CSA Update: Salad Days

This is our second year of having a share in Grinnell Heritage Farm's CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). I love, love our CSA, and I think everyone I know should join one for the following reasons: a) It's good for the community, b) It's good for idependent farmers, c) It's good for your health, and d) It's good for your wallet. Ben and I have half a share, and by the time July rolls around, (and I am not exaggerating here) our weekly grocery bill is usually betwen $15-25. Moreover, it's fun! It's gotten easier over time to identify things like broccoli rabe and swiss chard (thanks to the modern girl's field guide - google image search), and now it's just a fun challenge to consult my recipe file, Deborah Madison, Barbara Kafka, and the internet to find interesting ways to utilize our plunder.

So in order to promote my love of our CSA (and to share recipes with friends and family who are also participating in CSAs), I thought I would start giving you a weekly rundown of the things we make with our wonderful boxes of vegetables.

In these early weeks, our boxes are mostly greens, so we eat a lot of salads. But nevertheless, I think I found some ways to keep our rabbit food interesting. Let's just put it this way - Ben hasn't stage a revolt...yet...

I know I should have some more photos with these, and I promise some more in the future.

On Sunday, I was tired and not feeling well, so we just cut up some lettuce and threw out some salad fixings and topped everything with Nebraska's favorite salad dressing, Dorothy Lynch. As our five-year-old nephew Spenser says, "I could drink that stuff."

On Monday, Ben grilled some pork ribs, and we paired them with a spinach salad and mashed potatoes and celeriac. You can read my friend Laura's blog about her adventures with celeriac. We used a similiar recipe, one provided by our CSA farmer:

Mashed Potatoes and Celeriac

1 lb celeriac, peeled and cut into chunks
1 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 bay leaf
1 green garlic, chopped
1/2 heavy cream (this is optional, and I used half and half)
4 Tbsp butter, more or less
2 tsp horseradish
salt and pepper to taste

Combine celeriac, potatoes, bay leaf, and green garlic with water to cover; boil until just tender, about 20 minutes. Drain, remove bay leaf, and return veggies to pot. Add cream, butter, and horseradish. Mash and season with salt and pepper. Makes 4-6 servings.

On Tuesday, we had this Chicken Cobb Salad from Cooking Light. We had lots of pork left over from the previous night, so I used that instead of chicken, and I did not use the avocado because Ben's not a fan and they are hard to find in the N.L. I also made our Italian dressing using Penzey's Italian dressing base, and made deli-style rye bread from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day to go with the salad.

On Wednesday, it was freaking hot in the house and doing anything in the kitchen sounded like a chore. So again, we had free-for-all salads, and we watched storms roll in as we ate dinner on the back deck.

On Thursday, I used the first crop from our garden - arugula - in a Bacon, Arugula, and Shrimp Salad from Cooking Light. I think I made another loaf of Rye bread that night as well.

On Friday, we waited out a tremendous storm and mourned another rained-out softball game with a Herbed Greek Chicken Salad also from Cooking Light and whole wheat pita chips seasoned with Penzey's Sandwhich Sprinkle.

Saturday was another salad from Cooking Light (notice a pattern here? - yes, I use Cooking Light recipes all the time, so you better get used to it) - Bread Salad with Cranberries, Spinach, and Chicken. I changed up a few things on this recipe based on what we had. Instead of the fennel and red pepper, I just used a little Penzey's pizza seasoning which contains both ingredients. I also used Orange-Mango juice for the orange juice and cherry juice in place of the cranberry juice. I also couldn't find pine nuts at ye old North Liberty Fareway, so I used pecans. Oh, and for this and all the salads above, I used regular black olives because the cost of kalamata olives at Fareway was about a 1/6 of our grocery budget. Also, the big change - I did not include cubed bread in the salad; I instead served more fresh rye bread on the side. When I told Ben about this change, he said, "Well, that [cubing the bread to put it in a salad] sounds like a waste of good bread. That sounds like something you would do if you had $%@&-ty bread, and we always have good bread." I think there was a compliment in somewhere in there. :)

All of this, and I ate salads every day for lunch. Plus, we still had a good deal of spinach leftover, which I blanched for 2 minutes, cooled under cold water, and froze. My first food preservation of the the summer! And while I was doing that, Ben was unloading our new deep freezer into the garage!!!! I'm so excited!!!! I cannot wait to fill that thing with summer fruits and veggies!!! And Ben can't wait to look into stocking up on dead animal - especially after this week's menus.

Don't worry, we're having hamburgers tonight. Revolution averted.