Thursday, June 28, 2007

Farm Share produce


I went in on a farm share for the first time this summer. I'm sharing a 1/2 share with a friend (so essentially a 1/4 share) at Cherry Grove Farm in Lawrenceville. Above is only a fraction of last week's haul - I didn't pile up the bags and bags of loose greens. It's forcing me (and occasionally redneckhunter) to eat my green things.

I find that I've fallen into a routine of how to cook them, though. Large leafy greens like collards, kale, and chard, I've been doing southern style, boiled with bacon or ham with some red pepper for kick and eaten with a little lemon juice. Small leafy greens like spinach or beet greens, I've been doing Chinese-style, sauteed in a wok with garlic. Last week I sliced and oven-roasted the turnips. We've had sugar snap peas, which I munch on raw, and arugula, which I like raw too but this stuff is so good it's almost too spicy to eat! Oddly enough, the heads of lettuce and bags of leaf lettuce pose the most difficulty for me. I just hate making salads! Last week, I actually sauteed lettuce in the wok (and I felt like my mom doing it, as Chinese really don't eat anything raw...) but luckily this allows for a vast amount of bulk to be consumed in a far condensed form.

The routine has already started to wane, though, and I think I need to look for more veggie recipes... will post any great ones I discover. Also, the girls (since I think we're all doing shares from the same farm) have decided that one of these weeks we will hold an Iron Chef showdown featuring kale or collard greens or whatever veggie we end up with a lot of - stay tuned!

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