We dined tonight on radish greens. Oh, how sad that sounds, and yet it wasn’t really. What is this obsession of mine with saving bits of vegetables in bags in the freezer? Onion and garlic peels with bits of bone become a wonderful stock. Such a stock enhanced our soup tonight. We had a mexican style bean and green soup, pretty much stolen from Rick Bayless, although he doesn not necessarily recommend radish greens in his recipe. The American cook-book buying public would probably revolt if a celebrity chef recommended radish greens in a recipe.
The soup was excellent. We have had it before; I love it, George is less entranced, he is not as fond of the slightly fuzzy nature of the radish greens, although he was surprised to find that he adores carrot tops, another waste-bin vegetable.
I cooked beans in my secondary stock, made from various trimmings then added some sauteed onion and bits of dried pasilla chile that had been soaked and blended with tomatoes and roasted garlic. The greens were stirred in after all the other ingredients were tender; at the last minute we added shredded tortilla strips that had been baked instead of fried.
It is not that I am excessively frugal with all things, I can be quite wasteful in fact, not something about which I am always proud. If the fruits of my efforts from hording little bits of foods in bags in the freezer were less delicious, I would not be nearly so eager to continue. As it is the refrigerator and freezer are filled with food yet there is nothing to eat; at least, there is nothing one can just reach in and grab to eat out of hand.