Week 11 share from the Little River Market Garden CSA in Miami. This is the last CSA share I will be able to pick up from the CSA, since we are moving to Brooklyn. I’m excited about getting to experience somewhere new, but am also totally sad to be leaving the CSA. I’ve absolutely loved getting LRMG veggies and wholeheartedly suggest anyone even remotely interested in eating local produce, or even good produce, should check them out. Muriel does a fantastic job and she’s doing a great thing with the garden. Check out the garden here.

CSA Share 11

1 pint + a little extra heirloom tomatoes

1 bunch collards

1 bunch yukina savoy

1 bunch cutting celery

1 bunch Chinese leeks

1 bag nasturtiums

3 star fruit

3 roots yucca

2 avocados

2 jujubes

What I Made With My Share

I am a horrible blogger, cooker, and all around food person. I did bad, bad things with the few veggies I actually used this week.

I absolutely ruined the beautiful tomatoes. Horribly, horribly ruined them. I had intended on making these kickass slow-roasted tomatoes, but ended up making charcoal instead.

I squandered the nasturtiums as well, because I’ve been so preoccupied with moving I’ve been eating absolute garbage instead of cooking.

I ate one of the jujubes at least. The jujube is an odd fruit – light on taste, with a vaguely green pear thing going on.

I did manage to make a decent meal; yet another “white girl pho” with the yukina savoy and a smattering of cutting celery.

The Best Thing I Made This Week

By default it’s the pho. It was nice — I used crushed garlic this time, and the slight change it brought to the flavor profile was nice.

Up Next Week

I’d love to say I’ll use everything, but probably not. If either of the avocados aren’t too horrid at this point, I will try an avocado pasta dish tonight with garlic and home made bacon.

Tomorrow is Valentines day, which I always take as an excuse to make something decadent and beefy. This year I will be making a beef tenderloin with some sort of reduced red wine sauce, a yucca and potato mash and if the collards haven’t died, collards with something spicy.

Other than that, no promises. The hubby will be out of town for a portion of this week, I’ll be packing, and trying not to freak out about the moving too much.

New To Me Veggies

Jujube – From the Little River Market Garden website: Jujubes, especially the variety we are sharing this week, are an extremely rare fruit.  A friend and neighbor has a beautiful tree full of fruit and we’ve been tracking it, waiting for them to get big enough for harvesting.  Her tree produces large fruit, about the size of a large kiwi or plum.  The closest thing they can be compared to is a granny smith apple, but less tart.  The skin, which is the same color as a granny smith, is much thinner and contains non of the bitterness of an apple.  The flesh is crisp and white like that of a pear. Jujubes are a common Asian and Eastern European fruit, supposedly containing many medicinal properties.  It is a treat to have access to these fruit in Miami, we should consider ourselves lucky!

Week 10 share from the Little River Market Garden CSA

CSA Share 10

1 quart mixed heirloom tomatoes

1 pint Asian eggplant

1 bunch Napa cabbage

1 bunch mustard greens

1 bunch parsley

1 bunch Ethiopian kale

1 bunch baby purple top turnips with greens

1 spring onion

What I Made With My Share

I used the eggplant, mustard greens, lots of tomatoes and half of the parsley in a burnt eggplant with tahini dish that turned out ok. The eggplant kinda dried out and wasn’t terribly usable, but the dish was good.

I used half the cabbage and the onion greens in a fried rice with eggs and home made bacon.

I used the turnips, turnip greens, kale and onion bottom in a braised turnips and apples dish.

I threw the rest of the tomatoes in everything I could, and ate a few out of hand.

The Best Thing I Made This Week

Braised Turnips and Apples

Up Next Week

I have a small head of cabbage, half a bunch of parsley and some slowly dying dill left over.

New To Me Veggies

Ethiopian Kale – Looks suspiciously like my bestie Hon Tsai Tai. According to AVRDC.org, this brassica is grown all throughout eastern and southern Africa and yields frequent harvests throughout the growing season. Since I grew up in the 80s with frequent ‘children are dying in Ethiopia so you’d better eat your lima beans’ admonishments, I had no idea Ethiopia had enough water to grow greens. Aren’t they prone to massive drought? Methinks I need to do some culinary exploration. All I know of Ethiopian food is that wat rocks, I love raw beef, and the fermented flat bread freaks me right out. And Marcus Samuelsson is passionate about it.

Week 9 share from the Little River Market Garden CSA

CSA Share 9

1 bunch hon tsai tai
1 head heirloom cabbage
1 bunch rainbow carrots with greens
2 avocados
1 pint heirloom tomatoes
1 black sapote
1 bunch dill
What I Made With My Share

I made a decent pasta salad with a little dill, the tomatoes, aged balsamic and parmesan. I threw in half an avocado with some of the leftovers, and the dish was even better.

I made a carrot green pesto, which I served with carrot risotto, which was pretty great.

I sautéed the cabbage in a little butter with caraway seeds, home made bacon and egg noodles. This dish was bland but palatable.

I made an asian-inspired concoction of avocado, hon tsai tai, pomegranate molasses, sesame, fish sauce, chili oil, walnut oil, soy and lime served over soba.

I ate the sapote out of hand with a little honey.

The Best Thing I Made This Week

Carrot Pesto Risotto

Or possibly this asian-inspired concoction. I should have written a recipe, but I forgot.

Up Next Week

I have a handful of the dill leftover, so I will have to work to incorporate that with the veggies we get next week.

New To Me Veggies

Heirloom Cabbage – Wtf is an heirloom cabbage? Is it just pretentious hipster cabbage? The Sustainable Seed Co. sells a variety of heirloom cabbage seeds, but doesn’t really go into what makes them ‘heirloom’. From what I can tell, heirloom cabbages like rich heavy loam soil, but will do well in heavy clay. They also need even more moisture (than other cabbage?) to produce well. From the pictures on that site, it looks like my cone head cabbage is called Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage, a varietal released in 1868. This cabbage was popular in 19th century markets and needs little room to grow. According to Sustainable’s sources, this varietal is the first early cabbage variety and is recognized as the best as well. Well, then. I maybe should have taken more care with my seasonings. I wasn’t aware I had special cabbage.

Week 8 share from the Little River Market Garden CSA

CSA Share 8

1 hand bananas
1 large papaya
1 bunch cutting celery
1 bunch arugula
1 bunch turnips with tops
1 pint heirloom tomatoes
1 quart Asian eggplant
1 bunch dinosaur kale

What I Made With My Share

I gave the papaya away – I just don’t like them and decided to quit pretending that I might someday.

The tomatoes were so good, I ate them out of hand – all of them – while I was prepping dinner one night.

2 of my bananas had split skins, the rest are still ripening on the counter.

I used the cutting celery, some leftover carrot from last week and a handful of carrot greens in this delightful pork stir fry.

I diced and fried the eggplant for use in a pasta with dinosaur kale, farfalle, aged balsamic, truffle oil and parmesan.

I tossed the arugula with some leftover carrot, a diced radish, onion and faro with a pomegranate molasses and walnut oil dressing.

I roasted the turnips, remaining carrots, radishes and some onion and served in a sweet tart sauce over soba.

The Best Thing I Made This Week

This celery and pork stir fry.

Up Next Week

I’m pretty well cleaned out this week. Next week I will start fresh.

New To Me Veggies

Cutting Celery aka Herb Celery -According to author Barbara Pleasant, cutting celery (Apium graveolens var. secalinum) is a more primitive variety of everyday supermarket celery. It’s more flavorful than “regular” celery, and is the perfect plant to grow in home gardens because it can be revisited multiple times throughout the season. Cutting celery is great used fresh in salads or cooked in soups, stews or stir-fries.

Week 7 share from the Little River Market Garden CSA

CSA Share 7

Bunch pretty, fat carrots with a huge jungle of carrot greens attached

Loose assorted radishes (watermelon, black spanish and breakfast)

1 huge bunch kale

1 bunch mustard greens

1 bunch Chinese leeks

2 bunches Yukina Savoy

3 stalks lemongrass

Leftover hon tsai tai and papaya from last week

What I Made With My Share

Gnocchi with toasted garlic, walnuts and hon tsai tai, which wasn’t half bad.

Another pho-ish bowl incorporating carrot, radish, yukina savoy, lemongrass and Chinese leeks. Yum.

A kale, lentil, apple and onion salad with pomegranate molasses vinaigrette, which was light and tasty.

A mostly inedible dish involving mustard greens, a chickpea mash and the remaining Chinese leeks.

The Best Thing I Made This Week

The pho-ish. I’m not going to bore you with another faux pho dish so soon, so no recipe this week. I’ve been busy attempting to work out while mulling a possible move over this week, so haven’t remembered to write any recipes down.

Up Next Week

I still have the dreaded papaya hanging around my fridge, and rumor has it we’re getting more next week. I spent this week ignoring the papaya to deal with the sudden greens jungle that had taken over my fridge. Ok, and I just don’t want to deal with it.

I also have some errant carrots, a ton of carrot greens and some assorted radishes left over to deal with at some point.

New To Me Veggies

Yukina Savoy

Yukina Savoy is a brassica, similar to bok choy or tatsoi (but larger). I think it’s even tastier than its more familiar counterparts and hope to get this green again.

Week 6 share from the Little River Market Garden CSA

CSA Share 6

1 bunch green Swiss Chard

1 bunch mustard greens

1 bunch flowering hon tsai tai

5 Asian eggplants

1 stem Italian basil

1 ripe papaya

2 star fruit

What I Made With My Share

Mustard green caesar salad with anchovy croutons

This starfruit soba dish

A pasta dish featuring chard, aged balsamic, parmesan/romano cheese, cherry tomatoes and caramelized onions

The Best Thing I Made This Week

The pasta dish was nice, but what really took this week’s cake was the starfruit soba dish. Something about the sweet tartness of the starfruit mixed with the vinegary punch of the dressing just really did it for me this week. I’ll have to make the eggplant from this recipe again, too.

Up Next Week

I have papaya and hon tsai tai left over from this week. I had planned on serving the greens with whole wheat gnocchi, toasted garlic and walnut, but we shall see.

I still have zero idea what to do with the papaya, and really hope it doesn’t become this CSA’s version of strawberries (I got strawberries in every single share last year). I’ve got to find something to do with this papaya.

New To Me Veggies

This week there was nothing terribly new, though I hadn’t had Asian eggplant in awhile and forgot just how much tastier they can be (as opposed to the Italian style big huge eggplants).