The Beginnings

My first CSA pick-up was on June 10. I was still working at that point (I am an elementary school teacher), so I didn't have a lot of free time for planning and cooking extravagant meals. The end of the school year is a hasty, paper-work filled pursuit and count-down to field day. I'm usually lucky to get a box of mac n cheese to the table.

However, I had a wax-coated box full of veggies: mesclun salad greens, radishes, a quart of strawberries, a large bag of spinach, some broccoli raab...there was probably more, but I wasn't focusing on the what as much as the how.

The strawberries were gone in minutes. The mesclun salad was devoured quickly, too, as we are all good salad eaters. I sliced up a radish into my husband's and my salads each night. Rich pointed out right away, that he wasn't a fan of turnips. I replied, as patiently as I could, that these were not turnips, but radishes, and how in the hell could he know he wasn't a fan if he didn't know their name? He ate them.

Spinach was also an easy sell. My boys (both adult and child) were already used to me sneaking spinach into all sorts of meals. We had spinach on my homemade pizza, spinach layered into a lasagna, and, for Rich and me, a nice bed of spinach sauteed in garlic under our sesame-crusted salmon.

Broccoli raab, though, is another matter. My husband was quite clear some years ago on the subject of broccoli raab. "Too bitter. Vile. Why do people eat this stuff?" I wasn't about to let it go to waste after spending so much money. So I blanched it, chopped it, and made a nice pot of Italian sausages, onions, peppers and broccoli raab in the hopes that no one would notice the green stuff. Between all the savory flavors of sausage and onions and all, plus the big crusty rolls and melted mozzarella cheese, the broccoli raab went entirely unnoticed.

The second box also contained a fair number of greens, not a usual part of our diet, and therefore, not a usual part of my cooking plans. I struggled and (gasp!) had to compost some things that I could not use in time. But school ended last week, and I have gotten better at planning some meals around the veggies in the box.