Bon Blog-ger!

Recipe For That Great Okinawan Spinach

I bought a mess of this spinach and found this great recipe.
Serve 2-3
4 cups Handama/Okinawan Spinach
2 Eggs
2 cloves Garlic - minced (optional)
1/2 cup Carrot - julienned
1 Tb. Sesame Oil
2 Tb White Sesame Seeds - toasted until golden brown
1 cup Chicken Stock
Cooking Oil
Method:
1. Wash the
vegetables; Discard any spoiled or wilted leaves - we use only the leaves, tender
shoots and stems. Set aside.
2. In a wok/deep pan,
heat some cooking oil until it's really hot; Add in the minced garlic, stir a
bit to avoid burning. Add in the carrot and Okinawan spinach. Give a quick
stir.
Note: Wok needs to be hot to achieve quick stir-fry process
because we don't want to destroy the vitamins and if you cook too long, it will
become mushy.
3. Make a hole in the
centre of the wok, crack the eggs into the center. When the eggs start to turn
opaque, stir the mixture with spatula to break apart the cooked egg mixture
(remember the wok is very hot, so you have to work fast.)
4. Pour in the
chicken stock and stir to mix all the egg mixture with the
vegetable.
5. Dish out on a
serving plate. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds on top.
6. Spoon the sesame
oil around the vegetable and serve hot.