Week 2 - the meals

Week 2 - a definite success!

I am finding new joy in cooking good food for my family, using unique veggies and unleashing my creative side in spicing up familiar dishes. I am excited and passionate like never before about this area of service as a wife and mother. We are all eating several servings of nutrient filled, dark green leafies each day and feeling great!

Favorite moments: walking out to my raised garden beds and munching a handful of oh-so-sweet pea pods each morning and evening while I am watering. Harvesting huge bunches of gorgeous dark green kale and eating trays of baked kale chips (and sharing with two little munchkins). My evening ritual of preparing green smoothies (berries, beet greens & yogurt) for my husband to take to work, and watching kiddos holding their smoothies and sipping from the straw like it was the best thing to happen to them.

The main meals:

Friday we had t-bone steak, baked chard and roasted potatoes with garlic scapes. So delicious! Garlic scapes are buttery and flavorful, simply devine sauteed in butter or olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

The colorful red and yellow chard stems are sitting on my counter in brine for a few days, naturally fermenting for a healthy snack.

Saturday was grilled hot dogs, homemade lacto-fermented ketchup, lettuce and radicchio salad with feta, cranberries, olives, and homemade balsamic dressing. The favorite component (voted to be better than french fries by my husband) was kohlrabi fries with garlic aeoli sauce for dipping.

Sunday - our classic tomato soup and grilled cheese, except I spiced the sandwiches up with sauteed garlic scapes and bacon. Yum. I also baked the kohlrabi leaves as a side, leaving nothing to waste.

Monday was my favorite meatloaf recipe with fermented ketchup, leftover roasted red potatoes with garlic scapes and fava beans sauteed with garlic in bacon fat.

Tuesday - taco salad (heavy on the lettuce)! The next day for lunch I added fresh squeezed lime juice and a bit of cilantro from my garden.

 Wednesday we finished up the last of the veggies with grilled bok choy, homemade sourdough bread with butter and fresh strawberry jam, and pulled pork with barbeque sauce.

Conclusion: although all the veggies had great flavor, here is how the veggies ranked on my family's 'yum' scale.

#1. Kohlrabi fries. Hands down. The best.

#2. Garlic scapes. I could literally eat them anywhere, in anything.

#3. Baby lettuce. Just so tender, never wilted like grocery store lettuce.

#4. Swiss chard. The pickled stems are addicting, I was surprised how much I like them!

#5. Fava beans. Meh, just prefer fresh snap peas and regular green beans :)

#6. Radicchio. So good for you, I don't mind the bitterness :)

#7. Bok choy. I have tried this vegetable stir fried and now grilled/sauteed. With a lot of salt it is edible but none of us really prefer the flavor to the other vegetables we have tried! Points to any of my readers who can provide a winning bok choy recipe :)

Thank you, Super Natural Farm, for introducing us to so many new and delicious veggies! You do a great job on quality, freshness, and presentation, which is what I was hoping to find this year in a CSA :)