thoughtful consumption

The pre-season subscription is 3 deliveries every other week from mid-January till March. Because it’s supposed to last two weeks, there’s more stuff. Instead of a bag, we picked up two boxes today! I am very, very happy to have some produce to play with again.

Here’s what was in our boxes.

• Green onions (14 oz)
• Cane syrup (16 oz)
• Green spinach (15 oz)
• Bordeaux spinach (22 oz)
• 5 grain bread (17 oz) – We had to eat a chunk first!
• Collards (27 oz)
• Red Russian kale (23 oz)
• Daikon radishes (16 oz)
• Apples (34 oz)
• Sweet potatoes (12 oz)
• Herbs

Oops – forgot the eggs!

• One dozen eggs

Spinach

Bordeaux spinach (the red and green spinach) is great to eat raw. It’s a little sweeter than regular spinach and has a slight pecan taste, too. We will eat it as salad with sliced daikons and mustard dressing. You could do this as a wilted salad, too, by heating the dressing first. I’ll add bacon when it’s more of a main course.

I’ll separate the green spinach into baby and not-so-baby. The baby spinach I’ll mix in with the Bordeaux, and the other spinach I’ll probably end up cooking in some fashion. It’s still a lot of spinach to get through raw! The good news is that spinach lasts longer in the fridge than lettuce, so we should have the full two weeks to use it.

I’ve got some leftover entrée stuff in the fridge that will go with a side of spinach. But what I really can’t wait for is scrambled eggs and spinach salad. I’m hoping for tomorrow night! The fresh eggs make the best scrambled eggs.

Fried rice

Fried rice is on the menu this weekend. I’ll use the green onions, daikons, some of the kale, and a couple of eggs. I’ll also defrost and marinate a tail end of a pork loin to add to it.

Daikons

I still have a piece of a daikon from last year! A couple of days ago I sliced some to put on a salad, and it was fine.

So these guys last a long, long time in the fridge. That’s a good thing because I’ve only been able to use a little bit at a time. I use them sliced thin on salads and chopped in stir-frys. Anybody have other ideas?

French toast

Eggs and cane syrup means French toast this weekend. One of the reasons I like French toast is I don’t make it. I just stumble down the stairs, make some tea, and wait for my breakfast.

And I already got to use the cane syrup today as a substitute for molasses when making gingerbread cookies. They’re in the oven, so I’ll have to report back on how they turned out. One of the things I like about cooking with CSA stuff is you get to try substitutions. I like shrugging and throwing in something that might work. The problem comes when the results are better than the original recipe, but you can’t remember what you did differently.

Sweet potatoes, 5-grain bread, and apples

We’ll bake the sweet potatoes and serve them with spinach salad.

The bread is delicious. What a treat! It will go great with – you guessed it – spinach salad. I’m also going to try to make some kind of butter-honey spread to go on it. It’ll make good cheese toast, too. Mmmm… cheese toast.

The apples make great afternoon snacks.

Kale and collards

In addition to being part of fried rice, the kale will get wilted with fresh pasta. Kale isn’t our favorite, but we sure do like pasta. I may try kale crisps again, too. Or kale with raisins and pine nuts. If all else fails, I’ll blanch it and freeze it for later. The collards will have to find a loving home somewhere else. During the CSA season, we opt out of collards in our weekly bag. It’s one of the few veggies my husband doesn’t like.

Herbs

I washed and left the herbs out to dry already. I’m much more likely to try them in different recipes if all I have to do is pull them out and chop them.

The parsley and salad burnet can go in to some salad dressing. The lemon thyme and rosemary make me think of roasted chicken.  Hmm… does roasted chicken go with spinach salad?

Got other spinach ideas?

Lay ’em on us…