Winter CSA Week Fifteen

Since we have another freeze warning tonight, I suppose we really aren’t out of winter yet. March was the warmest on record around here so we were getting used to seeing spring type veggies in the box. Today we go back to the reality of cooler weather and the veggies associated with it. I just got finished covering the garlic, lettuces, tulips and chive seedlings again.

We got an email saying the farmer who supplies us meat was MIA last night, so no meat this week. Double portion next week. That is OK, since I went to Harris Teeter yesterday and stocked up on seafood. Sustainable, of course.

Crab cakes for dinner last night.

I was using up most of the spinach from last week, with green onions and potatoes and local mushrooms bought at HT.

This week, I got:

1 1/2 pounds of carrots
4 nice spring onions
2 large leeks
1 pound new red potatoes
4 oranges from the partner farm in FL
1 beet that weighed 28 ounces

Add that to the beet from last week.

They are slow roasting on a salt bed in the oven for a few hours, until tender. They will become part of a salad with goat cheese and the last of the spring greens from a delivery a week ago, for tomorrow night’s dinner with some Alaskan wild salmon.

Since it is almost Easter, I have to show the cool eggs we got.

I particularly like the green one. I am hard boiling about 6-8 of them tomorrow, the prettiest ones. They will get taken to my brother’s for the Easter Egg Tapping contest.

I am drowning in eggs again. With this dozen today, there are 30 eggs in the fridge. I know now that two dozen a month is too much. Without a large family, or a baker in the house, I don’t know how people go through the eggs they get in local CSAs. I think in the future I will probably pass on eggs in the winter CSA.

Dinner tonight will be pan seared scallops from Harris Teeter, with baby red potatoes from the CSA, and salad to use the last of the spinach. I wonder if Harris Teeter is the store most affected by Wegmans coming in. I like the way they make sure you don’t stand in line too long for checkout. I also like the guys making sushi. We went there for things they have the best selection of, like fennel, ginger and some of the more exotic mushrooms. They do have nice produce but I am carefully reading the labels to buy items from the closest sources.

The CSA provides me with a solid basis to menu plan. The few extras needed to make interesting dinners are all I want to purchase from other than local vendors. That way, I am making what I call the 90% solution locavore dinners. Every little bit helps.

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