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 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!