I’m lounging in bed on a lazy Saturday morning, listening to the chirps of young birds and looking out the window at the baby leaves of a maple tree and the last blossoms of a yellow forsythia bush. I’m so grateful that spring has arrived; I love the winter, but part of that love is in knowing that it ends. And this year, spring is not just in the yard and outdoor parts of our life, but on our plates: yesterday was the first pick-up day for a new-to-us CSA!

We’ve explored many CSA options over the last several years – Simpaugh Farms from West Suffield, CT last year with a weekly delivery to a nearby farmer’s market; Norwich Meadows Farm from Westchester, CT two years ago with home delivery every week; and when I lived in Manhattan I supported Windflower Farms from Valley Falls, NY (right down the street from where my Nana lives) for years – they had a share delivery directly to my neighborhood.

This winter, I saw a post for The Hickories on Instagram, and was over the moon with excitement; this beautiful farm is just 12 miles from our home.  They use hoop and green houses in addition to fields so their growing season is exquisitely long and the CSA shares run from the end of April through Thanksgiving, and include a wonderful variety of vegetables, fruits, herbs, preserves, and pick-your-own crops. Members collect shares every week directly from the farm stand, which is attached to the sheep barn!

Yesterday I visited the farm for the first time. After a 28-minute drive through beautiful winding roads, I met Farmer Laura and the baby lambs – the little nibbler in this photo came over to the fence to greet me and lick my hands.

Lambs!

After spending some time with the wooly friends, Laura brought me back into the farm stand room and showed me how collection works. I signed myself in for the week, and brought my giant canvas bag to the wall of CSA produce bins to collect our share:

• I weighed out a half-pound of beautiful spinach leaves
• Collected a bag of freshly picked and washed arugula
• Gathered a bunch of bright Hakurei turnips
• And another of lovely scallions
• Was introduced to a bouquet of kale raab
• And chose a beautiful jar of salsa verde

Yesterday’s share newsletter was a wonderful education in raabs: these are the first new growth of bolted brassica plants (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, etc) each spring, and are entirely edible! I’ve eaten broccoli raab but had never seen it or any other growing; since my bunch still had a few flowers attached, I cradled it like a bouquet.

In years past, figuring out how to store our veggies was a big part of share day, but now that I’m using The Jar Method of prepping and storing the produce that comes into our kitchen, it was nearly effortless to put these beauties away.

Week 1 Share: Kale Raab, Salsa Verde, Spinach, Hakurei Turnips, Arugula, Scallions

I stored the Kale Raab and the Scallions each in a 1-quart mason jar of water as a bouquet. I dried the spinach and arugula leaves and tucked each into their own half-gallon mason jar, with a bit of folded up paper towel at the bottom to absorb moisture. The salsa came in it’s own packaging. The turnips have given me a bit of trouble so currently they’re still in a bunch on the counter. Storage tips welcome!

The other ingredients will be so easy to use, though:

• We used a third of the raab in a shrimp linguine dish last night, and the rest will be chopped for tomorrow night’s stir-fry along with the scallions.
• The salsa verde is just what we need to make our favorite InstantPot chili with pork shoulder from the freezer.
• The spinach will become a salad, along with strawberries, goat cheese, pecans, and some balsamic dressing.
• Arugula is a wonderful sandwich topping for turkey sandwiches, especially with hummus and red pepper tapenade as the condiments. Time to get some bread dough rising…
• As for those turnips? I’m a sucker for a pun and a huge fan of poutine, so am seriously considering an adaptation of this Turnip the Disco Fries recipe.

(If anything we make is worthy of sharing, Clay will certainly post about the adventure.)

P.S. While at the farm stand I also bought a bouquet of antique tulips and a new-to-me magazine: Edible Nutmeg. I’m looking forward to digging in later this weekend!

Edible Nutmeg (Spring 2019 edition) and Antique Tulips

“Man At The Wheel” statue within the Gloucester Fisherman’s Memorial

Clay and I are on vacation, taking a week to visit and explore* Gloucester, Massachusetts and the Cape Ann environs with my parents. We’ve rented a gorgeous little house near Stage Fort Park, and are enjoying the salty air between thunderstorms and patches of dense fog. The sun is valiantly trying to burn off the haze this morning, so I’m hopeful that the garden will dry out by mid-afternoon.

Since this is a driving trip, the fabulous team at Simpaug Farms arranged a swap on our CSA share; we arranged to pick up our bounty at a Saturday Farmer’s Market in northern Connecticut, on our way here over the weekend. The team in Ellington had boxed all of our beautiful vegetables and helped us move each selection into produce bags for the cooler or crate of food in the car. Then we arrived at the beach with a week’s worth of produce!

I didn’t bring the kitchen scale on vacation, and didn’t photograph the individual items this week, but do have a catalogue compiled from memory.

What’s In The Week Eight Share:

Vegetables

• Summer Squash, 3
• Pattypan Squash, 1
• Barbarella Eggplant, 1
• Savoy Cabbage, 1
• Slicing Cucumber, 1
• Slicing Tomatoes, 3
• Roma Tomatoes, 3
• Cherry Tomatoes, quart basket
• Swiss Chard, 1 bunch
• Bell Peppers, 3
• Bull Horn Peppers, 3
• Jalapeno Peppers, 2
• Carrots with their tops, 1 bunch
• Red Onions, 3
• Garlic, 1 bulb
• Savory, 1 bunch

Other

• Eggs – one dozen

What To Make With This Week’s Share

My Dad is on a medically restricted diet, so many of the squash-breads I make every weekend are off-limits this week. We supplemented this week’s share with a few remnants from last week (2 bell peppers, a head of garlic) and some items from the market (a bag of lemons and limes, a bunch of celery, a gigantic sweet potato, a quart of blueberries and a cute little watermelon), and have been enjoying our culinary adventures.

• On Sunday morning, we made a breakfast of omelettes stuffed with sauteed pepper, onion, garlic, chard, and cherry tomatoes.
• For Sunday dinner we picked up a quart of chowder from Roy Moore’s Lobster Shack, then grilled some chicken and served it over a gigantic salad alongside.
• Last night, Clay improvised a stuffed pepper dish from the leftover Chinese and Japanese take-away we ordered on Saturday night; a variety of meats and veggies were mixed into fried rice, stuffed into hollowed out bell peppers, and topped with minced carrot greens and crumbled flatbread crackers. It was delicious.
• Tonight we’re going to attempt making sweet potato gnocchi and serving it with the fantastic pasta sauce we made a couple of weeks ago.

If the weather continues to be stormy I’ll likely make a ratatouille of the eggplant, squashes, and remaining peppers, but if the sun decides to come out and play, all bets are off.

Rockport Harbor photographed from Tuna Wharf (behind Roy Moore’s)

The busiest six days of the summer have come and gone: Clay opened and closed three different musicals in two different states this week, and attended a concert performance of songs from another of his musicals-in-progress last night. Last Sunday morning we unpacked last week’s CSA share into the refrigerator, but other than peanut butter sandwiches and mugs of coffee and tea we haven’t prepared a morsel of food at home since. (We’ve enjoyed a dozen meals with friends and colleagues, instead, which is its own special treat.)

Now that the public portion of his work is done, Clay gets to take it easy this week and finish documenting his work from home. I’m still in the urgency zone, racing to finish a few big work projects by Thursday, but today is our beautiful, brief respite from the outside world, and I’m relishing the time spent unboxing the Week Seven share, unpacking last week’s produce from the fridge, and cooking up all sorts of fabulousness.

Basil and Chard

We received small bunches of basil last week and today, and with some careful changing of the water in the jar, I’ve been able to make almost all of it last. Combining these luscious leaves with the few stragglers in my herb garden, some fresh parmesan cheese, and toasted pine nuts will yield a few teaspoons of pesto… but if we supplement the basil with the gorgeous, tender leaves of swiss chard that are also in today’s box, we’ll have enough pesto for a small jar. I love using pesto to dress pasta salad or as a layer on homemade pizza.

Eggplant, Squash, and Zucchini

Clay has been waxing poetic over the eggplant and squash all week, talking through sorts of possibilities for cooking them. I dream of slicing, seeding, and grilling them, then chopping them for a quick ratatouille – but it’s likely he will overrule me. Stay tuned…

Peppers

I spent two weeks in Budapest several years ago, and ate many, many versions of Paprika Chicken – both because I like it, and because “Paprikás Csirke” is easily recognizable on menus that don’t include English translations. One of my favorite plates was served with blackened tiny potatoes at a street-side cafe on the Pest side of the city; as best as I could tell from a phrasebook-assisted conversation with the waiter, the paprika roux was thickened with a puree of roasted spicy and sweet peppers.

I’m going to try to convince Clay to recreate the dish for me for dinner this week, from that hazy description and this cornucopia of bell, horn, and banana peppers.

Cabbage

I adore cabbage, and have long been enamored with the idea of making my own sauerkraut. After that trip to Hungary, I bought an antique pickling crock and spent several years trying to ferment my own vegetables. It turns out that our kitchen has the wrong climate for producing edible, naturally fermented foods so I sold the crock, have been buying our kraut already sauered, and have stuck to more simple methods of preparing cabbage.

This week, I’m thinking that the small head of green savoy cabbage could be a great accompaniment to Paprikás Csirke if it’s grilled and dressed with something a little sweet and a little salty. And the larger head of savoy and the small head of red cabbage could be shredded and mixed with carrots, pea shoots, and peanut sauce  – wouldn’t that be deliciously fresh under a Szechuan beef stir-fry, instead of rice or noodles?

Red Onions

In this week’s newsletter, Lorraine of Simpaug Farms called these “bunching onions”. I can’t eat any alliums raw, but I love red onions when they are gently sauteed and then caramelized to bring out their sweetness.

Sweet Berry Tomatoes

And these luscious little bites of sunshine – the very best thing about summer – will be eaten right out of this bowl, a handful at a time.

Here’s to another week of excellent meals!

Summertime… and the living will be easy in 19 days, when our beach vacation begins. Until then, we’re motoring along at full speed.

We’ve kept up quite well with the CSA, having used almost everything we’ve received to this point. The exceptions are cabbage and fennel – we just haven’t gotten around to work of processing them as I keep wishing to. That changes this week; my parents are coming back to town on Friday, so I’m planning a bit of a too-hot-for-frying at-home fish-and-chips supper; we will shave all of our fennel bulbs into a fragrant bed over which to grill a variety of lemon-thyme fish, and will turn the now four cabbages (two pointed, one red, and one savoy) into a giant batch of slaw. (We’ll eat some over the weekend, I’m sure, but will then send half of what remains home with Mom and Dad on Sunday.)

We received an additional bounty today, and somehow it seems easier to manage.

What’s In The Week Five Share:

Vegetables

• Summer Squash, 36.5 ounces
• Pickling Cucumbers, 13 ounces
• Zucchini, 11 ounces
• Peas, 9 ounces
• Savoy Cabbage, 28 ounces
• Rainbow Chard, 10 ounces
• Fennel, 6 ounces
• Assorted Peppers, 12 ounces
• Summer Onions, 13 ounces
• Cherry Tomatoes, 14.5 ounces
• Rosemary, 1 ounce

Other

• Eggs – one dozen

Once again, these are all “standard veggies” that are easy to store in a summer kitchen, so there has been very prep work required.

What To Make With This Week’s Share

Salted Sesame Quick Pickles

I turned our cucumbers into quick pickles yesterday afternoon, and they are divine.

Rosemary Oil

I grow my own rosemary, so don’t have need of fresh sprigs on this week’s menu. Instead, I tucked the clippings we received into a bottle, filled it with oil, and will allow it to steep in the pantry for a few months – it will make a perfect flavoring agent for autumn dishes. (Seriously; saute onion and butternut squash in this stuff before making a butternut-pumpkin pureed soup – it’s divine.)

Zucchini Bread

I turned the zucchini into another loaf of the bread I’ve made for the last few weeks, though I tested replacing 1/3 of a cup of all-purpose flour with an equal amount of cornmeal – since squash and corn go together. We’ll see how it turns out when I get to the office and take a bite for breakfast.

Fresh Pasta Saucy-Salad

With onions, peppers, and tomatoes – and a mess of garlic and basil from the pantry – I can’t refrain from making a glorious pasta dish. We’ll roast and skin the peppers, roast and smash the garlic, char the onions, rough chop the tomatoes, and toss it all together with the slightest hint of olive oil. Clay makes a fabulous butter-lemon sauce for fettuccine  – we’ll serve this saucy-salad alongside the pasta in the same bowl.

Squash-and-Greens Casserole

Over the weekend we made a terrific casserole of squash and kale with cumin, black pepper, and cheese. It was fantastic – so much so that we both ate every morsel from our plates. I’d like to try it again, but with a few variations: a cheese sauce rather than grated cheese and slightly smaller pieces of squash. We’ll make that on Saturday, to have with fabulous burgers.

That leaves me with fennel and cabbage (for which I’ve already identified a plan). peas, and eggs. The peas were husked and added, raw, to Clay’s lunchtime crudite container. We never have a problem using eggs – these have been used in bread batter, hard-boiled for take-along breakfasts, and will be Saturday brunch.

The Bonus Round

Back when I first decided to catalog this year’s adventure in a real way, I mentioned that one of the reasons we love our CSA is because spending money on vegetables far in advance saves us from the real-time market in the summer and leaves more room for little splurges. Today was all about those little splurges.

First, I bought the beautiful loaf of bread in the photo at the top of this post from the stand next to Simpaug at the Farmer’s Market this morning, Whole G Bakery. It’s a sesame semolina loaf, and has a stunning texture for toast with salted butter and a little drizzle of jam. For a week when doing “just one more thing” might send either or both of us to the looney bin, buying hand-made artisinal bread was a splurge worth every penny.

Second, I bought a gorgeous (and spendy) bouquet of basil. This has been a tough year for basil – very rainy weather with very high-temperature/high humidity days that yield overcast skies rather than full sun do not make for plump, fragrant basil leaves – so I anticipated an expensive and not-quite perfect treat. But with onions and tomatoes and peppers in the Share box, I couldn’t resist.

Third, I brought home almost a pound of pulled-this-morning fresh mozzarella from our local dairy.

So there will be caprese sandwiches on sesame bread in our lunchboxes tomorrow, and we will be savoring every little bite.

What’s your food plan for the week?

Onions on the deck in the early morning light.

While I usually try to keep Sunday’s free from obligations so that we can recharge at home, yesterday was most definitely busy. Clay worked in the morning and led a pair of meetings in the afternoon, while I spent many hours in the car; three friends whom I haven’t seen in 22, 10, and 2 years collaborated on a brilliantly moving song cycle, and I attended the American premiere performance. To say that it was a deeply moving experience is quite an understatement.

Anyway. Amid all that, Clay swung by the Farmer’s Market to see Max and collect this week’s share. Since our time for cataloguing was brief, we’re a bit light on the details; I’ll do my best to revise for volume later this week.

What’s In This Week’s Share: Week Three

Vegetables

• Collard Greens – one bunch (Clay cooked and enjoyed last week’s bunch, and will share the experience in a post of his own.)
• Kale – one bunch
• Salad Greens – one bag
• Swiss Chard – one bunch
• Pattypan Squash – several fist-sized ones
• Pickling Cucumbers – a large handful
• Pointed Cabbage – one head
• Spring Onions, red and white varieties – a large bunch
• Summer Squash – a half-dozen small ones
• White Scallop Squash – one lovely large one

Other

• Eggs – one dozen

How to Store CSA Vegetables

Storage this week is so easy. The onions went into a jar of water (which now feels like a kitchen staple on our sideboard!). We wrapped all of the greens and put them in the high-humidity crisper drawer along with the cabbage, cucumbers, and squashes. Voila – finished!

What To Make With This Week’s Share

I am thrilled with this week’s share in particular, because there are some dishes that I’ve been wishing on that we now have the makings of!

Chopped Kale and Pomegranate Salad

While more of an autumn dish than a summer one, I love these flavors together. Clay is writing a musical featuring Hades and several mentions of pomegranates, so it’s making me hungry for sharp, sweet-tart bites. Nuts and seeds are fabulous in chopped salad, making it excellent for filling take-along lunches, and we have an abundance in the pantry.

Risotto with Chard and Mushrooms

I adore risotto, and have quite a good time with the constant stirring. I’ll cut our chard into long ribbons and combine it with porcini mushrooms for bursts of rich, summer flavor.

Sandwich Toppers

We enjoyed cabbage in delicate slaws over nachos and in burritos last week, so I’m looking forward to more of that on our sandwiches this week. Pastrami, havarti, a tomato spread, a bit of mayo, and a peppery slaw on Clay’s sort-of-sourdough bread sounds so good!

My Favorite Dill Pickles

The dill in my garden is exploding with seed pods, so I’ll turn those pickling cucumbers into garlic dill pickles as soon as I have 30 minutes in the kitchen!

Salad Supplement

The roasted vegetable and gnocchi salad we made on Saturday is wonderful, but could do with a bit of fresh crunch. We’ll tear up those salad greens and mix them into the next portion for extra color and freshness.

And the squash!

I’ll definitely make more squash chips. I’ll make another frittata, though I’d like to try adding a bit of acid to the dish – maybe roasting tomatoes alongside squash for the filling. The scallop squash is supposed to be fantastic when fried, and since we still have some chèvre from Lost Ruby Farm I’ll turn it into summery squash latkes. And I’d like to try stuffing the pattypans in the style of stuffed peppers (which could be an excellent way to repurpose any leftover risotto).

Who wants to join us for dinner?