OMG CSA!!

Finally! I thought this time of year would never get here. CSA blogging posts forthcoming! CSA's are awesome, you guys. They are an amazing bargain AND you get to support local agriculture, and trying to figure out ways to use what you get every/other week is a super fun and sometimes challenging game--WAY more fun than just shopping for what you want at the farmer's market, which is ok too I guess. Every bin is a surprise, and you may have weird stuff you have no idea how to cook or you may have a ton of something that requires some creativity to come up with different ways to use it all up before it spoils. Last year I discovered gratins, refrigerator pickles, kale/collard/beet chips, veggie burgers and ways to use winter squash so that even I can stand it (not a huge winter squash fan! I wish I were, because it is so beautiful and bright when the weather really starts sucking around here).

So far, the low-hanging "fruit": a gigantic salad with beet greens from the bin, and mustard/collards from the garden, and lettuce and bell peppers from the store and half the cucumber got made into a mint raita that will probably go over some lentil patties or dress some bean/grain salad.

What are you guys doing for food this summer?