Woot! It's the first week of our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) season. This always feels a bit like Christmas every week--I never know what I'm going to get until I go to pick it up.
This week, we received:
- Four kohlrabi with leaves attached
- A bundle of rhubarb
- Some very pretty garlic scapes
- A boatload of snap peas
- A boatload of apples
I was a bit surprised by how much there was in the box: This is only a half share or, as they suggested, enough for 2-3 people. The three of us in our house will be sharing it with a couple of other people as well, I think--I'm sending my daughter over to her grandparents' house tomorrow to share a bit of the bounty. Since I don't have time to can and my freezer's pretty small to start with, it's hard for us to prep things for long-term storage. I have yet to buy the vacuum sealer I keep talking about getting. Maybe this weekend I'll finally get out to take care of that.
I know: apples aren't exactly in season in these parts; I believe they're from the farm's cold storage. I already ate one--very yummy. Not sure what type they are--not an Empire or Macintosh, but somewhere in between, sweetness-wise. My daughter and I also dove into the snap peas pretty fast--we both love to eat them raw.
What I'm thinking I may do:
- Kohlrabi:
- Kohlrabi and apple slaw: I have a few different recipes in various CSA-related cookbooks I bought in previous years, but I've never tried it. Since I have both kohlrabi and apples, seems like a great way to use two CSA products at once.
- Roasted kohlrabi: I'm proud of myself because I'd already been thinking, "I bet that would roast up nicely," and then I saw it in one of my cookbooks. Bingo! Guess I'm figuring out some stuff about this cooking gig.
- Haven't decided about the leaves yet--maybe a soup?
- Garlic scapes:
- Garlic scape and potato soup: I'm a big fan of potato soup anyway, so it's not at all a stretch to throw some garlic scapes in there.
- Stir-fries, of course.
- Snap peas:
- Stir-fries, if any of them make it past my daughter and I munching them raw. I'll also probably be sharing these with my MIL--we really do have a lot.
- Rhubarb:
- I'm pondering a cold strawberry-rhubarb soup. The tough one on this is that I'm the only person in the house that likes rhubarb at all, and I really only like it when it's combined with strawberry and baked into a pie. I cannot be eating pie all by myself. Ahem. I'm thinking I may keep a couple of stalks to play with and then share the rest with my MIL. She loves it.
- Apples:
- These are easy--we'll mostly just eat them raw although see above reference to the kohlrabi slaw.
Stay tuned to see what actually happens!
If you're curious, here are the cookbooks I got a few years ago when I first started down the CSA road:
(Using these Amazon links does help support this blog, so thanks if you do!)