What’s in the CSA Bag – Week 2
Posted on July 8, 2008 by
This week – the addition of beets and green onions.
Here’s what’s in the bag and what I plan to do with it:
- Golden beets – I am going to make Beet Salad from a recipe that came in last year’s newsletter. I’ll put it in the next post.
- Green Onions – On Saturday, I grilled two, cut up and speared on bamboo skewers with peppers I picked up at the farmers’ market. I tossed them with a homemade whole grain mustard vinaigrette. We ate it as a side dish, and then had the leftovers on salad the next day.
- Snap peas – No more snow peas! Yay! These snap peas are so sweet! I’ve been eating them like crazy.
- Spinach – I think I may cook and freeze some in individual serving sizes. Or maybe try drying it to add the powder to smoothies? Or just add the spinach to smoothies now? There’s a lot of spinach. Anyone have storage tips?
- Lettuce – This week, I was stunned by the beauty of one of the heads of lettuce. I know that sounds silly, but check out the picture below. My camera and photography abilities don’t do it justice. We’re eating lettuce like it’s our job. Lots of salad. I like to throw some fresh dill or cilantro into the mix to liven things up.
I’m bracing myself for the mass amounts of zucchini I just know are coming.
In the last CSA post, csim33 asked about the per week cost of our CSA. At $320 per season for roughly 20 weeks (depending on the growing season) we pay $16 a week. If last year is a good indicator, the volume of food will increase greatly over the next few weeks, and wane again toward the end of the season, but we are promised about 12-14 lbs of organic produce per week.
Want to see who else is eating fresh and local? Here are some great CSA/Market/Garden posts I’ve come across today. I know I’m forgetting some, so if you have a post and want to be added to the list, let me know!
What’s in your CSA bag/farmers’ market haul?
You know, you can make cream soup with the lettuce if you want a rest from the salad.
1 lettuce
3 potatos
1 carrot
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
1 table spoon of olive oil
1 table spoon of tomato pureé
salt to taste
Separate the lettuce leaves and peel and dice the other vegetables, put everything in a pot with water, the olive oil, the tomato purée and a bit of salt.
When the vegetables are cooked through, blend everything and check if it needs a bit more salt.
Ohhh, that all sounds so good! I bet cooking and then freezing the spinach would be a good way to store it because the spinach will shrink down so much and then wouldn’t take up as much room. Do you get fruit from your CSA or is it all veggies all summer?
Ana – thanks for the recipe! I’ll have to try that out!
Rebecca – our CSA is all veggies. I know some do have fruit too, but none in our area seem to. I supplement with farmers’ market trips. I love summer fruit!
Found this article on freezing spinach, hope it helps:
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf84032245.tip.html
Ana! Thank you! That’s awesome!
[...] This week in the CSA newsletter, I learned that our farmer’s grandson just had his first birthday, where the onion capital of the world is, and that this year, conditions are exactly right for growing lettuce, so we should brace ourselves for a summer of salads (and Ana’s lettuce soup). [...]