Today We Received Our First Farm Share Box

Today I picked up our first box of veggies from a local farm as part of our "share" in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

What is a CSA?

Over the last 20 years, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Here are the basics: a farmer offers a certain number of "shares" to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a "membership" or a "subscription") and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.

(Click on http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ to see if there is a CSA near you.)

We got an amazing bounty today! Joe is very happy with the two bunches of lovely radishes and we are both looking forward to trying the "salad turnips" that we received. I think I may cook up the turnip greens for just Joe and I--there aren't enough to share with the boys.

The email I got from the farm today tells all about the goodies we got.

This week in your box you can expect heads of green leaf lettuce, which is great on a sandwich or for salads. This variety is new to us this year (it’s called green star) and it looks and tastes wonderful. We also harvested bunches of baby kale (the most tender of the season), radishes, and salad turnips (full shares). Something new that we grew this year is English greenhouse cucumbers. They are so tender and sweet I cannot seem to get enough of them. The broccoli raab is small and is great sautéed with scallions (full shares) and garlic with a little butter and olive oil. Shares picked up later in the week might have a baby spinach / leaf lettuce mix instead of baby broccoli raab. Full shares will also see a bag of Asian salad / sauté mix. This is a mix of kyona mizuna, hong vit (pink stem radish leaf), red komatsuna (dark maroon leaf), ho mi Z and green wave (spicy mustard greens), and corn mache. These greens are a colorful and flavorful addition to salads or could be used in stir-fries or braised. Full shares will also have bunches of bok choy. Bok choy in Latin, its scientific name, is brassicca chinesis or Chinese cabbage. The Chinese commonly call it pac choi or white vegetable. It has a sweet light flavor and crisp texture, and can be used in salads, stir-fries, and soups. Bok Choy when flowering is called bok choy sum (in Cantonese actually means heart). The leafs may get lighter in color and you will see small yellow flowers in the center of the plant. It is said that these are the best bok choy plants. Also in everyone’s box will be herb pots these should be transplanted either into a larger pot or into the ground.

We got flat-leafed parsley and chives in a pot--both of which I needed for my garden plot anyway.

We got three heads of bok choy in the box, which is heavenly. I LOVE bok choy. Tonight we had Asian pan-fried noodles with sauteed bok choy and chicken. It was soooo good!