Thursday, October 11, 2007

First CSA share

I picked up my first CSA share ever today! I found a farm that was offering a 7 week fall CSA so I decided to try it. This is a big deal for us because we are very limited in what veggies we generally eat so we are going to be trying a lot of new things over the next 7 weeks. And asking for a lot of ideas of what to do with stuff we've never had before.

Here is my first share minus the butternut squash which I already had in the oven.

Here is the butternut squash that came with it.
Things that are new to us include the butternut squash, radishes, and the greens (swiss chard?). I'm not sure what to do with the radishes or all the peppers we got. Any ideas are welcome! Luckily I still have Simply In Season checked out from the library. I'm going to try the butternut squash bars from it.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

slice the radishes and use in salads. peppers are good in salads and soups or as a side dish.

Danielle said...

Hey Christy, you're welcome to check out our CSA blog where I have a few recipes posted for several of the things we grow, like radishes and chard. Butternut squash soup is one of my all time favorite soups, and it's really easy to make—maybe that's what you did with yours—it's just been too dang hot to make it.

There's a recipe on the blog for a radish butter spread that's really delicious on fresh bread. Jim and I have also both decided that we'll never be without chard again, we're that enamored with the green. Oh, and we've decided that we really like kale as well, as ours is so much better than the grocery store kale, big surprise.

Does your CSA have a website? I'm always looking for new ideas!

Danielle said...

Oh, and the peppers are great for seasoning all kinds of dishes. You ought to be able to roast, peel, and freeze several of the larger ones to pull out over the winter for any Mexican-style dish. Having spent two years in Albuquerque, I love my roast chilis! We even like them on burgers.

Niobium said...

Looks very yummy!

Christy said...

Danielle, the CSA is from Calvert Farm http://www.calvertfarm.com/ I'll check your CSA blog for recipes.

We had a salad tonight with the mixed greens they gave us and we added some of the chard to it. We also slices the radishes and added them to the salad. It was very good!

Pattie Baker said...

Christy: We love the butternut squash baked, then puree the flesh in the food processor with some melted butter, local raw honey, ginger and cinnamon. We lap it up. Also, I substituted butternut squash puree for pumpkin in a couple recipes (pumpkin oatmeal rasin cookies, for one).

The only way we'll eat the radishes is sliced on buttered bread. DELICIOUS.

As for greens, I sautee onion and garlic in olive oil, add diced apples, then add the greens (whatever I get in the CSA box), toss it all until the greens wilt, and then throw some toasted pine nuts or pumpkin seeds on top. Or you can change out the igredients--add raisins instead of apples, wlanuts instead of pine nuts, etc. I also food-process greens and add a cup when I make whole-grain muffins. Also, trhrow them in omelettes. Swiss chard, tatsoi and baby kale are totally salad-worthy (the Swiss chard stems give a nice celery-like crunch--add that to tuna as well!)

Christy said...

Pattie - thanks for the ideas! I'm going to try sauteing the chard we have left. We've been putting it into salads and it is really good. The butternut squash I'm going to make into winter squash bars tomorrow. I'm sure we'll get more this week in our box so I'll try making soup with it this time.

Anonymous said...

Just discovered your blog. Next time you get radishes, you can also eat the tops if they're fresh and fairly young (ie, not prickly)! You can throw them in with your other greens to add a bit of tang. They're great sauteed in butter or olive oil with some shallots.