week one - csa

we did it! we used almost every bit of our first week's delivery. for people with great eating habits, time to plan meals and an unconditional love for vegetables - a CSA is for you. We, however, have not-perfect habits (but in the grand scheme of things I would say they are 'quite good'), little to no time for planning and well, more often than not i end up composting the last quarter or so of the veggies we have bought. so wasteful. i do love veggies - but i love pork more. and ice cream - it NEVER goes bad.

i vowed to change once we got on the new town CSA (after a 7 year wait). so this week:

pick up was tuesday so we made a delicious green salad that night with the lettuces and arugula. it was a clean out the fridge meal using some things that would be of questionable use the rest of the week and in a few cases the following day. basil with brown spots, last 2 eggs in the carton, leftover grilled beets from last week, some bendy carrots. put it all together with a quick mustard vinaigrette and viola! a perfectly tasty - in fact delicious - salad. caleb even proclaimed it a 'feast' - but of course ate nothing green.

so then the bin of veggies sat in the fridge - I put it front & center so every time I opened the fridge there was the constant reminder and ensuing guilt. but still - wednesday & thursday went by with life getting in the way of my best intentions. and then friday. we HAD to use them saturday. so i picked through - admittedly i had to sacrifice some - but ended up with some of the tastiest cooked greens I have ever had. here is how it was done:

we had kale, turnip greens and what i think was swiss chard - in terms of quantity, it filled up the salad spinner. started by sauteeing about a half package of bacon until it was pretty crispy - took that off and dumped in a diced onion and cooked until it just started to brown/caramelize. added quartered baby white oriental turnips and sauteed until all had nice color. piled in the greens, flipped them around with the tongs until they were just barely cooked down. I was supposed to finish the greens with some salt & pepper and apple cider vinegar. but i forgot all of those things and I am sort of glad i did because it needed nothing!

so tonight - the eve of our next delivery - you will find me chomping on the last of the radishes (try them with a bit of butter) and hoping to salvage the last few pieces of bok choy and we will have had a completely successful week one!