CSA week one, Day one

It is CSA time Cats and Kittens! CSA stands for Community Assisted Agriculture. I purchase a share at the beginning of the growing season and then I get weekly boxes of produce from my farm. They give me whatever they harvested that week, so everything is perfectly fresh and by necessity, in season. I love the CSA for many reasons. First, it appeals to the dirty hippie in me- it's environmentally sound (no trucking my salad mix from California), it supports local farms and local farmers. I also enjoy the challenge of it. Kohlrabi? WTF is kohlrabi and how do I cook it?! I have no idea but I'm gonna figure it out! So my friends, we are embarking on a journey. A journey of daily or near daily blog entries about my CSA- what I get and how I cook it and if it was successful. My goal is to use everything in my CSA box and get as many ingredients as I can from local sources. Get ready, it might get messy.



The CSA box: Kohlrabi (bulbs and leaves), beets (bulbs and greens), green onions, swiss chard, cabbage and sweet corn.



The first thing I had to do is figure out what kohlrabi is and what to do with it. This is kohlrabi. Apparently you can eat both the bulbs and the leaves. The raw bulbs taste like broccoli steams and radishes got together and sweet vegetable love and made a baby. Apparently you can slice them thinly and sprinkle in salads but that seems like cheating to me. I want to know how to COOK it so I decided that roasting them with some other less challenging veggies would be the way to go.



The menu: Marinated skirt steak, roasted kohlrabi bulbs and sweet corn.



Roasted kohlrabi

3 smallish (2 inches in diameter) kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 medium parsnip peeled and cut into chunks
1 medium carrot peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 a small yellow onion chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 sprigs thyme (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon butter

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss the vegetables in olive oil, salt, pepper, vinegar, and thyme. Roast for 45 minutes or until fork tender, stirring a couple times. When the veggies have about 10 minutes to go add butter.


Marinated skirt steak

1/4 cup olive oil
2.5 tablespoons soy sauce
1 green onion
2 cloves garlic
juice of 1 lime
pinch of red pepper flake
pinch of ground cumin
1.5 tablespoons brown sugar (dark brown if you have it)
1 pound skirt steak

Blend all of the marinade ingredients in the blender and marinate steak for 1-2 hours. Either grill the steak over high heat or pan sear the steak over high heat. To serve, cut thinly across the grain of the meat (skirt steak can be tough if you don't cut it thin and across the grain).


Sweet corn

Duh- boil it. Or if you are grilling the steak, grill it or stick it in a foil pouch with butter and salt and pepper.


The Results: The corn was amazing of course. It's fresh sweet corn, how can it be bad? The steak was pretty good but a little subtle for my palate. I must admit that I like strong bold sauces with my meat. My husband really enjoyed the steak- a little spicy a little sweet and pink in the middle. (Did that sound dirty to anyone else? I digress.) The roasted vegetables was where the meal took a turn for me. The kohlrabi needed more time to cook than the carrots and parsnips, so the carrots and parsnips were done perfectly but the kohlrabi was still hard and stringy and frankly difficult to chew. The flavors were wonderful. If I were to do it again I would start the kohlrabi for about 20-30 minutes and then add the carrot and parsnip. I give the corn an A, the steak an A- and the roasted kohlrabi a C+.


The breakdown: I used a green onion, all of my kohlrabi bulbs, and two ears of sweet corn from my CSA. The steak was purchased from the farmer's market. I already had the olive oil, vinegar, red pepper flake, thyme (from my herb garden), salt, pepper, butter, soy sauce, cumin, and brown sugar in my pantry. I had to buy a lime, yellow onion, garlic, carrots, and a parsnip from the grocery store to make this meal.