CSA week 3: conquering the Asian green mix

After feeling like I did really well with week 2's box and being totally in love with the kale and escarole, here is the rundown for what came in week 3:

-1 bunch of green onions

-1 Bok Choy

-2 kohlrabi

-1 bunch hakurei turnips (At first glance, the first thing that came to my mind was Harajuku which was the name of Gwen Stefani's backup dancers when she went solo as a singer.  Obviously we are talking about 2 completely different things here, but for a quick explanation they are a small white bulb that has a sweeter taste to it compared to a regular waxy turnip that you would find in a grocery store).

-1/2 lb leaf lettuce mix

-1/2 lb Asian/braising mix 

-1 head red deer tongue

-1 head red leaf lettuce

-1 head romaine lettuce

-1 2 inch sage plant

All of the lettuces went to salads throughout the week and by the following Friday (which is the day that we pick up our box) there was no lettuce left.  The hakurei turnips were trimmed and will be used with the ones that we get in week 4 since you do not get a lot of them and I believe a simple pan sear with some butter and sugar is going to be the preparation method of choice.  Our sage plant was planted along with the rest of our herbs and as you can see below are coming along nicely on the deck.

CSA Week 1: getting over the bok choy wall

This year we decided to join a CSA in our house.  For those of you not familiar with what a CSA is it stands for Community Shared Agriculture and basically the short gist of it is that you join in the beginning of season, choose whether you want a half or full share, pay a certain fee upfront, and then each week you go to the farm and pick up your designated share to eat and enjoy.  I've heard about CSA's for a number of years and was always intrigued at the concept and our friend Maria (among many other things, my modern earthy crunchy friend who would become a farmer in a heartbeat if she could) joined last year and I was always amazed at the amount of veggies she would get each week from it.  We are going the half route this year to ease into the program and to also gage how we make out going through the box on a weekly basis because we have pretty busy lives and aren't home all that much.   The only drawback to a CSA is that you don't get to pick what you get in your box so if you are a picky eater or have a major aversion to lets say tomatoes then it could become a problem.  I on the other hand loved the idea of the challenge of not knowing what you were going to get each week and looked at it as an opportunity to expand my veggie palate with certain things that were not in my cooking/eating repertoire.  My only rules that I threw out to my family before Box 1 arrived was that we needed to be totally committed to whatever arrived in the box so we wouldn't be wasting a lot of food each week and to throw away any preconceived notions that one might have on a particular veggie so that way the mental wall wouldn't automatically go up at the first thought of certain things.   We are doing ours through Stone Gardens Farm in Shelton, CT and each week Stacia, who heads up the farm sends you an email letting you know what to expect in the box as well as some recipes and ideas on how to use the contents.  At first thought, I had this brilliant idea that I wanted to be surprised each week (because for some reason, I've been on this kick lately where I'm all about surprises) so it would feel like some crazy cooking challenge to have the contents of the box in front of me and then I would just be able to go with it but I've broken down and started reading the emails so I could be mentally prepared for what we are getting. 

Week 1's Box consisted of the following:
-a bunch of bok choy
-a head of red deer tongue lettuce
-a head of green leaf lettuce
-a half bag of Asian greens
-a bunch of radishes
-a 4in oregano plant
(for some reason looking at it now I feel like I'm forgetting something but I will update if I remember what it is)

The lettuces are not an issue at all in our house because we eat a lot of salad and I'm prone to just bring a bag of lettuce with me to work for lunch with a few mix-ins and call it a day.  The radishes also were used in salads and the oregano plant was potted with the rest of our herb plants on the deck.  I'm not going to lie but I'm still a smidge freaked out on the Asian Green mix so I think the best use for this is going to be stir-fryed along with a protein and rice.  My biggest challenge though from week 1 was the bok choy.  We never ate bok choy in my house growing up and have always shied away from recipes in it because the few times that I did have it, it wasn't good so my relationship with it wasn't a good one.  But I thought of different flavor combinations that I liked already and kind of treated it like spinach so during an Asian-inspired meal of honey balsamic salmon and sesame noodles, I sauteed the choy with some garlic and siracha (Asian hot sauce) and we had success on all ends.  Bok Choy can now have a permanent place in my veggie diet.