Mid-July: definitely summer. When it’s hot outside, we’re eating salads, and honestly, longing for the fresh tomatoes we just know will be ready any day now. Our farmers at Beaverland Farms have packed a splendid box this week. Inside CSA 2022 week 14’s box we find beans: green, yellow, and purple! I’d love to see purple beans once cooked, but the cooking process turns them green. They’ll still taste wonderful.
The big bunch of rainbow chard will be a delight. Because the stems and the leaves are like two different vegetables, I like to cook them separately. I’ll braise the stems, and sauté the leaves with garlic, much as I would cook spinach. This week, I’ll cook a simplified version of a Thomas Keller recipe, where the braised stems are combined with the leaves and some amazing wine-steeped raisins. See the cookbook Ad Hoc at Home for full details.
This week’s box brings us:
- mixed lettuces (so needed for summer salads)
- a dozen baby red beets
- green, yellow, and purple beans
- kohlrabi
- carrots
- cucumbers
- rainbow chard
- garlic
- edible flowers
As usual, I think about how I might use all this good stuff while I’m washing and trimming it. Here are some of my ideas for this CSA 2022 week 14 box:
- festive green salad with flowers
- herbed butter with edible flowers as posted in SimpleBites
- a big Greek salad, with some of the beets (this never gets old)
- kohlrabi and carrots, dipped in either hummus or garlic scape dip
- chard sautéed with raisins & pine nuts (as described above)
- stuffed chard leaves Greek style: when you don’t have a grape vine!
- crunchy kohlrabi slaw from A Couple Cooks
- green beans with sesame dressing from Just One Cookbook
Follow the season with me, and I’ll show off my CSA box of the week, including ideas of how I might use all the good stuff. Feel free to chime in with comments or questions.