Week 3: Pickup

This was my first time picking up the veggies myself, and goodness was it a lot of veggies. We received (clockwise, from left):

kale

turnips
scallions
romaine

cabbage

sugar snap peas
golden beets
yellow carrots

When I got home from work I made last week's chard into chips for a snack.

I am currently roasting both last week's beets and this week's golden beets to use in salads. I also washed the romaine to use in a salad for lunch tomorrow. I will be bringing the snap peas, the rest of last week's carrots, and this week's carrots to eat this weekend as a snack with hummus.

This leaves cabbage, kale, turnips, and scallions to use.

Week 2

I was away for most of week 2 of our farm share, but we received the following:

romaine
cabbage
fava tendrils
collard greens
parsley
chard
carrots
chioggia beets

S. made a salad with the cabbage, romaine, and some of the carrots while I was away.

I returned home yesterday, and for dinner I made a quicker collard greens recipe. It came out pretty tasty, but S. is not a fan of sweet-savory combinations so next time I will leave out the maple syrup. I was pleased to find a collards recipe that a) didn't take two hours, and b) didn't require a hamhock. Where does one purchase a hamhock?

For a main course I made some pasta using the fava tendrils. I modified this recipe, leaving out the peas, and with basil instead of mint. It was delicious, though didn't really pair all that well with the collards, and S. and I each brought the leftovers to work for lunch today.

I still have the rest of the carrots, beets, chard, and parsley, and there is another pick up tonight... But we'll figure it out!

Week One: Wednesday

I plan to use up this week's veggies tonight, but won't have time to post about it later, so here is what I plan to do:

The romaine and red leaf lettuces as well as the beets were used up this morning on day three of lunch salads.

This evening I plan to make nachos using the cilantro and a jalapeno, and to balance out the relative unhealthiness of tortilla chips and cheese, to have two leafy green side: kohlrabi greens cooked and tossed with sesame oil and soy sauce, and chard chips.

I am traveling for a week beginning tomorrow, so S. will be on his own vegetable-wise this week. I wonder how that will turn out...

Week One: Pickup

This week we received:

red russian kale
romaine lettuce
red leaf lettuce
swiss chard
beets
broccoli
kohlrabi
cilantro

I was away for our first pickup, but my coworker retrieved all the vegetables and later made the hand-off to my boyfriend, S. When I came a few days later, I was greeted by a fridge full of greenery.

Sunday night I used the kale to make kale chips. I was introduced to kale chips about a year ago at a pot luck, and they instantly became one of my favorite foods. I plan to try to "chip" other greens, including the chard later this week. We enjoyed the kale chips with some garlic and rosemary chicken (my sister's specialty) and store-bought naan.

Since January, in an effort to be healthier and save money, S and I have been bringing breakfast and lunch to work rather than purchasing every day. Breakfast is usually yogurt, and a muffin or two made from an Eating Well recipe, and lunch has been sandwiches and baby carrots. This week, lunches are a salad made of the romaine and red leaf lettuces, topped with the rest of the chicken from Sunday. I bought some salad dressing (Newman's Own Light Caesar) to keep at work, since I figure I will be bringing many a salad in the coming months.

Last night I had quite the evening of cooking. It began with making the kohlrabi into quick pickles, using rice vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Pretty tasty! Still not sure what to do with the kohlrabi leaves... I also tried some kohlrabi raw with salt and that was delicious too - very fresh tasting. Today I learned that kohlrabi is in the cabbage family: who knew?

Next came dinner: pork chops with cumin first pan seared, and then finished off in the oven. For a side, I sauteed the broccoli and beet greens in some cajun seasoning. Up until now, I have almost exclusively sauteed any greens in garlic, but I wanted to branch out since I figure I'll be doing a lot of greens sauteing. This came out decently, though I was more fond of the broccoli than the beet greens, which were still a bit bitter.

In the mean time, I was roasting the beets themselves to use in lunch salads. I learned from last time I roasted beets to wear gloves to peel them, and in this way have successfully avoided pink fingers for the rest of the week!

After dinner, I made some "healthy muffins" (lemon blueberry, adapted from this recipe) and, because the mood struck me, some chocolate chip cookies. Need to balance out all these leafy greens somehow!

Welcome :)

I haven't kept a blog aside from briefly when I studied abroad, but my sister suggested it would be fun to keep track of how I use my farm share vegetables each week, and I agree! I tend to cook things and then immediately forget about that recipe and move on to others; I would like to get more in the habit of having a collection of things that I make often. After beefing up my cooking starting last fall, I decided I was at a point in my cooking education where I wanted the challenge of figuring out what to do with a box of unexpected vegetables every week. I also like the idea of supporting local agriculture, and just generally eating more vegetables. Hence, signing up for a farm share! My boyfriend and I are splitting one with my coworker, and the pick-up location is conveniently around the corner from where we live. I will be keeping track here of what veggies we receive each week, and what we do with them. It promises to be a delicious, exciting, and healthy summer!