2024 CSA Week 5

This week’s box included:  celery, Napa cabbage, cucumbers (salad & Kirby), summer squash (zucchini & yellow squash), lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, beets, spring onions. You can see a photo that can help with identification on our Facebook page or check out our weekly video on Instagram.

Need storage instructions?  Visit our fruit & veggie home pages. Click on the pic and a new page opens with storage instructions and a list of recipes curated by Conne over the years.

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Conne’s away at the beach this week. This is Suzanne pinch-hitting.
I just returned from the beach to this bodacious box of produce! I’m inspired by a friend to tackle this week’s box from the perspective of “How the H&*% Will This Get Eaten This Week?”
First, tackle storage. My head of lettuce looked a little threadbare, so I removed some of the outside leaves for compost and gave the rest a nice soak in cold water. This little trick works wonders to revive greens. Thanks for that (and so many more tricks), Conne! Lettuce is now ready for mid-day salads.
Next, beets. I don’t bother to put them in fridge at all — the roots go straight into the oven. We don’t tend to eat the beet greens, though there are some recipes here that feature them. Given that they go icky so quickly, mine usually go straight to the compost pile vs. holding them to see if inspiration will hit.
Simple Beet Roasting Process: Cut off the greens. Wrap the roots together in foil. Bake at 350 until they’re tender. Remove from oven. Once cool, rinse the skins off and voila! You have lovely cooked beets ready for slicing into that salad. Minimalist experiment: I didn’t bother washing them first (why? the skins are going to come off anyway), or coating in oil. Didn’t miss it.
It’s no problem to use the tomatoes. Two of mine were damaged (darn chickens helping themselves) so the unpecked sides went into tacos last night with a no-recipe cucumber relish (chopped cucumber, splash of lime, garlic clove, cilantro). Cucumbers last longer in the fridge so I’ll be saving my Kirby pickling cucumbers for pickles until next week, or this quick kimchi recipe that I can’t get enough of. Dice some peeled cucumbers, freeze them, and pop them into water or cocktails instead of ice cubes.
Summer squash!  Great to see it returning, despite my family’s protests. One of the larger zucchinis disappeared into ground taco meat last night. Shred it on a box grater and sautee with the meat. Add a tablespoon of tomato paste, little bit of water for moisture, and taco seasoning. Unbelievably, the 3 cups of squash cooks down into nothing, melts into the ground meat, and makes it taste better. I’ve got a craving for fried zucchini this week and will be using this oven-baked version from our archives. It’s also time for squash casserole minus the sugar. Who needs it? There are another 50-some recipes featuring summer squash on this page. Surely there’s one that everyone will enjoy, right?
Gosh, the broccoli is beautiful!  We’ve been making this roasted broccoli recipe, which is super easy. If it’s done before dinner, everyone snacks on it while waiting. WIN WIN WIN WIN  Cook more than you think you need. It shrinks a little in the process, and you’ll want to have plenty. Still, that head is pretty large, so any left over will be headed for broccoli soup (creamy without cream), or this easy Broccoli Peanut Fruit Salad. We don’t yet have a recipe for broccoli soup in our archives. Check out the recipe below. Honestly, it’s a bit more complicated than soup prep needs to be, but the instructions are very simple and detailed which is a benefit. Many soup recipes follow this formula:  saute onions, add additional vegetables to saute, add liquid (usually stock of some sort or could be water), bring to boil and turn heat down to simmer, cook until vegetables are tender, add herbs/spices, puree in small batches or after cooled a bit (important).
The biggest challenge for this week’s box is by far the Napa cabbage. Mine was H U G E!  This is where I hope for a potluck invitation, or book club. So far this year, I’ve been slicing Napa into quarters and grilling it when the grill is hot for some other purpose. Some of the heads have had soil in the leaves near the bottom. Because it was impossible to clean the dirt out without removing the leaves from the head (I tried), instead I cooked them without washing and lopped the dirty end off before serving. It’s easier for us to eat more cabbage when it’s grilled, and it goes really well with grilled salmon.  If you’re making a stir-fry sauce like this one from Bully Boy or this one that uses less sugar, you can glaze both the salmon and the cabbage with the sauce, sprinkle diced green onions on top and maybe some chopped peanuts, serve over rice. Bottled sauces can make this even easier. Check out Chinese Southern Belle sauces to support a local home-grown food entrepreneur. They’re at Kroger.
While the grill is hot, cook your bunch of green onions to make Burnt Spring Onion Dip. Serve with cucumber or summer squash slices, or pita sandwiches stuffed with fresh cool veggies and slabs of fresh mozzarella.
More Napa recipes are on this page, including one for kimchee, and the Napa Cabbage and Mushroom Lasagna recipe that uses 2 lbs of that behemoth and Napa leaves in place of the noodles. The Okonomiyai Cabbage Pancake recipe uses 5 cups of shredded cabbage and is so delicious!
Celery is one of my favorites to get locally. It’s bursting with flavor compared with grocery store celery-from-afar. I’m not feeling overwhelmed by it, and since it lasts so very long in the refrigerator, I’m going to hang on to this and use it sparingly as recipes call for it. Celery also freezes well for future use in recipes where it will be cooked. Cut into sticks before freezer, don’t chop it if you want to avoid excessive ice crystals forming from the celery juice.
Speaking of celery juice, you can drink your celery in this recipe for Kale Celery and Pineapple Power Juice. Delicious!
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Broccoli Cheddar Soup With Cheesy Croutons
This gluten-free soup recipe is from Bon Appetite. They suggest “Grating a block of sharp cheddar is crucial for this comfort food classic as the pre-shredded stuff is often mixed with an anti-caking agent that can wreak havoc with the silky texture of this delicious soup.”  Good advice. The recipe says it makes 4 servings. 
Ingredients:
2 onions
4 garlic cloves
3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
½ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes, plus more for sprinkling
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 heads of broccoli (or 1 large head)
1 medium russet potato
8 oz. sharp cheddar cheese
4 thick slices rustic white bread, optional
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
Step 1
Halve 2 onions. Peel and coarsely chop. Peel and smash 4 garlic cloves, then coarsely chop. No need to break out your best knife skills because it’s all going to get blended, but try to cut everything into somewhat even pieces so they cook at the same rate.
Step 2
Melt 3 Tbsp. unsalted butter in a large Dutch oven or pot over medium-low heat. Add onion, garlic, and ½ tsp. red pepper flakes; season with salt and black pepper. Stir to combine, then cover pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and just starting to take on color, 8–10 minutes.
Step 3
Meanwhile, trim bottoms of 2 heads of broccoli, then peel. Separate hefty stalks from florets (the thin, little stalks attached to broccoli tops are fine to leave attached to the crowns). Set aside florets. Coarsely chop stalks into 1″–2″ pieces. Peel 1 medium russet potato. Coarsely chop into 1″–2″ pieces.
Step 4
Add broccoli stalks and potato pieces to pot and stir to coat in butter. Pour in 5 cups water, add 1 Tbsp. salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and keep at a simmer. Cover pot and cook until broccoli stalks and potatoes are completely tender (test with a cake tester, paring knife, or fork), 20–25 minutes.
Step 5
Meanwhile, chop reserved florets into small pieces (you can take the time to separate them into baby florets or just have at them with your chef’s knife). Grate 8 oz. sharp cheddar cheese on the large holes of a box grater. You should have about 2 1/2 cups.
Step 6
Add half of florets to pot, cover, and cook until bright green, 3–5 minutes. Transfer to a blender, let cool for 5 minutes, and purée until smooth. Some blender advice: Don’t fill your blender more than halfway—work in batches as necessary. To avoid explosions, remove the center lid from the blender and cover with a kitchen towel. Alternatively, use an immersion blender. Your soup won’t be quite as smooth,
but it will still be great. Return purée to pot.
Step 7
Return to medium heat and add remaining florets. Cover pot and cook until bright green, another 3–5 minutes. Add 2 cups cheddar cheese and stir until smooth. Cover and reduce heat to low; set aside while you make the cheddar croutons.
Step 8
Heat broiler. Broil 4 thick slices rustic white bread (if using) on a rimmed baking sheet until lightly browned (watch closely: broilers vary dramatically in power!), 2–3 minutes. Turn bread over (soft side up), then sprinkle with reserved cheddar cheese and a few flecks of red pepper flakes. Continue to broil until cheese is bubbling and browned in spots, 2–3 more minutes.
Step 9
Remove soup from heat and stir in ½ cup plain Greek yogurt. Season generously with black pepper; taste for salt.
Step 10
Cut cheese toasts (if using) into 1″ (spoon-sized!) pieces. Divide soup among bowls. Top with cheddar croutons or reserved cheese.