email this pageI wasn’t quite sure what to expect the first week I picked up my produce. Chubby Bunny (never let your child name your farm) drops the weekly haul at a church courtyard about a mile from me, and I showed up with a big blue Ikea bag in case there was more than could fit in my backpack. And a good thing, too. King Kong’s backpack couldn’t have accommodated the sheer volume of greenery, either that week or subsequent ones. Over the first month, there were eight—count ’em, eight!—kinds of greens. And that’s counting lettuce mix as only one! Just about the only things that are ready to eat in the Northeast in June are greens, and my first few weeks’ bounty meant I could see my immediate gastronomic future in the leaves.
The obvious first choice is salad. And we had a lot of that. My husband, Kevin, isn’t a huge fan of salad (“This is the food my food eats,” he says), but one of his husbandly virtues is that he’ll eat anything I put in front of him. We had several variations—a butter lettuce salad with lemon and olive oil one night, lettuce mix with radishes and a yogurt-mayo-garlic dressing another—and he never complained. He only bleated after dinner.
CSA BOUNTY
Lettuce mix
Butter lettuce
Arugula
Dandelion greens
Spinach
Radishes
Garlic scapes
(the green part of the garlic plant)
Spinach
Komatsuna (a
leafy green)
Bunch of small turnips
Mint
Strawberries
Kohlrabi
Marjoram
Kale
Zucchini
CSA Ingredient of the Month: Arugula
Its other name is rocket, which comes from its Italian name, rucola, but it could just as easily refer to the green’s explosive taste—a dead giveaway to arugula’s membership in the mustard family. In ancient times, eating arugula was thought to bring good luck. That’s never been proven, but it’s never been disproven either—you’ll just have to try it for yourself.
- Use arugula instead of lettuce in sandwiches.
- Mix arugula with grapefruit pieces, dress with a light, lemony vinaigrette, and top with shaved Parmesan.
- Substitute arugula for basil in pesto.
- Add it to tomato sauce. Just stir it in and cook long enough for it to wilt—about a minutes or two. (This is also an easy way to freshen up jarred sauce.)
- Cook it with white beans, black pepper and Parmesan cheese.
- Make a risotto with shiitake mushrooms, arugula and scallops. Use white wine, clam juice and stock, and add the arugula at the very end of the cooking time. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice.
- Make a salad of roasted beets, arugula and blue cheese. Serve warm.
- Use chopped arugula to add flavor and color to chicken, potato or tuna salad.
Related Stories
If you enjoyed reading this story, CSA and the City, then you might enjoy these other stories.- Salad Ideas: Assertive Arugula
- California Salad
- Big Greens
- CSA and the City: Episode 2
- End of Summer Salads
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