Earlier in the season, we got some radishes.  I’m just not that into radishes, but this year I was on a mission to use all that I got to the full potential.  I used them in salads - green, tuna and rice salads.  I kind of started to like them.  My friend in Vermont also got radishes from her CSA and told me about this radish top soup.   I was curious, but it was too late, no more radishes.  Until two weeks ago.  I got a small bunch of radishes, not enough to make the soup, but I didn’t use them and then last week in the free bin SCORE!  Radishes!  Loads of radishes!  I made the soup.  It was on one of the chilly fall nights last week.  I didn’t really know what to expect.  Well . . . it was perfect.  Cozy and comforting and a little bit like baby food.  And it was super simple.  I’m hoping for another score this week in the free bin.  I used the tops of four bunches.  Now I have plenty of radishes left over and a little bird told me I can roast them.  We’ll see.  I am going to make this soup again.  I’m hoping for another score this week in the free bin.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 medium red potatoes, diced
• 4 cups raw radish greens
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1/4 cup milk
• 5 radishes, sliced

Directions

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onion, and saute until tender.
2. Mix in potatoes and radish greens, coating them with butter.
3. Pour in chicken broth.
4. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes.
5. Allow the soup mixture to cool slightly, and transfer to a blender. Blend until smooth.
6. Return the mixture to the saucepan. Mix in the milk.
7. Cook and stir until well blended. Serve with radish slices.

Tonight was one of those nights when I came home from work and realized we have another delivery tomorrow, and I still had a fridge full of stuff from last week. Eek! Plus I also had a leftover container of takeout rice. (Why, you ask, did I order Chinese takeout the other day when I had a ton of CSA veggies sitting around? Because I’m a bad person, and very lazy.) But anyway, never fear, because fried rice came to the rescue! Here’s my recipe:

Heat some peanut or canola oil in a wok or frying pan. Add a clove of chopped garlic, a little grated ginger, and a chopped scallion, and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the leftover rice, crumbing it with your fingers if it’s clumpy. Stir frequently for a few minutes, and then add some chopped veggies. I tossed in broccoli, eggplant, tatsoi, green bell pepper, and hot red pepper, but you can really improvise here. Cook until the veggies are tender but still crisp. I also like to add some egg in my fried rice, so I made a little hole in the middle of the rice/veggie mixture, cracked an egg in there, and scrambled it in. Then sprinkle on a splash of soy sauce, mix it all up a little more, and it’s done. You could also add tofu, chicken, or pork for protein instead of the egg. I should have taken a picture of this, but I was so hungry I just dug in and totally forgot. But trust me, it looked delicious (and tasted pretty good too).

In my three years as a member, I manage to always be otherwise engaged for any farm trips.  I’m always disappointed to miss it.  I’ve gone on the website a lot to show my kids pictures of the animals and I vow that I will make it up to see them in person.  But it never works out.  Until this year.  I was so happy that the barbeque was on a day I was free.  My husband was happy that the menu included pulled pork.  It’s one of our favorite things.

So even though a 5 hour roundtrip with two kids 3 and under can be dicey, we were excited.  We got up there faster than expected.  We immediately shed our sweatshirts, it was a beautiful day.  There was chickens running around everywhere along with a couple of strutting roosters. Read the rest of this entry »

Sara H. sent in this pic of a yummy looking salad she made this week with her CSA share. Just chop up some wax beans, cucumber, tomato, basil, and shallot, and toss in a bowl with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Simple and delicious!

Member Ainslie Binder made a halved version of this recipe and said it was—as Rachel Ray would say—”DELISH.” (Well, actually, Ainslie said it was “delicious,” but I could not resist!)

Fresh Sour Cherry Cobbler

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Where I used to live, summer was all about the zucchini. Everyone seemed to grow them and there would be so many that you couldn’t unload them on your colleague or neighbor. If you left your car door unlocked (this was a rural area, so no one really locked their cars), you might end up with a couple in your front seats. Actually, I think this is the only time people locked their car doors. We also used to carve our names in them as they grew and if they got too big, they were kind of tasteless so we’d use them for target practice. Read the rest of this entry »

Aside from the usual salads, we didn’t do anything super spectacular with our share.

I think, the thing I love most with kale is sausages. This is a classic recipe (also sausages with broccoli rabe) that has been written up numerous times on various blogs, including this vegetarian recipe. One good twist to this dinner staple that my husband did was to add a can of whole italian plum tomatoes to the mix. Just squeeze the tomatoes with your (clean) hands to roughly crush them up. Read the rest of this entry »

Uh, well, we were a little flaky with our veggie share last week. I don’t know what we ate, but it wasn’t a whole lot of vegetables. My husband made a saute mix of chicken livers/gizzards from a BoBo Chicken with some kale, cremini mushrooms that came out kind of weird so I’m not even going to go any further other than I ate it.

So, on a way more delicious note, PLGCSA Member and Board Member Pavani Thagirisa sent me this recipe (modified) of what she did with her share. She is an excellent cook and so this is probably guaranteed to be tasty!

Spinach/Kale/Chard Dal

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The first week of the CSA. . .

It’s always a little bit of a transition to go from “choice of vegetables” to eating what the farmer gives us. I have to admit, sometimes not having a choice is kind of nice. The farmer gives you your veggies for the week and then you just gotta deal and eat ‘em.

This week we got FOUR heads of lettuce, bok (pac) choy, tatsoi—er, basically, a lot of greens and some radishes. Well, we haven’t eaten the bok choi or tatsoi, but FOUR heads of lettuce? Luckily, we split our share with our neighbor, but she doesn’t like salad (yeah, I know. . .), but their parakeets do! For us, we had a dinner with some friends so it was perfect for a salad for 4 adults and two kids.

The random salad I made was with what I had. Just take any veg you have, wash and cut it into thin slices on a diagonal (in this case, it was romaine and green leaf lettuce, carrots, cuke, purple onion). Call me picky, but I’m not a fan of salads that have cubed veggies in them. I thinly sliced the radishes and added those too and had some sunflower seeds and added those (any nut will do).

I also had some croutons I made from some old bread (perfect use for bread going stale). Croutons are extremely easy to made and so gratifying. Just cube up day-old bread (not the pre-sliced kind, but that might work), toss with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. You can add any dried herb (oregano or italian spice work nice or lemon salt) too. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, tossing them half way through and store in an air tight container. It’s really so nice to have.

For salad dressing, we only use olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The proportions are 2 parts olive oil to 1 part vinegar, but if you like more tart and less oil, then change it up. I added 1/2 a squeezed lemon to this dressing and it felt extra summer-y.

Grind some pepper over the salad, add some semi-soft cheese like ricotta salada, goat or feta and it’s a meal.

Considering we’re getting another share tomorrow, we are probably gonna have a “eat it or compost it” moment. More on that later. . .

Now that we are starting our CSA season, at times, we get vegetables that we don’t normally eat, haven’t seen before or are just “tired of.” The CSA is a great opportunity to branch out and try new things or reinvent old standards. Here are some links to sites that I have used to experiment or find new ways to cook vegetables. I have had great success with each one. If you have a recipe you love and would like to share, please send it to comm@plgcsa.org. We hope to feature specific recipes in the future.

1. Epicurious.com
This site is the archives of Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines (both owned by the same company) with user ratings and level of difficulty. Just type in an ingredient and find many, many recipes that include it. I’ve used it for Thanksgivings, vegetarian recipes, potato and leek soup, random ingredients I have that I need to put together into something edible, and quick 15 minute recipes.

2. Allrecipes.com
This site is like having everyone’s recipe box at your fingertips. Many of the recipes have that home-cooked feel and there are user reviews and ratings with suggestions on improvements. We found several baked buffalo wing recipes here and a gyro loaf.

3. The New York Times Dining Section
For the foodie in you, there are reviews, recipes (from Mark Bittman, among others), and stories. The NYT Magazine also has a (very small) food section but has some excellent recipes. This recipe for Guinness Pot Pie is really amazing (but skip making the trotters and you can make it all veg by using tofu!).