CSA Week 1: Salad, More Salad, & Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Beautiful, right?  Last Thursday we got our first CSA basket: arugula, Boston lettuce, red leaf lettuce, spinach, Japanese salad turnips, french radishes, rhubarb and strawberries.  I was overjoyed as I was unpacking all of these fruits and veggies.  I immediately made us salad for dinner with the Boston lettuce because I suspected that since it’s the most delicate it would probably go bad first.  After dinner I washed and spun the remaining Boston lettuce, the red leaf lettuce, and the spinach.  The spinach was especially sandy so it took a few rinses to get it clean.  Once they were washed they went into large ziplocs for the week.  It require at least a half hour on Thursday to clean everything, but it has paid off since then.  For lunches and dinner I just throw a few toppings onto the greens and I’ve got a meal ready.

As you all know I’m a baker so when I saw the list of our expected ingredients my first thought was – strawberry-rhubarb pie!  But when I tasted these strawberries I realized there was no way I was going to put them in a pie.  After eating those enormous tasteless supermarket strawberries for the past two months biting into one of these was like heaven.  So flavorful, so sweet, and absolutely perfect with a drizzle of vanilla balsamic.

I had never heard of Japanese salad turnips and was surprised by how delicious they were.  They were very mild – almost sweet – and were perfect in a salad or on their own with a sprinkle of salt.  The lettuces we’ve been eating as salad, and I realize that I don’t actually mind cooked spinach as long as it’s quickly steamed.

I decided to use half of my rhubarb for this coffee cake from Smitten Kitchen.  It’s delicious, but I didn’t think it had a very strong rhubarb flavor.  If we get rhubarb again I’ll probably try a crisp or a cobbler.  Something that will allow the rhubarb flavor to really shine through.

I used the other half of my rhubarb to make these spritzers from Simply Recipes.  I’m a huge fan of fancy soda and these were reminiscent of GuS (Grown Up Soda).  And so pretty! I didn’t have any rosemary so I used thyme.  If you haven’t put herbs in baked goods or sweets I highly recommend it.

It’s probably too soon to say this, but I’m really, really happy I signed up for the CSA.  I was hesitant because of the cost and worried that we wouldn’t be able to eat all of the vegetables.  My hope was that by paying for this food in advance I’d have no choice but to cook for myself and eat healthier.  So far, so good.