A Shortcut to Vegetables

We got our first CSA box two days ago, and I'm just so excited I can barely contain myself.  Contents of said box:

It's silly to get excited about a box of vegetables, I know, but I've been wanting to do this for a couple of years now but have been reluctant to pull the trigger for a couple of reasons.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and for those of you who don't know, it basically means getting a box of produce from local farms a couple/few times a month.  My sister-in-law JoAnne has been doing this for awhile, and I love how she incorporates the produce into the meals we've had when visiting the Tobias Fam.  She's much more talented as an improvisational cook than I am, so I was hesitant in part for that reason.  But also, as is well documented, I live with a couple of Picky Eaters, so I had to be honest about the fact that I'd be the one consuming most of the contents of the boxes every week.  Laying out the bucks just for myself seemed a mite counterintuitive.

Then I got lucky.  A friend of ours, we'll call her Dr. Rachel, worked with a local farm called Underwood Family Farms to get a CSA program going at CSUN (her and Wendy's employer).  Once a week boxes of produce are delivered right to campus where folks who participate can pick them up more easily.  I liked this idea, but still was hesitant due to the above reasons.  Lucky for me the boxes of produce were too much for our friend Dr. Rachel and another friend, we'll call her Dr. Sally, to handle.  So they wanted to start sharing boxes with us.  That would mean us getting two boxes a month, one every other week, for a very reasonable price.  I was mildly dubious as to why these friends of ours were having trouble consuming the vegetables, as they were subscribing to the "small" boxes in the Underwood Family Farms CSA Program, but I figured this would be a good place to start.

Let me just say that farmers clearly have a different definition for the word "small" than the rest of us do.  Here's the small box:

It's only the first of our boxes, but I have to say I'm totally in love with this program.  I'm totally into surprises, and so getting this box home and opening it and laying out all the surprises on the counter was pure heaven.  Kiernan really got into it too.

All your counter space are belong to us.

Last night we had the first of the produce with dinner.  Main course was one of my favorites, artichokes.  Not a part of the box, alas, but I found some lovely ones at Trader Joe's for $.99 a piece!  [Lookie there!  A reason to love living in California!]  I cooked up two of the ears of corn (microwave method: in husk, three minutes, turn, three minutes, wrap in kitchen towel for five minutes on counter), cutting the kernels off of the corn for Wendy and Kiernan since one just started on braces and the other is missing most of his front teeth.  Cut up some of the carrots in a salad with that lovely lettuce and some of those radishes.

Amazing, beautiful stuff.  Best corn I think I've ever tasted.  Also, I've gotten into a rut buying packages of baby carrots.  These carrots are so much more...um...carroty.  And the radishes were just vibrant.

I'm not sure what to do with the other stuff.  Any suggestions are welcome.  Especially for this monster:

Anyway, happy times.  If you're at all curious about the CSA thing...do it.  Find a friend and split it.  Just do it.