Friday, June 14, 2013

CSA Recipes!

hello summer!  for a while, i've been wooed by the idea of CSA's (community supported agriculture, for the interested).  however, it wasn't until i found out that earth spring was going to have a drop point at my friend laura's house that mike and i started discussing the idea seriously.  it's intimidating to not know ahead of time what veggies you will receive - and what if you get super weird veggies that you've never heard of before, let alone seen in a recipe???

obviously, since i'm writing this blog post, we decided to go for it!  i wanted the extra push to keep trying new things (one of mike's biggest requests when it comes to meals - second to meat and ahead of pasta - is variety!), and when spread over 20 weeks of deliveries, the cost is reasonable.  we also got the fruit share - go big or go home, kids!



we got our first box yesterday, and i was ecstatically excited.  so.much.green.  radishes, collard greens, lettuce, spinach, spring onions, and KALE.  and a quart of strawberries, which i shamelessly snacked on while cooking up the other stuff!

so, over the course of the summer, i'm going to post here the recipes that i've tried and would recommend for these veggies.  enjoy!!

radishes
i used this recipe for whole foods on a budget for our radishes.  even though i greatly respect christy as a blog writer and cook, my hopes were not high - these are RADISHES.  my experience with radishes was low, but my judgment was high.....they always seemed like such odd vegetables.  however, i loved the idea of using the whole radish, and decided to give the recipe a shot!

we didn't have sunflower seeds, so i added a little bit of extra parmesan to the pesto.  also, i used a little extra butter (~1/2 T) while sauteing the diced radishes, and allowed them to brown.

IT WAS SO YUMMY.  the butter really did neutralize the radishes, giving them such a wonderful flavor and texture - we didn't have any meat, but you didn't need any!  i was so nervous about whether mike would go for this.....again, no meat......but he ate his in record speed, and started in on mine!  he reiterated his love for this recipe so much that i'm really hoping we get more radishes next week!!!  i plan to use the rest of the pesto on second batch of pasta with sliced steak over it.  i think that the pesto does need something "fatty" to offset it.

kale
i'm so behind the curve on this, but we made our first batch of kale chips!  i was torn between that and a kale salad recipe that my sister-in-law rocks at the family gatherings....but no regrets in trying this first.  annnnnd, mike loved this recipe, too!  we were like a couple of delinquent kids, standing at the stove, munching them straight off of the cookie sheet.

one tip: if they don't all crisp up (for us, the ones in the middle were piled too much on top of each other), pull out the crispy ones and spread the others back out - stick back in the over for ~3-5 minutes longer.

hurray for summery and healthy eating!

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