baby bok

So not all of the winter crops we planted were lost to snow and a cold spring. The baby bok choi did really well and didn't even get too many slug bites. We cooked it up in a stir fry -- but I wanted to get a picture of it for posterity first. Here's to more gratuitous garden shots....the pea shoots look to have survived our crazy winter-y spring.

experiments from the CSA

Our CSA box has been a big success so far, and we've managed to keep on track of all of our weekly vegetables so far (except for some potatoes we have left over from week 1, still). The most unusual inclusions have been Jerusalem artichokes and mizuna. A Jersualem artichoke tastes a bit like a turnip when cooked and is actually the rhizome of a sunflower (and is also called a sunchoke). They kind of look like fat grubs in their raw state. We sauteed them in a bit of butter and ate them with chives from the yard. Mizuna is a leafy green, similar to arugula. The bunch we received was grown locally at Full Circle and was very bright tasting and not at all bitter. It found its way into a roasted beet and goat cheese salad with walnuts.

We also have been eating a lot of quinoa lately -- and made this dish with a recipe from the farm box.



Quinoa (keen-wah) is a south american grain high in protein and with a texture similar to cous cous. Friends of ours eat it all the time -- even having a dish made with it at their wedding reception. The dish we made had basil, lemon juice, parmesean cheese, red pepper, scallions and some toasted pine nuts.

Box number four will be here on Thursday....Until then we need to start using up our radishes, which we aren't sure we like quite yet. If any radish has a chance -- it would be these. Cute little red globes fresh from Carnation ,Washington.

the CSA project

Right now, in Seattle, spring is peeking out from the covers, but from the garden's perspective, seems a long way away. We decided, as the pea shoots emerge from the ground and the over-wintered spinach does its best to grow beyond baby-spinach status, to enroll in a CSA and get a box of produce a week. We went with Full Circle Farms -- and so far so good. Right now, the box has a lot of produce that isn't local (I guess our garden isn't the only one under the covers) but most of the rest of the produce is organic. We can even make substitutions, say if some okra was slated to be in the box.

With this new weekly assortment of produce will hopefully come blog posts and new recipes! Stay tuned -- I think first up might be Quinoa with Basil and Red Peppers.

ps. The cats really are interested in the box as well