Zero Waste CSA Week 2

This summer we are challenging ourselves to get creative with our cooking and use as much of the vegetable as possible. See my first post here. I am hoping that this blog series serves as a bit of inspiration for you as your are cooking with fresh veggies this summer– either from the grocery store, a CSA, or a farmer’s market. Someone recently pointed out this gem of a cookbook to me:

I just ordered it, so I’m sure I will have some recipes from it the share as the weeks go on! This week our CSA consisted of lettuce, arugula, strawberries, scallions, herbs, white turnips, swiss chard, a cucumber, and bok choy.

Here are some ways that we used our veggies this week:

• Once again the strawberries were gone within a day– they were even better than last week’s strawberries.
• Homemade Pizza— I just bought some dough at the grocery store, and topped it with tomato sauce, feta, fresh basil, fresh oregano, shallots, cooked Italian sausage, and swiss chard. This will definitely be something that we replicate with various veggies from our CSA this summer.
• Kohlrabi & Cucumber– My favorite way to eat kohlrabi is just by peeling, cutting, and then dipping in humus. In the past we have also roasted kohlrabi with potatoes or carrots. I just put the kohlrabi leaves in our freezer stash of leftover veggies to use for vegetable broth later on, but you can use the kohlrabi leaves in various recipes too. I’m planning on using this recipe the next time we get kohlrabi in our box. We also ate the whole cucumber with humus, which is delicious. Humus is a staple in our kitchen during the summer time.
• Herb-Roasted Salmon—  Last night I baked salmon in the oven and topped it with some fresh herbs (basil, sage, oregano, and shallots), lemon juice, and oil. I loosely followed this recipe. I was craving some avocados, so I made a grapefruit and avocado salad to serve along with it.
• Salads– Still living on salads every day with all of our arugula, butter lettuce, and purple lettuce and I can’t complain.
• Bok Choy– This is a Chinese vegetable and it’s used in a lot of stir fries. Last week I made a chicken and bok choy stir fry, which was delicious. This week Collin made a sauteed bok choy with fried rice that uses the whole vegetable and was super easy. In researching a bit more about this veggie, I learned that it can be a good substitute for cabbage if eaten raw. Next time I’ll have to try this recipe. 

My good friend, Shelby, just wrote this fabulous post on her website, Pure&Simple, titled “What is a CSA and Why Should I Care”. In her post, she wrote:

“One way we can make more environmentally friendly choices in our daily lives is through our purchasing power with food choices. When we buy foods that are shipped in from all over the world those shipping methods have huge environmental impacts (not to mention the quality is just not the same, as local and in season foods). If we focus on using our purchasing power to support local farms, then we will naturally be eating in season, supporting smaller scale, local farms that are struggling to compete, and limit the environmental impact by minimizing transportation costs. Additionally, it seems to me, that many smaller farms practice agricultural methods that lead to increased soil fertility, increased nutritional value, and use practices that are better on the animals and plants in their area.”

Shelby is the queen of zero-waste living, and she is part of my inspiration for this CSA challenge. I hope you are a bit more inspired to shop local, challenge yourself, and make choices that are good for your community and the environment.

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