Tatsoi Fried Rice with Turkey

Farm share tatsoi quickly cooked with leftover turkey and egg in a fast & easy fried rice.

Tatsoi was a new vegetable in the farm share box last season. I'm delighted to realize that after 9 years of enjoying Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm shares I am still surprised by the contents of the box. [We start year 10 in a couple of months!]

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I followed Tip #1 of my Five Tips to Feed Your Family from the Farm Share and made something familiar--fried rice. Usually when I prep cabbage type vegetables for stir frying I'll chop the thicker stems to cook with the onions, and add the sliced leaves later in the process. Not so complicated with tatsoi.

We've had tatsoi in the farm share box both as a bag of leaves and as an entire head. [The head is more photogenic.] Either way I just rinsed the individual leaves and tossed them into the skillet--no extra chopping necessary.

I like to repurpose leftovers into a new meal, so I used a hunk of leftover turkey breast--though you could use chicken, ham, beef, pork, tofu or additional egg for protein. I'd be lying if I said the rice was leftover--I had my daughter start the rice cooker at lunchtime so I could come home and chill the cooked rice before I needed it at dinner--starting with cold cooked rice helps the grains to remain separate in a fried rice. Lately I've been lazy been simmering my stock for a long time, long like 8 hrs, so my turkey stock shown in the photo was at the Chicken Jelly stage. Instead of gathering garlic and ginger to season the fried rice, I used prepared hoisin sauce for an easy flavor. It's one of Lydia's ingredients for a Perfect Pantry. The first time I made this my daughter enjoyed the leftovers for lunch. When we got tatsoi again it was time to photograph the ingredients and write it up for the blog--yet my daughter enjoyed the leftovers for lunch again!

She's stealing the food while I'm trying to photograph it!

For other recipes using Tatsoi . . . well this is the first one for this blog. I suppose I should add a Tatsoi category to the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient at some point, though all I've done with it so far is fried rice. Over and over. In the meantime, I'd recommend hitting the Bok Choy Recipes Collection or the Cabbage Recipes Collection.

Egg, Carrot & Kohlrabi Sushi

Japanese-style rolled omelet with farm share kohlrabi and carrots make a vegetarian sushi roll.

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This blog is about how I'm feeding my family from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share to encourage you to try a farm share in your town. Typically the recipes I share are uncomplicated and use ingredients and tools found in regular stores. The food is generally nutritious, filling, and uses up items from the farm share box--but it's not usually fancy pants type food.

As often as I am embarrassed by the many iterations of brown food or fast & easy food on this blog, every once in a while I'm really proud of taking the time to create something pretty using the produce from our farm share. Today's recipe is more elevated compared to my standard fare. This is a terrific Spring/early summer seasonal sushi roll, and since the tantalizing glimpse of sunshine and warmth has me [and the dogs] wanting to lie on the brown grass in the back yard and dream of summer days, I'm sharing it now.

In addition to being a fan of eating from the farm share, I'm also a pretty frugal cook. Since my spouse and I can eat our ages in sushi--and the kids could probably exceed our consumption--it makes sense to roll our own and have sushi at home.  Just like with pizza, something that we like to eat often but don't like to shell out $$ for, sushi at home can be a wonderfully special meal.

I learned to make my own sushi while in my early 20's, living in Washington, DC. I've got a sushi 101 tutorial from the first month of this blog for reference--you can see it here. If you are a hands on learner, I would recommend taking a class. It's fun to learn along with other folks and you can get immediate answers to your questions. I've seen sushi-making classes offered at community centers, grocery stores and kitchenware stores. If you're interested, find a class and try it--then branch out on your own. There's no rule that says you need raw fish to have sushi, you just need a willingness to experiment and some raw materials!

For other recipes using carrots, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection. For other recipes using Kohlrabi, please see my Kohlrabi Recipes Collection (I'm pretty proud of it). These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient--a resource for ideas of what to do with farm share produce. For even more ideas, please feel free to follow my Pinterest boards--this is going on Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks.

Scrambled Egg & Beet Greens Pizza

Farm fresh eggs and farm share beet greens celebrate Spring on this vegetarian pizza.

I have a friend who celebrates the equinoxes with black and white meals. While I'd love the creative challenge, I'm more inspired by the themes of the upcoming season. All over the yard I'm seeing signs of rebirth--the daffodils my dad several years ago are peeping though the leaf mulch, the buds on the peach and dogwood trees are swelling, and I figured out which one of my raised beds has our garlic growing. [I'd forgotten where I planted it.] You can see that photo on my FB page.

I don't know if it's Easter or longer days and happier chickens, but eggs seem more abundant in Spring. I like to put my seasonal abundance on a Friday Night Pizza. I wasn't thrilled with the stress of cracking a raw egg atop a pizza, in my Ham, Asparagus, Leek & Egg Pizza. I worried about burning the crust before fully cooking the egg.

Instead, I figured I would partially cook a scrambled egg and add that to a pizza. Since beet greens and eggs are an amazing combination, I figured I'd give it a try on this pizza. I used a vegan hickory bacon-flavored seasoning salt, and sharp cheddar topped the whole pie. The whole family got on board this one, and I had no daytime leftovers to photograph in natural light.

Reminder to us all--save your eggshells to grind up and add to your garden bed. This will boost the calcium available to your tomatoes and help prevent blossom end rot. Nobody wants a rotten blossom end, especially on a tomato.

For other recipes using beet greens, please see my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other vegetarian pizza recipes please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index or my Friday Night Pizza Night Pinterest board.