Inventory

The next CSA delivery is this Thursday. It is now Tuesday morning. Here is my progress.

Mixed Salad Greens: enough left for two moderate-sized salads. Most of it was used to make the chicken and parsley-feta pesto salad. Some of it was used for a marinated flat iron steak, cucumber, and balsamic vinegar salad. I have all of the ingredients for a soy-ginger-lime vinaigrette and salmon salad, but I may run out of greens for it!

Whenever I make a big salad for dinner, I make two at the same time. I arrange the greens, veggies, and meat into a travel container for work the next day. Then all I have to do in the morning is apply olive oil and vinegar/lemon juice, and it stays crisp for lunch. Otherwise, I would never have time to build a salad in the mornings, and I would never get through these greens.

Butter Crunch Lettuce: gone! Most of it was consumed with my tuna and cannelini bean salad: white albacore tuna, cannelini beans, green olives, green onion, celery, turnips, shredded carrot, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Spinach: I had a craving for spinach salad with hot bacon dressing, red onion, mushrooms, and hard-boiled eggs, the kind where the spinach wilts a little bit. But I was obliged to cook the spinach. Kevin suggested a spinach quiche, and I started plotting a quiche with spinach, bacon, onion, and gruyere cheese. Leftover quiche is perfect for fast breakfasts or toting along to work. But you know, I did just emerge from a quiche obsession a couple of months ago (I made 4 quiches in 4 weeks). I'm trying to stay on the wagon, at least until swiss chard season.

I thought about spinach lasagna but could not work up a big excitement about it for some reason. I thought that I might just cook and freeze it for later. But then inspiration hit me! I made florentine macaroni and cheese: a homemade sauce made with sharp white cheddar and generously fortified with spinach, mixed with whole-grain rotini. I pre-blanched and cold-shocked the spinach before adding it to the cheese sauce at the last minute. It held its bright green color surprisingly well. Very tasty.

Teeny white salad turnips with greens: only one little turnip left. The rest went into the tuna salad. The greens are still here; I will probably saute some and scatter the rest raw across a salad.

Garlic scapes: I sauteed a few for an omelet (also included mushrooms and pepper jack cheese). I chopped some raw for salads. I still have about half the bunch left, but they look sturdy enough to last a while.

Chives: I snipped a little bit onto some scrambled eggs. The rest I stored in a plastic bag and froze. I like chives, but usually I favor a stronger onion family representative.

Potted basil plant: still alive and waiting to be planted outside in the full sun. Not enough leaves for pesto yet, but possibly sufficient for a marinara sauce.

Bring it on, Thursday.

A nice side effect of the bountiful produce: I am officially back on the low-carb lifestyle. Well, until potato season.