2016 CSA Week 7

Hello fellow CSA members!

I'm sorry about the absence of an "In the Kitchen" post last week. I had out-of-town appointments a couple of days and when I was home my days never actually went as I planned for them to. However, I did want to share with you what I had hoped to do with the kohlrabi and maybe you can try it too. (My Plan E -- at this point -- is to do this for lunch tomorrow. We'll see.)

Inspired by the pickled kohlrabi recipe I shared in last week's post, as well as a shredded kohlrabi and carrot salad recipe I saw I began dreaming of a knock-off banh mi sandwich. (I even thawed out the pork for it!) I planned to pickle shredded carrot, kohlrabi and cucumber for the veggies (and, of course, cilantro). If I get to it tomorrow I'll let you know how it goes in the second post I hope to do this week.

Enough about last week's share... What do we have for this week?!?!

Produce	Storage	Longevity
summer squash and zucchini	unwashed, in fridge	1-2 weeks
lettuce	unwashed, in fridge	1 week
kale	washed and thoroughly dried, or unwashed, in fridge, sealed in container	1 week
bok choy	unwashed, in fridge	1 week
Sustainable Harvest strawberry jam	shelf stable	months

One of my friends made freezer jam with the SHF strawberries one season a couple years ago, so I am so excited to get this jar of jam this year. And I wanted to share with all of you this recipe for how we used our strawberry jam back then: Mississippi Delta Jelly Cake. I have made some cakes from scratch that have been flops, but I loved this cake batter recipe. And of course the jam made it delicious. I even made cupcakes from the batter once and then filled them with jelly and topped them with homemade buttercream icing. The good news is that if you don't have time to try it this week, the jam will last as long as you can keep from opening it and eating it with a spoon.

Keeping with the delicious baked good theme, I want to share with you one of our favorite zucchini recipes, Blueberry Zucchini Bread. I'm sad to say I haven't made it to the farmer's market yet this season, but the blueberries sold at the market here in London are my absolute favorite for this recipe. If the blueberries and zucchini aren't available at the same time you can always freeze one or the other until you have them both.

We also love to saute the squash in garlic and soy sauce or some type of marinade, or -- my personal favorite -- just bread them and fry them. Yummy! I'm going to be looking for other squash recipes in the coming days and if this week goes better than the last I'll let you know how it goes.

Obviously, these suggestions are not the healthiest options you could choose for your fresh, local, organic products, but I do think they're delicious. On that note, I'll leave you with one final recipe I wanted to go ahead and share in case I don't make it myself this week. All of this beautiful lettuce reminds me of my grandparents' garden when I was young. They'd bring in beautiful fresh lettuce (much like what we get in our shares) and we'd have Wilted Lettuce Salad. Never had it? Sound healthy to you? Let's just say the "dressing" is made from bacon grease. Kind of like a BLT, minus the bread.

I hope you all enjoy your shares this week. Please keep in touch! I love hearing from fellow members. amyrosekarr@gmail.com

A special thanks this week to all the people who
help deliver our wonderful CSA shares each week.
We appreciate you!

2016 CSA Week 6

Hello fellow CSA members!

I hope you got to enjoy this GORGEOUS day today! I thought it was glorious!

We've got another great share this week. Several items are making their first appearance of the season!

Produce	Storage	Longevity
cucumber	unwashed, in fridge	1-2 week
summer squash	unwashed, in fridge	1-2 weeks
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 garlic	in a cool, dark place	1-2 weeks
sweet potatoes*	in a cool, dark place	2 weeks
tomato juice*	shelf stable	months
salsa*	shelf stable	months
carrots**	unwashed, in fridge	2 weeks
broccoli**	unwashed, in fridge	1 week
tatsoi**	unwashed, in fridge	1 week

There's a bit more CSA lottery this week. Shares will include either sweet potatoes, salsa OR tomato juice, as well as broccoli, carrots OR tatsoi. Only one in each of the two categories. Again - I wish you the best in getting your favorite. I will admit I was rooting for strawberries for myself last week because I knew we wouldn't have them much longer, but its hard for me to pick a favorite out of these!

I had never heard of kohlrabi until I became a CSA member. Maybe it is new to you too. I haven't done anything creative with it in the past. Growing up my family would slice up turnips, add a little salt and eat them raw. That's what I do with kohlrabi. But I think I may try to find something new for it this week. I'll be sure to let you know what I come up with.

This webpage was shared in a previous season and has a recipe for pickled kohlrabi... You will learn that I LOVE pickled things... I might just have to try it!

Also, a few notes on the green garlic: It is basically just fresh garlic that hasn't been dried. Amanda shared this helpful website last year for making the most of it. Its a long article, but I encourage you to take some time to look over it. Or, just use it like you would dried garlic. You'll find that it is very tender and flavorful.

2016 CSA Week 5: In the Kitchen

Happy National Doughnut Day*, fellow CSA members!

I hope you all celebrate!

Some CSA members enjoy their strawberries this way!

As I shared with you earlier, this week I was determined to make something with the chard.

CSA member Polly Symons, who shared the wonderful recipes last week, also said that the NY Times recipe site was amazing. I decided to try it out with swiss chard recipes. She wasn't kidding. I just searched for swiss chard and this is what I got.

So many of these looked appealing to me.

It was early in the week and I didn't even have my share yet and I was dreaming of all the glorious hours I would spend in the kitchen making these delicious dishes from scratch that Johnie was sure to rate at 5 broccoli stalks.

That's not actually real life.

By the time Thursday evening came, the night I had planned to use the swiss chard in some way, I was pretty tired and I wasn't feeling well. Thursday is laundry day at our house and for some crazy reason I also decided to do a little cleaning. The clock inched toward dinner time and I just wanted to do take-out. Order pizza. Pick up McDonald's. Anything. Just don't make me open the refrigerator. Or chop anything. Or turn on the stove. Please.

But I sighed. And opened the refrigerator anyway and looked at what was left of my beautiful share. It is beautiful. Every week it is beautiful. I pulled the swiss chard out and stared it down. Nothing. No inspiration.

I decided to eat a carrot (those things are so delicious!) and think. I pulled up the NY Times swiss chard recipe list again. I hadn't made a trip to the store to get any of the necessary ingredients of many of the recipes that looked interesting. But I had mentally starred one that just might appeal to Johnie because it also featured sausage/brats. And I had some SHF brats from the winter meat share.

I still wasn't excited about it and knew I'd need to make something to go with it. I decided to turn it into a pasta dish and add alfredo sauce. Now that I could get on board with!

I thawed some of the SHF brats and fried them up in a skillet. I used this sausage with chard and rhubarb recipe, subbing the garlic scapes for garlic and scallions and leaving out the mustard seeds. Then I made pasta with alfredo sauce as a base for it all to rest on. Johnie still only gave it two broccoli stalks (because there were "too many leaves"), but I loved it so much I didn't even care. And I can't say enough about how wonderful the garlic scapes were!

Amanda offered this advice in a previous season for what to do when you find yourself with too many greens.

I will also add my own third option: Smoothies. I first tried "green smoothies" in January when a friend who owns a health and wellness business did a 14-day smoothie challenge. If you have never put handfuls of fresh greens in a blender with the intention of making a smoothie before you may be feeling the same reluctance I felt. Raw spinach? Raw spinach in a blender and then drink it?!?!? But I was hooked after the first time.

I don't typically use recipes for smoothies anymore. I just follow these general guidelines: Some fresh or frozen fruit (berries, apples, bananas, mangos, pineapple, apple, etc), milk/yogurt or juice (soy, almond, kefir, cow, apple, grape, etc), a few handfuls of greens (kale, spinach, lettuce, etc), a heaping tablespoon or two of peanut butter (you can use any nut butter) and a tablespoon or two of flax seed. Blend it all together until smooth. You can add more liquid if it is too thick, or add honey or another sweetener if it needs more sweetness. The addition of the nut butter and flax seed help it to be even more nutritious with added protein and fiber. Sounds crazy, I know, but you should try it. And, if you make more than you can drink you can freeze the leftovers in ice cube trays and re-blend them later.

If you would like some green smoothie recipes, I did a search on the NY Times tool and came up with these.

How are you using your greens this week?

Please let me know if you have any recipes, tips or tricks! amyrosekarr@gmail.com

Have a great weekend!

* If you do digital coupons from Kroger, head on over and download one for a free doughnut.