CSA Pickup # 3: I'm learning!

Hmm so last week I picked up our veggies at the farm and packaged them nicely in the fridge, and abandoned them for the weekend while we went camping!  So, what's still in the fridge from the prior week? Bok choi (not my favorite veggie so far), lettuce (been using it in salads and lettuce wraps--see picture in upper left), and I think I might have some spinach left. I ate all the mustard greens (thank God I could cook them down), Hakurei turnips (once I figured out how to make them mashed), kale, and the cauliflower was finished. 

What's new from this past Friday, June 7th?  See below! We got: Lettuce mix, Hakurei turnips, peas, broccoli, braising mix, collard greens, cauliflower, and bok choi. However, I still had a lot of bok choi leftover so I put that in the swap box and took a little bit broccoli instead. 

My kale from last week was looking unfortunate so I made baked kale chips this morning and brought them to work as a snack. In the morning, I overheard one of the supervisors on the phone say "For some reason, the office smells like cabbage today." Oops. I had to come clean. My coworkers all thought it smelled not-so-good, like cabbage. In fact, it really bothered them. One of my coworkers thought my kale chips looked like dead leaves. One of the coworkers tried one and thought they tasted pretty gross. And I must admit, I ended up shoveling them down to just get rid of them...and I almost gagged at the end. Kale chips, didn't go so well this time. But no kale was wasted! 

CSA Pickup 2, cooking , and veggie overload!

Well, we had our second CSA pickup last Friday. This week we got some bok choi, mustard greens, turnips, kale, cauliflower, spinach and lettuce heads! Oh and the farm we get it from sometimes allows you to go into the field and pick some herbs for yourself, so of course I went out there with some shears and picked a stem of oregano, stem of rosemary, and two chive stems. Why not?!

There's my picture of our goodies in the upper left. I laid them out in my backseat and took the picture, haha, before dropping them off at Matt's house since I was going away that night. Matt used some of the spinach and cauliflower in a stir fry dish he made that night. Saturday evening I was back, and went to Matt's house. I asked him where the veggies were as I didn't notice them in the fridge. He indicated they were in the corner in a bag...he said he didn't think they had to be refrigerated...

So, we had a little issue with our veggies this week. Unfortunately, they sat out a bit and got a little limp from not being refrigerated. Live and learn...! Anyways, so I did a lot of recipe searching and tried some new recipes this week!

Monday night, I started off with a recipe for kale chips--http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/kale-chips-recipe.htm. These came out good! When I had some leftover, I put them in a tupperware...snacked on them the next day...not so delicious. Note to self: Need to find out how to "store" fresh kale chips, if possible.

Then I moved on to cooking some of our Hakurei turnips and the mustard greens, with some chicken. I had never cooked mustard greens or turnips before in my life! I sauteed the mustard greens in olive oil, thinly sliced onions, garlic, and some salt and pepper. Then I used this recipe: http://hamlethub.com/westport-life/cat/home-and-garden/13634-easton-farm-to-easton-table-hakurei-turnips-and-greens for the hakurei turnips and their greens. I simply sauteed the chicken with some olive oil, garlic, and threw in the rosemary and oregano. Verdict for dinner? Eh. I spent so much time prepping and chopping and washing and following directions, and I wasn't that crazy about the bitter taste of the mustard greens or the taste of the turnips...and my chicken was okay, but not the best. But..I tried!

Tuesday was better. For lunch, I made some roasted cauliflower, sauteed mushrooms, and a Caesar salad. I found a very easy recipe for the Roasted Garlic Cauliflower here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/roasted-garlic-cauliflower/ and it came out delicious! I finished a head of romaine lettuce I had and made it into an easy Caesar salad (also yummy) and used Lauren's recipe of some butter and balsamic vinegar to saute the mushrooms. (Lauren, I forget if you use butter or olive oil..but I find either one works with the balsamic!) Plus, I finished the cauliflower, so that was good! :) Successful vegetarian lunch.
Finally, Tuesday night I made dinner (see pathetic picture to left). Matt suggested I try mashed turnips, which might taste better. I was determined to like the turnips! I used this: http://straightfromthefarm.net/2007/11/08/turnip-roasted-garlic-mash/ as direction! It was pretty easy to make mashed turnips. I roasted the garlic in the oven and squirted it into my mashed turnips as directed. Simultaneously, I used this recipe for Bok Choi: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/easy-bok-choy/. Do you see a pattern? I LOVE simple recipes with few ingredients--I'm a working woman! Anyways, I sauteed the Bok Choi (also my first time ever cooking/eating this) with canola oil (I didn't have veggie oil), garlic, and some salt. So, yes, I had a light/random dinner of Bok Choy and mashed turnips. Yes, I ate the turnips directly out of the processor to not dirty another plate :) But I was eating at 8pm so what did I care? Verdict: Bok choy..not crazy about (especially the stems, I think I didn't cook them long enough) and mashed turnips--yum! Add some butter, salt, and pepper and they're good! Now, next time with turnips, I will go directly to mashing them.

So, overall, I'm a bit overwhelmed with vegetables this week. We had some leftover from last week, and some of the Hon Tsai Tai ended up being tossed as neither Matt nor I really liked it, and then it got yucky. I heard the turnip greens were edible, but after trying them Monday night, the remainder got tossed after I made the mashed turnips Tuesday night...you have to remember we had the little refrigeration "issue" this week, so some stuff was unfortunately not at it's peak. Also, Matt is away this week so I am left with all these veggies on my own!! It's a lot of vegetables for one person, in my opinion. But I'm trying my best not to waste and to enjoy the food! I think that's it for now...Oh and one final thought...I am very aware that if I had children/greater responsibilities, there's no way I'd have the time to dilly dally with a million recipes and all...well, I guess maybe some mothers can, but anyways, I enjoy trying new foods and when I have time, I enjoy trying new recipes, so this is all pretty fun for me...I'm not sure if anyone really cares to read what I'm doing with vegetables, but if so, enjoy the blog! :)

CSA Pickup 1

So, last night I picked up our first pickup from the CSA. You'll probably recognize some of the veggies... The upper left big leaf veggies are collard greens (1 bunch), to the right of that is all simply lettuce greens that I piled into a bowl (.5 lb), and the last on the top right with the yellow flowers is the Hon Tsai Tai. The bottom row from left is lettuce (1 bunch), and then broccoli with the leaves still on (.5lb). So, I love collard greens already, so I was excited to see them in this week's share. They look far fresher and better than the grocery store version. All I do is rinse them off, rip all the leafy part off, discard the stem, rip up the leaves into smaller pieces, and sautee it in olive oil for about 5 minutes, then season with salt and pepper. So, last night I was making a chicken piccata, so I had it will collard greens and a little side salad made out of the lettuce mix and lettuce head that we received, with some small fixings on top. Everything was delish! Strangely, as I was watching the Bachelorette on demand, I kept thinking about wanting to try the Hon Tsai Tai, which I had never cooked or eaten. I did some research online on how to cook it, season it, etc. Basically every part of the plant is edible-stems, leaves, flowers. So I took a few pieces, and snapped off the bottom stems (similar to asparagus) and chopped it all up on a cutting board, and threw it into a sautee pan with olive oil. I basically seasoned it the same as the collard greens, with salt and pepper. So I had a little Hon Tsai Tai at 930pm :)It was pretty good! I liked it and look forward to eating it again.

Anyways, I am finding myself wondering how I can incorporate the veggies into my breakfast...that could be interesting. AND I was feeling somewhat disappointed that I was having a lunch meeting today, as it meant I couldn't expirement more with my veggies. Ha! On the bright side, I recall thinking when we decided to buy the CSA that it would help me eat more veggies, and it's already working-tonight I will definitely have some of my veggies with dinner, and will make a salad with lunch tomorrow...good things for sure! :)

A Veggie Tale Adventure

It’s been such a very long time since I’ve written in my blog. I’ve been living in Philadelphia now for 10 months and it seems my blog has fallen on the back burner. I decided to write today on a subject that’s pretty random (not travel related), but something of an adventure nonetheless. While Matt was very excited to grow his garden again, but had less space than last year, we began to look into some community gardens in the area. We found one but realized it would be more of a hassle to have to go somewhere to a plot of land to grow things and water them on our way home from work, etc. I also thought it would be fun to grow some plants/veggies of my own, but unfortunately live in the city on a third floor apartment, with no in-ground growing space. My Dad warned me not to plant too many potted plants on my roof, as I might cause the roof to cave in…! So, I found a CSA near us that seemed like an affordable option. CSA is Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, you pay an amount for a small or large share of a farm. Essentially, you own a portion of the farm/its output. A small share was described as enough for two people, and cost $400 for 24 weeks (six months). So, that comes out to about $16/week. Matt and I are sharing it, so it’s $8/week/person. Not so bad! So, this week is our first share pickup! And it just so happens that this week we are picking up our share on Tuesday rather than Friday, due to the long weekend. A fellow shareholder offered to switch her Tuesday pickup with our Friday pickup (thanks Gina!) so today is our first pickup. I am oddly very excited over this vegetable pickup…a sure sign I’m becoming either a dork or old lady. I’m probably already a dork, so we’ll go with old lady. It’s rumored (through the newsletter that the CSA put out yesterday) that some of the vegetables we may be getting today are collard greens, Hakurei turnips, lettuce heads, lettuce mix, and Asian flowering greens: Tat Soi, Hon Stai Tai, and Bok Choi. I’ve never cooked turnips or any of the Asian flowering greens..time to look up some recipes! Anyways, stay tuned for the first CSA pickup info later on… :)