Girl Meets Turnip: Here We Go Again! + CSA Weeks 1-4

Wow! I have been a terrible “blogger” for the last 4 weeks. Well, to fill everyone in. Yes, I am still getting my CSA this summer. As we have for the past few years, we get a weekly standard share from Ridgeland Harvest in Viroqua, WI. This year the early shares have seemed larger in than in the past. But with that, our plants in our yard seem larger than normal too so we must be getting the perfect combo of humid, sunny days and rain. Along with our vegetable CSA, we are also getting a dozen farm-fresh eggs each week through a different CSA that gets delivered to my work. This has been great so far since fresh eggs taste so much better than store bought. Plus B has been taking hard-boiled eggs to work each morning so I’m not too concerned about getting through the dozen each week. We are once again getting the salmon CSA through Sitka Salmon Shares, which starts up later this month. We are getting more than we have in the past so I may need to get a little more creative with my recipes. AND on top of that we split a quarter cow earlier this Spring with our friends. The beef is from Highland Spring Farm which raises Scottish Highland cows, the ones with the long horns and super long hair. The beef is awesome and very lean.

Besides all of that, we have our raised bed again this year. We have already gone through our early spring vegetables and planted new ones for the rest of the season. This year we have Sungold tomatoes, arugula, bell peppers, Bulgarian carrot peppers, serrano peppers, and jalapeño peppers. And we have a mystery tomato plant. It sprouted from a tomato that fell last year so I’m not sure if it will be another Sungold or the purple ones I had last year. The suspense!! We have already harvested our baby bok choy and baby turnips which were both delicious. And over the weekend we planted more arugula, radishes and green beans in their place.

As you can see, we have been busy! And along with all of this, I am pregnant! The theme of this summer is getting ready for baby as I am due at the beginning of October. We are very excited but it all makes for a very busy summer.

As for the blog, now that I am writing again, I will honestly try to be more consistent, AKA weekly. I am going to set it up again like last year where I will post the shares we get each week and post a new recipe I tried. I have a backlog of new recipes from the last couple weeks so you should expect those to be posted soon. Next week we are going to Portland, OR and Seattle, WA so I will probably post pictures of our food adventures, as well.

I’m so happy to be getting back into the swing of things. Earlier this spring when we didn’t have the CSA yet, I realized I have become accustom to working my meals around what we get each week. I was having a hard time coming up with meals where I get to pick my own ingredients. It’s so interesting to see how my thought process has changed over the years, as I remember how hard it was the first 2 years to think this way.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer and farmer’s markets so far!! Eat fresh and eat local!

CSA Week #1 - Spinach, strawberries, rhubarb, radishes, baby turnips and broccoli rabe

CSA Week #2 - Baby turnips, radishes, beets, spinach, saute greens, rhubarb, and garlic scapes

CSA Week #3 - Cilantro, kohlrabi, broccoli, radishes, baby turnips, garlic scapes, spinach, beets and lettuce

B put away the CSA so quickly last week that I didn't have time to take a picture by CSA week #4 included broccoli, chives, cilantro, garlic scapes, kohlrabi, butter lettuce, napa cabbage, sugar snap peas and bok choy.