CSA - Week 7

After a few hot and humid days, it was so nice to go out on my porch this morning to grab the CSA box and feel chilly! It was a nice start to a food-centered day. In between games of Uno Moo, Bingo, and soccer, I did my menu plan and shopping list for the week. I used to do all of that on the weekend, but if my produce is fresh on Thursday morning, I want to eat it ASAP, and don't know until Wednesday night what's in the box. The local grocery stores I have tried have a pretty sorry health food selection. Well, I shouldn't say that. Stop & Shop's is actually pretty good, but there a few key items that they're missing. My local health food store is overpriced, but can get away with it since they're the only one (that I know of) in the area.

Since my mom and I share the CSA and we needed to meet up today anyhow, I decided to go to Wegman's, which we do not have where I live. I was in heaven. I miss Wegman's. We also went to her local health food store where they had our favorite organic bread on sale for $2.99 instead of $4.79. We also got Apple/Beet/Carrot juice from the juice bar, and I was inspired to bring my juicer out of storage, which I'll do this weekend. I love my juicer, but go through phases with it, just because it's one more thing taking up counter space.

The only negative in an otherwise wonderful day (I even took a nap!) was that little dude got said beet juice on his favorite soccer ball shirt. Laundry results are pending.

So, what's in the box?

Zucchini - just over 2 1/2 pounds (6 of them)

Cucumbers - just over 2 1/2 pounds (3 of them)

Red Potatoes - about 2 pounds (6 of them)

Yellow Scallions - 6 ounces

Kale - 1 pound

Collard Greens - 1 pound

CSA - Week 6

I'm still here. A lot of fun happens in the summer and I have fallen behind. Since I will receive the Week 7 delivery tomorrow night, I guess this is my last chance to write about Week 6. Because of storms, they were unable to harvest kale last week, so we will receive a larger veggie share in this week's box.

Cabbage - 4 pounds

Yellow Scallions - just over 1/2 pound

Beets - approx. 3 pounds

Cucumbers - 2 1/2 pounds

Again, I forgot to take a picture. We went on an outing that day and left pretty early, so everything was a little off.

Last week, I had the entire cabbage for myself and I knew I wanted to make coleslaw. I decided on Bobby Flay's recipe, and it was really good. It was even better the second day, and my daughter ate it up! If you're looking for a good vegan coleslaw recipe, I recommend the recipe found in Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. The recipe can be found here, but I really recommend the book! Of course, if you're using fresh cabbage instead of coleslaw mix, you'll also need to add shredded carrots. You can even throw some radish in if you're feeling funky, or anything crunchy, really! I'd bet kohlrabi would be really good in there also.

Speaking of kohlrabi, here is what I did with this newfound love:

1. Cut off kohlrabi bulbs.

2. Peel bulbs with a knife. A peeler will most likely not do the job.

3. Slice, then cut into half-moons.

4. Toss around with a minced clove of garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

5. Bake at 450 for about 10 minutes, flip, bake another 5, top with Parmesan cheese, and bake another 5.

I really wish I didn't love cheese as much as I do.

Another option is to just do this:

(image courtesy of www.simplyrecipes.com)

CSA - Week 5

I love my CSA. Here we are at Week 5 of 26 and I feel like it's only getting better and more exciting. Even though I was really psyched to have beets for two weeks and snap peas for one, I'm okay with them being left out of this week's box. That's the whole point, after all. I'm trying new things and this week is no exception.

Yellow Scallions - 3/4 lb.

Baby Collard Greens - 3/4 lb.

Cabbage - 2 3/4 lb. (1 head)

Kohlrabi - over 2 1/2 lb.

Mizuna - under 1/2 lb.

I have been a vegetarian for about half of my life. I will be the first to admit that for the first couple years, i was doing it all wrong, as many do when they first start out. Here I am nearly 15 years later and I'm still discovering new vegetables. The first I heard of kohlrabi was last night, and then it showed up on my doorstep a few hours later. I feel like that must have some kind of significance, but since I can't play kohlrabi in the lottery, I'll just go ahead and hope that it's tasty.

The cabbage came at a good time because I can make a nice fresh coleslaw for the 4th of July since I already have organic carrots on hand. I also plan to do something different with mizuna since I've repeatedly made the same dish since discovering the green a few weeks ago. I have leftover spinach from the Italian Wedding Soup, so I'm thinking of making this, but with vegetable broth. My daughter picked out some organic whole wheat letter-shaped pasta and thinks "green sauce" is weirdly excellent, so I feel like that's a dinner waiting to happen.

Have a fun and safe holiday weekend! Yay America!

CSA - Week 3

Well, poo.

I forgot to take a picture of my CSA box today before I divided it up and sent half with my mom.

Here's what was waiting for me today!

French Breakfast Radishes - just under a pound

Mizuna - 1 lb.

Kale - 1 1/4 lb.

Mustard Greens - 1 3/4 lb

Beets - 3 lbs (6 beets)

I am WAY excited about the beets. While I generally think that hiding vegetables in your kids' food in order to get them to eat them is a bad idea, and that they should just learn to enjoy actual vegetables, there are some pretty yummy recipes in Jessica Seinfeld's book Deceptively Delicious. I'm talking about you, pink pancakes. And I will see you this weekend.

For my first mizuna experience, I made a dish that was featured in the farm's newsletter. I replaced the soba noodles with spaghetti, since that's what I had on hand. I also replaced the 4 green onions with 2 yellow scallions, since those were in last week's CSA box and I hadn't used them yet.

2 cups mizuna leaves, washed, stemmed, and chopped

2 carrots, sliced diagonally

4 thinly sliced scallions

1/2 cup thinly sliced radishes

2 cups cooked soba noodles

1 T toasted sesame oil

1 tsp ground ginger

1 clove minced garlic (I actually sliced mine because apparently I didn't read the recipe well while throwing it together. Honestly, I think i'd slice it again. I think that I would be so bold as to edit my recipe doc and save it.)

2T soy sauce (I use low-sodium tamari.)

2T sesame seeds

Bowl 1: mizuna, carrots, scallions, radishes, and noodles (which I cooked, drained, and placed into cold water to cool off quickly)

Bowl 2: garlic, ginger, oil, soy sauce

Whisk the contents of bowl 2, add to bowl 1, top with sesame seeds, mix, devour.

I am a HUGE fan. Mister A4S was a fan. It wasn't what he ate as his meal, but that's only because of the fact that there were leftovers that needed to be eaten. O, the 3 year old with an "I ATE MY GREENS!" certificate framed on her bedroom wall, loved it. Z, the one who generally will eat anything, but is way too stubborn for spaghetti, really thinks we need to start buying different types of pasta. Once I mentioned that I was sitting "criss-cross apple sauce," he suddenly wanted something else to eat.

CSA - Week 2

Since it has been so hot, and was still really hot overnight last night, I set my alarm for 2am so I could go grab the produce from the hot porch and keep it cool. The box was completely full, which surprised me after the heat wave we had.

Unfortunately, there will be no more arugula this Spring, since the heat caused it to flower. No arugula goat cheese pizza for me!

(Un)fortunately, we did get two huge bundles of mustard greens, so my mom and I each get a whole one. I have yet to cook them in a way that I like, but I am determined to keep trying! If I can get my kids to eat them, I'll be both thrilled and shocked. Keep in mind that I do share this with my mom, so I keep half of what is listed and pictured. Here is the breakdown:

French Breakfast Radish - 1 lb 2.8 oz

Purple-Top Turnips - 1 lb 12.8 oz

Yellow Scallions - 6.2 oz (4 scallions)

Mustard Greens - 2 lb 6.9 oz

Mizuna - 14.4 oz

Recipes to follow!

It's hot.

Really hot.

So, as you know, I'm new at this gardening thing, and I mostly had to sow directly into the soil without seedlings due to time constraints. Now we have apparently skipped the rest of June and all of July, and it's August. The leaves of my pea plants are completely dried up. Sad. Maybe that's normal, but I wouldn't know. I've done some poking around online, and I've read conflicting things. "Make sure you water your peas a lot." or "Hey, don't you dare over water your peas!!!! AHHHH!" If you have any feedback on the issue, by all means, let me know. I can't post a picture right now because there's a major thunderstorm heading our way and it just got super dark. Mr. Aiming for Sustaining did tell me that the cucumbers decided to show themselves today, so that's exciting!

Because of the heat, my CSA was delayed twice this week, and understandably so. It was 105-110 degrees with the heat index at the farm yesterday and today. I'm not sure what will be in it yet, but I would be psyched if there was more arugula so I can use that and the rest of my goat cheese and make a nice pizza. I'm thinking this, but with a homemade whole wheat crust.

I look forward to my next blog entry when it's in the 70's. I think I'll need a sweater.

CSA - Week 1

I got my first CSA delivery last night! I purchased a share from an organic NJ farm and I am splitting it with my mom this year to see how it goes. Normally, these posts will be done on Thursdays, but I got my delivery a day late this week because of thunderstorms on my normal day.

1 1/2 lbs. Mustard Greens

3/4 lb. French Breakfast Radishes

1/2 lb. Yellow Scallions

1 1/2 lb. Arugula

1 1/2 lb. Purple Top Turnips

I am very excited to dig for new recipes and cook with vegetables I've never purchased! The yellow scallions, in particular, smell ridiculously amazing. I feel a great sense of pride knowing that the vegetables I will feed my family tonight were just picked yesterday 14 miles away.