Zero Waste CSA Week 3

I feel like I am playing “Iron Chef” every week with all of these new types of veggies, but it has been a fun challenge and I still have not wasted ANY of our CSA produce. I hope you are feeling a bit more inspired to be an iron chef too after reading this post. 🙂

— Read my posts from week 1 here and week 2 here —

This week our CSA included: kohlrabi, beets, turnips, zucchini, baby kale, butter lettuce, red lettuce, green onions, and garlic scrapes.

• The first night, I made used our kohlrabi in this recipe as a side with a pork loin. The kohlrabi tastes almost like a potato when roasted, so we loved this way to use kohlrabi, plus we used the greens as well. I put the peelings in our vegetable stock bag in the freezer. My bag of vegetable stock ingredients have grown in the last few weeks, and I should be able to try making a batch sometime next week.
• It’s the first zucchini of the year! Collin’s garden gave us two zucchini this week as well (I think that we are going to have more zucchini than we know what to do with this summer). I used my spiralizer and made pad thai with the zoodles. I used a combination of this recipe and this recipe to make the sauce, and used the zucchini noodles in place of rice noodles.
• Beet Greens Strata— I am not a fan of beets (Collin is), but I like the greens of the plant. They are very similar to swiss chard, so you can use it the same way. One night I made a Beet Greens Strata for the next morning. This was the first recipe I have used from the “Root to Stalk Cooking” book that I mentioned in my last post. I just cooked the greens like you would swiss chard (separating the stem and leaves and cooking the stems for longer) with green onions and garlic scrapes. I tossed the cooked veggies with cheese and cubed day-old bread and placed the mix in an 8×8 pan. I whisked together some eggs and cream and poured it over the bread mixture. Let it spend the night in the fridge and then –voila– breakfast the next morning. I contemplated freezing this until an occasion, but ate it the next day anyways.
• The beets and turnips that we got this week and last week are fine for a few weeks in the fridge. I’m not sure yet what we’ll do with the turnips, but I think Collin is going to end up pickling the beets to toss in salads.
• I had no idea what to do with the collard greens, and I was even skeptical while it was cooking. It just looked like Popeye’s canned spinach. I used this recipe, titled “Kickin’ Collard Greens”-– so you know it’s great. But actually, it WAS good. The greens were buttery and perfect. If you ever have collard green to use, this recipe is a must. I served it as a side with rosemary salmon. I was lucky enough to steal several bunches of herbs from my mother-in-law this past weekend.
• The garlic scrapes and green onions are still fresh and we have been using them both throughout the week. It’s so convenient to just chop off parts as we need them, and just leave the ends in water to keep growing.
• And of course we are still eating salads nonstop. It’s starting to be hard to be creative with all of this lettuce. 🙂

I have had a lot of people asking me various questions about our CSAs. Here is a quick explanation from Justfood.org:

So what are some pros/cons are of joining a CSA vs. just shopping at a grocery store or farmer’s market? I found this great link here. We have loved being a part of the Blackbrook Farm CSA this year & we are super excited to go visit the farm next weekend to meet our farmers!

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