Project Vegetable, Day 2:

Breakfast: Veggie omelette (2 servings vegetables)
Lunch: French Onion Soup (1 serving vegetables)
Dinner: Chicken stir-fry (2 servings vegetables)
Dessert: Banana, peach slices and yogurt with honey (2 servings vegetables)

I tried something new in the chicken stir-fry: beet greens. I prefer to buy golden beets rather than the purple/red kind. I know they probably lack the nutrient that gives purple beets their color, but the golden ones taste the same and don't stain my fingers. The only golden beets available here are organic, and they come with long stems and leaves. I knew the leaves had to be edible, I just...wasn't sure what to do with them. So after throwing away the leaves of two bunches of beets, I decided to cook the leaves from the third batch. I just sautéed three leaves (they're pretty big) and added them to the other vegetables. They are delicious! Fairly mild, and a bit like spinach once cooked. I followed the advice of several on-line recipes and cut out the stems and cooked them first, adding the leaves once the stems had been in for a couple of minutes.

Even my husband, who eyes all unfamiliar vegetables with suspicion, gave them a try and said he'd be happy to eat them again, as long as they were mixed in with other things. Yay! Now I don't have to feel guilty about throwing away perfectly useable greens.

I also realized that the golden beets at our grocery store are sold by the bunch, not by weight. All bunches have three beets, but the beets seriously vary in size. There are some bunches with three tiny beets and some with three huge beets. So, of course, I try to buy the huge beets.

The beets themselves are for dinner tomorrow night. They and a turnip will be roasted in the oven with some pork chops. If the pork chops are defrosted in time. *sigh* Nothing seems to defrost overnight in my fridge, and I always forget to take things out earlier. Maybe we will be having bacon and pasta tomorrow night and pork chops on Thursday.