Eating good in the neighborhood

I've been meaning to post about our experiences with the Urban Acres CSA (community sponsored agriculture) but haven't gotten around to it till now.  Last month we signed up, along with our neighbors, for a biweekly share of ~30 pounds of local, organic produce.  We've gotten 3 shares so far with items including broccoli, kale, mustard greens, chard, spinach, sweet potatoes, turnips, beets, radishes, apples, and oranges, among other things.

When we started the CSA I decided 2 things: 1) I would use everything we get, even if it's not something we would normally buy, and 2) I would use every usable part of the veggies.  That means cooking and eating the greens if they're edible and saving the scraps to make veggie stock.

Here's our first share, and some of the things we made from it:

Sauteed broccoli crowns

Red pepper-garlic broccoli leaves

Pickled broccoli stems

Applesauce for Daniel

Garlic ginger mustard greens

Sauteed Indian-seasoned cabbage

Our second share:

Beets-look at that pretty coloring!

Rainbow carrots, carrot greens, and shiitake mushrooms

The most unusual/creative thing I've made is a pizza using pureed boiled beets as the sauce base instead of tomatoes-"beetza."  Would never have thought to try that but saw the recipe online and decided to give it a try.  I made a honey whole wheat crust then made the sauce with pureed beets, goat cheese, olive oil, and seasoning.  I topped it with mozzarella cheese, goat cheese, spinach from our share, kale, and venison sausage.  It wasn't from our share but it was made from the deer Kevin shot last fall, so it fit with the local/organic theme.  Here's what the finished product looked like:

So how did it turn out?  Actually, pretty good.  I wouldn't use beets instead of tomatoes, but if I had beets on hand already this would be a good use for them.  The bacon actually wasn't all that great on its own but turned out to be pretty good as a pizza topping.  And I had made pizza crust before but not in awhile, but now that I've been reminded how good it is, we'll have to make more homemade pizzas.

Tonight I simmered the veggie scraps I've been storing in the freezer for the last month or so and made some stock.  Not sure what I'll do with the scraps now.  I pureed them so I think I'll see if they work as the base for a soup.  I made a soup last week using CSA cabbage and baking potatoes and am thinking to do another one with some CSA celery this week.

The CSA shares have definitely challenged me to cook new things and get the most out of our veggies.  The shares have so far been a good mix of things we would get anyway (broccoli, apples) and new things (beets, radishes, romaine and spinach heads-we usually get bagged) and while we haven't loved everything (Kevin wasn't a beet fan before and the last month hasn't changed his mind), we have found some new things we like and would get again, and I like the challenge of cooking new things.  Looking forward to seeing what great stuff we get next week!