Week 7 Share Contents and Usage Summary

Here's a summary of last week's farm share and how I used it:

Snow peas- sauteed with red scallion and garlic scapes and served over *couscous

Red scallions - sauteed with snowpeas, minced in tossed salads

Broccoli- oven roasted with only salt, pepper, and olive oil

Siberian kale- served wilted, as a bed for ricotta gnocchi

Lettuce- many salads

Garlic scapes- chopped in salads, sauteed with red scallion and served over couscous

Arugula- tossed in salads

Farmers’ choice item- Cucumber- served chopped in salads

*Couscous is my all-time favorite quick meal ingredient. What could be easier than bringing water to a boil, pouring it over the couscous in a bowl, letting it sit covered for a few minutes and then fluffing it?

Below: broccoli, snow peas, and garlic scapes:

Above: pan-seared zucchini with sauteed snow peas, scallions and garlic scapes over couscous

Now that I've become busy balancing my personal chef business and my documentary film freelance work (along with a household that includes a husband and a 2-year old, and dreams to fit in a long run on cool days like today), I'm finding less time every day to prepare a thoughtful meal.

Ever since I went to culinary school I learned a depressing life lesson: the more I cook for other people, the less I cook for myself (and my family). However, just today it dawned on me how complementary and helpful the CSA farm share really is to my hectic life, and for that I'm really thankful. Given my line of work, I often find myself at the grocery store, so it's easy for me to pick up some sort of protein for dinner. I love that I don't have to worry about the rest of the meal since I can figure something out from the bag of produce, and like most people, I keep a stock of starches in the pantry, like pasta and couscous.

Not having to think about and inspect vegetables in the grocery store saves me a lot of time. I haven't even had time to harvest the lettuce and sugarsnap peas out of my garden, let alone weed it.

I posted those quick meal ideas last week with the hope of demonstrating how a decent meal made with farm produce really can come together in minutes. I don't see myself gaining more free-time in the near future, if anything I hope it's the opposite, so I foresee that I'll continue to post similar quick meal ideas. I long to create some really cool stuff to impress you, but at least I can report that I'm still using up all the delicious produce and I'm not resorting to take-out (for the most part).

Please know that it bugs me when I'm not able to snap a photo of the food I write about. If I don't include a photo it's because we ate dinner at our usual time, which is around 8:00 pm when it's too dark to take a photo outside (and I need the natural light!)