Spicy Beef with Collard Greens and Potato Mash

We got our second installment of our CSA box from Big Leaf Farm yesterday. Last weeks menu was delicious and I’m looking forward to this week. Here is our first meal of the week:

Spicy Beef with Collard Greens and Potato Mash

Tom asked me where I got this recipe. It’s sort of inspired by a couple different recipes. The first is one that my friend Stacie made for me years ago. She sauteed chard, onions and ground beef with a little red pepper. It was so delicious. I think that was the day I figured out I liked chard. The second part is inspired by a recipe from Lydia’s kitchen where she mashed potatoes with chard and lots of olive oil. If you don’t like leafy greens but wish you ate more of them, I highly recommend trying this mash out. It is downright delicious, even for the most passionate haters of greens. I made this for two and had leftovers for lunch today. You can double or triple it depending on how many guests you have. They will probably want seconds.

Collard Greens and Mashed Potatoes
3 large collard green leaves, stems removed and sliced into 1″ by 3″ strips
3 medium sized starchy potatoes such as russets or Yukon golds
1/4 cup chicken stock
Olive oil
sea or kosher salt

Peel and slice potatoes into quarters. Add to a pot of water and bring to a boil. Once you’ve achieved a rolling boil, add the collard greens. Boil until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork. Strain in a colander, replace back in the pot. Add chicken stock and a healthy helping of good, extra virgin olive oil. Salt generously with sea or kosher salt. Mash lightly with a potato masher.

Spicy Beef
1 lb 10% lean ground beef
1 small red onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, diced
1 carrot, shredded
5 mushrooms, sliced
about 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (depending on how hot you like it.)
Olive oil

Heat 1-2 Tbsp olive oil in a large saute pan. Add onion, carrot, mushroom, red pepper, and garlic and saute 2-4 minutes until aromatic. Remember red pepper tends to get hotter as you cook it so you may want to use less than the recommended 1/2 teaspoon. Push vegetables to one side of the pan and break up ground beef into the free side. Brown and incorporate into the vegetables.

Spoon a helping of greens and potatoes into a wide bowl and top with spicy beef mixture. Serve with Sriracha or your favorite hot sauce.

A recap on last week’s box:
We made a fennel, wheat berry goulash with canned tomatoes that was pretty good and would have been even better if I’d either used farro or had given the wheat berries more time to soften. I forgot to soak them over night so I tried to use the quick soak method of adding them to boiling water and letting them sit for a couple hours off heat. It didn’t work very well.

For lunch I had a baked potato with steamed broccoli. Yum yum. We had that amazing farro risotto the first night.

Oh! We had the most kick-ass ramen with the Pak Choi. I got fresh noodles from an Asian market, used our fresh chicken broth from last week’s chicken roast, added a heap of miso paste and sauteed very thinly sliced pork meant for sukiyaki. I also found that at the asian market. So delicious.

I used the remaining savoy cabbage in a yummy coleslaw and we had BBQ chicken sandwiches with coleslaw and yam fries. The chicken was leftover from our chicken roast last week.

The only item I didn’t use from last week’s box was the acorn squash. I figured that would keep well and I wanted to get through the stuff that spoils fast. We may not get a box next week due to the freezing weather so we may have it next week unless we get through our stuff this week.

In addition to getting collard greens, potatoes and carrots, this week we got celeriac, onions, arugula, and beets. Tonight we are having chicken breast with a beet, arugula, goat cheese salad. Yum yum. I’m thinking about a split pea, celeriac soup later this week.

Cross section of a fennel bulb.