CSA Week 6

I am not getting further behind as far as clearing out the crispers – but I’m not catching up either. This week I still had carrots, a full head of cabbage, some broccoli, and a few beet leaves left from the week 5 medium share….and it was another 2 bag share for week 6.

Starting in the upper left corner: collard greens (one of my favors for rolling up and cutting in small pieces for slaw), fennel (new this week…and I haven’t decided what to do with it yet), onions (not cured so have to be used relatively quickly – they had been out on a trailer beside the barn and were warm from the sun….very alive), beets (the beets will become fruit beety that will go into the freezer and I’ll eat the leaves in salads, the stems in stir fry), hiding behind the beet is a small bunch of arugula ( from the overage table since adds flavor to any salad), cabbage, 3 pounds of summer squash (all the zucchini is going for zucchini bread – some of which will be frozen), 3 pounds of cucumbers (I tried to get small ones and will put one in every salad until they are going), lettuce (this will have to be eaten before the beet and collard greens) as well the carrot tops (I have so many carrots…some of them will have to go toward carrot cake).

Whew! That’s a lot of veggies.

CSA Week 5

It was another two bag week at the Gorman Farm CSA this week….another good week of eating skewed toward the veggie side. Starting in the upper left of the picture below there are: 2 kohlrabi (roots and leaves), 2 pounds of summer squash (I got 3 yellow and one green), cone head cabbage, scallions, 1 pound of cucumbers, 1 pound of broccoli, arugula, beets (roots and leaves), carrots with tops, and kale. The scallions were from the overage table where I could have gotten more greens (collard greens or chard) but I still have both left from last week.

Not the variety of leaf shapes and sizes between the kohlrabi leaves (large), the beet (red veins) and the arugula (convoluted margins). The beet leaves and arugula will be eaten with the carrot tops in salads. I am still trying to decide whether to make the kohlrabi leaves into chips just like I intend to do with the kale.

After I had cleaned up from the first round of prep of the veggies into plastic bins, I found this tiny leaf. I think it might have been from the kohlrabi. It was only about an inch long....very delicate.

I have been eating a lot of the stems but decided to start freezing more of them so that I will skew what I eat now to leaves that will not survive freezing. The stems have to be cooked (steamed, stir fried, or put into soups) because they are so tough – they work well coming from the freezer. In fact, freezing may reduce the cooking required.

CSA Week 4

The medium share at the Gorman Farm CSA was large again this week. I’m going to take two bags instead of one next week…since the bounty really does require the spaces – and I can more easily spread the weight to carry it all to the car. This week the share included (starting in the upper left corner and moving clockwise: mizuna (my choice from the overage bins…it is only available early in the season and I really like it), peas, scallions, beets, chard, Romaine lettuce, collards, broccoli, savoy cabbage, and kale.

I took some close up pictures of the broccoli,

Chard, and

Peas….so many beautiful foods for this next week.

I fit the leafy things into two plastic bins and some plastic bags. The beets (minus their leaves, cabbage, and broccoli in the crisper. So far, I’ve not had anything go to waste via spoilage and I want to keep it that way.

I’ll make fruit beety tomorrow. While the beets cook I’ll make kale chips. Both will keep longer in processed form although the fruit beety is one of my favorite summer snacks so I probably won’t put any of this batch in the freezer.