Local Ingredients

5 A Day, The CSA Way

When Wednesday's CSA share arrived, I challenged myself. How much CSA produce could I use in one day (Thursday)? And how many servings of fruits and veggies would I wind up with if I really applied myself?

The reason for my challenge? I'm going to be on vacation starting tomorrow, so I have to use a week's worth of produce in three days.

Breakfast:

Go Lean cereal with 1 small peach, diced, and soymilk

Lunch:
Zucchini, onion, and tomato saute with diced cooked sausage (see recipe at end of post)

Dinner:

Frozen chicken patty on a bun with sliced fresh tomato (yes, I ran out of cooking and chopping energy and gave in to a pre-made dinner item)

Plus a salad with cucumber (from last week's share) and diced green pepper

Dessert: one small peach, chunked, covered with soymilk

Final one-day tally:

2 zucchini

1 white onion

most of 1 medium tomato

1/2 green pepper

1/2 cucumber

2 small peaches

Quick Zucchini Saute

2 small to medium zucchini, sliced very thin

1 med onion, sliced very thin

1 link chicken sausage, already cooked and either diced or split lengthwise and then sliced into half-moons (my sausage was tomato-basil flavored, or something like that)

half of a medium tomato, diced

dried basil to taste

salt and pepper to taste

1 - 2 tbsp olive or other oil for sauteeing

Directions:

Heat oil in saute pan over medium heat. Add onion and zucchini and saute until well browned and softened. Add tomato and sausage, stir, and cook until warmed through (1-2 mins.). Add basil, salt, and pepper. Stir. Serve over pasta, in a pita, or as is.

Beet Chips

Some CSA foods this year are driving me a little crazy - kale and beets leading the pack. How many more beets can I possibly eat? (I haven't actually eaten that many yet - most are still sitting in the produce bin in my fridge. Thank goodness beets last a long time.)

One new way to eat beets is beet chips. They are sweet and crispy, stunningly ruby-colored morsels. Yum! And they cook pretty quickly. Most beet recipes call for roasting the beets up to a hour, or boiling them - who wants to deal with that when the temps are in the 90s (we have 103 degrees as the forecast high for Wednesday here in Baltimore). 

See recipe for Baked Beet Chips at Joelen's Culinary Adventures.

I found that my thinly sliced beets got crisp in as little as 20 to 25 minutes (as opposed to the 45 to 60 minutes called for in the recipe), so keep an eye on yours as they cook. If they start to darken and lose their red color, they have cooked too long and will taste bitter. 

The finished chips are a little sweet - it might be fun to add a little cayenne, ginger, or chili powder to the chips to get a sweet/hot balance of flavors.

Dragonfly CSA Share, June 30 2010 (week 9)

   
This week's out-of-focus share included blueberries, kale, spinach, red potatoes, red apples (where are they getting apples from in spring?), green beans, green peppers, beets, cucumbers, spring onions, and zuchini.

Kale Chips

I'm not sure I like kale, and the CSA people are telling me I had better get used to kale - there's lots more coming.

I found this recipe online for kale chips, and can't wait to try it! I'm asking all of my CSA buddies for their favorite ways to deal with kale - if I get any good recipes, I will post them here next week.

Wicked Tasty Harvest blog, Crispy Kale Chips.

Gorman Farms' Farm Stand

Local and organic produce in Laurel, MD. They offer a farm stand and CSA.

Today, I bought some romaine. They had gorgeous breakfast radishes, garlic, garlic scapes, and a wide variety of lettuce types. They said corn will be coming soon!

Dragonfly CSA Share, June 23 2010 (week 8)

CSA, Week #5 in review

My sister has been visiting and we have no had much time to blog about cooking! We have beets lingering in the fridge, along with green onions (what on earth can I do with them)? The yellow squash was chopped thin and used with the radishes and romaine and tomato as a salad. Yum! We tried this sugar snap and snow pea salad and did not like it very much. I think it would be easier to mix the cooked peas with oyster sauce rather than the odd mix of ingredients listed here. The strawberries disappeared in no time, and we ate the pickling cucumber just to see what it would taste like raw (like a cucumber, naturally). We also microwaved the broccoli and enjoyed it!

Can't wait for next week. We actually finished all of our lettuce this week - but I still don't think I'm ready for another giant head of lettuce (which we will inevitably get).

Dragonfly CSA Share, June 2, 2010 (week 5)

While I still have beets left over from last week (need to make roasted beet and carrot salad, or a beet and carrot slaw), and green onions (we put a few into stuffed green peppers last night, but we still have more) - it's delivery day again!

This week, the variety factor went up:

Romaine lettuce (my old, dear friend, we meet again)

Really big radishes

Small, luscious strawberries that were scarfed down in the first half hour

Yellow squash

Hothouse tomatoes (it may be time for panzanella)

More spring onions

One bunch broccoli (broccoli salad?)

What looks like a cute little pickling cucumber (see pickle and cucumber salad recipes here)

Sugar snap peas (may be time for sauteed asparagus and sugar snap peas)

Snow peas (may be time for sauteed snow peas, sugar snap peas, and pea shoots - if I can find them)

Dragonfly CSA Share, May 25, 2010 (week 4)

All I can say is hooray! Beets. And the strawberries are so perfect that they are oozing pink, sticky perfection.

Dragonfly CSA Share, May 18, 2010 (week 3)

 

Above is the full share - 1 giant head romaine, 1 giant head Boston lettuce, 1 bunch radishes, 1 bunch spring onions, hothouse tomatoes, 1 bunch asparagus, 3 medium stalks rhubarb, 1 pint of strawberries, and four very heavy, very large potatoes.

 

My half share looks like this. I took the romaine, while my share partner (Jen) took the Boston lettuce. I took all of the radishes (because she still has last week's in the fridge), and she got most of the tomatoes.

Everything looks great this week. The strawberries are so fragrant that we were all going "mmmm....." as we carried the shares up the one flight of stairs from the front step of our building to our office suite.

Our plans for everything:

Romaine lettuce: First, we are going to chop it up and use as the bed for a green salad topped with bleu cheese crumbles, walnuts, and leftover grilled london broil. Later in the week, when we work the head of lettuce down to a normal grocery-store size, we may try this lovely grilled romaine salad. Or this spicy version of a grilled romaine salad, from Bobby Flay.

Rhubarb: Probably will do rhubarb-oat muffins this week. Sounds yummy. Although we may try the rhubarb upside-down cake recipe from last week. 

Radishes: This is the week I will either do pickled radishes (it's a quick, easy process) or sauteed radishes with mint. Or, in a pinch, I may do Martha Stewart's very delicate-looking cucumber-radish slaw.

Spring onions and potatoes: May combine these into Colcannon (which combines mashed potatoes with kale and green onions). You can also do Colcannon with cabbage (which makes Colcannon a very close cousin to bubble and squeak). I might also combine the green onions and potatoes in scallion potato pancakes. Look at this gorgeous picture that the Sea Salt With Food blog posted along with the recipe:

Asparagus: Steam and serve plain. Or possibly use with green onions in this recipe for sauteed scallions, mushrooms, and asparagus.

Tomatoes: Slice, sprinkle with salt, and devour. Yum!

Strawberries: Eat as is. Again, they are super yummy and fragrant.