Help! I just got my CSA farm share. Now what do I do with it?

Practical advice for folks eating from a farm share including the three questions of Vegetable Triage and what to do when you bring your farm share into your kitchen.

A typical early Spring farm share--plenty of greens, peas, radishes, onions and garlic.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

Take a deep breath. I'm here to help.

It seemed like such a great idea, back in the cold dark days of winter, to sign up for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. A weekly box of fresh local vegetables and fruits? I'm in! Now reality is setting in. You've got a fridge filled with unfamiliar produce and the clock is ticking down to the next farm share day.
Before you're tempted to chuck it in the trash (gulp!) or swirl it down the disposal (noooo!) or toss it on the top of the compost heap (BTDT!) please read on.

Every day, some Thing in life can be overwhelming, but you get thru it by breaking The Thing down into smaller chunks. This applies to grief, term papers, and parenting as well. In terms of your farm share, this means you need physical, or at least mental, Vegetable Triage when the produce first arrives at your house.

The Three Questions of Vegetable Triage:

1. What can live outside my refrigerator?
2. What can I prep so I'm more likely to use it?
3. What do I need to use up first?

Garlic Scape Pesto & Ricotta Muffins #MuffinMonday

These savory muffins are flavored with garlic scape pesto & ricotta cheese. They bake up quickly for an easy bread to serve alongside pasta, chicken, or fish.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

Ever make a main dish and think at the last moment, "you know, some hot bread would be great with this"? That's one of the reasons I like muffins--they come together quickly (as in, thrown together while an entree is baking) and usually require just pantry ingredients. Simply pop them into the already hot oven and a few minutes later you've got yourself a hot bread to accompany your meal.  Take that, yeast breads!

I envisioned these muffins alongside a plate of lasagna, spaghetti & meatballs, or a crock pot pizza casserole where the pesto-ricotta combination can enhance the entree. They'd be terrific with my Pesto Ricotta Baked Swai recipe or my Chicken Spinach Artichoke Pesto Pasta recipe. When I made them I was just craving a savory quick bread I could slather in buttery spread and snarf down while standing in the kitchen with my wiener dog, Vincent, at my feet catching the crumbs. True story! These muffins assuaged the craving.

I was not interested in having a full pan of muffins to feed a larger group--I just wanted enough for our family--so I filled my muffin cups much fuller than usual. The resulting large muffins took a few more minutes to bake, but Vincent and I didn't mind. This recipe could be stretched into a dozen if you make them smaller than I did.

the wet ingredients

Seasonal eaters will delight in the inclusion of garlic scape pesto in this recipe. If you know what it is and you've got some--go for it. If you're not sure where in the grocery store you'd buy garlic scape pesto, let me give you a Top Tip: it's not there. Use a prepared pesto instead, and check out this Garlic Scape Recipe Round Up to learn more about the wonders of garlic scapes.

Garlic Scape and Goat Cheese Omelette

This vegetarian omelette is stuffed with garlic scapes, parsley, and creamy goat cheese for a fresh Spring flavor using what's growing right now.

Yes, the tomatoes are local--from my friend's CSA. The pancakes? From the freezer section of the grocery store. 

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

Time for a reality check. I find eating locally and seasonally hardest right around now. Loads of produce is in its active growing phase, but there's precious little produce ready to harvest. I've exhausted the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve in the corner of my cold basement. There's a continually replenished supply of empty canning jars coming out of the dishwasher and hanging around the counter, awaiting transport downstairs. I'm starting to see space in the fruit and vegetable freezer, yet I'm sick of using the frozen produce I put up last year.

I want fresh. I want vibrant. I want green!

Enter this simple meal. Since we get local eggs year round from the farmer's market, an omelette is a great Go To entree no matter the time of day. It's a simple matter of popping out to the garden to pick some parsley and a garlic scape which adds a bit of crunch, color, and flavor to the filling. I finished it off with a bit of creamy goat cheese because--magical markdown stickers, yo.

What's a garlic scape, you ask? I'm glad to enlighten--it's the flowering portion of a head of garlic. Happily for all involved (as someone who's been growing her annual garlic supply for about a decade, I'll be both a producer and a consumer here) we producers and consumers of garlic would rather have a fat garlic bulb than another pretty allium flower in the garden bed. So we cut off the twisty flower stalk and guess what happens? The plant puts its energy into growing a bigger bulb. This is truly a win-win situation--we get mild garlic flavored scapes now, and more garlic to harvest later. Farmers can sell both the scapes and the harvested garlic. How awesome is that?