CSA Week One - Think Aloud

This is sort of a think aloud.


Our CSA pickup starts this weekend, at long last. I'm looking forward to it because of the fresh organic vegetables, adventures in cooking, opportunities to pick some of our own food, and ready supply of local beef, goat cheese, maple syrup, and pork. I'm also a little nervous. I remember how it sometimes felt like the CSA ate up all our free time in the summer, between the pickups, the meal planning, and learning to cook new things. I remember how there were vegetables and dirt everywhere, and the tide of lettuce was unstoppable. This year, Karl shared a share with us again, but he'll be out for the count until August, recovering from back surgery and spending time with family so we'll not only bear the sole burden of food pickup but also have ALL the produce for the next month and a half. This year, I'm determined to try even more things (I conveniently neglected the dandelion greens and collards until they went bad last summer), to try preserve a bit more, and to do a better job of planning our grocery shopping around our farm haul.


With that in mind, I spent a good hour or two this week planning next week's menu.  This week's harvest:  radishes, komatsuna (a very leafy variety of bok choy), spinach, lettuce, arugula, dandelion greens. I combed my CSA cookbooks as well as a few online resources and planned menus that will (hopefully) use all the vegetables without me having to buy too many at the grocery store to complement them. 


Based on that research, here's what I'm doing with what we're getting as well as the week's menus. 

radishes - Sauteed Radishes with Radish Greens or Arugula - Farmer John’s Cookbook - p. 131

komatsuna (a very leafy variety of bok choy) - stir fried chicken with bok choy (Culinate How to Cook             Everything)

spinach - Cheesy Spinach (From Asparagus to Zucchini, p. 186) (easy but needs precooked brown rice/spinach steamed)

lettuce - salad

arugula - sauteed radishes and/or arugula pesto (Farmer John's cookbook)

dandelion greens - dandelion greens with double garlic (Culinate How to Cook Everythings)

Sunday - out

Monday - pork chops, sauteed radishes, cous cous

Tuesday - cheesy spinach, sausage, bread

Wednesday - pasta with arugula pesto, salad

Thursday - stir fried chicken with bok choy, rice, dandelion greens

Friday - pizza


And there you have it.  My plans for the first week's harvest are complete. I spared you the accompanying grocery list, but I'll try to remember to take pictures so I can show you how it comes out!

Let Us Eat Lettuce

You might not have guessed this from my previous few posts, but Duncan is actually a pretty good eater. He eats more vegetables than most adults I know. While his favorites remain the basics (green beans, peas, corn, tomatoes), he has been willing to try almost any vegetable we have plated for him. Among others he has eaten willingly are:  broccoli, brussels sprouts, asparagus, sweet potatoes, raw carrots, celery (with peanut butter), fennel, snow peas, radishes, celeriac, beets, broccoli raab, eggplant, arugula, and turnips). He's not fond of red or green pepper or those mini corns that come in cans. He was wise enough not to touch swiss chard, spinach, or any of the other greens that made their way into our lives last summer, but I can live with that. To my chagrin, the vegetable he adamantly refused to eat, however, was lettuce. Considering the number of salads we made with our Chubby Bunny yield last summer, it was frustrating. Any time we made salad, we had to come up with another vegetable for him. Because lettuce is a key ingredient in salad, he wouldn't try any other kind of salad; no egg salad, no tuna salad, no potato salad. Lettuce, for goodness sake. Who doesn't eat lettuce?

Last weekend we were out in the yard, and Duncan discovered a "volunteer" lettuce growing in our as-yet-unseeded vegetable patch. "Is this lettuce, Mama?" he asked. "I want to try some." I ripped off a piece, blew off the dust, and handed it to him. "I LIKE lettuce!" he exclaimed. For the first time, Duncan ate salad last night when we were at Four Brothers, and he had another tonight with dinner. Periodically, he comes into the kitchen and asks "Can I have a lettuce?" Or even cuter, "Can Daddy and I split a lettuce?" I can't argue with a kid who wants to eat lettuce right out of the refrigerator.  Or the ground, for that matter.

Various statistics say a child may need to be offered a new food 10, 15, or even as many as 20 times before he will eat it. If you have a finicky kid, or a passion for a less-than-everyday vegetable, or a CSA membership that sends you home weekly with unfamiliar produce, keep trying. You just never know if today might be the day that your child will eat kohlrabi.  Or lettuce.