My CSA just started 2 weeks ago. If you aren’t familiar with CSAs, they are basically subscriptions to a farm share. CSA stands for community supported agriculture. To buy into a farm’s CSA, you are essentially making an investment into their crops… your yield is whatever they harvest. (To find a CSA near you, click here).
The season at our farm began on June 10. Each Thursday until the end of the season (usually November-ish), I’ll head over to the pick-up point and get what’s fresh this week.
Garlic scapes, spinach, lettuce, arugula, snap peas, beets, turnips, and rainbow chard.
The great thing and the most challenging thing about a CSA is figuring out what to do with SO MANY VEGGIES. I found that last season (my first) was a lot of trial and error. It was tough to eat through everything before it began to spoil.
I typically rinse and chop greens as soon as I get them. I put them in a baggie or container with a paper towel in it to absorb excess moisture. As for the other veggies, I’ll try to cook them up and fridge/freeze them so that I can easily eat them later.
This week, I made pesto with the garlic scapes.
Love those crazy looking scapes.
Add chopped scapes (I used 7 of them), handful of pine nuts, grated cheese (like parmesan), and olive oil to a blender or food processor.
Garlic-licious.
I also attempted to make a raw beet salad. I say attempted because it turned out to be my first Vita-Mix fail. As much as I love the Vita, she was too strong to simply pulse and chop my beets. They were pulverized in seconds. SO I decided to make beet juice with some carrot juice in the fridge and ginger.
After straining it multiple times, it was, well, beet-y. You know that earthiness that beets have? Well, yes, it was beet juice. Refreshing for sure.
The rest of the stuff we either ate in salads (turnips, most of the greens) or sauteed (chard). It’s not all gone yet, but we should get through all of it well before Thursday’s pick-up. I really can’t wait until the summer produce (squash, zucchini, peppers, etc).
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In other news:
- My morning workouts have been GREAT (and consistent). I’ll be adding early morning swims to the mix next week as M and I train for our August sprint-tri in August. (I’ll post the schedule… eventually)
- Are you running in the NYC Marathon this year? I am. Training to commence shortly…
- I’m doing my first Blueprint Cleanse starting tomorrow. I’ll give a full recap.
So since I’ve been making lists to stay on top of my to-do’s… here’s what I’ve been up to the last week in list form. I’ll be back to regular posting this week.
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