Red Beet Risotto with Mustard Greens and Goat Cheese

Amanda and I went to a German beer garden and listened to some free music after picking up this weeks share. Every summer, Make Music NY sponsors concerts around the city on the first day of summer: http://makemusicny.org. Due to this fabulous experience, we unfortunately did not cook. Then, on Wednesday, my favorite band, Ozomatli, performed a free concert in Red Hook, so alas, I did not cook again.

Thursday was the first day I was able to look at the vegetables and wash and sort what we received:

Arugula

Purple Broccoli Rabe

Green tatsoi

Purple tatsoi

Mustard greens

Green lettuce

and tazuma

After sorting though what we received, I realized I couldn’t tell some of the leafy/flowery ones apart. They all tasted bitter to me. So, the first meal I made was the pasta dish I made the first week with a mix of the bitter greens sautéed down. I love that recipe…easy to cook the garlic and onion in the broth and cook down the greens. Add olive oil, mix, and then put in the pasta. Easy peasey. Who knew? And, of course, a lettuce salad with strawberries.

However, I want to highlight the recipe I made on Saturday – Red beet risotto with mustard greens and goat cheese. After stocking up on what I needed at Whole Foods (realizing I must look clueless when I shop since someone offered to help me again…ha), and dance practice at the pier, I finally decided to start cooking.

I chopped the white onion (with some tears) and “cubed” the beets. Like the recipe said, I sautéed them in butter until the onion looked tender enough. Fortunately, I had just enough vegetable broth (I should have looked before I cooked!), and so I poured the rice, broth, and balsamic vinegar into the mix and simmered for about 15 minutes. The rice wasn’t completely done, so I added a little more water and let it sit for a few more minutes until the rice was just the right texture.

The recipe said to crumble the goat cheese on top and add the mustard greens. However, I realize I do not like mustard greens unless they are cooked. I cooked the greens down for about 3 minutes (I “steamed” them in a frying pan with a little water) and then mixed them into the recipe when complete. I also added some salt and pepper for flavor.

Add a salad on the side, of course, and voila! a healthy and delicious meal.

Some problems I have encountered:

1. Measurements are hard with vegetables … 1.25cups of onion doesn’t mean anything to me. I just chopped one white onion

2. I didn’t measure the beets so I hoped two smaller looking ones were enough.

3. The beets ended up a little crispier than I imagined but they still tasted good. I plan to cube them into smaller pieces when I make the dish again.

I still have tons of greens left over as of Saturday night. I plan to make a sausage and broccoli rabe pasta dish and an easy stir fry to get rid of the non-salady stuff. We’ll see what happens!

I have to say that I am very proud of my first two CSA weeks. I am not a cook and these recipes all seemed a tad bit intimidating. My criteria for choosing recipes have been ease, time and whether my boyfriend might like the dish. So far, so good.

Here is a picture of the Risotto dish results: