it’s week two of my CSA adventure. this week was a little harder.
on Thursday, i picked up eggs, garlic scapes, swiss chard, beets, peas, and popping corn.
eggs: a dozen a week. we can’t eat them fast enough. this week we’ve had a lot more homemade breakfast sandwiches, and yesterday i hard-boiled the last 6 from last week. salads! snacks!
garlic scapes: i had no idea what to do with these. the CSA newsletter suggested making Garlic Scape Pesto, so i decided to give that a shot. note: i’ve never made pesto before, and i don’t have a food processor (just a crappy blender). Sunday afternoon saw me standing in the kitchen, making horrible faces at the bitter pesto, tweeting frantically to get a fix. i threw in a dozen or so basil leaves and that really helped. i had it as a spread on an egg sandwich one day this week – not bad. last night, we had it over pasta, with grilled chicken, for dinner. DELICIOUS! it’s much more pungent and strong straight.
swiss chard: again, i had no idea what to do with this. a friend suggested cutting it up and stir-frying it. i decided to try that with dinner Sunday night. i cut the stems off and tore up the leaves. i heated up some olive oil, threw in the stems, gave it a few minutes, tossed in the leaves, let them wilt a little, threw on some sea salt, and thought i was done. it was not my favorite. the look on The Husband’s face was priceless, though – he hated it. i looked up recipes for it AFTERWARDS, and realized i should have let it cook for, oh, another 10 minutes. oops. next time.
beets: YUM YUM YUM. i love beets. i peeled them, threw them in a pot of boiling salted water, and 15 minutes later had noms. next time i get some i want to roast them. it was too hot to do that this week, though.
peas: more peas. oh yes. this time, i cleaned them, blanched them, and froze them. i’ll be happy to have fresh peas later in the summer.
popping corn: NOMNOMNOM. i make popcorn in my big cast iron Dutch oven, with a little oil, then sprinkle it with sea salt, Parmesan, rosemary, and anything else that sounds good. taaaasty.
so, we’re surviving.
yesterday, i picked up eggs, more garlic scapes, zucchini, kohlrabi, kale, and lettuce. i have no idea what to do with MORE garlic scapes. kohlrabi and zucchini will be gone by Monday. it’s a BIG head of lettuce, and a lot of kale. there will be a lot of salads with dinner this week. i also think i’m going to try to make kale chips.
how is your CSA summer going?
Hahaha, funny about the chard – we’re not too fond of that either. Pesto is freakin’ fantastic, though – Erika makes that a few times a month. I can eat that by itself with chips. I’m still surprised by the popping corn though – never even occurred to me to pop my own corn, and we need a Dutch oven. Hmmm….