Monica

I asked what to do with kale and some of you suggested braising for a while. I haven't done that yet, but I used some of it in this recipe for Thai red curry and that worked well. And I remembered to snap a picture before we'd eaten too much of it!

The aromatics are onion, ginger, and garlic and the vegetables are red bell pepper, carrots, and kale. (I should have also used a yellow or orange pepper. Next time.) This worked well, and I think it could even absorb more kale! I found myself wanting another vegetable to bit into besides the carrots and peppers; maybe next time I'll add some radish or parsnips or cauliflower. (I don't always have cauliflower on hand.) I know that potatoes are used in Indian curry-like dishes; I don't know about Thai, but that's a possibility too. Maybe sweet potatoes?

The recipe says four servings, but even over rice I disbelieve. I had planned to have leftovers for lunch, but we ate it all. (I have some leftover rice; I started with a cup dry.)

• 8 white potatoes (2 pounds)
• "2" blue potatoes (probably 1 pound)
• bunch (5 pieces) green garlic (like scallions, but garlicky and bigger)
• bunch chives
• lettuce (this one is an elongated bunch rather than the usual round head, but otherwise it looks similar to what we've had before)
• bag mizuna and arugula (1/3 pound according to the manifest, though it felt like more (maybe someday I will get a kitchen scale))
• bunch barese
• jar rhubarb preserves

(Small shares omitted the chives, blue potatoes, half the white potatoes, and preserves, and got black locust honey.)

I used the mizuna/arugula mix, some of the barese, and some of the green garlic tonight in a tofu stir-fry I've made before. (Argh, someday I will remember to take a picture.) The recipe calls for green onions and (regular) garlic; I used green garlic and a (regular) onion instead. (Parity, plus I didn't have any green onions on hand.)

They sent a link to a bunch of recipes using chives. Oh good. :-) I mean, I like chives, but I've never bought and directly used them before. Apparently they go well with potatoes, which is handy.

• 4 parsnips (from three bases :-) )
• 6 Fuji apples
• 4 large-to-huge blue potatoes (nominal 2 pounds)
• 2 green meat radishes, one huge
• bunch Swiss chard (half pound)
• head lettuce
• bag salanova (mixed salad greens)
• bunch red pac choi

(The small share omitted the apples and potatoes, got watermelon radish instead of green meat radish, and got kale instead of chard.)

That's a lot of greens. I know pac choi and chard are both good for sauteing; I have a vague memory that chard works well in a greens-based soup too. Salads are obvious (and I've been making salad for lunch more often lately). Last night I roasted the last of last week's blue potatoes, sliced thin and sprinkled with fresh rosemary and sea salt, and then finished them under the broiler to get nice crunchy crisp bits. That definitely worked, so I'll be doing that again. (I also roasted some parsnips last night.) I might try shredding and pan-frying parsnips (hash-browns style); it seems like that would be nice. Some will also go into a vegetable soup soon (maybe with some greens?).

Halacha tangent: I knew last week that this week's share would not include anything that's problematic during Pesach (when there are restrictions on even owning certain foods), but I found myself wondering how it would have worked otherwise. It depends on when you legally become the owner of the food. In advance, when I paid for the share? When I physically acquire the share each week? So I asked on Mi Yodeya; let's see if I get good answers. (There are some useful leads in a couple comments, and a lot of comments from somebody who didn't like the way I asked the question.)

The spring farm share is weekly for eight weeks, starting today.

• 4 parsnips
• 4 white potatoes
• 5 fingerling sweet potatoes
• head hydroponic lettuce
• bunch red pak choi
• 25oz jar diced tomatoes (more like a puree)
• dozen free-range eggs

We had most of the pak choi in a stir-fry tonight. I'm glad to have parsnips again, which I like roasted along with other root veggies. There was a jar of the tomato puree in one of the winter shares and it made a good base for soup, so I'll probably do that again. The hydroponic lettuce has been nice in salads. Normally I don't notice lettuce being especially good; it's just there. This is good.

I've been having a delightful email conversation with somebody at the CSA, initially because they asked for feedback on the winter share. I mentioned that this was my first CSA experience and I'd been blogging it, and shared the tag link (hi, CSA folks!).

• 11 carrots (varied sizes)
• 3 green meat radishes
• 7 Empire apples
• 5 "white" potatoes (I expected the skins to be lighter; haven't looked inside yet)
• lettuce
• Rosie Asian greens
• 2lb spelt berries (what the heck are... ok, got help from Google)
• dozen eggs
• quarter pound of "cowboy coffee" cheese (there's an espresso rub)
• jar zucchini relish (who knew?)

I might need to pickle some of the radishes. My pickled daikon radish back at the beginning of the season worked out pretty well, but I like them more than Dani does. Do radishes roast well, I wonder?

There's one delivery left in the winter CSA. We signed up for the spring share, which is weekly for eight weeks (after a gap of three weeks, if I recall correctly). We'll make decisions about summer later; for that we have options for both size and frequency.

• 5 Rome apples
• 3 celeriac (one small) (late substitute for the beets we were expecting)
• 4 medium blue potatoes
• 16 small carrots, generally around 4" long
• large bunch arugula (that is the one front right, isn't it? it's bigger than past arugula, but the bag back left doesn't look like arugula)
• bunch tatsoi
• bag mizuna (this is a new green for me)
• half gallon apple cider
• 2 pounds pastry flour
• small jar green tomato relish ("think of it as a more mature salsa")
• 6oz piece goat's milk Parmesaanen

The preview email, once again, included a picture not of the cheese but of the goat.

The cornbread recipe that came with the cornmeal in a past box calls for pastry flour, which I didn't have then but do now. Last time I made it with regular flour, so I'll see if I can tell the difference with pastry flour. Meanwhile, this bag of flour comes with a recipe for pancakes. Neither cornbread nor pancakes are pastry in my mind, but I'll assume that the term "pastry flour" is expansive.

(The CSA linked to a short article about the difference between pastry flour and regular flour, but the site goes overboard with annoying in-page ads, so instead of linking to it I'll summarize: pastry flour is lower in protein than normal flour, which means it's lower gluten, which means it makes biscuits, scones, pie crusts, and quick breads lighter and flakier.)

• two bunches hydroponic lettuce
• one bunch Rosie Asian greens
• six Rome apples
• three rutabagas (two bigger than my fist)
• one watermelon radish
• seven shallots
• thirteen baby turnips (are these baby scarlet? that seems the least-unlikely among the varieties they list as possibilities)
• four red potatoes
• two heads garlic
• dozen "pastured" eggs
• jar of, nominally, chopped tomatoes, though it looks more like puree to me
• 8oz jar Japanese knotweed honey

The eggs came with this note: "since these are washed, you'll want to store in the fridge". This raises two questions. First, washed? Second, when wouldn't I store raw eggs in the fridge? I always do, so this note puzzles me.

One of their suggestions for the radish is roasting. I've never roasted radishes, so I might give that a try (though some of it will almost certainly go into salad). The jar of tomato stuff will probably end up in a soup or stew. Most of the roots are good for roasting, though I'll try to broaden my horizons there. (Potatoes aren't the only thing that can be a gratin; turnips work too, I'm told.)

They note that the honey is good for tea. That's handy, as we like tea and, just last night, were noticing that the current jar is nearly empty. (Knotweed?) The hechsher (kosher certification) is one I hadn't seen before, Earth Kosher. ("K" on a globe.)

Today's themes: (1) giant squash! and (2) how am I going to use all those greens while they're still good?

• two three bunches arugula (two different farms, one labeled hydroponic -- turns out one bag had two bunches)
• one bunch endive
• six Rome apples
• one stripetti squash (this type is new to me)
• five parsnips
• three fingerling sweet potatoes
• two bulbs garlic
• three medium-large shallots
• two green meat radishes (these are new to me)
• dozen free-range eggs
• jar pumpkin butter

I'm glad to get parsnips; I quite like them as part of a roasted-vegetable mix. And the eggs are well-timed; I was just about to have to buy more. (I did have to buy more carrots, so I have some to roast with the parsnips.)

We're not keeping up with the apples, largely because both our workplaces get fruit deliveries so we're not taking them for lunch. Plus we got inundated with desserts (baking season, I guess), so I haven't been making cobblers. It's time to change that; I like cobbler. :-) We've had some baked apples, and apples are one of the things I stuff squash with, and there was an apple-beet salad that I'll make again with the last beets. I have a recipe for a soup with (butternut) squash and apples that sounds good. I can always make applesauce, though Dani doesn't like it as much as I do. I welcome any other non-dessert suggestions. (Desserts I've got plenty of.)

I need to figure out how to divide and conquer the squash. We can't eat all of it at once; would unused portions keep better raw (carve off a meal's worth and cook that) or cooked (cook the whole thing and then store)?

I also welcome suggestions for arugula and endive. Salad, yes, and I understand that arugula works well in pasta. Do they stir-fry or saute well? Does either work well in soups?

So far I like having a farm share. I think we're eating better, I'm learning to use new-to-me produce, and we might even be saving a little money, surprising as that seems. We signed up for the spring CSA (weekly, eight weeks). We're undecided about summer; a summer share might produce more greens and zucchini than we're prepared to absorb. On the other hand, the summer share has options for both small and standard boxes and for weekly and biweekly pickups; a biweekly small box is a possibility. We'll decide later.

Random question: what makes brown eggs more or less brown? There's noticeable variation in this dozen and it got me wondering.

Today's haul (a week early because of holidays; next one in three weeks):

• barese (a member of the Swiss chard family? described as similar to bok choy and good in stir-fry)
• six Crimsom Crisp apples
• 2 bulbs garlic (the other pile of garlic in front is delayed from last week)
• shallots (a couple large and a few small)
• five carrots (three large), counting the "Siamese carrots" there as two
• one watermelon radish, named for its distinctive coloring when you cut it open, which I haven't done yet
• six beets
• six golden potatoes
• one butternut squash (smaller than last week's giant)
• 8oz maple syrup
• 2 pounds spelt flour (they recommend brownies and chocolate-chip cookies)

I'll use some barese, shallots, garlic, and maybe shaved carrots in a stir-fry. Some of the barese might go into a tofu hot & sour soup (I have a crock-pot recipe to try). I'll make the recommended brownies and maybe cookies. They included a recipe for a salad of roasted beets and apples that I'll try. I'm not sure whether to eat the radish raw (in a salad) or do something else with it.

In followups from last week: the celeriac with peas was tasty; the celeriac mash (with potatoes and horseradish) was ok (under-horseradished); I used a little of the daikon radish in a salad and pickled the rest (yum). And the butternut squash I roasted. We had some of the goat cheese with dinner tonight.

My first CSA box came with local flour (with a milling date! never seen that before), and one of their recipe suggestions was Japanese milk rolls. My first try did not go well; it seems I did not knead it long enough, and so I got dense blobs where fluffy rolls were supposed to be. (Still edible, but clearly not the intended results.) The second time, today, I said hey, I have tools for this, and used the bread machine to do the kneading. (I've never used it to make dough before, always finished bread.)

At the end of the kneading the dough formed a nice ball; after the rise it was bigger (not doubled) and more of a blob. That is, it didn't make a bigger ball. I don't know if it's supposed to. The next step was to separate it, make eight balls, and put them in a pan to rise again for 45-50 minutes. The dough was very sticky and that made it hard to shape; I sprinkled a little flour onto it while working with it so it didn't all stick to my hands. I don't know if that's so standard with bread that it goes without saying (this beginner didn't know, if so), or if that's not supposed to be necessary and I did something wrong.

The proto-rolls did expand in this second rise (I failed to take a "before" picture). The final product is definitely better than try #1, though they're still less fluffy than I expected from reading the recipe. I wouldn't be embarrassed to serve them to guests, but I will probably stick with less-fussy breads in the future. (This one involves making a "starter" (tangzhong) that's sort of like a roux. That, too, is new to me for bread.)

We joined a CSA for the first time, finally enticed by a pickup location at my workplace. The first pickup was today.

• 1 head hydroponic lettuce
• 1 bunch Chinese cabbage
• about a dozen small carrots (about 6" long)
• 1 spaghetti squash
• 3 shallots
• 3.5 largish fingerling sweet potatoes (I assume the .5 was an accident and somebody else has the other half)
• 1 black Spanish radish (the manifest said "radishes"; Wikipedia said they're bigger than red radishes; this one weighs about half a pound)
• 7 Empire apples
• half gallon apple cider (not from the same farm as the apples)
• 2 pounds unbleached bread flour
• 5oz Bewitched cheese: "Enjoy this exclusive one time only cheese from Hidden Hills Dairy, available only to Winter CSA members! This cheese is a mix between their Buttercup and an Alpine Cheese. Great for snacking, making the perfect grilled cheese sandwich, or as an addition to mac and cheese! If enjoying as a snack, let it come to room temperature first."

For some of the flour I'm going to follow their suggestion of Japanese milk rolls, assuming I can find dry milk. (! That shouldn't be hard, but it wasn't to be found anywhere in our usual grocery store!) I don't know yet how I'll use the black radish; maybe sauteed with shallots and cabbage (and thinly-sliced carrot?), or maybe roasted with carrots and sweet potatoes (and shallots?). I'll do something savory with the squash. There might be apple cobbler in my future, but apples are good for eating raw too. By default the lettuce becomes salad, but I welcome other suggestions (for any of this).