turnip greens, radishes, green leaf lettuce, lettuce mix, strawberries, bok choy, spring onions, kale
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Hello, and welcome to the 2023 year of vegetable and fruit bounty from Riverview Farms. A quick introduction for those who are new to the CSA, and wondering why in the world I’m providing recipe ideas. I’ve been writing about food in the Atlanta area (primarily for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution – you remember, the city newspaper?) since the mid 2000s, and my favorite stories have always been about the farmers whose hard work makes it possible for us to eat so well.
My contributing ideas for how you can use the contents of the box is a thank you to the Swancys, and to all the farmers who partner with them, who give us so many weeks of delicious eating.
I have been enjoying the contents of Riverview’s boxes for many years. I remember signing up originally because I wanted to eat what the farmers were eating. A bounty of greens? That would be fine because that’s what was coming out of the fields. Only a few tomatoes? That’s fine, too. It’s not exactly feast or famine in the farming world, but harvests ebb and flow, and I wanted to experience that.
I admit though that my favorite weeks are the ones, like this one, when the box overflows with green and I am pushed to think about ways to use it all up. It stretches my culinary muscles and it certainly means my household will eat better. And at the first of May, that’s so welcome.
The strawberries in this week’s box were such a treat. Perhaps you’ve already eaten yours (most of ours are gone) but if you need ideas, there are a few on the Riverview “recipe and storage sugggestions” site. There you’ll find an archive of many years of recipe ideas, organized by produce and in lovely alphabetical order.
The strawberry page has my all-time favorite way to use strawberries when we have a bounty and that’s the recipe for a strawberry pound cake with drizzle frosting. It’s more than 20 years old, came from the Georgia Strawberry Festival in 2002, and it’s just perfect every time.
But maybe you’re looking for ideas for how to use that huge head of lettuce and the bag of salad mix? You probably have your own favorite homemade salad dressings, but if you’re looking for more ideas, check out the lettuce page. There are some people in this household who are big fans of ranch dressing, so I like to make the Buttermilk Green Onion Dressing and keep a jar of it on hand.
Speaking of green onions, that was the prettiest bunch of green onions I think I’ve ever seen. We don’t have a separate green onion page (green onions are on the same page as onions), but we have a great recipe for Joe Truex’ Spaghetti with Scallion Sauce that he demonstrated at the Morningside Farmers Market. He wan’t happy about having to work with a bunch of green onions, but it turned out to be delicious. This was back in the day when he was chef at Watershed in Decatur. Remember Watershed?
And will just leave you with one last place to look for ideas about that big head of choy. Check out the bok choy page. My favorite right now is the teriyaki sauce that’s the first recipe on that page. It’s delicious on many things, but especially on fleshy choy stems.
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