Thursday, March 17, 2005

Lovin' those fresh veggies

Yesterday we got our first box of the season of "fresh from the farm" organic produce from a local CSA farm. We received: Green Onions, Meyer Lemons, Green Lettuce, Roots (2 kinds of turnips and a black radish), Escarole, Dandelion Greens, a large Butternut Squash, golden Chard, and Broccoli.

It's an interesting challenge to see how much of this variety of interesting veggies my family will eat. My kids are pretty typical kids (read "picky"), and I haven't prepared many greens for them through their lives (I haven't eaten many, either!). My 11-year-old daughter did ask to try a piece of the dandelion greens raw last night, since the boy in one of her favorite books, My Side of the Mountain, ate a lot of dandelion greens. She decided after a bite or two that she would not survive in the wilderness if that was all she could find to eat! I did enoy them sauteed with a little pasta and some romano cheese. I love new food adventures!

Tonight we had the butternut squash and a tri-tip, roasted with butter and maple syrup, and a wonderful green leaf salad with some grated turnip and carrots. How I snuck the grated, raw turnip into the salad without complaints, I'm not sure, but it worked! It is such a delight to eat veggies that have flavor.

Now I need to find the time to read more about escarole and how to fix it. If anyone was any great tips, let me know! I gather that sometimes it is eaten raw like a lettuce, and sometimes it is cooked like a green. Mine is pretty hearty looking and I did sautee some a little and it tasted good. I should probably just try eating it raw to see how that is too!

My biggest fear in signing up for this program (I'm just on a 4-week trial now) is that I wouldn't be able to use enough of the vegetables. Not only do my kids not like "unusual" foods, my husband has many food sensitivities to vegetables (no onions, garlic, bell peppers, or anything remotely spicey!). But I've realized that even if the rest of the family can't or won't eat many of these (to us) more "exotic" veggies - I can enjoy them myself and that the challenge of using up these veggies will help me to stick to my goal of a diet high in fresh vegetables. And hopefully we will all expand our palates a little through this adventure.

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