Share the Harvest - Beetberry

Almost a year ago, a friend and I, both foodies and members of Slow Food Hawai'i, were discussing how individuals with edible gardens could share their own excess harvest for other items we didn't grow or produce.  After some back and forth e-mails, we came up with an idea for a local food bartering/swap/share site in Yahoo.  It is called Share the Harvest.

I recently received a huge amount of Okinawan purple sweet potatoes from the man that harvests the bamboo shoots from our bamboo grove...he always brings us something in return.  I made an offer post at the Share the Harvest group and listed what I would like to have in return or for the interested members to let me know what they had to trade.

One member, who is a CSA farmer, asked me for some of the purple sweet potatoes and told me what she would trade in return.

Today she dropped by on the way to making CSA subscriber deliveries to Hilo, picked up her approximate 25 pounds of sweet potatoes and brought me:

1 large Kabocha pumpkin
A bunch of radishes - 6 gorgeous ones!
A bag of purple mizuna
1 large bag of beetberry greens (kind of like spinach)
A small bunch of garlic chives
2 gorgeous heads of Bok Choy
2 stalks/bunches mustard greens
1 bag basil

I will make pesto with the basil.  I plan to cook the Bok Choy with orange slices (if it turns out I will share my own recipe) - the radishes will be part of a pickled daikon, carrots and radishes condiment.

I hope to stuff the Kabocha and bake.  Not sure yet what I will do with the mustard greens, mizuna and garlic chives...

 

I used half a bag of the beetberry greens for the following....it turned out delicious!  I served them with baked fish and mashed purple sweet potatoes.

Beetberry Greens and Eggs

Quantities depend on amount of greens used.

 

As I mention above, I used half the bag of beetberry greens.  I had about 1/8 cup of bacon grease in a small jar in the fridge and decided to use it...normally I would have used olive oil. 

Wash the greens well and drain, but leave some water drops clinging on them.  Set aside

Peel and coarsely chop the garlic.  You can coarsely chiffonade the greens if you wish.

Heat the oil (or in my case, bacon grease), and add the chopped garlic to sauté on medium heat until soft but before color turns.  Add the washed greens and sauté until very limp.  I added a bit of apple cider wine to braise it a bit and cook thoroughly as the greens were still a bit tough looking after a few minutes.  Cook until the liquid evaporates.

When you decide the greens are cooked enough for your taste, add the beaten eggs, salt and pepper and stir to scramble the eggs with the greens.  When done, serve as a side dish.

YIELD: depends on amounts used, but I got enough for 3 servings as a side dish using half a bag of the greens, 4 cloves garlic, 1/4 cup of the cider wine and 4 beaten eggs

SOURCE: Sonia's Kitchen

The above was the way my mother used to cook spinach so that we kids would eat it....She called them 'Espinaca de Pinocho' - Pinocchio's Spinach - we would not eat spinach served on our plates unless it was Espinaca de Pinocho...

The bottom photo doesn't do it justice....It was gorgeous and delicious....  A keeper!