CSA Booty - Week 1

I have struggled with whether or not to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group. I have grown a fair number of my own vegetables, and usually supplemented with a local farm stand. But since starting my own business two years, commercial enterprise has supplanted my personal agricultural efforts. So I was thrilled when fate intervened and I WON A CSA MEMBERSHIP! Hell yeah. The Newburyport Choral Society ran a raffle and gave away a [generously donated] membership to the Arrowhead Farm CSA. I never win anything, so I was even more excited to win such a useful prize.

Today I made my first pickup. Arrowhead offers an early spring add-on to their regular (summer) CSA shares. Today's bounty included:

• 2 bunches of broccoli rabe
• 2 bunches of arugula
• 2 heads of bok choy
• 2 heads of lettuce
• 2 bunches of rhubarb
• 1 bunch Swiss chard
• 1 bunch beets
• sprigs of basil and Thai basil
• a ton of chive blossoms

I realized as soon as I got the great news, that I need to do a menu plan each week when I pick up my vegetables. Otherwise, I am confident that a large portion of each pickup will end up in the compost pile. So here's my plan for this week:

• The rabe and arugula are little bolted and flowering, so I'm probably going to cook them down to use as side dish or to stir in to a soup.
• The beets and beet greens are going into a quiche with some goat cheese.
• The Swiss chard leaves will be blanched and then stuffed with a bulgur wheat salad made with tomato, feta, scallions and parsley.
• Bok choy goes into a noodle stir fry with broccoli, celery and carrots. The stir fry will be topped with a fried egg.
• The lettuce will become salads.
• The chive blossoms went into right into rice vinegar and will be chive blossom vinegar in two or three days.
• and, I think, the rhubarb will put in a tart and turned into juice for rhubarbaritas.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered int he raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog.