CSA 2016 Week 1

It's so wonderful to have such a wide variety of places to choose from when it comes to CSAs in my area. In the end, I have decided to go back to my original CSA through Covered Wagon Produce. Last year, one of my co-workers went with Covered Wagon, so this year we are splitting a whole share among 3 families and they live up by that farmers market, so I don't have to drive 30+ minutes in afternoon traffic once a week to pick up the box - what a blessing. My biggest complaint with Covered Wagon was that they had limited greens in their offerings. I think this is mainly due to when they start offering the share - which is July and by that time, it's too warm to have dainty lettuces and spinach.

So to offset this, I joined a second CSA through Old Tioga Farms - and will be splitting this as well. I heard about them when I lived in Central PA and their farm-to-table dinners in their own farm house. Since then, I have had 2 lovely Italian dinners over the past few years and now can utilize their CSA (they didn't deliver up toward me for the first bit and it would have been about an hour drive down to the farm). There's a few benefits to this CSA - they have my greens and it starts earlier in the season - June! They also have cooking classes occasionally and go to Italy to cook in the late winter/early spring - anyone interested??

Another fun thing with this CSA is the pick up location - which could end up being deadly. It's a local dairy with a farm store and some crazy-delicious ice cream. I've heard a lot about it and driven by but have not stopped in - boy, was I missing out! I'm looking forward to the milk I bought this week - it comes in glass, I didn't know that was a thing anymore! I think my future yogurt will also be extra delicious...

For the initial week we got:
mixed greens
spinach
beets and greens
radish and greens
rainbow chard
focaccia bread - did I forget to mention we opted for the bread share as well??

The mixed greens and spinach went to my co-sharer, as well as half the bread. The greens all went into a pot to braise. I added in my homemade pancetta, some reserved cooking liquid from a pot of beans and that's it. I just couldn't wait and made my inaugural CSA dish a plate of avocado toast on focaccia bread with braised greens. This dish made me so happy, I just couldn't help but show it off via text to all my fellow CSA sharers to make them jealous!!!

The rest of the greens were mixed with some white beans and will make a lovely addition to lunches.

I got really fancy with the beets and made a Beet, Cheddar and Apple Tart based on this recipe from Martha Stewart. I made bread dough with my sourdough starter rather than use puff pastry, so it's not quite as buttery as I imagine the original recipe is...but you have to feed the starter and it was rainy today! (somehow that seems to make sense in my head...)

Rather than go raw with the radishes (particularly since I have been enjoying many salads lately with radish), I found a recipe for Braised Radishes with Bacon and Shallot from the Kitchn. My grocery store didn't have shallots so I used regular onions instead. I also use the last of the beets as well - the share this week was 1 very large beet and few smaller ones. It's a very nice flavor, and once again, will go nicely with lunches alongside my tarts.

Yum!