During our first year as CSA members, I was a bit overwhelmed by the cleaning and drying of greens. At the beginning of summer, I did a great job of rinsing and storing the veggies the day we received our share, but as summer wore on, I tended to stick them in the fridge until needed.
Drying greens right before dinner turned out to be a tedious process, usually involving lots of towels and paper towels. Once, I even bought a laundry bag for our washing machine and spun the greens. Unfortunately, the greens came out smelling linen fresh, thanks to Downy residue in the washer.
I had heard about salad spinners but did not realize their amazing benefit until I found one on Craigslist and put it to use. I paid $10 for an unused Ratchet Salad Spinner from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, which would have been $20 in the store. My tedious drying process became a short chore, one eagerly shared by my husband and children.
If you are unfamiliar with spinning salad, it’s very easy. Just rinse your greens and place into the bowl. Press the handle multiple times. Centrifugal force is used to sling the water off of the greens. You can see a demo here. In less than 5 minutes, my greens are ready to enter the skillet or salad bowl. If you are using greens throughout the week, this handy tool will soon be one of your favorites. Yes, it’s the little things in life!
Posted in Welcome back! We’ve started a new CSA for summer 2011. We took a break from the veggie train for 6 months, and I took a break from the blog. I didn’t really have the time or desire to create an all-round blog about our life–I want this site to stand alone as a document about our experiences as CSA newcomers. More of a magazine article than a full-blown biography.
Anyway, so after much debate, we joined a CSA this summer. We weren’t sure we wanted to commit the money, time, and effort it takes to be a CSA member; however, I felt it was important to try again. Being a member of a CSA really made us eat more veggies–local, organic veggies to boot. Also, my creative side somewhat enjoyed having to figure out what to concoct for supper each week using the supplied vegetables.
And they’re off……
We learned many lessons from our participation in a CSA:
* Radicchio is pronounced ra-dick-ee-o instead of ra-dish-ee-o.
* We don’t like beets.
* Sugar snap peas taste like candy.
* Washing, storing, preserving, and preparing fresh vegetables can be a lot of work.
* Fresh corn on the cob and fresh tomatoes are amazingly awesome.
* Greens come in a variety of types and flavors: some we like, some we could live without.
* Homemade salsa is a great way to use up a ton of tomatoes.
* Purple hull green beans turn green when you boil them.
* You can shred and freeze zucchini.
* Okra tastes great raw, but don’t try to steam it….it creates explosive slimy green goo!
* Zucchini cake is one way to get your children to ingest zucchini, but the amount of chocolate in it makes it ineligible to be considered a healthy foods.
* Don’t judge a vegetable by its looks.
* To really truly grow your own food and eat seasonally would be a lot of work.
* You can use a garment bag to spin lettuce in your washing machine to dry it; however, be careful if said washing machine is dripping fabric softener or your greens will smell “linen fresh.”
* You can lead your children to vegetables, but you can make them like them.
* Belonging to a CSA is a great adventure!
Vegetables can cause messes:
Thanks to our CSA, we tried these vegetables we had never eaten before:
* patty pan squash
* kale
* endive
* radicchio
* mustard greens
* beets
* sugar snap peas
* Swiss chard and rainbow chard
* fresh okra–when I first saw it, I had no idea what it was. I had only ever seen it fried!
Thanks to the CSA, we tried new types of familiar old vegetables:
* purple hull green beans
* egg tomatoes (which are a pink grape tomato–very yummy)
* yellow salad tomatoes
* lemon cucumbers (which are ugly little balls, but they taste great)
* blond cucumbers
* buttercrunch lettuce
* freckle lettuce
* ball carrots (little balls with plenty of flavor)
We used our vegetables to make many wonderful new recipes:
* chard pie
* white chard pizza
* homemade salsa
* endive or radicchio pasta bake
* ramen noodle salad
* zucchini cake
At first, we couldn’t decide whether these were a tomato, a cucumber, or a squash. Turns out, they are called “lemon cucumbers.”
I made a lot of great things this summer with our bags of veggies.
Chard Pie:
White Chard Pizza:
Veggie Wraps:
And here’s what my husband made with our veggies:
Very creative, Russell!
We started our CSA mission with the intention to become healthier, and as summer wanes away, I must confess to falling off the wagon. I must confess to giving some greens to a friend, instead of eating them. I must confess to letting some greens wither up and land in the trash can. So, what happened? As usual, Life-with-a-capital-L took over.
We started off the summer with a fairly calm routine. It included meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking. Lately, though, we’ve been busier and cooking at home less and eating out more. Try as I might, I just can’t force myself to order a salad instead of an entree at a restaurant. That would be like, well….what would that be like? That would be like going to Paris and not visiting the Eiffel Tower. That would be like getting a pedicure and then wearing only tennis shoes. That would be like reading a whole book, other than the last chapter. That would be unimaginable in my book. So, when I eat out, I do not eat well. I engage in the pleasure of enjoying the variety of food that was cooked. By Someone Else! How I love to have food cooked by someone else! No mess, no dishes. *Sigh*
Back to the veggies, so we’ve been lazy with our veggies lately, but we have a game plan for healthier eating after our upcoming vacation. We’ll do it. We must.
It’s been a busy few weeks around our house. Though my husband and I are both teachers, with all summer off, we hardly end up feeling like we’ve had all summer off. We have work stuff and home stuff keeping us plenty busy.
The folks at the CSA farm have been busy, too, Many crops are in season. Lately, we’ve enjoyed a wider range of vegetables, including two varieties of cucumbers, kohlrabi, purple snap beans, sugar snap peas, and broccoli. Our household hasn’t tried the kohlrabi yet, but we have greatly enjoyed the rest of the veggies. The broccoli definitely impressed us–it was very flavorful. We learned that purple snap beans don’t stay purple once you cook them. We’ve eaten a lot of salads, but have also continued to try our hands at some fancier fare.
A success this week was Swiss Chard and Artichoke Pizza. You can find the recipe at Farmgirl Fare’s blog. We added red peppers to the saute because we enjoyed the mixing of the sweetness of the red peppers with the more bitter chard when we made chard pie. We also made a second pizza with red sauce. Our friend Shannon was visiting. Like us, she couldn’t decide which pizza she liked more. The chard went really well with the red sauce and makes me think I should make a lasagna chocked full of my next load of greens. Also, I didn’t prepare my own dough and went the lazy route, using store-bought crust instead.
I’ll leave you with this beautiful site…my oldest son liked the sugar snap peas so much that he asked for them for a snack!
Update on my youngest son: still no veggies have crossed his lips. We tried to get him excited about the sugary peas, which were just like candy, but, umm, he didn’t buy it.