Sharing the Share: CSA Week #3

More great stuff! Here’s the rundown of what our share included this week:

• more strawberries (!) I expected last week to be the last of them, so I was thrilled to find out that there were more for us this week.
• rainbow chard!
• spinach
• Napa cabbage – I love this cabbage variety. I have a favorite salad using Napa cabbage and romaine that I keep meaning to share…this coming week will be a good excuse, because we also got
• Romaine
• more Asian braising greens
• lots of turnips (yay!)
• a few more garlic scapes
• scallions

We’ve been busy lately, between tending the garden and other various summer things — so while I’ve still been cooking a lot, I feel like I can’t quite gather my thoughts enough to write anything extensive and coherent about any one particular topic. So, I’ll just give you a rundown of a few random ideas:

1. Got more strawberries than you know what to do with? How about making strawberry vinegar? I made some last week. I canned a few jars of it, and am planning to squirrel one away for the dead of winter. I kept some out in the fridge, and have been mixing it with equal parts extra-virgin olive oil, maybe a minced shallot, and coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to make a delicious vinaigrette. It’s great over arugula with goat cheese, or maybe some spinach with toasted nuts.

2. Another use for garlic scape pesto: how about a twist on garlic bread? I spread some slabs of baguette with the garlic scape pesto I made last week, topped each with a little shredded parmesan and mozzarella, and popped them under the broiler for a few minutes. Mmm.

3. I think rainbow chard is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen. Rather than storing it in the fridge, I snipped the ends of the stalks to make clean cuts, then arranged them in a vase. To me, they’re just as beautiful as any flower bouquet, and it should keep them fresh for a few days until we eat them. Beautiful and tasty!

That’s all for now…TGIF!