Food

[resonant]

This year, for the first time, I've got a CSA subscription. Once a week I get a box from a farm out in the county somewhere, full of whatever's growing. Which, this early in a very rainy summer, isn't much, but it's still kind of a thrill.

Today's box contained:

1. mixed salad greens
   
2. red and green lettuce
   
3. a little bundle of parsley
   
4. garlic scapes (yeah, your guess is as good as mine -- I'm going to put them in a stir-fry tomorrow)
   
5. sugar-snap peas (likewise destined for a stir-fry)
   
6. more radishes (I am not a radish convert yet -- I think they taste like mustard and dirt -- but if you slice them thin enough, they don't taste too offensive, and I have to admit they look very pretty in a salad)
   
7. small turnips with greens (not sure what I'm going to do with the turnips, but I'm going to eat all the greens myself and I'm not even apologizing for it)

Tonight we had a salad with the greens, the radishes, some really good cheese, some ham, some chives from the farmer's market, and some out-of-season cucumbers from the grocery store. I felt a warm glow of virtue, which I'm now going to destroy by finishing my day with Oreos.

We get eggs every other week, and starting next week, we'll also have meat. We'll have too much meat; we eat meat in pretty small quantities when we eat it at all, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with a box of what the Table Talk people used to call Montessori-raised livestock, but for years I've been saying I'd pay more for someone to raise my food in a way that didn't resemble the assembly line at an auto plant, so now I have the chance to put my money where my mouth is.

Comments

[dogeared]

eeeeee WONDERFUL!! And you can make very tasty pesto with garlic scapes, in place of the basil! I think they were my most fun new discovery from the farmers' market last year.

[resonant]

Right after I picked up my box, I went to the farmer's market, and there were garlic scapes all over the place. And I would swear I had never seen one until today. Wonder if they've been there all along waiting for me to have the context to notice them?

[incidental_fire]

Mmm, garlic scapes are yummy. I think of them as being slightly hardier green onions with the onion flavor replaced with garlic. Since I'm a huge garlic fan, they make me very happy. :) They totally work in stir-fries, and I also like using them raw where I'd use raw green onions - I find it a nice way to get garlic flavor in something I don't want cooked garlic in. For whatever that's all worth. :)

[resonant]

Yeah, I'm not too worried about finding a way to use them, because garlic = good.

[celandineb]

Garlic scapes! They are the flower stalks, before they develop buds, even. You can just cook them, as you're thinking with your stir-fry, or use them as a garlic substitute (although they're milder).

I got some this year too and found a couple of recipes that we liked to use them up: Chicken with Garlic Scapes and Capers, and White Bean Dip with Garlic Scapes.

Oh, and this recipe for Roasted Turnips is pretty good.

[mecurtin]

Ooo, I shall try your garlic scape recipes. We got 20 in our share this week and it'll probably happen again next week.

[resonant]

Excellent -- thanks!

I'm a turnip lover, but mostly I like to boil them with carrots, puree them together, and then eat them with pepper and an obscene amount of butter. Which only really sounds good in the winter -- too hot for summer.

[sheafrotherdon]

scapes make a really great pesto - dogeared made some last summer; recipe over here

[resonant]

Yum! Will have to try that.

[springwoof]

can you freeze the meat and save it for holidays or something? or make a big pan of meat lasagna and freeze that and have good-for-you frozen dinners? I used to make a big batch of hamburgers for my father-in-law: I'd grind the meat, add lots of chopped onion and chopped green pepper, spices, etc., and raw egg to bind it all, then make it into patties and wrap each patty individually in waxed paper, then freezer wrap and freeze dozens of patties at a time. (he liked hamburger) But same principle applies, doesn't it? The freezer is your friend...

or, you could always emulate Fraser and make pemmican....

[resonant]

We have a chest freezer, thank heaven. My hope is that a summer's worth of every-other-week meat subscription will provide a substantial proportion of the meat we eat for the whole year.

I may have a ground-beef problem -- I believe there's ground beef in every single box, and the only things I ever use ground beef for are spaghetti sauce and this weird-yet-addictive thing called Cowboy Cobbler, which is basically seasoned ground beef with blots of cornbread baked on top of it.

[mecurtin]

Garlic scapes are good in stir-fry, or especially with eggs. You'll get *lots*.

The turnips are probably Japanese salad turnips. They're *wonderful* -- fancy restaurants are putting them raw into salads, but even non-turnip-lovers like my husband love them in traditional turnip venues like stew. They're an example of how spoiled-rotten a CSA will make you -- these puppies cost the *earth* in the store if you can even find them, but they're turning up at all the CSAs because they ripen at a different time than the usual turnip.

[resonant]

I hope I'll like the garlic scapes, then. I don't imagine there's much danger; I like every garlicky thing.

[squints at photo] the turnips do look like that, but they also look like just ordinary turnips harvested very young. They're about an inch across. Guess I should take a slice out of one and try it raw before I cook them all.

One problem I'm seeing with the CSA is that the quantities of some things are too small to feed three people. There are really only enough turnips for a side dish for one person. Of course, I'm the only person in the house who's aware of the manifold virtues of turnips, so ...

[wildmachinery]

i seem to remember that if you toss radishes in some olive oil, salt and pepper them, and roast them for a while in a hot oven, it changes the flavor a bit. you can do the same thing with the turnips. roasted veggies! they are great!

[eruthros]

Yes! They become sweet and tasty when roasted. Or stir-fried or similar; I've even put them in omlettes. They then have only a very mild pepperyness, and can be made even milder by peeling or parly-peeling. I am actually a big fan of radishes in my scrambles now!

[elbomac]

That's almost exactly what I got in my box last week! Were the turnips the little smooth white ones? I am excited and somewhat intimidated by learning how to prepare all these different vegetables.

[resonant]

Yes, about an inch across, with no purple on it at all.

The unpredictableness of the CSA was a big part of the appeal to me; I like a challenge. Though I'm rather dreading the season of the winter squashes.

[stultiloquentia]

Rock on! I'm doing CSA for the first time this year, too. I was so excited by my first share last week that I had salad greens for dinner. And a hakurei turnip. That's all. Not even salad dressing!

PSA: iron_chef_csa :)

[resonant]

OMG subscribe! That community looks like exactly what I need.

[raine]

Never had garlic scapes, but here's more info -- they sound intriguing:
http://moscowfood.coop/archive/scape.html

[resonant]

And there's that ubiquitous pesto recipe. I think I definitely have to try it; the internet has handed it to me three times today.

[neotoma]

garlic scapes

I believe that those are what they call 'garlic pigtails' or 'garlic scallions' at my farmer's mareket. You use them just like regular scallions, but more sparingly because they are *strong*.

Turnips can go into soup.

I wish I had the time/money to join a CSA... no go this year, but maybe next...

[resonant]

This is the first year I've had the money, and I'm really insanely excited about it.

[libitina]

I have been having a great time using sliced radishes as a conveyance for butter and salt to my mouth.

[astolat]

heee, I was about to say exactly this.

[k8andrewz]

I've found the search function on foodgawker to be a really useful place for inspiration re: various vegetables (and any ingredient really).

[k8andrewz]

ETA: for example: http://foodgawker.com/?s=garlic+scapes

CSA Jealousy

[giglet]

Oh, I'm so jealous!

My household doesn't get a CSA share because I'm the only omnivore and the boys are all picky (and mundane) about their veggies. We simply wouldn't be able to eat the majority of what we'd get.

So I got to farmer's markets a lot. And the CSA fairy visits once or twice each summer (when friends go on vacation and leave their shares to us in exchange for pet-sitting, etc.). But I'm still so jealous! I want to play!

Re: CSA Jealousy

[resonant]

I've longed to do the CSA thing for years, but since I got a job, I now have the money.

This is what made me realize that I'm a real hobbyist cook and not just a utility cook -- when "Wow, getting something unpredictable every week would really add some challenge to my meal planning" was one of the advantages.

[gnomad]

Mmmmm...not a bad haul! My CSA has been thin so far (this week and last) because of the constant raining. (My CSA newsletter was saying that it rained 3 out of 4 days in the past 2 months.) I'm hopeful things will pick up as the season goes on.

The garlic scapes I got last week made a yummy addition to my usual pesto sauce (half basil, half scapes) and made some nice pasta. I think I also tossed one into a salad one day too.

I've got more this week and I think I'm going to use them for a chinese cabbage stir fry... *plans*

[resonant]

they were delicious in our beef-and-sugar-snap-pea stir-fry. If I get more next week, I'll try the pesto.

We've had a very rainy spring, too. I went to the farmer's market today and found ... radishes, turnips, greens, and the occasional sad late strawberry. And here's me going, "It's ninety degrees! Where the hell's the corn?"

[myalexandria]

mmmm, this is making me hungry for a really good salad.

I'm not nuts about radishes either; best I've ever found was eating them on a slice of bread thickly spread with sweet butter. But even so, they're bitter for me. Do people ever cook them? I feel like it might take the edge off a little, but I've never seen a non-salad recipe involving them.

[resonant]

Someone above mentioned roasting, and someone else suggested sauteeing in an omelet. I'm actually coming to see their virtues, if sliced thinly enough.

[blacksquirrel]

I love garlic scapes! I actually wait *all year* for garlic scapes to be ready. They make *fabulous* pesto, they're great in egg salad, tuna salad, or as a topping on green salad, or if you mash or blend them with white beans they're a great dip.

Here is an NY Times article on what to do with garlic scapes:
A Garlic Festival Without a Single Clove - the recipes are at the end
Name of Fic

I love to roast turnips with honey and balsamic - I never liked them until I tried them like that.

Enjoy your CSA! We couldn't do one this year, but I love getting that treasure chest of fruit and veg each week :D

[resonant]

Based on that story, I thought they'd cook a lot more quickly than they did -- but they were very tasty.

[raqs.livejournal.com]

garlic scapes are yummeh! they are milder than onions but smell so garlicy. I put them raw in salads. plus a stir fry would be good!

my radishes didn't taste like dirt.

and i wish i had some parsley.

[resonant]

I swear sometimes the cook's dilemma is, "How can I get more garlic into this and have it still be edible?" So they're good for that.

[monanotlisa]

Mmh - not only is the idea great, I really love these veggies in particular. Should see if such services are available 'round here (I'm pretty sure they are).

[resonant]

I should think that if we have them, pretty much everybody would; my dad says if he heard the world were ending, he'd come here, because everything happens here five years later than it happens anywhere else.

[queue]

I am ridiculously excited about this for you.

Sugar snaps are pretty good on their own - like the Fritos of the vegetable world.

Radishes marinate well. If you are a chickpea person, I can send you a recipe I have for marinated chickpea and radish salad. It is also perfectly acceptable not to eat them. I have ambivalent-to-negative feelings about the beets I get in my CSA, and I wind up ignoring them to death about half the time.

[resonant]

I love chickpeas and would love to have your recipe!

We ate all the sugar-snap peas and went to the farmer's mkt to buy more; tomorrow we're going to have them with orzo, parmesan, and a lemon vinaigrette.

I need to come up with some way of cooking beets; I don't dislike them, but I don't know what to do with them.