Monday, June 11, 2012

Produce: Week 1

First Taste
Our first share from the farm came in this week!
I excitedly walked Daisy the dog down to the pick-up spot, a house in our neighborhood just a few blocks away. I arrived at the place and saw big white bags all lined up along the wall of the carport.  I poked my head in and was met by the owner who asked if I was there to pick up a share.

I had a cooler bag that I brought, because, frankly I did not know what to expect. I thought the produce might be in a box, and on the way down I was trying to work out how I would walk back with the dog and a box.  The food was in a big white plastic bag. This made it easy to put into the cooler bag and hoist onto my shoulder.

I got home with our bounty of produce and set it all out on the table to check what we had received.

Inside the big bag was a note from the farm, listing what we got this week:
  • Lettuce (red leaf, green leaf, & romaine) 
  • White asian turnips
  • Baby bok choy
  • Lettuce cabbage, and 
  • Pea vines. 
The produce all looked great and was a much larger pile than I had imagined.  It was a challenge getting it all safely tucked away into the refrigerator.

When we decided to join a farm share, we knew it was going to force us to shift our eating to consume more produce. We all like vegetables, and try to eat some every day, but we don't really have a salad with every meal. We will need to get creative and find tasty ways to prepare and eat all of these greens.


We got busy and started with the lettuce cabbage.  It is a Napa cabbage shaped head, with bright green leaves that are firmer than lettuce but not as coarse as cabbage.
I thought it would be a good candidate for a slaw.  We were having a Mexican meal with some friends, so I whipped up a slightly South of the border spin on cole slaw. We'll make that our recipe of the week.


Recipe of the week
I cleaned and sliced the Cabbage into ribbons.

Then put it into a bowl. (I know, real difficult step there, Chef Donfondue...but I had the pic)
Then I made a very quick dressing:
1/2 cup Mayo
2 TB Cider Vinegar
1 TB Sirracha sauce
2 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper 
and poured that over the lettuce cabbage.
It was quite tasty.  The greens wilted down a bit, but everyone liked it alot.  Try it at home using Napa cabbage or other hearty green of your choosing.

4 comments:

  1. The slaw was definitley yummy!!!! I liked the texture of the lettuce cabbage, and actually liked the wilted quality of the salad.

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  2. Congrats on blogging! I look forward to seeing what all is in your box each week. ;-) The slaw looks yummy--of course I like anything with Sirracha.

    Aloha,

    Deb

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    Replies
    1. Aloha Deb!
      Thanks. Hope I can keep up. Need lots of great Greens recipes!
      Take Care.
      CDF

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  3. Looking foward to trying this salad, Chef Don! Keep up the good work!

    Claire

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