The Easy Meals of Week One

Because I'm trying to catch up on essentially two MONTHS worth of food posts, I'm going to bunch all my easy food into one post per week - at least until I get caught up... This will be quite the project.

Boyfriend and I indulged in make your own pizza night.
MMMMMMMM. Mine has Arugula and mushrooms.

My God I have a lot of food to eat....

I love looking at my fridge and realizing just how many healthy and farm fresh veggies have just entered my life.

I really love trying to puzzle out how I will add them to the staples that I love and how I will incorporate them into delicious new things.

Soon after this, I realized a plate of different veggies all cooked in different ways does create a healthy and satisfying meal. Bring on the BEETS!

Spinach, arugula, and radish green salad topped with salad turnips and radishes.

One of my favorite discoveries so far on this “CSA Journey™” is that because my produce is organically grown, we can eat the tops of most all of the veggies we are given every week. That means for vegetables like turnips (I already knew about turnip greens), radishes, beets, and kohlrabi you aren’t just getting the vegetable itself, but you are getting a whole other bunch of greens!

This also means that I have entirely too much green stuff to cook with. Yikes!

Here, I just cut up some fresh spinach and radish greens and added hakuri turnips and radishes. The salad was yummy, but the radish greens might be tastier cooked.

Divine farm fresh strawberries. The Boyfriend does not like strawberries...
MORE FOR ME!!!

So lucky the office food thief left this find alone. MMM.
So many colors!

I also never realized that one of my very favorite veggies in the world can be eaten raw - a whole new world of asparagus enjoyment is now lying at my feet....

Here, I cut up some farm fresh cherry tomatoes (snagged at the farmer's market) and some asparagus. I drizzled some balsamic vinegar on them, and added fresh ground pepper and allowed them to marinate all day in the office fridge.

Refreshing lunch salad!

Salad with roasted mushrooms, asparagus, and potatoes.

MMMMMMMM. I also have been enjoying roasting things. While it isn't quite a grill - these veggies took really well to the oven.

I am thinking that before long, I will be investing in a grill for my back deck - summertime grilling seems like a glorious way to enjoy these veggies!

I also have more Kale than anyone ever should have. Here I have made some Kale chips.

After pre-heating the oven to 325, I placed a tray of seasoned and "massaged" kale into the oven for approximately 20 minutes. I was AMAZED at how chip like my kale became.

Healthy chips, here you go!

CSA Catch up - Week One

Here it is - my introduction to Nichol's Farm. Nichol's is a fairly large, family run farm that presents at many of the local farmer's markets in my area. After a lot (seriously a lot) of research, my best friend M and I decided this was the farm for us.

So - here it is - the box with my first week of farm fresh veggies!!

This box looks innocent enough - little did I know the work that was coming my way...

THE GOODS!

OMG - so much veggie - so little time....

In my first week's delivery, I received:

• Red Russian Kale
• Avon Spring Spinach
• Easter Egg Radishes
• Jersey Knight Asparagus
• German Butterball Potatoes
• Green Pak Choi
• Green Italian Garlic
• White Spring Set Onions
• Surrey Arugula
• Tokyo Market Turnips
• Earliglow Strawberries

 EAT! (Yes, I'm borrowing a popular phrase from my office.)

The Big Idea!!! (aka - how much free time do I think I have?)

So a few months ago day, I had an idea. This is a BIG idea too - the time consuming kind…

Why not join a CSA!?! For the unaware, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it creates a way for a city girl like myself to know where her food is grown...like, you get to actually interact with the people who grow your food!

I try to be healthy, workout, and eat right. I don’t always succeed. So this summer I have joined a local farm and for (at least) 22 weeks, I have a happy, fresh box of produce to pick up at the Farmer’s Market every Saturday.

I am going to use this blog here to document my trials and my failures as I try, desperately, to eat all of the greenery my Farm will shove into my waiting arms.

Part of the fun is dealing with veggies I have barely even heard of before (seriously - kohlrabi?) and trying to turn them into yummy meals. The other challenge will be making sure I waste as little produce as possible.

Here we go!

I am just getting this blog going (I spent too much time playing around with formats), so the first several posts will catching up on all of the wonderful things I have received, cooked, and eaten during the last 2 months.

Until then - Feed Me!!!