The Journey to Sucessful CSA Cooking
When I was a newbie shareholder at Newton Community Farm I would often come home overwhelmed by both the amount and variety of produce in my weekly share. What on earth was I going to do with daikon radish or kohlrabi? And how was I going to manage to go through 2 huge bunches of kale in one week? Of course there were some items–lettuce, cukes and tomatoes come to mind–that I couldn’t get enough of. But there were many others that languished on my counter or in my fridge. That first season there were several items that never made it to our table. I find it somewhat comforting to know that they at least went in our compost bin, as opposed to the trash.
Fortunately I’ve learned a lot since then. Most weeks it isn’t hard to eat through our weekly share (although I still have the purslane from a couple of weeks ago; believe it or not it’s still looking fresh in the green bag I stored it in). We eat LOTS more veggies in the summer that we used to, which is a good thing.
I’ve also become familiar with lots of produce that I had never really cooked with before. I’ve tried lots of new recipes. And I’ve learned to experiment and “make do” with what I have on hand. Although it doesn’t really feel like making do. It’s more fun than that. When I leave the farm now with an unfamiliar veggie I look forward to the challenge of figuring out what to do with it. And since I also visit my farmer’s market, I get a chance to supplement and round out my CSA share.
Last night, as I was looking ahead to today’s weekly pick up, I scanned my produce bin to see what remained from the week before: 2 zucchini, a big bunch of scallions, green garlic, purslane, beets and lettuce. Well I know we couldn’t eat all of that in one meal, so I vowed to use what I could. The result: zucchini, scallion and potato (picked up at the farmer’s 
market) curry. I googled a recipe for zucchini curry to use as a base and 45 minutes later–voila, dinner was ready!
Now if only I could figure out what to do with the purslane…
CSA Curry
Ingredients
2-3 Tbs olive oil
2 zucchini (or squash, cauliflower, eggplant, etc), washed and cut into small cubes
2-3 medium to large potatoes, washed and cubed
bunch of scallions (or onions), cut into approx. 1 inch long pieces
handful of wax beans (or green beans, peppers, carrots, etc.), cut in half3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 Tbs. ginger, minced
1 Tbs. curry powder
pinch of cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 cup of vegetable or chicken broth
handful of cilantro, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup of cashews, coarsely chopped
Directions
Saute potatoes over medium heat in olive oil for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
Add zucchini and saute for 5 more minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove potatoes and zucchini to plate.
Add scallions and saute for 2-3 minutes.
Add garlic, ginger, curry powder, & cayenne and stir for about 1 minute, until fragrant
Return potatoes and zucchini to skillet and add vegetable or chicken broth.
Bring to a boil then reduce to simmer .
Cover and cook for 5 more minutes.
Serve with cilantro and cashews sprinkled on top
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Sounds like a good recipe. We’ve been up to our eyeballs with tons of veggies between our own garden and the CSA we joined. I find that the only way for us to get through all of it is to immediately make a few salads. This week when I got back from the farm I made a cucumber salad and a quinoa/lentil salad with swiss chard and broccoli. That used up a good portion of our veggies and we keep these in the fridge to have for lunch during the week. This makes it more manageable and we can get through the rest of the produce without wasting any….however, even though I love kale, we have WAY too much and I have a feeling we’ll be sick of it in a few weeks!
Comment by Molly — July 23, 2010 @ 10:39 am
Making a bunch of salads sounds like a a great idea. I love the sounds of the quinoa/lentil salad. Will you share the recipe?
I, too, find that there are certain foods that I get sick of. Fortunately our farm generally offers a choice on greens: for example, mustard greens or kale; swiss chard or spinach. This helps some.
Comment by Rachel White — July 25, 2010 @ 6:33 pm