CSA week three wrap-up, week four start-up

I hope nobody was too disappointed not to find this post up yesterday; I wanted to give my sorbet post another day on the top of the blog before it got buried and never looked at again.

That sorbet and the pasta thing I made used up the bulk of last week's share. I did pickle the cucumbers with the dill as I said I might. The cukes turned out to be rather firmer than I expected and well suited to pickling. It's early days yet, but I think they'll turn out well in a few weeks.


On to week four...


Starting on the left, we've got turnips with some very nice greens attached. I'm going to save the turnips since we've got a couple weeks off and they'll keep for a while. I wasn't happy with the texture of the mashed turnip I made with the last turnips we got, so I'll probably slice these up for a gratin or the like. The tops I've already cooked in a Thai-inflected stir fry that also used up the last of the eggplant and some poorly conceived Thai-spiced sausage.

I snacked on the radishes all day yesterday, but there's so many that I've still got a half pound or so left. I'm thinking of making chips out of them as they're quite nice when browned. The tops aren't in nearly as good shape as the turnip tops so I'll probably end up tossing them, but they may end up in the gratin or in a pasta sauce.

The oranges here add to the two I haven't used yet from last week. There's enough now that I could get a reasonable amount of juice out of them or I might just eat them out of hand. The clementines I'd like to use for a stir fry. When I did that last year it turned out really bitter, but I think I know what I did wrong so I'd like to give it another shot.

I'm not sure what to do with the mizuna. I haven't had much luck with it in it's previous appearances. It wilts down to nothing very quickly when cooked and, while it's good in salads it's better complementing other greens than by itself. The mizuna pesto I made last year turned out OK, but I'm not a huge pesto fan and this sizable bunch will make quite a bit of it. This requires more thought.

The sprouts, I've been enjoying in sandwiches as they have a watercress-y flavor to them. It's not using them up very rapidly, though, so I may have to go buy some lettuce to add them and the mizuna to for a salad.

And that leaves the mushrooms. I usually cook them with beef and/or eggs, but they're good raw too. Maybe they'll go into the hypothetical salad I've been constructing.

You know, hypothetical salad would be a pretty good name for a band.