CSA 2011 - Week 4

Last week's share went pretty well, though we do still have a large bag of beet and turnip greens taking up valuable fridge real estate, even after making a few different dishes. We have a good recipe for gingered greens that calls for three pounds of mixed greens, so we'll likely attempt to clear things out with that, this week. The new item last week had been the rapini, which we prepared as we would kale (which seemed to be its closest relative.) It was good, but I can't say that it tasted significantly different than kale to us. Nothing to fear, but nothing to seek out. Despite my big talk, I once again did not do anything exotic with my scapes. They ended up in three or four different dishes, with some left over. Maybe next year.

I am not sure what we'll do with these purple haze carrots. We like to roast carrots, but since these look so odd they may just be eaten raw as snacks. Last week's tokyo turnips got consumed with the beets in a gratin. This week we will probably try something that's a bit more turnip focused. A lot of the recipes we find are much more autumnal than we are looking for in June (even a rainy, cold June) so we may ask the magical internet for a good option. Spring onions As far as I can tell, fava beans are lima beans with more work. Also, I've heard they go well with liver. They are a large bean that needs to be shelled twice (once from the pod, then once from a tough skin around the actual bean) that is popular in Italian cooking. Neither of us have had them before, so we'll report back next week how it went. Florence Fennel sounds like a character from a children's book about misunderstood vegetables.

More beets! This time it's chioggia and kestral red beets. We had to bail on our favorite beet recipe last week due to having guests who were beet-averse, so we will almost certainly do that this week. Mmmm....roasted beet and caramelized onion salad... Tuscan kale will get added to the big bag o' greens along with two types of beet greens and turnip greens. Yikes. Emerald Broccoli These jewel strawberries are sadly the last of these berries for the year. But all hope is not lost: Blueberries, raspberries, and currants are coming into season, so we should start seeing those. We till have a little strawberry frozen yogurt left-over due to my tendency to make ice creams when there is already another dessert available, but maybe we'll have that done in time for me to justify blueberry sorbet. If not, blueberry pie!