The first week of the CSA. . .
It’s always a little bit of a transition to go from “choice of vegetables” to eating what the farmer gives us. I have to admit, sometimes not having a choice is kind of nice. The farmer gives you your veggies for the week and then you just gotta deal and eat ’em.
This week we got FOUR heads of lettuce, bok (pac) choy, tatsoi—er, basically, a lot of greens and some radishes. Well, we haven’t eaten the bok choi or tatsoi, but FOUR heads of lettuce? Luckily, we split our share with our neighbor, but she doesn’t like salad (yeah, I know. . .), but their parakeets do! For us, we had a dinner with some friends so it was perfect for a salad for 4 adults and two kids.
The random salad I made was with what I had. Just take any veg you have, wash and cut it into thin slices on a diagonal (in this case, it was romaine and green leaf lettuce, carrots, cuke, purple onion). Call me picky, but I’m not a fan of salads that have cubed veggies in them. I thinly sliced the radishes and added those too and had some sunflower seeds and added those (any nut will do).
I also had some croutons I made from some old bread (perfect use for bread going stale). Croutons are extremely easy to made and so gratifying. Just cube up day-old bread (not the pre-sliced kind, but that might work), toss with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. You can add any dried herb (oregano or italian spice work nice or lemon salt) too. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, tossing them half way through and store in an air tight container. It’s really so nice to have.
For salad dressing, we only use olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The proportions are 2 parts olive oil to 1 part vinegar, but if you like more tart and less oil, then change it up. I added 1/2 a squeezed lemon to this dressing and it felt extra summer-y.
Grind some pepper over the salad, add some semi-soft cheese like ricotta salada, goat or feta and it’s a meal.
Considering we’re getting another share tomorrow, we are probably gonna have a “eat it or compost it” moment. More on that later. . .
