What We've Been Eating

I belong to a CSA--a community supported agriculture group, called Fair Shares. My goal this year (April to March) is to not throw away any food. Of course, I have exceptions, and they are leftovers. If that bowl of mashed potatoes in the back of the fridge just cannot be downed before it turns, so be it. But no produce is going in the trash, no bread is getting moldy before we have the chance to eat it.

I've already failed once, with a half bag of lettuce that we took with us this weekend but did not finish--it didn't come home with us. It was a sad bag of lettuce. But other than that, I've done fine (I don't count cutting off the leaves of radishes and tossing them in the compost, that sort of stuff).

So what have we been eating? Greens. Lots and lots of greens. Right now, at the beginning of the season, green salads still sound good. I don't feel like I have to get creative with caraway seed dressings and avocados and so forth. And my kids have actually decided that sauteed greens aren't horrifying. They don't go down like a bowl of pudding, but they manage.

I saute them in olive oil with garlic. Sometimes onion. I don't wilt them to a green slime--they still look like leaves. Mustard, Swiss chard, kale.

I took the Swiss chard stems and blanched them one night, and then sauteed them with garlic and mushrooms. Made a light cream sauce with more garlic and served with pasta.

Ann has suggested shredding the kale into ribbons, sauteing it, again, and tossing with pasta. That's next week's plan.

Beef stew meat went in the crock pot with some leftover carrots and celery, a few bottoms of green onions, and some turnips we brought home from the weekend. Cloves and bay and oregano. That was tonight.

Last night was sausage links, eggs, and pancakes from the pancake mix we get from them--plus cut up fruit on the side so we didn't die from cholesterol and carbs.

White beans and sausage. Salad, salad, salad. Sliced strawberries and cream. Hey, that's a haiku.