CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Essentially, one purchases a ‘share’ in a local farm – much like the stock market, one then has a vested interest in seeing the farm succeed. Dividends/pay outs come in the form of produce – vegetables and sometimes fruit. Different farms do things differently; my farm happens to be also organic, and I pick up my box each week – Tuesdays for me – from a local location. Join me on this journey – my inaugural season with a CSA – as I explore the various vegetables I receive and what I can do with them to turn them into delicious happiness…
For more information on CSAs, click here. To find a CSA local to you, you can click here or for one in NYC, visit JustFood.org. I found mine by typing “Forest Hills CSA” into Google – my neighborhood name + the word CSA, and I’m sure that would work for you as well. Good luck and enjoy the fruits of your labots… har, har.
I’m having so much fun with this CSA – learning how to prep ‘new’ veggies and learning what works for me and what doesn’t! Awesome. So this week, it was funny because, as I mentioned last week, I saw that I was getting fennel and knew right away what I would make. But I’ve also discovered that if I want to eat everything or almost everything in my half of the box, I need to prep and/or cook it right away – that night – or else it’ll just sit in my fridge. This is going to prove squidgy/hard to do when classes start up again… boo.
Onwards to Week #5!
As I mentioned, as soon as I saw “fennel” on the list, I thought of this dish. I’ve seen Giada make it before on television, and thought “That looks interesting.” The thing is, buying fennel – as I’ve mentioned, any sort of not-my-usual-veggie – intimidated me, plus, though I’ve had fennel in small bits and pieces here and there, its description of tasting like licorice made me pretty certain I wouldn’t like it. So I never bothered trying it or any of Giada’s numerous favorite fennel dishes (she mentions that it’s one of her favorite foods a few times). And when I brought my single fennel bulb (totally deal-able, by the way, for a girl alone) to my nose and inhaled sharply, I knew I was right. I cut into it anyway, and tried a few pieces raw, and cringed inwardly because I wasn’t sure how much cheese it would take to change my mind.
Well, after its spin in the toaster oven (too hot to turn on the full oven, and my adorable Chantal baking dish fit in my convection toaster oven, so why not?), I have to say, I was still wary. I tried a piece and found that it was definitely bearable – I could eat it, and even sort of enjoy it – but fennel remains low on my list of veggies. I’m happy I tried it – the recipe is not flawed, it’s just that my tastebuds don’t tend towards licorice favorably. I also think maybe if I creamed it, the strong licorice taste would mild down a bit and I could enjoy it more fully… hmmm, next time 🙂
Next up, I trimmed all the greens off my Japanese turnips (which, I’ll be honest, I haven’t been loving the turnips themselves; the greens are tasty, however!), washed them thoroughly leaf-by-leaf, and set them aside as I worked on prepping the collards. Minced a bunch of cloves of garlic, dropped them into my pan with some olive oil, then added a sprinkling of red pepper flakes and all of the greens, plus some salt/pepper, stirring them until everything was super bright green, turned off the flame. Pretty tasty – a simple preparation, to be sure, but very healthy and delicious (and no bacon, sorry!).
I made some of these into a quesadilla (bento!) after reading Soopling’s suggestion – tortillas, pepperjack, and the greens inside – but wasn’t a big fan of the competing flavors.
And with the rest of the cooked greens, I topped it with two fried eggs and some freshly chopped cilantro (also from the CSA), for a delicious and filling meal one night.
That same night, I also chopped up a bunch of dill, then threw it into some plain Greek yogurt (Fage brand) that I had, along with salt, pepper, and some crushed red pepper flakes for a surprising lift of heat at the end. I let this sit overnight and played with it as a dip, a dressing for a quick slaw – which I put into bento.
But dill is one of my favorite herbs, so I decided to go for it with another sauce as well!
That is dill tartar sauce! I’ve posted my recipe for tartar sauce before, and looking at it now, it includes dill – but dried dill. Using fresh dill imparts such an extra lovely bright taste to it! Mmm, I should have made more – I think I could dip just about anything in this and love it.
Of course you want to know what I paired with it. Roasted broccoli (slightly different this time, no garlic, lemon, or cheese, but still roasted, with salt/pepper and crushed red pepper flakes) and fried dover sole.
Cornmeal crusted, pan fried dover sole, that is!
Very simple: dredge dover sole in seasoned (salt & pepper) corn meal, then add to a hot skillet (that has olive oil shimmering in the bottom). A few minutes on each side, golden brown and delicious, serve with dill tartar sauce and enjoy!!!
Happy eating!!!
SkippyMom says
What is up with the CSAs of NY? Are you not getting anything common? Peppers? Tomatoes? Squash? [Did I miss your tomato/corn season?] Or do you just live in a diff' part of the world then warm VA?
The sole looks LOVELY and I could easily eat two pieces, but I am a bit disheartened by what you have been receiving. That is a lot of money for a bunch of herbs and greens imo.
Hungry says
The more you cook fennel, the less licorice it will be. I hate the flavor of licorice as well. But I use fennel as a base in soups and sauces. It works really well with onions, carrots, and celery (the other common soup bases).
Ambitious says
I ate something that looks STRIKINGLY similar the other day! 😀
Kale in evoo, with egg cooked to medium and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, with sriacha sauce 🙂