Eating Away the CSA
After waiting year to get into my local CSA (community shared agriculture), I finally was able to join. Last Saturday I received my first dose of fresh, local vegetables and eggs. The list included chard, bok choi, collard greens, radishes, turnips, and a melody of potatoes, mint, and scapes. Green, green, red, green—the pile was high and I wondered if I could really eat them before they went bad. I did, and managed to do so before I left for a wedding in Denver, Colorado. But, despite the lovely recipes the Bed-Stuy Farm Share provided, I wondered if people still felt lost with faced with such a bevy of interesting produce. I know I didn’t know what to do with it all (save for the eggs and bok choi) and didn’t even know what a scape was.
Scapes, I learned, are these wonderful curly green things that shoot off of garlic bulbs. They have the rich garlicky flavor but with a crispness the reminded me of green beans. Using up these beauties was the biggest challenge of them all, but since garlic tends to go with everything, so did the scapes. If I had planned better I would have tried the scape pesto, but c’est la vie.
The first think I made I did as soon as I got my greens home. I cleaned and cut the bok choi, sautéed it lightly with a tablespoon of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of lemon juice. As soon as the vegetable turned a brilliant green, I took it off the heat and put it on a plate. Then, I fried an egg, medium-hard, and put it on top. Even though it was a simple dish, the bok choi was succulent and fresh and the egg added some protein and another texture.
This is just the beginning of eating up my CSA.
