CSA: Week #3 Update

When I picked up our CSA basket last Tuesday, we were well on our way to making a big dent in the tasty offerings. We ate gourmet lettuce salad that night and the next several nights. We even mixed the gourmet lettuces with strawberries as part of a dinner salad. Here is a breakdown of how we utilized the week #3 basket offerings:

Strawberries – The strawberries made it into yogurt at breakfast, salad at dinner, and a side dish for smoked salmon scrambled eggs. The side dish was just the strawberries, perfect on their own.

Challah Bread – Graham ate the bread for breakfast several days in a row. I had a bit of it with my dinner salad.

Gourmet Lettuces – We used the gourmet lettuces for salads on several nights. I applied blue cheese dressing most of the time, but I did make and use the blue cheese vinaigrette (blue cheese dressing with balsamic vinegar and olive oil) on a few nights. One night, I made a big dinner salad with gourmet lettuces, strawberries, baked chicken, bacon, and the blue cheese vinaigrette dressing.

Spinach…oh no, it’s KALE! – I obviously do not know my greens. Normally when I pick up my basket, the volunteer tells me what’s in it. Last week I was chatting about other things, and people were coming in and out, so I failed to get the scoop on what was actually in my basket. What I assumed was spinach was actually a flat-leafed, young kale. Oh well, I fried some bacon in olive oil, sauteed the greens with garlic, and served it with a poached egg for lunch today.

Scallions – I chopped up scallions for two taco dips that I took to two different cookouts (Sunday and Monday). I used a variation of this taco dip recipe without lettuce and tomato and with scallions instead of green pepper. I plan to freeze the unused scallions for later use.

I’m looking forward to picking up this week’s CSA basket tonight. The picture for this post is my big dinner salad, which was a perfect summer evening meal.