The CSA and Our Garden :: Week One

Chives from our garden were nice additions to CSA salad greens.

Last week, we picked up our first CSA package. My only worry about joining a CSA was that there would be wasteful behavior involved. I have taken a silent oath these days to use up everything we already have in the house (garden supplies, crafting supplies, pantry stock, etc.) in the constant pursuit of zero-dollar days and I wanted to carry that thrifty behavior through to our CSA. I also wanted to make sure I was pulling goodies from our garden and using them up, as well.

What we received from the CSA:

Salad mix
Red Russian Kale
Spinach
One dozen eggs

How it was put to use (with additions from our plot):

Salad Mix - Lots of dinner salads with toasted sunflower seeds, cranberries, dried blueberries, shredded carrots. One night, we had enough strawberries from our garden to put on top of a salad (Due props to Gradually Greener for the idea). I also took a salad for lunch with leftover salmon. Chopped up chives from our herb garden were also a nice addition to the salads.

Red Russian Kale - This was used immediately. My new favorite type of kale. I made the Hot and Sour Greens mentioned here.

Spinach and seven eggs became a spinach fritatta. Recipe out of the Sundays at Moosewood Cookbook.

Three more eggs were used in a Sweet Almond Cake from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. I topped it with stewed rhubarb (from our garden). It is the closest thing to homemade marzipan that I have yet to experience.

This is both a good and a bad thing. I found I had to say out loud, "Step away from the Sweet Almond Cake" more than once this past weekend. Half the time I did, the other half, not so much.

Now if I could just summon that attitude with our insane bounty of salad greens.