2022 Produce CSA Week 2

This week’s box included: two different types of head lettuce (romaine & butterleaf here), greens (either mild turnip greens or mustard greens), broccoli (or cauliflower), cabbage, spinach (or field mix), radishes, spring onions

Box Notes from Conne Ward Cameron

Except for a tiny pop of red (radishes) everything in our box today was GREEN. Light green cabbage (huge!), dark green broccoli (also HUGE), dark leafy green romaine (HUGE – you get the picture), a big bunch of pretty medium green lettuce, a bag of mixed young lettuce leaves, green onions …. what am I forgetting? Oh, mustard greens.

Green everywhere. Exactly what you hope for as a spring tonic.

Last weekend I made the strawberry-kale-lettuce salad recipe – https://grassfedcow.com/recipes/2017-kale-and-lettuce-and-strawberry-salad/ – I mentioned about last week. It was so amazingly delicious that I’m going to do it again …. and try mustard greens in place of the kale. That dressing is perfect and I happen to have parsley and dill growing, so was able to add the herbs the recipe suggests. I could just eat a big bowl of that – but we also have some grilled chicken (marinated in lemon, olive oil and garlic) and so that will be a big dinner for maybe a night or two. And yes, we still have some Georgia strawberries in the house.

The lettuce is the thing that has the shortest shelf life, so we will be eating plenty of salads. Although this Pasta with Sausage, Onions and Lettuce is very tasty.

For that cabbage, it’s going to take a few recipes to get through the big cabbage that arrived here. It really does keep for a long, long time, but I need to get started or three months from now I’ll be finding a half cabbage in the back of the refrigerator … looking pretty sad. Some ideas from Riverview’s archive of recipes …. I love this Buttermilk Coleslaw with Green Onions and Cilantro (no cilantro here but that’s ok) and my favorite comfort food is probably this Pasta with Spicy Cabbage. Who knew pasta and cabbage went so well together? And cooking cabbage certainly reduces its bulk … so a good way to use up some of a really big head. One more recipe I’ve really enjoyed is Hawaiian-style Sesame Cabbage Slaw which like a lot of non-mayo based slaws improves as it ages. If we didn’t have so much lettuce, I’d suggest using it on your next sandwich.

Broccoli is a rarer treat … and I’m thinking this Broccoli, Peanut and Fruit Salad …. or easy, easy Broccoli Home Fries for any broccoli that I don’t just eat as crudité while sitting at my desk working.

Mustard greens, if that came in your box, might be the thing that stumps the most people. We get mustard greens pretty regularly so there are quite a few recipes on the Riverview Farms website. If I weren’t using mine in that kale-lettuce-strawberry salad I mentioned earlier, I’d be making this Mustard Greens with Yogurt-Parmesan Salad – a take on Caesar that is absolutely wonderful.

Enjoy your green week!