Despite the lack of feedback on last week’s post, I’ve decided to shift the focus of my meal plans to be “CSA Menu Plans”. When I began posting menu plans, sharing how I was planning to use what I’d picked up at the farm was of the goals and I feel like I lost a little bit of that along the way. I’ve seen enough posts online to know that it can be really hard to figure out how to use seasonal produce and I’m hoping others find my ideas useful. That said, I sometimes spend a long time planning menus because I don’t know what I’m going to do with it either! I’ll just be sharing plans that involve my CSA produce, but as there’s so much of it, that pretty much covers all the meals.
Last week’s pick up (from left to right): lettuce, 2 kinds of kale, Swiss chard, spinach, salad mix, 3 bunches of radishes, scallions
As you can see, there were a lot of greens available last week. Greens, and not a lot more. I think there were some turnips and kohlrabi, but we already had both of those in our fridge from the previous week…and we ate them all winter, so we’re very ready for greens. It was really hard for me to come up with ways to use all these leaves and I wouldn’t be surprised if we still have some left this weekend when we go for our third pick up of the season. Getting back in the weekly CSA routine is tricky!
The agenda for the week
(which started last Friday, but as usual, I’m behind on my posting schedule. Plus this way I have pictures to share!)
So far:
Lettuce: dinner salad with hardboiled eggs on Sunday
Kale: Kale, onion, potato + parmesan frittata, which we ate for lunch on Monday and Tuesday; kale chips as a side for the radish green soup (see below)
Spinach: Pasta with lentil, canned tomato and spinach topping
Radishes: I used about half the greens to make a radish green and potato soup from The Victory Garden Cookbook
Still to come, probably:
Lettuce + salad mix: side salads throughout the week
Swiss Chard: Polenta Pizza with Chard (adapted from this recipe, but I’ll be simplifying the topping)
Kale: Curry Tofu Tacos with Pintos and Kale Slaw, because they’re awesome.
Radishes: roasted to be served alongside…something. Maybe the polenta pizzas or tacos? I’m really not sure why I thought I could make use of three bunches.
Scallions: likely mixed with eggs over the weekend and thrown into other things like salads, but I should probably come up with a more solid plan than that!
Spinach: We have a spinach overload, as there’s still come from the pick up prior to this one. I’m thinking omelets this weekend?
YUM! It all looks good! Can’t wait to have greens from our garden- but when they are available we will have an overload! 6 spinach, 12 swiss char and 12 salad lettuce mix. I did recently buy fresh spinach at the farmers market.
If I can make use of our overload (and we get more tomorrow!), so can you! If you try any of the recipes I’ve shared, I would love to hear about it…and if you have any suggestions of your own, please pass them along!
Kale smoothies (or smoothies with kale blended into them) have become very popular in Arizona…. Particularly well masked with pineapple juice, while it’s still cold, at least.
Yes, people definitely are a fan of their green smoothies and when I looked at the picture of our CSA haul, I did think of smoothies and assume someone would be leaving a similar comment to yours. Unfortunately, I am just not a smoothie fan, greens or no greens. I’m good for maybe a couple a year.
We really need to get into a CSA! I keep meaning to look them up in our area. (And I am not a smoothie fan either- but if it’s juiced I don’t mind it as much!)