I’m trying something new this year. I signed my family up for a share in a CSA Farm.  Inspired by reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I thought it the least we could do to try to eat more healthily and make our own small contribution to local agriculture.

I recognize that buying into a CSA isn’t exactly living off the grid nor a radical commitment to eating exclusively local food, like Kingsolver’s family, but it is still a small step away from processed food and big, industrial farms.

What is CSA, you ask? In short, a local farm delivers a box of fresh, seasonal produce to a central location on a weekly basis. A number of individuals/families/groups each pay a fee for the season and pick up their box.  Note: local can be defined fairly loosely – usually it’s within 100 miles. There are also CSA farms that provide chickens, eggs, cheese, lamb or beef.

From the buyer standpoint, it’s pretty easy. I went online and found http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ to locate a local group. I found one that is organized through a synagogue in our neighborhood and signed up for May – September. Sent them a check, signed up to volunteer at the pickup spot for a couple of hours, and voila.

Thus, the adventure begins.

As some of you may know from reading my blog or being a Facebook friend, I like to cook and I love food. And, I grew up in New Orleans and have a fairly adventurous palate, but...

unfortunately, for this adventure... my family was pretty heavy on the Creole and Italian traditions – translation: heavy on the meat or seafood and carbs – not so much on fresh produce and seasonal greens. 

I picked up my first box about three weeks ago. And have gotten two more since. It’s still early in the season, so I wasn’t expecting too much, but to be honest it was paradoxically both underwhelming and overwhelming. 

I was underwhelmed because there were no plump, juicy fruits and the greens seemed somewhat redundant. Overwhelmed because I had absolutely no idea what to do with rhubarb or radishes and the sheer abundance of greens was daunting.

Our first box contained: fresh greens/mache, spinach, radishes, rhubarb, spring onions, asparagus, green leaf and bibb lettuce

The second added kale and the latest had collard greens in place of kale & spinach.

I guess some people might have called Mom or great-aunt Sue to find out how to deal with rhubarb or radishes. Alas, I’m quite sure my mother had never cooked rhubarb in my lifetime and my aunts tend to send their gumbo, shrimp-merliton casserole, and fudge recipes. So, naturally, I posted a request on my Facebook and Twitter accounts. My on-line foodie friends came to the rescue with suggestions and links.

Rhubard recommendations almost always mentioned strawberry. Leading to another adventure: picking strawberries with a friend and her five year old at a (different) local farm.

So far, we’ve had strawberry-rhubarb crisp, pie, and crumble.

Thanks to Saturn Smith for the link to Ezra Klein’s cobbler recipe http://is.gd/z4Mf

Today, we made a rhubarb sorbet from a simple recipe found on the Internet. And, the girls made a strawberry-lemon pastry from a mix bought at the Strawberry farm.

Week one they inspired a stri-fry – PFChang-like chcken lettuce wraps (using ground turkey from the freezer) and the wonderful Bibb lettuce leaves.  Recipe from RecipeZaar.

This week, we made curried radish chips. I used this recipe adding some curry powder and decreasing amount of chili powder. These are similar to baked potato chips, these were amazing.  We had these with Croatian meat sausages called cevapcici, made with ground lamb bought from the Amish at the farmers' market & ground turkey in freezer (from Costco, ahem).

Plus, we got to use the mandoline.

I’ve read recommendations for radish greens soup and/or sauté, but haven’t made these yet.

And finally, I’ll finish with good old Southern-style Collard greens.  Made today in the crockpot, Lisa-style (i.e., fast & loose on measurements & using what I’ve got in the house).

Ingredients

1. Brown salt-pork in large skillet (feel free to use ham hocks, a large smoked turkey leg, bacon/ham or other combination)
2. Add a touch of olive oil if needed
3. Saute onions at med-low heat for about 5-10 minutes
4. Add garlic and sauté for another few minutes
5. Note: At this point, I threw in the Chipotle peppers b/c I couldn’t find any smoke-flavor seasonings/sauce and didn’t have bacon to start with
6. Season with salt, pepper, cumin &/or cayenne to taste. I added about a ½  teaspoon of  Fajita seasoning
7. When onions are very tender, add chicken stock to pan, then add collards for a minute or two
8. Throw all in crockpot.
9. Add potatoes (large cubes) and cook on low for 8 hours or on high for an hour & low for 5-6 hours.
10. Add a splash of vinegar about an hour or directly before serving.

We had this with Israeli couscous and it was better than I remember collards ever tasting when I was a kid. Not sure my kids thought so, but they were happy to finish with the pastry and rhubarb sorbet.