CSA Week 22 – The Last Week of the Season

This was the last week of the 2015 Gorman Produce Farm CSA. I took an extra bag because I anticipated a lot of food. I’m glad I did.

The main part of the share included:

• 2 kinds of lettuce
• Broccoli
• 3 watermelon radishes
• Pac choi
• Tatsoi
• 4 beets
• 2 bunches of turnips with greens
• 4 garlic
• Honey
• Parsley
• Chard
• Radicchio 

The 6 pounds of sweet potatoes and 1/2 pound of spinach did not fit into the picture!

The overage table was pretty full to and we were not limited to one or two items. I got carrots (with tops still attached), Brussel sprouts, bell peppers, and snacking peppers.

When I got home I had a lot of processing to do:

• The sweet potatoes are cured so will keep outside the refrigerator but they had gotten wet (rainy day) so I spread them on a big tray to dry.
• I cut the tops off the carrots and copped them up with the parsley…the pulp is on a tray drying.
• The turnip tops are cleaned, cut into pieces and in the freezer for use in winter soups.
• The Brussel sprouts are cut from the stalk and clean – ready to roast or toss into a stir fry.
• The Pac choi, Tatsoi and Chard leaves are in a bag – clean and ready to easily cut up. The stems are collected into a small bin; I’ve discovered that I like to cook the stems a bit more than the leaves so it is convenient to have them together rather than still attached to the leaves.

The crispers are full…the 3 bins I have for the overflow of veggies are full too. I’m focused on eating the ones most in danger of spoiling first!

Beautiful Food to Savor

It is easier to eat well when food looks appetizing…looks beautiful either on its own or in the way it is presented. Over the past 5 years or so as I’ve gone from overweight down to ‘normal’ weight, I’ve become more thoughtful about making food that is beautiful and tastes good at the same time. It is easier to savor food and be satisfied these days. Here are some ways I have done that for myself:

Beautiful dishes. Even something as simple as hummus with pita bread wedges can look beautiful served in my Blue Tulip glassware!

Prepped to eat. Cutting up the pita into wedges as part of the preparation makes it easier to enjoy the act of eating. I cut of salad into smaller pieces that the regular bagged salads for the same reason; I dislike having salad dressing dribble off a too-large piece of greens.

Make it colorful. Spinach - strawberry - carrot - almond salad…beautiful in a clear glass bowl. The vibrant colors and melding of flavors made this one of my favorite salads in June. In July the ‘red’ veggie can be tomatoes. In the fall, the ‘red’ is apples with the skin left on.  I almost always add carrots or sweet potato for ‘orange’. When the leafy greens are scarce in the hottest weather - I use mint or basil or rosemary to contrast with the white cucumbers (if their skin it too tough to provide the green). Stir fries can be colorful in the same way.

Eat with a view. My favorite way to enjoy an orange for morning snack is to look out the window over my kitchen sink at the deck garden while I am eating. I cut it into wedges and then just observe the birds at the bird feeder and bath…the insects at the flower…the breeze moving the trees in the background.

Fresh is best. Now that I’m on the second year of belonging to a Community Supported Agriculture, I am a believer in the beauty and taste of just harvested produce. I love to eat seasonally.

CSA Week 6

I am going to have a lot of veggies to process or eat when I get home next week. My husband picked up the week 5 share last week and the majority is still in one crisper of the refrigerator. It’s a good thing my refrigerator has two large crispers since the second one is now filled with the week 6 share from the Gorman Farms CSA share.

This week we got beets (I’ll make fruit beety as soon as I get home), leeks, onions, carrots, yellow squash, cucumbers, green beans (he put them in a mesh bag, and purple basil. He realized that I had green basil growing in a pot on our deck so when he had to choose between green and purple --- he picked the purple.

There was a cut sunflower as part of the share this week too!

I can hardly wait to pick up next week’s share since the ‘overage table’ has been started since I have been away - and is a new feature of the CSA this year.

CSA Week 5

The remnants of the week 4 Gorman Farms CSA share traveled from Maryland to Texas in an ice chest (a two day road trip). The only portions left are a few carrots and a cucumber!

It has been hot and wet in Maryland recently so the veggies are abundant…and the CSA share is full of variety:

• Leafy greens like lettuce, kale, collard greens, kohlrabi greens, carrots tops, cabbage
• Roots like carrots, kohlrabi, onions and garlic
• Cool cucumbers.

The only downside is that I am in Texas and my husband picked up our share this week. How much will still be good by the time I get home.

CSA Week 4

I still had some of the week 3 share from the Gorman Farm CSA on Wednesday when I went to pick up the week 4 share. I managed finish everything except some frozen fruit beety by noon Thursday. Week 4 included beets, kohlrabi, Napa cabbage, zucchini, cucumbers, radicchio and carrots. I decided that when there is a choice of veggies - I’ll always choose the ones I haven’t had yet this season. This week the choices was to pick two from four: chard, kale, Napa cabbage and radicchio…and I made the new rule on the spot to pick the cabbage and radicchio.

I am going to make zucchini hummus with the first of this squash of the season. The beets (without their leaves), kohlrabi and carrots will keep longer so I’ll eat the other veggies first. The two crispers in my refrigerator were very full on Wednesday afternoon but they are already less cramped with two days of meals heavy on veggies.