Necessity is the Mother of Dinner

Geoff and I decided to join our local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) co-op which lets us get cheap, organic, locally-grown food. I love, love, love it! We end up paying the equivalent of $15 a week which gets us pretty much all the produce that we consume in a week so we are saving money over the grocery store and supporting local farmers - it couldn't be better. My favorite thing is that ours gives you a limit (ours was 7 pounds this week!) and allows you to go select the things you want. I generally take everything but I didn't get any beets this week. I want to eat beats because I know they are so good for you, but they just always taste dirty to me. If anyone has some great recipe they'd like to share, I'd love to hear it.

Anyway, back to the CSA. Having the CSA has really challenged me to think of new ways to use ingredients. For example, two weeks ago I got five different types of greens: escarole, mustard greens, collard greens, kale, and lettuce. Two of the best things that I have made so far are this savory bread pudding with kale and topped with dollops of cream cheese I needed to use up and the garlic scape pesto (inspired by one of my absolute favorite local restaurants) that was amazing on pasta and here on orzo next to come fish with dill.


This week we got a head of cabbage, 1/2 pound carrots, 1/2 pound green beans, 1 pound fava beans, a pint of peas, kale, fennel, lettuce, collard greens, dill, and basil. I think that is it. I love coming home Friday night and figuring out what to make for dinner that week so I thought I would share my plans with you all.

Tonight: BBQ Red Bean Burgers and Corn (not local yet)
Saturday: White Pizza with Kale, salad
Sunday: Peanut Noodles and Grilled Fava Beans
Monday: Grilled Pork with Mustard Tarragon Sauce, Fennel and Green Beans, Salad
Tuesday: Pesto and Fontina Grilled Cheese and Carrot Top and Quinoa Soup
Wednesday: Black-Eyed Peas and Collard Greens, Cornbread
Thursday: Hoisin-Glazed Chicken Burgers with Asian Sesame Slaw (with peas)

Yum Yum!