Anne 1, CSA 1

I've been subscribing to a CSA for nearly two years now. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You pay a subscription fee for a certain period of time (in Tucson, 3 months), and then weekly you receive whatever the farmer associated with your program harvested that week. It's all locally grown, organic produce, and at a reasonable price. It's WAY cheaper than buying organic at the regular grocery store, and even about the same cost as buying regular produce from the big-chain grocery stores. I like the idea of organic produce, but I'm only willing to pay so much for it. However I really like the idea of supporting a local farmer. With the CSA, you're not guaranteed a certain amount of produce every week. You're taking a risk with the farmer than his crops will turn out. That may sound scary, but it hasn't been a problem yet. It's actually a pretty large amount of produce each week. They say each share should be roughly enough produce for a family of 4 for a week. Obviously, I do not constitute a family of 4. So I share my share with my friend E.

It's still a challenge sometimes to figure out what to do with all my produce - especially during heavy greens season (like now). Even without the added challenge of greens I have to make a concerted effort to get through all of my produce in a week. And occasionally there are busy/lazy spells during which I don't really cook. Last week was one of those busy/lazy weeks. So this weekend I found myself with LOTS of produce. So here's what I've done with it.

Before and after cooking - Roasted carrots and daikon radishes with olive oil, white wine, and fennel. All from the CSA.

Baked salmon with butter and fennel. Fennel from the CSA. Sorry you don't get to see this fresh out of oven. It was much more appetizing looking then.

Pioneerwoman's pico de gallo. Only the cilantro was from the CSA. We had a party Friday night, so I made a bunch of pico de gallo. There was guacamole too, but it's all gone. :) I love when we get herbs, because it's something different, but we get them in such large quantities that it's hard to use it all fresh.

Salad with spring mix (from this week) and mizuna (playing catch up from last week). I'll be eating a lot of salad this week... Mizuna is one of those weird greens that I had never heard of/seen/had any idea what to use it for when we first got it. I'm not sure I'd make a salad of it by itself, but mixed with other greens it's just fine. I'll admit it's a relief when we get salad greens.

We got mustard greens last week and this week. E took my half of the mustard greens and put them into a white vegetarian lasagna. I love when I don't have to figure out what to do with my produce. :) Although I still have a massive bunch of mustard greens from last week...

I had some tokyo bekana that I just stir fried a bit and added something called "Stir Fry Sauce" from the grocery store. No picture...but I trust you to imagine a pile of stir fried greens covered in sauce.

We got dill last week...so I bought some potatoes, and there might be more fish in my future to try to use it up. I LOVE dill. We just get so much of it that it's hard to get through it all.

So that's my plan. I have LOTS to eat...but I have a plan and/or have cooked almost everything. I think I'm just left with kale, garlic, and those pesky mustard greens... Counting last week's epic fail, the score stands at Anne 1, CSA 1.