Don't blow veggie tops -- use them!
Go greener: Stop tossing away the nutritious leafy ends of vegetables
I belong to a Community Supported Agriculture program. Last summer, I asked my fellow members which vegetables in their weekly box of farm-fresh produce regularly left them stumped.
The most common answer? Leafy veggie tops. Folks were perplexed by the greens attached to vegetables like beets, carrots, turnips and kohlrabi.
"I end up throwing them in my compost heap," a member sheepishly admitted to me. "I know they're healthy, but I have no idea what to do with them, so they end up getting tossed."
Several others echoed her sentiments. That news seemed like such a shame to me, as leafy tops are really quite delicious and a good source of dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals. Ever since, I've been on a leafy-tops crusade, trying to encourage others to cook the leaves they'd otherwise chuck.
Each leafy top has a flavor and texture of its own, but they're all interchangeable in most recipes. Once you become acquainted with each leafy top's flavor, texture and cooking time, the possibilities are endless. Here's a look at four particular greens with suggestions for cooking and eating them.
Available year-round, beet leaves look deceivingly sturdy but cook down quickly to a meltingly tender texture with a mild, earthy flavor.
I frequently steam the leaves and use them as a bed for roasted beets.
Just about everyone I polled had no idea that the feathery leaves attached to fresh carrots were edible.
Available all year, carrot tops taste something like a cross between carrots, parsley and lemon zest. Taste them before you decide what to do with them, as they tend to be a bit more bitter when the carrots are older.
They do make a nice addition to pastas, tabbouleh and cooked carrot salads.
Kohlrabi leaves are available nearly year-round; these sturdy greens have a great broccoli-like flavor. Try them sauteed in olive oil with garlic, red chile flakes and lemon, or briefly boiled. The stems and white ribs that run up the lengths of the leaves should be discarded.
You'll find these in the cooler months, from October to March. Turnip greens have an assertive flavor reminiscent of young turnips or broccoli stems, with a peppery bite.
The sturdy leaves do best when cooked in liquid for about 10 minutes if the greens are tender, or as long as 30 minutes if the greens are mature.
The stems and ribs are edible when young, but are best torn away from the leaves if thick and tough. Pass on any bunches that have yellow leaves -- a sign of age and bitterness.
Turnip greens are lovely when blanched and added to hearty soups, such as the Spanish caldo callego, a blend of potatoes, sausage, and greens.
In the American South, turnip greens are commonly boiled with smoked pork hock or bacon in a soupy liquid called "pot likker" (liquor).
When storing any of these leafy greens, separate the leaves from the vegetables they came with; if left attached, the leaves can rob moisture from the vegetables and render them flabby.
And though the roots (or swollen stems, in the case of kohlrabi) that the leaves came with might last for weeks in your vegetable drawer, it's best to use the leaves within a few days, because they're seldom as sturdy as they look.
Ivy Manning is an Oregon writer and cooking instructor and contributor to Culinate.com, where this first appeared. Manning is the author of The Farm to Table Cookbook: The Art of Eating Locally (Sasquatch Books, $29.95).