CSA Week Two


Week Two of our share from Roots and Shoots, and it includes:

Spring Onions
Lettuce
Kale
Cucumber
Hakurei Turnip
Napa Cabbage
Spicy Mustard Greens
Peas
Zucchini

The peas, some zucchini and turnip immediately went into my lunch box with some hummus. Yummy!

Lettuce and spicy Mustard greens were used throughout the week for salads in his lunch. He's been on a big salad with lunch thing lately and my little flower pot garden has not been able to keep up with him.

Kale, two ways

Week one of our CSA included some purple kale, a vegetable I've actually never used before.

Of course I made chips from them. Kale Chips are probably one of the most popular seasonal recipes around, so it seemed a good place to start.

I didn't take any pictures of those chips, however, as they were mostly overdone (and frankly, they aren't very photogenic.) The recipe I followed said 20-25 minutes in the oven, but after 15 minutes, I felt they were very overdone. If I were to make them again, I'd check them after 10 minutes.

Since I only used half the kale for the chips, I had some left over to use with another meal.

How about on pizza?

After a chop, I gave these a quick saute with some butter and garlic scapes, just enough to soften everything together. A little dough, given a quick prebake on the BBQ, tomato sauce, sausage crumbles, roasted red and yellow peppers, kale and cheese, then back onto the bbq for a few minutes.

This is what my kids though of kale.


Which was actually fine by me - I scooped up this kale and added it to my pizza.




What to do if no one likes radishes


Well we suspected, but have confirmed, that no one in my house likes radishes. My dad loves them, so if I get some in my share before we go visit him, I will bring them to him to enjoy.

In the meantime, I tried cooking them. I had heard that roasted radishes were a completely different taste from raw, which are too strong and peppery for all of us. For this batch, I quartered my radishes, and threw them into some foil with a bit of butter, some pieces of spring onions and a few garlic scapes, added in some salt and pepper, and let them slow roast on the bbq.

Not bad. Soft, much, much, much mellower than a raw radish in terms of bite and pepper. Still not our favorite vegetable, but if I cook them, then we stand a chance of eating the radishes we get in our CSA.

CSA Week One


So we joined a CSA this year (Community Supported Agriculture, for those who don't know).

Big investment, yes, in both money and time (picking up each week then trying to figure out what to make with what we received,) but something we needed to try at least once. If it ends up being worthwhile for us, in both money and time, we will do it again.

And if nothing else, we've made the commitment this year that we are eating local and organic produce, as well as supporting a small, local farm.

For our first time doing a CSA, I chose Roots and Shoots Farm in Manotick. I had purchased from them at the Ottawa Farmer's Market the year before, their share price was comparable to everyone else around here, and they were reasonably nearby.

As part of our CSA, we were invited out for a tour and pot luck dinner at the farm itself, a few weeks before the CSA would be up and running. I didn't take huge amounts of pictures, but did grab a few.


Part of the tour involved showing us the greenhouse and all the various fields, letting us know what is in each field and its approximate growing season. Since a share is for 16 weeks, it is nice to know that when the greens are done, we still have veggies coming.

So here is our share for week one:

Two heads of Lettuce (one red leaf, one green) - these were HUGE!
Small bunch of radishes
Garlic Scapes
Hakurei Turnips (a salad turnip you can eat raw that I took an instant liking to)
Spicy mustard and Kale stirfry mix
Head of Bok Choy
Red Russian Kale
Spring Onions
a bunch of basil

Pretty good.

Now in the first week, we barely managed to go through the lettuce. And that's with my hubby eating a big salad with his lunch each day. I managed to do something with everything else, and took pictures of some of it to post about later.

I hope to take pictures of each of our 16 weeks, with the exception of the week we are away and gifting our share to a friend for that week.