CSA Box

Thursday already? Let’s see what I got this week.

Only one basket of strawberries.

These will go quickly; about 1/3 of them got et up for dinner.

Half dozen eggs, in the new TLC Ranch packaging! Like a real egg carton, and everything!

Evidently, they don’t have too many of these, though. In this week’s email from LEF, we were told

their supplier is temporarily out of the half-dozen-sized egg cartons and they are ‘scrambling’ to acquire more. So if you’ve been saving them with the intention of bringing them back to your pick-up site one day… this week would be ‘the day’ to do it!

Then the colorful portion of the box:

Radishes, carrots, green garlic and red onions. No apples this week (yay!) but red onions seem to substitute in color and quantity. I will really try to make a pie this week. No, really. The carrots and radishes have been separated from their tops and stored in the fridge; more on the radish tops in a bit.

This week’s greens: two bunches of spinach, four incredibly tiny and cute heads of romaine lettuce, and more baby bok choy. The spinach is making me think of chickpeas and tomatoes, and the lettuce seems manageable as little lunch salads. I will probably stir fry the bok choy.

Fava beans and artichokes. This is what I decided to make for dinner, along with the radish leaves. First, Clotilde Dusoulier posted about radish leaves this week (my favorite part of that post was that French has a different word for leaves of plants which are mainly grown for another part, such as radishes or carrots) and then I ate them in ravioli Tuesday evening at the Sheep and Weeds dinner. So, instead of throwing them in the compost bin, I decided to cook them.

But I had to deal with the artichokes before that. I peeled off the leaves, up to the point where there was a good bit of tender yellow at the base of the remaining leaves,

and then cut there.

Then I scooped out the choke with a small spoon.

Then I sliced the heart with one of my new knives (which I’m still keeping in their box, like sacred objects) and put in into acidulated water. (I love the word “acidulated.”) I used an already-squeezed lemon half; no need to sacrifice a fresh one. This keeps them from discoloring, although that’s not so important when one is planning to puree them, anyway. It’s habit.

The tiny artichoke (which grows on a side stem; they’re not harvested early) didn’t have a choke, so I just peeled and cut it.

I shelled the favas, but, following Randy’s suggestion, did not bother to peel the beans. Then I melted about 2 tablespoons of butter over low heat, and added three of my green garlic wands from last week, plus the favas, the artichoke hearts and about 3/4 cup of water. I stewed these for about 15 minutes, then added the radish leaves, which I’d washed, but I didn’t bother to pick out the stems, as I would if I weren’t pureeing them. They cooked for a further 4 minutes, and I pureed the whole thing with about 1/4 cup of olive oil, three more garlic cloves, juice of a half lemon, salt and pepper.

I brushed bread with olive oil and toasted it, and served the puree on top.

It was really good.