Gastography

Whoo hoo! It’s CSA time again! Time to shrug off winter’s recipe rut and reign spring’s exuberance with bi-monthly boxes of vegetables (and hopefully meat).

This year’s CSA is from Brooklyn Beet CSA. Brooklyn Beet provides veggie shares from Angel Family Farm, a sustainable farm located in Orange County, NY that was created with the support of GrowNYC’s New Farmer Development Project; fruit shares from Hepworth Family Farm, a 250-acre NOFA-certified seventh-generation family farm in Milton, NY; baked goods from Wild Mountain Bread based in Brooklyn; and a wide variety of grass-fed beef, pasture raised pork, and other products (like other meats, cheeses, bread, flour, grains, lax-fermented vegetables, pastas and other pantry goods) from Lewis Waite Farm, which sources from over 35 local family farms.

I purchased a half share, and will be getting a box containing 6-8 vegetables (about 2 bags worth) every other week from June – October (11 shares), and plan on ordering a carnivore share box from Lewis Waite (4-6 lbs. of meat) for pickup each veggie week. I also purchased a “Challenger Share” for the season (6 deliveries total) containing odd bits like animal fats, organ meats, neck bones, shanks, and rendered lard to stretch my culinary skills. The price of my CSA averages out to $25.50 per share for veggies, plus an additional $45 per pickup week for meat/offal. This total will be accounted for in my weekly Adventures In Budget Paleo Cooking posts.

You would think by now that I’d be used to flying blind when it comes to CSA season, since they rarely seem to post previews of upcoming shares, but I’m not. At least not going into this first week. Pickup this year is on Tuesday, so it looks like another summer of alltheveggies for half a week & utilizing the stragglers before they go bad on Mondays and Tuesdays. Such is the life of a CSA devotee. Boom and bust every week (or every other week, in my case).

Brooklyn Beets 2015 CSA Box 2

1 bunch red mustard greens
1 bunch English breakfast radishes
1 bunch baby spinach
1 bunch purslane
4 heads garlic with stalks
1 big bunch collard greens
8 garlic scapes
1 small head romaine lettuce
1 bunch broccoli raab

Lewis Waite Meat Share 1 (to the right)

1 lb. some sort of bird leg
1 lb. turkey breast
1 lb. london broil
1 lb. fresh chorizo

Lewis Waite Challenge Share – 1st Delivery (to the left)

This month is fats. I got regular fat back and smoked fat back. I now have enough (rendered and chunk) fat to last for months. Whoo hoo!

How I Used My Share

I used the garlic scapes in every meal I’ve made in place of garlic cloves.

I used a couple radishes and a third of the baby spinach as a bed for roasted chicken thighs with peaches.

I ate the rest of the spinach in lunch salads.

I made southern style collards with some of the smoked fat back and confited the bird leg in rendered pork fat from the unsmoked fat back.

I also made pork cracklins from the unsmoked fat back.

I served the mustard greens with the chorizo and some potatoes in a nice hash.

I ate the lettuce in lunch salads. I threw in radishes when I remembered to.

I made purslane and basil pesto, which I served over the turkey breast with a side of roasted garlic cauliflower mash.

I grilled the London Broil and served with sautéed broccoli raab with onions and leftover roasted garlic cauliflower mash.

Leftovers: Beets, a few garlic scapes, a few now kinda sad looking radishes.

My Favorite Dish From This Box

My favorite from this box had to be the supremely Southern night – cracklins, confit bird and greens. Delicious, though the chorizo hash was a close second.