Average Jane Has Plenty of Vegetables

I'm now nine weeks into my CSA share that provides seasonal organic vegetables every week. This week I got summer squash, tomatoes, green beans, a cucumber, carrots, lettuce, fresh garlic and a huge bunch of basil.

Naturally, my goal is to eat everything I receive. I fell down a bit on that with some of the greens we got early in the spring because I have absolutely no cooking or eating history that involves chard, kale, etc.

My husband and I have resorted to a lot of convenience foods over the past decade or so, and it's been a challenge to plan thoughtfully enough to include lots of vegetables instead of just resorting to a meal of sloppy joes with some potato chips and pickles are a vegetable, right?

Last weekend I made a batch of borscht that came out great. Unfortunately, my husband was too beet-phobic to even try it.

We've been having a lot of green salads with our meals, which happened often when I was growing up except that we always had iceberg lettuce back then. Today I'm making pesto out of this week's basil, some salsa and probably a green bean salad. Not sure if the salad will accompany me to a potluck or just be a side dish with some kind of grilled meat.

Earlier in the season I purchased some extra strawberries and made a batch of jam for the first time since I was a teenager. I'm hoping to be able to get my hands on enough small cucumbers to be able to make pickles later on.

I'm really enjoying the fresh vegetables and herbs. I'd been buying grocery store varieties for so long that I'd forgotten how flavorful vegetables are supposed to be. It's also nice to know what's in season so that I can go to the farmers' market on weekends and supplement my share, if needed.

Comments

[meesha.v]

bought some pickling cucumbers at the market today, someone beat me to my regular cucumber guy and bought up all the small ones. I saw a woman carrying like a 10 lb box of real small ones.I guess I am pickling today.

[ByJane]

Chard for Average Jane ByJane

Wash the chard, and slice it up.
Saute some cut up onions and some garlic in some olive oil until soft. Throw in washed chard and cook until soft over medium heat. A nice addition is to saute some sliced sausages with the onions before adding chard. Rainbow chard is quite pretty and mostly retains its color.
xxoo (see you in Chi.)

[zen zone chick]

The jam was AWESOME btw! Thanks again!

[magpie]

Mmm. I love our CSA. If you get behind on the cooking greens, you can blanch them and freeze them, and then use them in the winter.