We finally got our first CSA box on June 7 after seeing all those Californians with produce all winter long. There was even an article in Slate about how people can’t figure out what to do with turnips, kale and parsley, all of which I like.
Swiss Chard – I used this pretty much immediately in a lentil recipe that called for spinach. It also called for lemon juice and zest. I’ve never done lentils like this before, but I’d definitely do it again – they were tasty. I usually go for curry or chili powder and cumin.
Sugar Snap Peas – These are fantastic: sweet and delicious. We’ve eaten them raw, sliced them up for salad, added them to a coconut curry and I shelled a handful for a Japanese/French hybrid omelette.
Radishes – I still have two left. I want to like radishes, but…I just don’t. We got four different kinds, and I only really liked one. We did not get a lot of them – maybe eight. Tino likes them even less than I do.
Lettuce mix with mustard leaves – the mustard leaves are very immature and I’ve been putting them into salads raw. Mmmm, salad.
Scallions – We only got four. They went into the omelette mentioned above as well as the coconut curry.
Strawberries – We got 1.5 quarts. All were eaten as is or in salads. Strawberries are great in salads, and these were very punchy. They had a lot of acidity and they got sweeter as the week went on, but still had the acidity. They were very flavorful. Sometimes, I find the commercial Floridian ones a little bland. That was certainly not the case here.
Garlic Scapes – I seasoned white boiled potatoes with these along with onion, butter and parsley. I found the texture a little weird, and they didn’t taste like much on the potatoes. Later in the week, I made a pesto from these, olive oil, walnuts and parmesan cheese. I did add a little basil, but most of the green flavor was from the scapes. I ate it on rice pasta, and a couple of days later, I put some on a haddock filet. Tino is not into pesto, and I still have a bit left.
Broccoli Rabe – This was really sad looking, and I still have it. If it were a bag of pot, it would be all stems and seeds.
I also purchased some local arugula a few days before I got the box. I just finished it up this morning – it was still very fresh and perfect looking, but it even started out *very* green and a little chewy, IMO. I braised it in butter with a little onion and ate it with two sunny-side-up eggs on top (local, of course). It was fantastic that way.
We didn’t get any fruit today, but cherries, raspberries and blackberries are coming up next. We got more lettuce mix with mizuna, a lot more sugar snap peas, turnips with greens, chard in three colors and scallions. I’ll report back after I’ve had a chance to use this weeks box.
The wineberries in our yard are a couple of weeks from being ready, but those are darn tasty, and I’m looking forward to them too.
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