thoughtful consumption

• sausage
• chevre (goat cheese)
• arugula
• honey-flax-wheat bread
• spinach
• 2 heads of lettuce
• popping corn
• watercress (This was really wet! Check yours and wrap it in a paper towel in another bag if necessary.)
• sorrel
• coffee
• eggs
• sweet potatoes
• corn meal
• herb mix
• Leiden cheese
• cabbage
• carrots
• kabocha squash
• most of a blueberry-oat mini loaf
• not pictured: 3 mini-muffins (They didn’t make it home.)

We were excited about a bunch of things in this delivery.

Sausage and cheese

The Gum Creek sausage is wonderful. It’s single-handedly responsible for derailing our conversation about going veggie. It went something like this: “We eat so many vegetarian meals now; maybe we should try going vegetarian for a while to see if… oh, my goodness, this sausage is insane!!!”

About cheese, I agree with Pat, our CSA manager, who wrote about her fondness for cheese in this week’s newsletter.

I’m working on a post about how the CSA has taught Chris and me to be satisfied and happier with smaller portions. Except for cheese. I could eat this whole chunk of Leiden cheese in the course of a day. Same with the cheddar and the blue that I’ve gotten in the past. Thankfully, I restrained myself and only ate about half of it yesterday.

The Leiden is made with cumin seeds. The first time I had it, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be a fan. But now I totally am. It’s best if you let it get to room temperature. Makes a great afternoon snack with some carrot sticks. Mmmm.

Sorrel!

I love raw sorrel, and I’ll just snack on it for a couple of days till it’s gone. However, not everyone appreciates the flavor. Take a bite, and if you don’t like it, you can mix it in with lettuce to dilute the taste (boo!) or make sorrel sauce.

Kabocha squash and cabbage

Chris’ favorite vegetable in here is the kabocha squash; mine is the cabbage. Yep, cabbage. I came to love sautéed cabbage over the winter. We had this huge head of green cabbage that lasted and lasted. We’d shred some and sauté it lightly with onion and garlic. Who would believe cabbage could be that good!

So I’m really looking forward to cooking the cabbage. But since I know it will last longer that the greens, I guess I’ll have to wait a while. Sigh.

Greens report

The hydroponic lettuce goes first. It’s really pretty and tasty. We had some last night with scrambled eggs and two terrific sweet potatoes.

I mixed some of the watercress in with the lettuce. It’s peppery and gives it a little kick. I’m also considering watercress sandwiches (with honey-flax-wheat bread!), roughly according to this recipe with par-cel instead of parsley.

The arugula smelled so good coming out of the bag. I’m going to try to serve that as salad soon. Maybe we’ll have lettuce one meal and arugula the other. I’m not convinced that combining these two is the best path. To me, the tastes are too distinctive.

The spinach is also beautiful – very green with big, healthy leaves.

Corn stuff

I’m sticking the corn meal in the fridge for this summer for stir-fried squash and zucchini.

And we’re going to have to have a movie night – maybe even a movie party – to eat some popcorn! It’s easy enough to make and really good. We just never seem to get around to it.