CSA Weeks 23 & 24: Tat-what?

We’re in the home stretch, kids. Here’s Week 23:


Aight, let’s see what we’ve got here. I have a confession about the turnips. I was really excited for them, because I don’t think I’ve ever had turnips before. So I saved them to roast for Thanksgiving—they were in the fridge for about two weeks, mind you, and they got all soft and mushy. *sad panda* Really, turnips? You’re a root vegetable! You’re supposed to last all winter in chilly conditions!

Okay, turnip fail acknowledged. Once we determined that the weirdo squash was a delicata, we roasted it for Thanksgiving (I told you about that here). It was quite yummy.

I was super-excited about the red chard, because I’d been craving Vcon’s Chard with Chickpeas. I can almost make this recipe by heart by now, and it never fails. We even had a bit of lemon zest in the freezer, which was a treat. Usually I skip it because it’s a pain to go buy a lemon and then zest it when I can just cheat with lemon juice.

Pointed cabbage, ahoy! Red’s grandma never fails to take extra cabbage off our hands. Yes, this one was going to be cooked with ham, same as the last one. *sigh*

We made a really nice salad with those salad greens, spinach, and green peppers. I tossed a few kalamata olives in there too, I think, and some cucumber and shredded carrot. Annie’s Woodstock salad dressing was a great find. Red didn’t like it as much as I did, but if you’re like me (if you are, I am sorry for you), you’ll find it very tasty.


We had friends over for dinner and roasted the cauliflower with some broccoli as a side dish. The main course was Vcon’s Pumpkin-Baked Ziti, which I like more every time I make it. Our omni guests were appropriately amazed at its deliciousness.

So, we had kale, but I can’t remember if it was the same kale we had for Week 24 or not. I wrote it down twice, but you know how I am. My record-keeping suffered during the last week (see below), so whatevs, there was kale, but whether we had one bunch or two is anyone’s guess.

There is no picture for Week 24, which is a shame. Our routine was off: Red picked up the veggies as usual, but I went to yoga after work and didn’t get home until late, then I didn’t feel like wrestling everything out of the fridge and posing it for a photograph. So, use your imaginations.

This incredibly beautiful but alien vegetable appeared as though from the mothership:


Red reported that it had been labeled “tot soy.” Given our CSA’s track record with labeling some of the less-common-to-us vegetables, we were in doubt that it was actually named tot soy. Google confirmed that for us, then helpfully suggested that perhaps we were looking for tatsui. Praise Google, we were.

Our tatsui made a lovely stir-fry with some tofu:


Red cabbage! This one we kept. Some went into 30-Minute Vegan’s Peruvian Quinoa-Vegetable Soup, which is delicious and very easy. It reminds me of an upscale minestrone. Bonus points: It freezes well. Because it was a large cabbage, Red made Vegan Soul Kitchen’s coleslaw as well.


Continuing with our accidental soup theme this week, I made 30-Minute Vegan’s Pleasing Greens Soup. I was a bit apprehensive about this one, but since its genesis was a problem similar to ours—too many random greens and a shortage of ideas—I figured, what the hell. We used kale for our base and fennel stalks instead of celery, and I am glad we did! This soup is quite tasty. Yes, it is extremely green, and that is a little weird. I wouldn’t serve it to omnis, because it really does look like a cliché of what us poor deprived vegans eat regularly. But once you get past its looks (we can’t all be beauty queens!), you can enjoy its taste. Plus, I love any recipe that is basically “Chop some veggies, throw them in a pot, boil for a few, blend, eat.”


Please join me in playing the world’s smallest violin for the last salad of our CSA. This salad was a total failure, and it was probably my fault. Not even the Woodstock dressing could save it. Maybe it was the greens—they looked a little sad, and didn’t taste very good. I tried to liven them up with some arugula, carrots, and kalamata olives, to no avail. Bummer, because olives ain’t cheap.

The arugula soldiered on, however. We made a few lavash pizzas, although Red’s only had Daiya and peppers because he’s not a fan of greens on his pizza:

Turns out that lavash, or probably any flatbread, is an excellent pizza base.

More greens! Not really feeling another batch of green soup, I had Red chop the collards and the red mustard greens, then cooked them up. The mustard greens got with some garlic (Vegan with a Vengeance-style, though it is so simple as to not even need a recipe), and the collards became 30-Minute Vegan’s Gingered Collard Greens. Overall, I think I like collards better than mustard greens, but both were good with brown rice.

Top: collards. Bottom: mustard greens (they made the garlic purple, which was bizarre.)

It wouldn’t be a CSA week if we didn’t forget something in the back of the fridge, and this week it was the fennel. Sorry, fennel.

Okay, I realize that this is kind of anti-climactic, so let me make it up to you. I’ll be posting a CSA follow-up, complete with lessons learned over these almost-six months and whether we think we’ll do this again next year. Deal?

Bonus Lucy, with a napkin on her head: