CSA Week 2

In our CSA share for the second week, we got the following delightful treats (clockwise from bottom left)

garlic scapes, scallions, basil plant, dandelion greens, strawberries,

lance-leaf kale, red romaine, japanese turnips, and snow peas

The kale, along with week 1's swiss chard went into a modified version of one of my favorite dishes: giant chipotle white beans. Jeff and I modified it by using black beans we had cooked a few days before, and 2 bunches of greens.

Snow peas, along with store bought Jersey Fresh fava beans and sweet peas, became spring vegetables with parmesan curls and citrus vinaigrette.

Breaking out of the same vein of slow-fermenting sourdough with part whole-wheat, part unbleached all-purpose flour, I opened the Macrina Cookbook and found this gem: Onion Rye Bread

I think it's worth buying the book for, it is that delicious. It doesn't hurt that it's a pretty easy bread to bake.

Our spring onions/scallions went into onion-rye sourdough bread--a serious contender for best thing I've ever baked. Also the loaf was enormous, the size of a newborn child. I whipped up some garlic scape pesto which went smashingly with the bread, but did give me terrible breath when I ate it at work for lunch.

The turnips waited a long time for their turn and then got cream-braised with their greens, sliced onion, garlic, and a couple more scapes. Their flavor was almost exactly like a steamed broccoli stem, but they had a soft texture that simply melted in the mouth. Cream-braising is really the best way to cook a vegetable you're not sure about. It makes everything scrumptious and irresistable.

We ate about 1/3 of the strawberries plain, and then churned the rest into some amazing strawberry frozen yogurt. As the weather finally starts to feel like summer here, this is a very welcome addition to our kitchen. Note: if you have an abundance of fruit that's, err, well, approaching an untimely demise, macerate it! That word always makes me think I should put stuff in a mortar and pestle and grind it to a pulp, but no--you should wash and cut your fruit, put it in a bowl, coat with sugar, and a bit of alcohol. After you let it sit for a while the color picks up, and the flavor intensifies. You can learn a bit more about the hows and whys the same way I did, by reading Lynne Rossetto Kasper's thoughts (and iced peaches recipe) here.

Our lesson from the first week was to just add more vegetables to every meal. We washed and cut the dandelion greens and romaine to have quick salads with each dinner until they got eaten up. I think in large part due to our increase in veggie consumption, I'm feeling extremely healthy of late, despite the fact that my level of exercise hovers ever-so-slightly above zero.