CSA: Week 1

Our CSA started earlier this week and I couldn't be happier.  Not only do we get an abundance of fresh, flavorful, organic vegetables (and fruit grown using integrated pest management) each week, but it makes my life easier in that I don't have to think as much when planning our meals for the week.  Sure, I can't pick exactly what I want, but when given the constraints of a pre-selected set of vegetables, I have to work around it.

I'm the kind of person who always needs multiple discrete projects, so one of my projects for this summer is to document my weekly CSA share and share with you at least one meal I've made from it.  Because our shares don't change radically each week, but rather change gradually along with the weather,  we'll be getting many of these items for the next few weeks.  So hopefully these recipes will prove helpful to you in using your CSA share (if you have one) or figuring out what to do with all the offerings at the farmers market, and often simply, at that.

So without further ado, here's what we got for Week 1.

Vegetable share: Lettuce, mizuna, radishes, asparagus, leeks (not pictured), strawberries

Fruit share: 4 pints strawberries

Flower share: Sweet William

Here's what I made with it:

• Early summer salad with quinoa, asparagus, mizuna, radishes, cucumbers, and strawberries
• Mujaddarra with caramelized leeks (based on this recipe; I changed some of the proportions and used leeks instead of onions)
• Polenta with root to stalk radishes
• Hummus sandwiches with lettuce, cucumbers, harissa, and olives