Week 2

The second week of the farm was similar to our opening weekend, produce wise.  For our half of the family share, we got

• 2 heads of green lettuce 
• 1 lb of spinach
• 2 quarts of strawberries 
• 1 bunch of chive flowers 

This week we not only got produce from our farm, but also from Suburban Organics. A few months back, I bought a half-price box on Living Social, and running out of time to redeem it, we ordered a small boxed of mixed fruit and vegetables this week. In the box there was:

• Green lettuce 
• 1 lb of carrots 
• 1 lb of summer squash (yellow)
• 1 bunch of rainbow chard 
• 8 oz of white button mushrooms
• 2 ears of  white sweet corn
• 2 roma tomatoes 
• 5 bananas
• 2 oranges 
• 3 apples
• 1/2 pint of raspberries (!)

So, once again this will be a salad heavy week. In addition to green salad, we already made quinoa salad with the corn, tomatoes, and cilantro we picked up at the farmer's market, along with some red peppers and red onion we picked up at the store and lime juice we had on hand.  We also started the process of making chive-flower vinegar by steeping the blossoms in a jar with white distilled vinegar.  For dinners this week we'll be making stir fry with some of these ingredients (mushrooms and carrots), the rest of last week's snap peas, and other ingredients from the store (broccoli, bean sprouts, etc). Also, on Friday we plan to make ricotta gnudi with home-made ricotta and tomato sauce in the freezer from last year's tomatoes, along with the chard.  

It begins again

This blog, yes, has been inactive. But starting today, it will serve as a weekly record of what we got from our CSA each week (we split a family share, but we will mostly be describing our half of that share) and what we did with it.  Our first pick-up of the year was May 21, and we got:

• 1 lb spinach 
• 1/2 lb arugula
• 1 bunch radishes
• 1 quart pick your own strawberries
• 1/2 pint PYO snap peas

The snap peas were fairly picked over when we got there, so they weren't as nice and large as one would like. Therefore, we have to use frozen peas for our vegetarian spaghetti carbonara (with egg, and also shiitake mushrooms from the farmer's market, but without bacon). With our produce, we made:

• Arugula and strawberry salad with goat cheese, hazelnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette
• Spinach salad for lunches. Specifically, Mo's favorite salad with feta and cranberries
• Bibb lettuce salad (from the store) with sliced radishes, feta, and lemony vinaigrette

Clearly, it's salad season. But overall, a good way to start another year of our CSA harvest. I should also note that we are still using last year's ingredients. For example, this week we had pumpkin-chipotle soup with pumpkin we cooked, pureed, and froze last fall.