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.
Every Tuesday is my CSA pick up… and as I mentioned before, it’s like my birthday or Christmas or some day when I get presents. Because that’s what it is – a box full of goodies waiting for me to play with them!!!
I never really know what to do with the lettuces I receive. Salads are fine and dandy, but oftentimes, it isn’t filled with stuff that I can easily slap together for a salad. Ohwells. So I threw this together at my sister’s for a quick get together (the other food is shown here) we had – my nephews are so adorable!!!
Anyway, so this is just some Romaine lettuce cut up, and tossed with shredded mozzarella, dried Montmorency cherries (super tart), and walnuts that I toasted a bit with a little sugar to add sweetness/caramelization. Not bad. We all used different dressings but I think the winner was a bottle of Ken’s Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette. (I couldn’t think of what kind of dressing to make, and my sister had 10 bottles of dressing – LITERALLY – at her disposal, so it seemed stupid to make my own on the spot while she held out the bottles to me. Stop judging, you know I hate that kind of foodie. Or person.)
And yet again, what to do with all the greens I received? Spinach (yay!), Swiss chard, kale, radicchio… So I sauteed it with some shredded carrots, garlic, red pepper flakes, and then mixed in a bit of spaghetti, dolloped goat cheese on top, and voila!
You know how I love to show you up close what you aren’t eating…
So healthy. I suppose I could have made it healthier by using whole wheat spaghetti, but really, the texture of that doesn’t appeal to me. It looks like whole wheat though doesn’t it? Since it turned brownish? 🙂
Next up, what do we have here?! Zucchini…
and potato gratin! Sort of. I’m not sure what the exact definition of gratin is.
I just know it was delicious and I took a million and twelve pictures of it.
Because it was super tasty and not really photogenic, and
that’s how I roll.
There were a few issues with it – it was tasty, but I knew it could be better! –
breakfast one morning before work… pan fried slices of salami, a quickly pan fried slice of zucchini-potato gratin, and scrambled eggs topped with fresh cilantro (also a CSA goodie)
So I’m not going to actually get too much into detail about how I made it since I’m already plotting to remake it with next week’s zucchini.
close up of my slice… bottom is fried crispy
It does look marvelous, though, doesn’t it?
such a good, hearty breakfast
Indulge me my fantasy that my photos are actually halfway decent
less hearty but no less delicious
because I know for the most part, they are only alright.
Oh, and the gratin made it into bento.
Alright, so as to not be totally mean, I used one Idaho potato, one zucchini, sliced super thinly. I salted the zucchini and let it drain for a little bit because there’s so much water in them! Layered it in a baking dish with the potatoes on the bottom; between the potato and zucchini layer, I used ‘four cheese’ shredded blend from Trader Joe’s (fontina, provolone, parmesan, and asiago), then layered on the zucchini slices, more cheese, and drizzled basil-infused-olive-oil (Olave) on top (because I had it, not for any real fancy schmancy reason or anything).
I’ll let you know how the new version turns out 😉 because I want to add some other stuff, use a different cheese, and go with that.
Happy eating!!!
Previously:
CSA Week #1
CSA Week #2
CSA Week #3
CSA Week #4
CSA Week #5
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