The First Supper

To those of you just tuning in, this is my indulgent attempt to prove I do things other than read nerdy medical articles in my spare time. Welcome to our CSA blog, where we learn to cook things we've never heard of before because we got drunk one evening and decided to give hundreds of dollars to some farm in upstate New York in exchange for losing control over what veggies we receive each week.

This week is the perfect storm:

- Young and Joe, with whom we are splitting our CSA share, are in Spain (damn you both) - so hubbie and I picked up the full share

- Hubbie and I have many dinner dates this week (deviation from the norm)

This results in me panicking when I realize that I have to figure out how to consume or store these vegetables in some sustainable way. 

I remember this problem from last year's summer spread -- many green, leafy things, most of which I've never heard of before. This week's greens included:

Green Lettuce (check)

Red Leaf Lettuce (okay, with you so far) 

Radishes (yes, I'm counting these as a green based on the recipe, see below)

Bok Choy (new to our kitchen)

Chinese Cabbage (new to my knowledge base)

Mizuna (whaaaa?)

Suehlihung Mustard (double whaaaa?)

So I threw red leaf lettuce into a bowl with vinaigrette, stored the green lettuce / cabbage / bok choy for later-in-week shenanigans, and threw the rest into: SOUP.

Based loosely on this Bon Appetite recipe.

(1) Chop up green things (radish greens, mizuna, suehlihung mustard) and non-green things (onion, carrots).

(2) Cook the non-green things in olive oil for a bit so they brown.

(3) Simmer green and non-green things with stock, canned tomatoes, white beans (substituted for the lima beans).

(4) ESSENTIAL (because cheese = essential): add rind of an old used up hard cheese if you've got one stored in the fridge (which I do); makes the whole thing taste a bit like parmesan.

(5) Serve soup with side salad and bloody mary.

(6) Make room in the freezer for 3 extra tupperwares full of leftovers.

And THAT is how you manage the first lettuce week.