In the share this week:
1 head napa cabbage
1 head bok choy or 1 bag sugar snap peas
1 bunch beets
1 bunch radishes
1 bunch red spring onions
1 bunch curly kale
2 little gem lettuce
1 bunch parsley
Thoughts from Farmer Anna:
It's slightly silly that the one picture I took of the veg we harvested yesterday was these onions. I think this is now week three of posting an onion pic in the newsletter :) I do have love for the other veggies as well, but these onions were just such show-stoppers, I couldn't help it! We are now harvesting the red variety of spring onions that we planted in October. It's a slightly different variety this year and I'm very pleased at how they are filling out. Just gorgeous. Please use every part of these fresh spring onions if you are inclined. We love to chop the whole thing up into whatever we are making!
This share is a hefty haul this week! I'm excited about the napa cabbage. We typically just grow this crop in the fall, but I'm glad we put it in for spring because it's ready faster than all the other brassicas and it looks pretty darn good (despite a little slug damage that has been tough to avoid with our wet, wet spring). I'm most likely going to use some napa in an Asian-type noodle soup tonight. If you'd like to do this too, you can add in your red spring onions, and bok choy too! Or if you'd rather use the napa in a salad format (also a wonderful use for this veggie!), you could try something like this slaw recipe below, which also includes beets and parsley:
Beets are one of those vegetables that can keep quite a long time in the fridge if you first remove the greens. All root veggies store best if you remove the greens and then store in a bag or sealed container. You can store the greens in a separate bag if you'd like to cook those down with some of the other greens in your share. Cooking greens is a great way to use a bunch of them and you can even briefly steam them to wilt and condense and then freeze those blanched greens for later use. It starts to get real when you have such an awesome bounty of veggies coming your way! If you need other resources to help you figure out what to do with your veggies or how to store or preserve them, our partners at KY Farm Share Coalition has some great info on their website here: https://www.kyfarmshare.org/csa-vegetable-guide
Another great CSA-friendly meal idea is to make a grain bowl! We did this last night with onions, kale, turnips, and some green garlic sauteed and served on top of quinoa with some vinaigrette. You can top with various proteins maybe cheese, nuts, or a fried egg. So easy and comforting and makes great leftovers for lunch another day. You can use so many different veg and flavor combinations in a grain bowl. Have fun experimenting, or search up some ideas that others have tried.
I'd love to share some of your recipe wins or ideas here in the newsletter sometime too! Let me know if you tried something with our veggies that you'd like to recommend to others.
Have a great week everyone!