Egg, Carrot & Kohlrabi Sushi

Japanese-style rolled omelet with farm share kohlrabi and carrots make a vegetarian sushi roll.

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This blog is about how I'm feeding my family from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share to encourage you to try a farm share in your town. Typically the recipes I share are uncomplicated and use ingredients and tools found in regular stores. The food is generally nutritious, filling, and uses up items from the farm share box--but it's not usually fancy pants type food.

As often as I am embarrassed by the many iterations of brown food or fast & easy food on this blog, every once in a while I'm really proud of taking the time to create something pretty using the produce from our farm share. Today's recipe is more elevated compared to my standard fare. This is a terrific Spring/early summer seasonal sushi roll, and since the tantalizing glimpse of sunshine and warmth has me [and the dogs] wanting to lie on the brown grass in the back yard and dream of summer days, I'm sharing it now.

In addition to being a fan of eating from the farm share, I'm also a pretty frugal cook. Since my spouse and I can eat our ages in sushi--and the kids could probably exceed our consumption--it makes sense to roll our own and have sushi at home.  Just like with pizza, something that we like to eat often but don't like to shell out $$ for, sushi at home can be a wonderfully special meal.

I learned to make my own sushi while in my early 20's, living in Washington, DC. I've got a sushi 101 tutorial from the first month of this blog for reference--you can see it here. If you are a hands on learner, I would recommend taking a class. It's fun to learn along with other folks and you can get immediate answers to your questions. I've seen sushi-making classes offered at community centers, grocery stores and kitchenware stores. If you're interested, find a class and try it--then branch out on your own. There's no rule that says you need raw fish to have sushi, you just need a willingness to experiment and some raw materials!

For other recipes using carrots, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection. For other recipes using Kohlrabi, please see my Kohlrabi Recipes Collection (I'm pretty proud of it). These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient--a resource for ideas of what to do with farm share produce. For even more ideas, please feel free to follow my Pinterest boards--this is going on Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks.

Scrambled Egg & Beet Greens Pizza

Farm fresh eggs and farm share beet greens celebrate Spring on this vegetarian pizza.

I have a friend who celebrates the equinoxes with black and white meals. While I'd love the creative challenge, I'm more inspired by the themes of the upcoming season. All over the yard I'm seeing signs of rebirth--the daffodils my dad several years ago are peeping though the leaf mulch, the buds on the peach and dogwood trees are swelling, and I figured out which one of my raised beds has our garlic growing. [I'd forgotten where I planted it.] You can see that photo on my FB page.

I don't know if it's Easter or longer days and happier chickens, but eggs seem more abundant in Spring. I like to put my seasonal abundance on a Friday Night Pizza. I wasn't thrilled with the stress of cracking a raw egg atop a pizza, in my Ham, Asparagus, Leek & Egg Pizza. I worried about burning the crust before fully cooking the egg.

Instead, I figured I would partially cook a scrambled egg and add that to a pizza. Since beet greens and eggs are an amazing combination, I figured I'd give it a try on this pizza. I used a vegan hickory bacon-flavored seasoning salt, and sharp cheddar topped the whole pie. The whole family got on board this one, and I had no daytime leftovers to photograph in natural light.

Reminder to us all--save your eggshells to grind up and add to your garden bed. This will boost the calcium available to your tomatoes and help prevent blossom end rot. Nobody wants a rotten blossom end, especially on a tomato.

For other recipes using beet greens, please see my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other vegetarian pizza recipes please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index or my Friday Night Pizza Night Pinterest board.

Farm Share Pasta Primavera

Fresh spring vegetables, lightly blanched and tossed with pasta in a creamy sauce. A simple, fast vegetarian dish to let the flavors of Spring shine.

Joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share typically means you make the choice to eat more seasonally. Being a seasonal eater means by the end of one season I'm anticipating the next. Being a seasonal eater with a food blog means I'm working 9 months to a year behind as we approach the end of a season. Perhaps I could turn the frown upside down and say I'm working ahead. I mean, yesterday I made 2 desserts that will appear in April and July, respectively.

As my spouse and I resume our evening walks I see signs of Spring all over--except for my garden, which is still looking like a not-quite-ready compost pile. [It makes me realize how impressed I am with the ingenuity of farmers. With hard work, hoop houses and row covers, they manage to get a jump on Mother Nature every year.] It will be a couple of months until the local vegetables are ready for me to share current recipe ideas.  Instead, I rely on notes [notes get misplaced, it's a spiral binder for me now] a notebook and a well-labeled photo library to bring ideas for what to do with your produce.

This recipe has been on the second* page of my current spiral notebook for 10 months. I made it in the early weeks of the farm share, when the fast-growing crops--like peas and radishes--are abundant in the box. This pasta reminded me of the satisfying and quickly assembled meals my vegetarian roommates and I would fix, then enjoy on the porch while the evenings were ever-lighter and the weather still cool enough that a warm bowl of pasta was appreciated. [You could totally eat this cold, I just prefer the flavors warm.]

For other recipes using broccoli, please see my Broccoli Recipes Collection, for other recipes using carrots, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection, for other recipes using peas, please see my Pea Recipes Collection, for other recipes using radishes, please see my Radish Recipes Collection. These are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient--since it's the easiest way to figure out what to fix in my opinion. If you want to pin your ideas, you're welcome to follow me on Pinterest.