Summer CSA, or this blog should now be called Salad Daze

Last week our summer CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share started. We knew we wanted to do one but had to talk through the different options. 1) Use the CSA he used last year. One of the pluses was this pick-up is right next to our building. One of the negatives was there was not a lot of variety. 2) Use the CSA I used last year. Pluses: we used this one for the winter share and it had add-ons (meat, eggs, etc). Negatives: there is a downtown pick-up but not as close. 3) Some combination.

We went with Door #2 -- the next decision was the full share (family of 4 with 2 of those supposedly being young, picky eaters) or a half share (which is not half the price of the full share). We decided to go big or go home and picked the full share, feeling that the two of us could get through it. Last summer with each of us getting 1/2 share, we would end up with a full share anyway. In addition to getting the produce box, we also selected the unfortunately named "Mixed Meat" package -- 13 weeks (every other week) of assorted local meat, plus catfish and prawns. We can get local goat cheese and local eggs at the local store. And we decided we really don't need that much whole milk.

I am already feeling like the full share is too much. This is what we got last Thursday:
Strawberries
Spinach
Green Onions
Arugula
Mesculine (apparently, this should be mesclun as mesculine redirects me to mescaline, which We Did Not Get.
Mustard Greens
Head Lettuce (two heads of this)
Easter Egg Radishes
Bok Choy

The meat was frozen ground beef patties and mild (pork) sausage links.

This is what we've had so far:
Thursday - sauteed arugula and mustard greens with bacon. A spinach salad with green onions and strawberries.

This left us with
Green Onions (didn't finish them)
Head Lettuce (2 heads)
Easter Egg Radishes
Bok Choy

Easy, right? Friday night was leftovers. Saturday we had dinner at the baseball game. Sunday was an all-day canoeing trip. We didn't get home until 7 pm and were dirty and exhausted. Monday, R. boiled a chicken and made a Cobb salad. He even hard boiled some eggs and he doesn't even like eggs. So I had the eggs and he had the avocado. The Cobb salad used up green onions and more lettuce, leaving us with
Head Lettuce (1 head)
Easter Egg Radishes
Bok Choy

Tuesday, R. cooked more bacon and mixed it up with pralines to form this great crunchy praline-bacon brittle. Mixed with lettuce, chicken, and goat cheese. Wednesday we ate out because we had evening plans and didn't go home after work.

Now it's Thursday, CSA pick-up day, and we still have the radishes and bok choy left. And we're going out of town this weekend. We picked the last 2 heads of lettuce in the box, and when the people realized they were out, I offered to leave one, and they said, "No, we messed up; we'll just substitute something else." Next time, I will leave the extra head of lettuce.