The latest CSA box arrived just days before I left for San Francisco (more on that to come), so I hustled to use or preserve the booty before I jetted (back) to the west coast. The results were even uglier than my usual Ugly But Delicious cuisine, but I am happy to report that the delicious factor remained.
The box contained collard greens, garlic, pattypan squash, sweet onions, green beans, and blueberries.
Although not documented, I used the beautiful Chioggia beets for a salad with goat cheese. Hardly creative, but sometimes you gotta go with the basics.
A faux Nicoise salad: home smoked black bass, steamed green beans and new potatoes, eggs, olives, and a garlicky-lemony-mustardy dressing.
The green beans took a starring role in a messy Niçoise-wannabe salad. I used a hunk of black bass I had earlier smoked over alderwood in place of the traditional tuna and put the box’s young garlic to work in a potent dressing. Pardon my own shadow in the embarassingly horrible photo of this plate.
Collard greens, cooked with bacon, onions, and spicy kimchi, sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.
Although certainly hideous to behold, the collards were perhaps my favorite. I riffed on a recipe in John Currence’s book, Pickles, Pigs, and Whiskey (thank you , Katie MacManus!) in which he makes kimchi out of collard greens (I still want to try that someday). I simply blanched my greens and then sautéed them in rendered bacon fat with one of the box’s sweet onions (the other onion I made into a sweet/sour onion jam that we ate on damn tasty sandwiches featuring Blackbird Farm sirloin). I added about a half a jar of spicy kimchi, the crispy bacon, and toasted sesame seeds. I loved this; Jay, not so much.
Pattypan squash, picked with spices and arbol chili in a super-cute Weck jar.
I bought myself some time with the squash by pickling the slices in a cider vinegar brine, spiked by arbol chilis. I also really love any opportunity to use these adorable Weck canning jars.
tiny blueberry tart, free-form for added ugliness
Finally, I tossed the blueberries with some sugar, flour, the seeds from half a vanilla pod, and a pinch of salt, and wrapped them in a rustic disc of pâte brisée with some healthy dots of sweet butter for a perfect-for-one-person tartlet.
What I find when dealing with the box every other week is that I get really uptight about NOT WASTING ANYTHING. The fact that I am separated from the people who planted, tended, and grew these vegetables by only a bit of cardboard makes me feel a deeper responsibility to use these products to their fullest extent. It is a pressure that I sadly do not feel as keenly with the produce I bring home from the supermarket and something at which I should certainly look more closely.
Next week’s box should bring the season’s first corn. Woot!