Working through the CSA share

2010 marks the first year we are participating in a CSA - Community Supported Agriculture.  It works like this - a farmer will sell shares to the people of the community, and those folks will pick up whatever is being harvested weekly over the summer months. 

We chose to do a CSA to take advantage of Lancaster's agricultural strengths, and also because most of the farmers who participate in CSAs are organically minded.  And I'm all about not using chemicals on my food.  We chose Prescott's Patch because Steve had a nice breadth of vegetables and uniquely had fruit, too. 

This week, on a beautifully sunny day, I picked up our share.  Bunch of beets, broccoli, cauliflower, parsley, basil, carrots, swiss chard, kale, scallions, lettuce, and berries!  Blue, Red, and Black! 

The thing about getting stuff that's fresh from the farm, you are also signing up for dirt and bugs.  Yikes!  So when I got everything home, I immediately started laundering the greens.  Found a caterpillar, cobwebs, and a bug in the broccoli.  Gross.  So I ended up going through every branch of that bad boy.  Even after I cleaned it with some tender loving care, lifted a Rachael Ray recipe and roasted the heck out of it with oil, chili powder, garlic powder, and steak seasoning, which ended up being quite delicious, I might add, I still found myself tossing up a bit of bile after eating a bit of it.  The hubby won't mind eating it, I'm sure...

After washing everything, it's all systems ready to go.  Check out my lovely vege-bouquet...

In the meantime, I did all my roasting - beets and carrots, unpeeled, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and in the oven at 400 for 40 minutes.  And then I have a field day with eating everything - peel and all!!  I LOVE ROASTED BEETS!!!

Roasted the broccoli and cauliflower, as I mentioned above, so those are done.  I've cut and readied the beet greens and kale for braising in garlic, perhaps some bacon, and some chicken stock.  Yum.  I set aside some kale for some hearty soup that I might want on a hot summer day.  Hey, you never know...

Lastly, I'm going to do some experimenting with the carrot greens.  Really pungent flavor, it's like a carrot-flavored parsley, so shouldn't I be able to use it in such a way?  Who knows.  Wish me luck...