Ketchup

There is no actual ketchup in this post, but that's what I am playing! YJDKIY's first Winter Harvest meal was a few nights ago and I was quite pleased with the results.

Chopped Florida Broadleaf Mustard Greeens. Wowee...I had no idea about these guys. They first dumbfounded me by smelling like a cross between roses and fresh cut grass when I chopped them up. They second dumbfounded me when I kept saying OW! only to discover they had tiny little prickers on the stems. I won't lie, it seems a little odd to eat something with prickers! A few facts: mustard greens are high in Vitamins A & K. The plant is used in phytoremediation to remove heavy metals, such as lead, from the soil in hazardous waste sites because it has a higher tolerance for these substances and stores the heavy metals in its cells. The plant is then harvested and disposed of properly. Farmers also use it as "green manure" functioning as mulch. (thanks wiki)

Second ingredient for this dish was beets (had to HT these!). I forgot that it is much easier to boil them than bake, so this was an almost disaster...after baking for 40 minutes, they still required another 20 minutes of boiling to get the skins off. But, that actually worked out well for another reason you'll see in a sec.

Ingredient #3 - aborio rice for the risotto base. I also prepared some chopped green onion and parmesan and Laughing Cow to add in at the end.

I prepared the risotto as directed on the box, and then when it was just about done, I quickly blanched the greens in the boiling beet pot before mixing into the rice. Greens are normally slow cooked with ham hock or other flavoring, so I wanted to give them as much cooking as possible, and I knew just mixed in the rice probably wouldn't cut it. To finish up, I diced the (now well cooked and skinless) beets and mixed them into the rice-greens, plus mixing in a lot of parm and 2 wedges of light swiss, plus a little pepper and garlic salt.

Meanwhile, our second WH item was baking away in the oven (already preheated by beet cooking!) Diced sweet potatoes with garlic EVOO, balsamic vinegar, and rosemary baked at 400 for about 30-40 minutes. Definitely a YJDKIY favorite.

Ughhhh we need a compost!

The other side prepared for this colorful veggie plate was not a WH item, but was still homegrown and relatively local! Some type of peas...field peas maybe? But they looked like green black eyed peas picked in Halifax county NC. Simply boiled in water with a little pepper and garlic powder (normally I would add onions, but that flavor didn't really go with the other two items!).