Survivor’s Guide to Your First CSA: Part II

More tips for adapting to, even flourishing under, your new farmshare:

• Get a salad spinner.  Like it or not, you will be eating a lot of salads.  I ate more salads last year than I had eaten in my whole life previously.  I did not own a salad spinner and I refused to buy one on principle.  The principle that salads aren’t delicious.  So, to dry my wet greens, I would wrap them up in a few dishtowels, wrap a plastic bag around the whole thing, and whip my arm around real fast like a windmill on crack.  It works.  But you look really dumb.  And if you let go, well…just don’t let go.  But it turns out that salads really are delicious (they are!), so I bought a salad spinner last week to celebrate my one-year anniversary with my farm!

• There are very few herbs that can’t be made into pesto.  If you can’t use up your basil, parsley, mint, or cilantro before they wilt, make pesto and it will last for a week in the fridge (or practically forever in the freezer).

• There are very few vegetables that can’t be made into cold, puréed soups.  I live on gazpacho during tomato season.  But I’ve made gazpacho-like concoctions with things other than tomatoes in almost every other color of the rainbow, too, not all of them good.  Some of them got poured right onto the compost heap, but most of them were delicious.

• Whenever you fire up the grill, stick some extra vegetables on there so you have them cooked and ready to eat for the week.  I do this a lot with the endless supply of summer squash.  And, if you have a charcoal grill, you can harness that leftover heat to roast beets.  Nobody wants to turn on the oven in the height of summer for an hour to roast beets (shouldn’t nature be thinking about these things?).  So, when you’re cleaning up from dinner, once the grill has cooled down a bit, just wrap up the beets in some foil (you can peel them later), maybe three to a packet, and position them around the perimeter of the rack (not directly over the glowing coals).  Cover the grill and forget about them for an hour or two.  Three days is too long.  They’ll look all puckered and scary, but they’ll be as sweet as candy.

• Stop looking at your farmer like that.  It’s going to get you in trouble.

• When it comes to recipe ideas, the Internet can be your best friend.  Epicurious, blogs, even checking out your favorite chefs’ menus online are good sources of inspiration.  But I think I’m preaching to the choir here.  Books are also good.  Any good cookbook will do, but the vegetarians tend to know their way around a vegetable.  I’ve also mentioned The Cook and the Gardener before, which arranges its recipes by season and month.  And there are several CSA-centered cookbooks that I’m just beginning to explore.  From Asparagus to Zucchini by the Madison Area CSA Coalition is one, and another is Recipes from America’s Small Farms. 

Finally, my Neighbor reminded me of what, perhaps, is the biggest adjustment when joining a CSA.  The mindset.  When you have every possible ingredient available to you at any time of year at the store, you get into the habit of planning the meals first and getting the ingredients second.  With a CSA, it’s the other way around.  Your lovely farmer does the shopping for you, and so you learn to use what you have.  If you’re stubborn like me, it may take an entire summer to get used to this mode of thinking.  But, the result is that you suddenly become a much better cook.

Enjoy!

Comments

[April in CT]

I just choked on my coffee laughing at "windmill on crack". Now I can't get that visual out of my head!! LOL

Thank you for posting these tips. If I'm ever lucky enough to participate in a CSA these are all good things to know.

I also may have a new way to dry my lettuce off until I get a salad spinner. Free entertainment in the kitchen!

[Gillian]

Changing my mindset was HUGE for me. I felt like I was going grocery shopping in my fridge each week as I would peruse what was in there. It was that change that made me feel in touch with the seasons and the land. I'd get all tingly when I thought about it!! :P

[andrea]

I'm glad you finally got this post up. I was afraid to even comment in the off chance I would possibly allude to something in part II.

Our CSA starts next week - yea!

[Jess]

That beet tip is bloody brilliant! Probably won't work with a gas grill though, huh. Dammit.

You should warn people about the pink pee.

[Barry Foy]

When it comes to salad-whirling, much easier than using towels is to select the thinnest of your old pillowcases and declare it henceforth the official salad-spinning sack. You'll get a bigger circle with a pillowcase than with towels, generating more force for throwing off the water. I'm told the French have done this for ages. Really works, and great entertainment for the neighbors!

[Tammy]

Barry Foy: Pillowcases? Genius! I'm returning my salad spinner.

Jess: Oh yeah, pink pee. Yet another CSA perk.

Andrea: Yay! What's the name of your CSA on the Cape?

Gillian: Now you've gotten me all tingly.

April: When it comes to dry lettuce, I mean business. I didn't just make that tangy vinaigrette so I could water it down with sopping-wet lettuce.

[katrina]

I'm glad I've never got around to buying that salad spinner. I'm dedicating a pillow case instead. The exercise will be good too.

[Kalyn]

Congratulations on becoming a salad spinner owner. I could not live without it! I even have a smaller one for herbs and a big one for greens.

[adele]

Having spent much of my childhood eating wet iceberg lettuce as "salad," (and not enjoying it very much), I made sure that a salad spinner was one of the first things I bought to stock my kitchen.

I haven't found any CSAs that do single-person shares in my corner of Boston, but I tend to go overboard at the Haymarket, so I'm rapidly learning to use up produce before it becomes compost.

An immersion blender is next on my list of kitchen appliances.

[Family Nutritionist]

Julia Child told me (and Jacques Pépin) to steam beats in a pressure cooker for half an hour. It works great.

Please -- which things do not make a good gazpacho? It's for the good of the world

[Bumblebutton]

First pick up for the year was yesterday. What a windfall--I was cleaning and cooking veggies from 8 - 10:30 last night. But it sure is worth it! Two things I do: Wash and destem or whatever all leafy things, drain in a colander and then lightly layer on kitchen towels. Top with another towel. You want them a little damp, so if you use your spinner go lightly. Roll them up snugly, and put them in a labelled gallon size bag, and compress all the air out--lettuce, arugula, etc. really stays fresh and is already clean for your dinner!

After you do a CSA for a couple of years, you get used to the rhythym of the season. I have a little notebook flagged with vegetable names. In each section I have written down my favorite recipes for that veggie, along with which cookbook to find it in and on what page. That way we can eat our veggies even when I'm too tired to be creative. And libraries are a great source for veggie cookbooks when your bookshelves are over-laden like my own!