2017 CSA Week 5

Hello fellow CSA members!

Can you believe this week marks the first quarter of our CSA season? Me either.

Ford and the rest of the folks at Sustainable Harvest Farm have another great share for us:

Produce	Storage	Longevity
swiss chard	washed and thoroughly dried, or unwashed, in fridge, sealed in container	1 week
summer squash and zucchini	unwashed, in fridge	1-2 weeks
romaine lettuce	unwashed, in fridge	1 week
kohlrabi	washed or unwashed in fridge	1-2 weeks
kale	washed and thoroughly dried, or unwashed, in fridge, sealed in container	1 week
green onions	Lightly rinsed, dried and stored in plastic wrap or fridge container	1-2 weeks
radishes	unwashed, in fridge, can remove greens	up to 1 week
small cabbage*	unwashed, in fridge	up to a month or longer
broccoli*	unwashed, in fridge	1 week
tatsoi	unwashed, in fridge	1 week

*Shares will include either broccoli or cabbage. Please note that small shares may be missing one or more items, likely swiss chard.

Last week we were out of town and my mom picked up my share for me. When I got home she told me how much she enjoyed it. Commenting over and over that you don't even have to do anything to the food. Just eat it. As we were cutting up some lettuce for a taco salad one evening, she showed me the bok choy and said, "This one is so good! This is the one I have just been eating plain!" I couldn't help but smile that she loved one of my share favorites too.

While I do advocate tasting almost every produce item in your share before you transform it, few of us are satisfied just eating our veggies raw, plain and straight from the fridge. Which is why I try to share recipes each week.

I'm really excited to share this one with you. I made it up myself. I was worried it was going to be a colossal fail since it was my first time making anything like it and I made so many changes to the recipe BUT it was wonderful! I call it CSA "Carbonara."

I was wanting spaghetti (you know, the traditional kind with tomato sauce) for dinner. But, these days spaghetti at my house looks like this:

Not appetizing. Plus, that's my kid. I'm responsible for him. Which means I have to touch him with my bare hands, even when he's this gross. And somehow this mess has to be cleaned. My days have already devolved into running from room to room cleaning various messes, so by the time I'm planning supper sometimes I just want to eat the cleanest thing possible. Literally, cleanest, as in less messy. A new definition for "clean eating" for you.

But a few weeks ago my friend (and fellow CSA member - hi Alisha!) made spaghetti carbonara for a lunch at church. Matthias ate it without requiring a fully-suited hazardous waste clean-up crew afterward.

I looked up the recipe and as soon as I read about the garlic I remembered the garlic scapes from our share. Then I remembered I still had some bacon from the winter meat share. I decided to go rogue and add in broccoli, squash and swiss chard too. And, instead of using parmesan, I grated a block of white cheddar from Wildcat Mountain Cheeses. There are so many deviations, I'm not even sure it still even qualifies as carbonara, but it was delicious. And, surprise of all surprises, even my vegetable-hating husband LOVED it!!! Shut the front door. He has never enjoyed anything with swiss chard in it in his life.



Yes, he's a few months older. It's
going to be a while before I do spaghetti
again.

 

He commented, "Maybe I could eat healthy!"

I reminded him this particular recipe included a pack of bacon and a block of cheese, so healthy was a bit of a stretch.

And, this was what I had to clean up.

Here's the actual recipe. You could easily sub ingredients from this week's share (green onions, etc).





CSA "Carbonara"

1/2 pound spaghetti
veggies from share, chopped (broccoli, squash, swiss chard, etc)
8+ slices of bacon
1/2 pound grated white cheese (parmesan, white cheddar, asiago)
3 eggs
Pepper and garlic, to taste

Bake or fry bacon, then chop it.

In a couple tablespoons of reserved bacon grease, saute chopped veggies.

Mix grated cheese and eggs. Set aside. (I've never made carbonara before, but I read that it is important to have this mixed to add to the noodles as quickly as possible to help cook the eggs.)

While veggies are cooking, boil pasta according to instructions. Drain. Turn the burner to very low heat or off and toss with veggies. Stir in cheese sauce. Then add in bacon and season to taste.

It looked like something from a restaurant!

Happy eating to you this week! I hope you all have your own kitchen successes! Please share them on the CSA Facebook page! I've loved seeing your pictures and recipes. And don't be afraid to post a flop either. We've all had them.