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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

CSA Week 1

As part of my office's healthy living initiative, the HR department arranged to have a weekly CSA delivery to our building.  I've been interested in trying a CSA for a while, but they always seemed to expensive, or inconvenient to pick up, or like there would be too much food for one person.  This farm offers a half share, the price was reasonable, and it couldn't be easier to pick up, so I decided to commit myself for the summer.

I can follow a recipe but I wouldn't say I'm a good cook and I'm definitely not very creative.  I've figured out a few meals I can make relatively easily and I stick with those basics.  I'm hoping that this will force me to try new things and branch out of my normal kitchen comfort zone.  And I feel like by sharing it on the blog, I will be even more accountable since I know that none of you want to hear about salad week after week.

Here's what I got in the first delivery last week:

Lettuce, kale, onions, yellow squash, cucumber

Kale:
I've read about kale chips on various blogs, so I decided that they would be the perfect use of the kale I received.  I read a bunch of recipes, but ended up following the one by Smitten Kitchen.





Lettuce and Cucumber
This is where I was pretty boring.  I made a few salads and also took sliced cucumbers with my lunch.



Yellow Squash
I searched around for squash recipes and ended up following some general concepts I had seen, but not a specific recipe.  I cut up the squash and one of the onions and covered it with a mixture of bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.  Then I baked it at 350 for 30 minutes.



All in all, I'm pleased with how I did this week.  I managed to use everything (except for a few onions, but I'll get to them this week) and tried two new recipes.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for reviewing this! I've been going back and forth between signing up for CSA or not, so its nice to see the goods we get in our area! I've been wanting to try kale chips myself... perhaps I'll get brave enough soon!

Anonymous said...

That's a pretty neat idea. Now, do they just give you diff stuff weekly, you don't pick out what you would like? I'd never heard of it and I am definitely not a huge cook or can deviate from a recipe one iota! I love squash, thanks for sharing and the review!

Elizabeth said...

Outstanding. From everything I've read, local produce is really the way to go in terms of freshness and being the healthiest option. Nice job using all of the veggies!

Stephanie said...

You are better than me. I try to use all of our stuff, but it is soo hard. I do have squash and kale though, what did u think of the recipes u made?