Ready, Go - Week 1

I picked up my first box of veggies this week. I had big plans for my first box, which didn’t pan out. During the off-season I meant to research new recipes I wanted to make this summer and organize them into a blog post I could refer to throughout the CSA season. Instead they are in the usual places, in stacks of pages ripped out from magazines and saved as favorites on my computer. I also wanted to recategorize the recipes posted on my blog by vegetable, but that never happened either. I also read a great book on organic farming, Turn Here Sweet Corn by Atina Diffley, and meant to write a review of that.

 Oh well. I may return to those projects this summer, next fall or next winter, but for now it’s on to the vegetables I’m picking up every two weeks. Here’s a list of what I received this week:

• Kale 
• Beets
• Green Onions
• Garlic Scapes 
• A number of different types of lettuces/greens 
• Carrots 
• Broccoli 
• Salad Turnips 
• Cucumber 

On Tuesday, after I picked it up, I put the kale to use right away with some leftover pasta I had in the refrigerator. I don’t really have a recipe. All I did was sauté the kale with some thinly sliced garlic scapes until it was cooked down. Then I added some store-bought pesto to the pasta, stirred in the kale mixture and topped it with some grated Parmesan. It was quick and simple, but tasty.

I’ve eaten most of the rest in variable salads in the past couple days. The surprise of the box was the salad turnip. The Two Onion Farm newsletter described these as “extremely tender, juicy, and sweet, with just a hint of mustardy, turnipy taste.” They also called them the most delicious vegetables they grow. They were absolutely right. I peeled one so far and ate it raw. The flesh is more tender and moist than other root vegetables and the taste is very mild, but distinct. I can’t wait to eat the other one.

Finally, tonight I decided to put a few of the beets to use. I traded some of my greens for more beets, thinking I was going to make some beet burgers. Since I haven’t had time yet, I decided to try a new recipe. I was gone all day, so soup in the crock pot won out. Although I didn’t follow the directions exactly for the Roasted Beet and Potato Soup, it was a nice surprise. When I came home tonight my house smelled almost like I’d been cooking tomatoes all day. The beets were an unexpected acidic compliment to the potatoes. 

So even though I didn’t do all the planning I wanted, the CSA season has started out well. I’ve learned to love a yummy new vegetable, eaten a number of healthy dishes and found another new way to like beets. I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s what CSA season is all about.