My (veggie) cup runneth over

I, of course, got the prettiest one

   Hole-ly crap, I am drowning in vegetables.  The inside of my refrigerator looks like a tropical jungle with every shade of green possible.  All because I joined a CSA.  And because I just know you'll ask, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  And because I know you'll ask again, here's how it works.  You pay a local farmer upfront for a share of the harvest through out the summer.  Or at least that's how it usually works.  The CSA I joined is a little bit different.  While they do prefer people to pay in advance, they give the option of paying once per month with cash or plastic, OR (and here's why I joined) weekly with foodstamps.  For a mere $21 a week I am provided with a beautiful canvas bag overflowing with goodness.  Local, Spray free, seasonal, fresh, and mutually beneficial.  This particular CSA is run by Global Gardens, part of the Idaho Office for Refugees.  All of the food is grown, in and close around the city, by refugee farmers tending small urban farms.

Week one

    Last week I was graced with: 2 head of lettuce, a bag each of spinach and arugula, bunches of radishes, scallions and cilantro, a small bunch of kale, and a good sized head of bok choi.  This week it's: 2 heads of lettuce, bunches of radishes, carrots and cilantro, a small bunch of turnips, some collard greens, 2 purple kohlrabi, a bag of spinach, a tiny bag of broccoli and some young garlic.
   They also have arraignments with other farms so there are a few optional add ons.   For $60 per month you can get 10 pounds of naturally raised meat (beef, pork, or a mix), for $9 per week you can get 4 pounds of organic fruit, and for $6 per week you can get all natural frozen pizza dough.  I signed up for all of the above.

Week two

                                                     I am really enjoying cooking with all of this fresh goodness.  This is my first year of making a real effort to eat seasonally and I am really enjoying it so far.  I was so excited to find out there was going to be bok choi in the bag last week.  I LOOOOVE bok choi.  Naturally, I made stir fry.  ok ok ok, I can't really call it stir fry, 'cause there was very little frying involved.  Thai style veg and tofu is more like it.  I tossed the scallions, some garlic and ginger, and a wee bit of red curry paste in the pan for a quick fry.  Then I added brown sugar, coconut milk, tofu, broccoli, zucchini, red pepper, bok choi,  and radishes.  At the very end I snipped in the cilantro and served it with rice and sriracha.

this little guy nearly became stir fry

I even have the proper utensils to eat it with

Spring Time in Boise

is not as glamorous as springtime in Paris, but MUCH less snooty.  It brings wildly fluctuating temperatures, hoards of pissy geese, and the return of the Capital City Public Market, aka That Farmer's Market that fraks up traffic downtown every Saturday morning.
   I've mentioned before that Beastie is playing T-ball this year.  His games are in Boise (we live 20 miles away in Nampa) and half of them are Saturday afternoons.  At some point I realized that it's pretty silly to drive into Boise, just for a one hour t-ball game, so I started looking for things we could do while we were in town.  The top of my list was the farmer's market.  We've gone three weeks in a row now, and each week I come home with more.

This is just what made it home....

   This week's haul include: A bag of pink lady apples, a bunch of radishes, a bunch of red spring onions, a bottle of basil infused Kombucha, and some fiddle head ferns.  The things that didn't make it home were some vegetarian Sambusas eaten for breakfast, Parmesan bread sticks eaten for a snack, a glass of horchata, a glass of organic root beer, and a blueberry handheld pie.

See how pretty?

I was pretty excited when I saw the fiddle head ferns.  I've heard, seen, and read that they are a prized ingredient with a super short season.  How could I pass them up?  So I got a modest half pound, and my brain started into overdrive thinking about how I would use them.

The makings of a fine meal

  Right away I thought of stir fry, so I set about gathering up any other fresh vegetation that might be tasty.  What I found was radishes and spring onions.  Some people might look at me funny when I mention the radishes, but those people just don't know how mild and sweet radishes get when they are cooked.

  While some brown rice was cooking I blanched the ferns and marinated some tofu in soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and a little bit of red pepper.  I then stir fried the tofu and onions.  When the onions were nice and soft I added the ferns and the radishes.  Those cooked for another 5 minutes, then at the last minute I added the last bit of a jar of terriyaki sauce I had in the fridge.

A bowl of spring

 
The result was a fabulous meal, seasonal and fresh.  The fiddle head ferns were mild and slightly chewy.  The kids liked their curly-q shape and gobbled them right down.  It's a real shame that their season is so very short, I may have to get more next weekend, if it's not too late.