I’m only two weeks into my CSA, and I’m already dangerously close to being in the weeds, so to speak. Come Friday, when I went to pick up this week’s half bushel, I still had a bunch of radishes and a cabbage left over from last week’s bounty (plus a heel of zucchini bread and a few slices of thick-cut bacon, but those are much less of a problem). So, today I kicked it into overdrive in the kitchen:
The kernels got sliced off of the two ears of corn (yeah, I know–corn, in Michigan, in June? Something seems fishy with this CSA, but I’ll get back to you on that one) and baked into corn muffins (my favorite recipe is this one).
The cabbage, several radishes (last week’s bunch–there were more this week!), and this week’s bunch of green onions, plus half of a Granny Smith apple, chopped up fine, together with a bottle of blue cheese dressing, several splashes of apple cider vinegar, some celery seed, salt and pepper, went into this unconventional cole slaw–
Put those together with a slow-cooked pork shoulder, and we’ve got dinner, plus lots of leftovers for lunches (no last-minute peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches this week–sorry, hubby).
As if that weren’t enough, I also blanched and froze the couple of handfuls of okra we got in the box, because there was no way I was using that this week (I didn’t bother taking a photo of those slimy little buggers–which I’m sure will be perfectly yummy in a gumbo sometime soon, so no offense, okra-lovers). Most of what’s left now is greens (collard, kale and spinach), which are just going to have to wait til later this week (maybe a greens gratin?), because my dogs are definitely barking.
what CSA is it?
It’s Pallet Garden Farms, in Sumpter Twp. I went with them largely because they’re closer to where I live than the other CSAs I know of, and beyond the convenience, I wanted to support my local community. I knew that they sold at the Ypsi farmer’s markets, so they weren’t totally an unknown quantity. If they are screwing me over, oh well–I’ll just switch CSAs next year (I am at least getting my money’s worth, even if the veggies aren’t locally grown, like I was expecting). The non-paranoid part of me is just worried that they overextended themselves, between starting the CSA and the lousy weather, and they’re afraid to tell anyone about it for fear people will demand their money back. (I didn’t want to narc on them, but my husband let the local paper know that we think something odd is going on, so maybe we’ll find out eventually.)
[…] slaw, of course, would be the obvious thing to make with this bounty, but I’d already made that a few weeks ago (albeit a non-standard version), and much as I like cole slaw, I just […]