Recipe blog: using everything from your CSA box

If you are not a gardener but enjoy delicious, locally grown vegetables, consider joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Or perhaps, you are in a place in your life where gardening is not possible because of time, available garden space, or a recent injury.

What is a CSA?

A farmer may choose to run a community supported agriculture program. At the beginning of the season, a member (you) purchases a share in the farm's CSA program. Each week or every other week, a vegetable pick-up or delivery is arranged by the farmer for all of the share members to pick up their vegetables. Depending on where you live, the season length determines how may weeks from spring until fall that a summer CSA program operates. Winter CSA programs are becoming more prevalent, even in Northern areas.

Challenges and Benefits of a Share Member

A CSA share can be a great way to preserve some of the harvest for the winter months without having a garden to grow your own produce. In addition, you are supporting the local farming community. Buy fresh! Buy local!

The greatest challenge that most share members experience is learning how to cook new vegetables and using all of the vegetables in their share box. To help with this Hampshire College's CSA program has provided a number of free recipes. Many CSA programs distribute their own recipes and there are a number of cookbooks available for those who want to cook and eat by the seasons.

Recipe: Braised Kale or Collard Greens

This is a great way to prepare kale and collards, especially for the fall and winter months. The recipe uses a lot of greens making it ideal for larger fall harvests. It is adapted from an America's Test Kitchen cookbook.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of kale, midribs trimmed and leaves chopped
• small onion or large shallot, minced
• 2 T olive oil
• 1/2 cup broth, chicken or vegetable
• salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, boil water with some salt. Add the greens and boil for 7 minutes. Remove from the boiling water and transfer to a colander and dunk in a bowl of ice water. After the greens have chilled, only about a minute or two, removed and press the greens against the side of the colander to remove any excess water. Set aside.

In a skillet, over medium heat, add the olive oil and shallot. Saute until soft but not browned. Add the kale, breaking it apart with a spoon, saute for about 2 minutes. Add broth and increase heat to medium high for around 6 minutes until the greens absorb the broth.

Season with salt and pepper.

Tomato Varieties: Notes from 2014

To me, the quintessential summer vegetable, is the tomato. It reminds me of my grandfather's garden. He would compete with his neighbors for plant vigor and earliest vine-ripened tomato of the summer. His buddies would debate the best sources for starter plants, varieties, and planting techniques. Each winter, I dream, plan, and strategize to produce delicious tomatoes before July 4, boost yields for sauce-making, and grow flavorful tomatoes for a caprese salad.

The 2014 growing season was one of my least successful growing seasons based on my three goals. Many tomatoes were harvested green and ripened on the kitchen counter. Aside from fresh eating, I only had enough tomatoes for 1 batch each of ketchup and sauce. Flavor was at times bland and occasionally sublime.

The biggest surprise of the summer was a new variety 'Schmmeig Striped Hollow' from Fedco Seeds. It outproduced all my other paste and slicing tomato varieties. The fruit cavity is hollow with little seed production making them ideal for stuffing and an interesting addition to summer tomato salads.

The two hybrids that I grow each year, 'Juliet' and 'Sungold', performed as expected. The season was just too cold for the 'San Marzano' plants. My best paste tomato variety of the year was 'Grandma Mary's', which I grow every season to compare to new (to me) varieties. I tried Weisnicht's Ukranian tomato, great flavor, meaty texture, and worth trying for a second season. All varieties were purchased from Fedco Seeds.

Variety Recommendations: Hail the Kale

Why kale?

Kale is a green, leafy vegetable in the Brassica or cabbage family. Most preparations of kale are similar to collards. In my experience, kale is easy to grow and withstands extremes of soil moisture and air temperatures. It is one of the last vegetables to succumb to freezing weather when it is unprotected and is a robust addition to unheated low tunnels for winter and early spring harvests. Kale in its seedling stage is an excellent green to add to salads and keeps well in a salad mix when properly harvested and stored.

My favorite varieties of kale include 'Red Russian', 'Beedy's Camden', and 'Nero di Tuscano'. All three varieties sailed through the polar vortex winter of 2014 in an unheated low tunnel. I had seeded very heavily for salad greens and braising mixes at the early spring harvest timing. The spring of 2014 harvest was two weeks late compared to 2012 and 2013. After the spring harvests, I removed the 'Nero di Tuscano', for whatever reason, it was not as vigorous. I thinned the 'Red Russian' and 'Beedy's Camden' and harvests continued through the summer and until a killing frost in November. Many suppliers offer 'Red Russian' and 'Nero di Tuscano' but I have only found 'Beedy's Camden' from Fedco Seeds.