This Napa Cabbage with pasta and peanut sauce is one of my favorite recipes to date. Mandy linked to the recipe in the CSA newsletter and it is a winner, plus quick and easy start to finish: Napa cabbage peanut noodles recipe

A cool crisp salad using the baby lettuces, sliced salad turnups (Hakuri turnips), Napa cabbage and dressed with a dill dressing.

Arugula pesto with penne and salmon! I tossed in some marinated artichokes as well.

The week 6 box: Spinach, baby kale, baby romaine (new to me and SO good plus cute!), golden beets, kohlrabi, green onions, dill and the first basil.

The first thing I did the evening I picked up my box was make a fresh tomato and basil pizza. This is one of my favorite pizza combos and this fresh basil was so fresh and so fragrant – just delicious. There will be lots more basil hopefully.

This salad!! Mel of Mel’s Kitchen Cafe posted a recipe for Mediterranean Quinoa salad . I added some baby kale from my box and ate this salad three lunches in a row until the baby kale was gone.

And then, I went to Farmer’s market on Saturday and got more from Lower Valley Farm!

I love beets as well as beet greens. That little bundle of golden beets and their greens were gone fast..

So to the market for more beets! I bought both golden and red beets. the lacinto kale looked beautiful and pea shoots which are so good on a sandwich or salad – so added both of those to my bag. I also stopped at Flathead Cheese and got notzarella (like mozzarella), Gouda and some feta. The cheese is made in Polson, about 30 miles south of me on the south shore of Flathead Lake.

And yes, a pastry. Actually 2 chocolate eclairs. A young woman started a pastry business and sells from a trailer at the markets as well as catering functions. Her trailer looks like a little bakery and she was such fun to talk to. She likes making traditional pastries but found she had to adapt some things for “modern” tastes. The eclairs, though, traditional and they were wonderful!

On with the week and a breakfast of avocado toast my way: my Irish style brown bread with mashed avocado, pea shoots and a bit of bacon.

And then the box for week 7: Kohlrabi, fennel, garlic scapes, carrots (I snuck 1 and they are SO sweet!), lacinto kale, red beets, dill, butter lettuce and spring greens.

Things are still a bit behind from our long, cool Spring, but there is starting to be a bit more color in the CSA box AND at the market.

Week 4 started deliciously with roasted turnips and radishes plus all of their greens. A little olive oil spritzed on all and a hot pan in a hot oven for 10 minutes. The greens cook down, everything gets a bit of a crunchy char and some sweetness.

I put the result on a pizza with a little fontina and asiago.

Then things went a bit sideways. When I opened my container of salad mix on Friday, it did not look good. I disposed of all of it and later found out that there was a new washing/spin dry procedure and they did not get things dry enough before packing, hence the early demise. I think that is part of the “Community Support of Agrigulture”, but Lower Valley Farms felt it was on them so they doubled the salad mix for week 5.

I finished everything else, but a bit of dill and some green onions by last Tuesday.

Thursday morning, in preparation for week 5’s bounty and extra salad mix, I used the last of that dill and onions in Dishing Up the Dirt’s Garlic Cashew Cream dressing.

Ready for week 5!

Holy Cow! My box was almost overflowing: Kale, Napa cabbage, Red Leaf lettuce, salad turnips, kohlrabi, cilantro, arugula, spring lettuce mix and green onions.

That’s how it looks when I have it prepped for the refrigerator. Those green topped containers are my favorite for their shape … they fit well on my frig shelves … and the venting on the side and bottom keeps things fresh. The spinners get pressed into use for storage and have the arugula and lettuce mix ready to go. I spin them daily to make sure the greens stay fresh.

And fortunately, I am able to make room for all – looks gorgeous and I look forward to another week of fresh, local vegetables!

A lot of meal salads that started like this:

with additions of turkey, cheese and/or beans. And a cashew cream ranch-ish kind of dressing from Dishing Up the Dirt .

One of the benefits of knowing my farmers is that I also have at least a bit of an idea of how hard they work to get these vegetables to market and their CSA shares like me. In addition, to generally not wanting to waste food, I feel an obligation to respect that hard work by making sure I eat everything I bring home. So, as I make a meal – any meal! – I am thinking about how to use some of the vegetables.

Hence, toast with goat cheese, chopped arugula, sun shoots and a slice of bacon.

By yesterday (Thursday) morning with an afternoon pickup of next week’s vegetables … after making a morning green smoothie (collard greens, lemon juice, blueberries, 1/2 banana and kefir), I was down to just enough greens to add to my lunch time toast!

As noted on last evening’s post, the weather forecast was for a very cold front to blow in, overrun the hot and fire up thunderstorms.

As I headed for the farm, the clouds were building up over the divide.

All around the farm, it was dark and threatening stormy weather. This was at 5:00 p.m. with sunset now about 9:30 p.m. so it shouldn’t have been this dark!

I gathered my share, turned the Jeep around and headed for home.

That large cell was getting closer to my house but we got home, unloaded and a quick walk while it was still rumbling some distance away. We did get some rain and a brief bit of wind, but neither that cell, nor any that followed were a direct hit at my house. Overall, we got some nice moisture and the benefit of temperatures that dropped from 83F to 60F and down into the 50’s overnight.

Bear, Auggie and I were happy with the cool down and we all slept later than usual this morning.

We start Friday rested and with a fresh supply of vegetables: lettuce mix, super greens, sun shoots, green onions, rainbow chard, salad turnips, baby beets and fresh dill.

I have several new recipes for cooked greens and pasta to try now that it is cooler. It looks to be another week of good eating!

Taco bean and beef mix using butter lettuce leaves for taco shells.

My new favorite salad! The original recipe is from Six Seasons: a new way with vegetables , but I bought the book after seeing Dishing Up the Dirt’s post.

Spinach, salami, onion stir fry which I topped with a poached egg.

Fresh Dill!!! Oh, boy – I made some “ranch-ish” dressings with this fresh dill and plenty of black pepper. SO very good.

Hard to see, but there is a burger in there! Hamburger with onion, Fontina cheese, avocado … butter lettuce for the bun… and a side of baked sweet potato “fries”.

A sweet potato/Fontina/Asiago riff on Smitten Kitchen’s Potatoes Anna with a side salad of Spinach and Chickpeas.

An incredible, edible, vegetable week!

Week 3 haul:

Napa Cabbage ( a special “small” version that my farmer found specifically for partial shares!), arugula, baby romaine, sun sprouts, tatsoi, salad radishes and collard greens.

Hiding – sort of underneath the vegetables …is a printed copy of the farm newsletter.

It is wonderful!

In addition to telling about all in the CSA box, there are recipe links AND info on planting, farm issues and generally, information that makes me feel part of the farm experience. I LOVE it!

It was 5 years ago when I purchased my first CSA half share from a farm just down the road from me: Swallow Crest Farm . The following year, the farm did not offer CSA shares. Because it is just me and even a half share was a challenge to use, I decided to buy from Farmer’s Market just what I needed versus finding another farm with CSA offering.

I enjoy the market … once I am there, but Saturday mornings getting to it – yikes! The market is located in the parking area of our community college: a beautiful small campus. Unfortunately, around it are Wal-Mart, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes … what the family of my favorite market source calls “the land of everything”. Oh, and there is a huge sports complex: ball park and soccer fields. Saturday mornings, the traffic around the Farmer’s Market is more than I enjoy dealing with. Last year I went to the first few weeks market and then not until the last weeks.

This year, I bought a half share from Lower Valley Farm: my favorite Farmer’s Market Farm. They are located at the south (lower) end of the valley as am I, but on the west side vs my east side location. Pickup is on Thursday 5-7 p.m. so perfect for me. The first pickup this year is Thursday – YEA! Farmer’s Market started on May 6 and I went – Saturday’s are not as bad until Summer visitor traffic gets added to the mix so I told myself to “buck up Buttercup!” and head to town.

I’ve been enjoying tatsoi, baby arugula, pea shoots and sun shoots. All except the baby arugula are new to me.

Everything is wonderful and fresh but O MY – the pea shoots!! I didn’t realize they would taste so much like peas. They are wonderful in a salad and in a sandwich. The sun shoots are good but the pea shoots are my new favorite green thing.

On a previous post ( Sun, snow, banana bread and asiago rolls ), I made fragrant brown butter cardamom banana bread from Andrea Bemis’ blog: Dishing up the dirt .

Andrea’s book, ‘Dishing up the Dirt’, her blog and her Instagram have lots of recipes and inspiration for eating and cooking from the garden.

https://instagram.com/p/BUF1xbzD9iM/

Above from Andrea’s Instagram is reference to another new book on cooking from the garden.

I bought it. Six Seasons: a new way with vegetables . It is another beautiful book with recipes organized by season. The author, Joshua McFadden’s obvious passion for seasonal, farm fresh vegetables is obvious and I am looking forward to trying many recipes from the book.

And then this morning in my Instagram feed:

https://instagram.com/p/BUIx0xiFmh3/

Ya-hoo and Hoo-rah!!! More shoots and arugula plus radishes to sub for the turnips in yogurt/herb/poppy seed dressing and I have a couple of days to plan what to do with the rest of the bounty.

More later this week from the farm pickup and as in 2012, a weekly wrap up of what I received and how I used my CSA share goodies.