Winter CSA - March

Here's the March share that we picked up a few days ago. Notice anything... unusual?


That's right! GREENS!!! That's a bag of fresh baby spinach in the top left. Thank goodness for greenhouses (the ground's still frozen here). There's also a bag of alfalfa-radish sprouts, which have a slightly spicy bite. Other than that, we've got the winter usual - potatoes, carrots, daikon, celeriac, beets, and rutabagas. A few of the potatoes are huge, so I'm thinking they are good candidates for baking. Maybe we'll top them with some veggie chili.

Does anyone have any rutabaga recipes to share? I'd like to try something a bit different with these. I'll use most of the carrots, celeriac, and beets to make more of that amazing shredded salad, and I'm toying with a few different options for the daikon.

Winter CSA - February

No pretty produce shots this time. I haven't had time yet to scrub and sort the veggies, and I wanted to take a picture before we start using it up (in fact, I grabbed a beet and a carrot for tonight's salad immediately after taking this pic). Plus, a more rustic view might be good for a change. After all, this is how we receive it: tumbled together and covered with dirt. The summer deliveries are usually cleaner but the winter veggies are stored in dirt-filled bins at the farm.


I mentioned recently that it's time to sign up for 2009 CSAs. This goes for most winter CSAs as well. While we are certainly signing up for another summer share, we've decided to pass on the winter share. The first month was amazing, but the rest of them have been like this (only with cabbage). We haven't made the best use of our share and have thrown out more gone-by produce than I care to admit. The sad fact is, I just can't handle so many root vegetables. (My Scandinavian and Irish ancestors are now rolling over in their graves.)

Where we live, nothing else is available locally in the winter, so other than the fresh lettuce for our salads and the occasionally indulgence of imported fruit, we've been relying on frozen vegetables. Some are summer share surplus that we froze for exactly this purpose; others are bags that we've purchased at our local grocery store. Frozen seems to work well for us. While I feel bad about the food we've wasted from the winter CSA, we've learned an important lesson - a winter CSA is just not for us. (Now, I'd be singing a different tune if we lived in say, California, and a winter share included fresh citrus and greens - but alas, we live in a land of thrice-weekly blizzards.)

So the plan for this year is to sign up for our summer share - once again, a small share from Luna Bleu Farm - and to take the money that would go for a winter share and designate it for farmer's market purchases. That way, when our favorites like kale and spinach are in abundance, we can buy a lot and immediately freeze it for winter use.

Here it is! Winter CSA, Month 3

We picked up our January share at the monthly indoor winter farmer's market in Norwich, VT. It's nice that it continues through the winter, but it's not nearly as interesting as the weekly summer market. In winter, we basically go just to get our share (and maybe a scone and a cup of coffee for the road). We're in and out in fifteen minutes, tops. At the summer market, however, there's so much more to look at and there is usually live music, as long as the weather is good. We like to take our time, check out all the booths, and do a few laps.


Anyway, January's share is not too bad. No more parsnips (woohoo!). The rundown:

-two cabbages
-four rutabagas
-four celeriacs
-six beets of varying size
-one enormous daikon radish (it must be at least 15" long!)
-about four or five pounds of carrots
-about five pounds of potatoes, some small (great for roasting) and some large (great for baking)
-one random bulb of garlic thrown in at the last minute

We also purchased some fingerling potatoes. Yes, five pounds of potatoes is plenty for the two of us for a month, but I just can't resist those wonderful fingerlings. I toss them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and herbs, and roast them until the skin is golden and crackling and the flesh is meltingly soft.

I think this is a good assortment. I'm working on a new carrot soup recipe, and the daikon will come in handy when I make something from one of my Japanese cookbooks (per my resolution). We used to eat rutabagas a lot when we lived in London, although we didn't know it at the time: the Brits call them "swede," and we used to get this pre-chopped carrot & swede blend that we could steam or roast. I'll have to do a little research on new (to me) ways to prepare them. I'm also looking for new beet recipes; I usually roast them, but the antioxidant levels drop when exposed to heat, so I'd like to add some raw beet recipes to my arsenal.

Anyone have any good root vegetable recipes to share?