Radishes, rhubarb compote, and this week's haul

Yesterday I picked up our weekly share, and here's what was in the box:
- a bunch of kale
- a head of lettuce, plus a small container of salad greens
- a purple kohlrabi
- two zucchinis
- more rhubarb
- mint
- a large head of bok choy
- a bunch of spinach
- a bunch of radishes
- green onions
- asparagus
- a cucumber

As with last week (though cursing the task until I was done - yesterday was a long day), I washed a spun dry the greens, and packed them into Ziplocs. Here's my rough plan for it all:
- Radish and kohlrabi salad (that's tonight - see the recipe below, courtesy of Eugenie)
- Green risotto (a spinach risotto)
- Sesame noodles, which will use the bok choy, cucumber, and green onions
- lots of salads, some sauteed zucchini, and more roasted asparagus, all as accompaniments to whatever else I put together

You may have noticed that I had not yet used the rhubarb from last week. Happily, it held up well in our crisper, and we got even more this week. So what to do with it? I turned half of it into a compote (recipe below) - the other half will be discussed in an upcoming post.

So what's on for tonight? Roasted chicken, green salad, and Eugenie's Russian Radish & Kohlrabi Salad. After my last use of radishes, my friend Eugenie suggested a raw way to eat the them that's based on a traditional use of radishes in Russia. Faced with a kohlrabi and no real idea of what to do with it, I had originally thought to roast it - but when I was cutting it up, it had similar texture to a radish. Rather than roast it (being so small, it felt like the amount we'd end up with was silly), I grated it up and added it to the radish salad, described below. All I can say is - yum! It's like coleslaw, but with a slightly bitter tone - a cool accompaniment to tonight's roast chicken, and an excellent way to use radishes (and kohlrabi, if I do say so myself.)

Eugenie's Russian Radish & Kohlrabi Salad

1 bunch of radishes
1 purple kohlrabi
2 tbsp sour cream or yogurt
salt and pepper to taste

Grate radishes and kohlrabi. Mix with sour cream or yogurt. Add salt and pepper before serving to taste.

Now for the rhubarb compote. As strawberries really aren't in season here yet, I decided to make half of our rhubarb into a compote that we could easily freeze. This could then be mixed with strawberries - if this is done while warm, the strawberries will melt a little into the mixture, but not turn to mush. Equally delicious is warming this and putting it on vanilla ice cream.

Rhubarb Compote

2 cups chopped rhubarb
1/2 cup sugar (or to taste - if you like yours less sweet, use less)
2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp water

Add all ingredients to a saucepan. Bring to boil, then turn down and simmer until the desired consistency.