CSA Week 6

I am not getting further behind as far as clearing out the crispers – but I’m not catching up either. This week I still had carrots, a full head of cabbage, some broccoli, and a few beet leaves left from the week 5 medium share….and it was another 2 bag share for week 6.

Starting in the upper left corner: collard greens (one of my favors for rolling up and cutting in small pieces for slaw), fennel (new this week…and I haven’t decided what to do with it yet), onions (not cured so have to be used relatively quickly – they had been out on a trailer beside the barn and were warm from the sun….very alive), beets (the beets will become fruit beety that will go into the freezer and I’ll eat the leaves in salads, the stems in stir fry), hiding behind the beet is a small bunch of arugula ( from the overage table since adds flavor to any salad), cabbage, 3 pounds of summer squash (all the zucchini is going for zucchini bread – some of which will be frozen), 3 pounds of cucumbers (I tried to get small ones and will put one in every salad until they are going), lettuce (this will have to be eaten before the beet and collard greens) as well the carrot tops (I have so many carrots…some of them will have to go toward carrot cake).

Whew! That’s a lot of veggies.

CSA Week 2

My pickup on Wednesday afternoon at the Gorman Farm Community Supported Agriculture was very breezy…and full of green. Picked a red leaf butter lettuce to just get some color variety.

When I got home I rinsed everything and organized it into bins, bags, and trays: red leaf lettuce and half the scallions in one bin….the lettuce needs to be eaten before the other greens since it will wilt first; the older half of the scallions and romaine lettuce into the second bin; the kale and garlic scapes into the third bin; the collard cut in half and into a gallon Ziploc, and the thyme spread out on a small tray to dry. With the exception of the thyme – it will all go into the refrigerator.

I managed to eat everything we got in the week 1 share but I’m already anticipating that it will be more challenging with the second week simply because it is larger. I already am planning to make Kale chips from all the kale leaves (the stems will go into a stir fry as will the collard stems). I am going to skew toward salads immediately to use up lettuces and scallions and some of the garlic scapes. Hopefully having everything in closed bins and plastic bags will help keep the rest in good shape long enough to get it all eaten!