CSA summer, week two

Ah, summer. When the days grow long, the sprinklers start sprinkling, and the local breeze becomes welcoming (as opposed to that frosty gale we’ve been used to for so long) it’s time for 20 bountiful weeks of Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA.

The particular farm we use, Brookford Farm in Canterbury, NH, selects vegetables and packs them for you. All we have to do is make a weekly visit to our local farmer’s market to pick up our box. There are other CSAs where the client can choose the vegetables, but I kind of like getting a weekly surprise in a box, and the farm does an excellent job providing as much variety as possible.

Buying fresh local vegetables directly from the farm is overwhelmingly a positive experience, but it’s also a bit of work. Every new box comes with veggies that need to be sorted, washed, and packed for the fridge. (This farm does wash the veggies before they arrive, but the veggies nearly always still need one last bath to remove that last bit of grit). Last week, we received one enormous bag of spinach; two different varieties of lettuce (one head each); one bunch each of garlic scapes, dill, and green onions, a pint of strawberries, and a bag of sugar snap peas. The strawberries I trimmed and washed immediately before packing them in a Tupperware for the fridge. Because I got home late, the rest of the greens were stuffed in plastic grocery bags without washing — I would deal with that later.

I’m not good at cooking food on the fly — virtually everything I cook is from a recipe. I just can’t function any other way. My favorite moment during CSA time is when I find a recipe that brings together two or more of the items received. This week, that moment happened when I stumbled upon the Summer Vegetable Pasta with Crispy Goat Cheese Medallions recipe from Eatingwell. Spinach? Why yes! We still have half a bag, even after eating giant spinach & strawberry salads earlier in the week. Dill for rolling the goat cheese in? Why yes! There’s just enough in this little bunch. My joy was expanded when I figured out I could use the garlic scapes instead of the onion and garlic called for in the recipe.

The rest of the food did mostly get eaten, although I did give one head of lettuce to a colleague at work, and half of the other is still in the fridge. Week three’s box will arrive tonight, but I’ll be out of town for a conference the entire week. It’ll be up to my husband to figure out what to do with our bounty.