I dream about being the type of cook who wanders through a farmers market, gets inspired by whatever’s in season, and runs home to make something simple and delicious without consulting a single recipe.
The reality is that I am extremely recipe-bound. I shop with a detailed list, rarely impulse-buy, and usually have meals planned weeks, sometimes months, out between recipe development and content planning. And I get full-on decision paralysis at the farmers market when I try to freestyle a menu.
So, in an effort to bring a little more spontaneity into my cooking and eat more locally, I signed up for a CSA this year with Harvest Tide Organics. I chose them because the pickup location is within walking distance and they let you customize your box, which felt like the right amount of structure for someone who wants to be more spontaneous but still needs guardrails.
Each week, I’ll share what came in my CSA box, what I made with it, and what actually worked. Hopefully it’s helpful for anyone else who loves the idea of a CSA but immediately panics when handed three bunches of greens and no plan.
For week two, my box included: CARROTS – GARLIC SCAPES – KALE – KOMATSUNA – NAPA CABBAGE – RED ONIONS – SCALLIONS
CARROTS
Carrots are the unsung workhorse of the kitchen. They’re almost always in my veggie drawer, waiting to be turned into a salad, soffritto, or quick snack. But because they’re so reliably there, I sometimes forget to let them be the star. This was a good reminder to stop treating carrots like background players.
What I made:
Devin Finigan’s Scorched Vegetables with Fish Caramel from A Kitchen on Goose Cove, page 221
OMG, I will be making this fish caramel on the regular. It’s so good: a funky-sweet sauce made with brown sugar, fish sauce, maple syrup, scallions, leeks, shallots, and heat from Thai bird chiles. It’s exactly the kind of versatile sauce I want to put on every hearty vegetable that comes in my CSA box. Devin makes the scorched vegetables on the grill, but I used my cast iron grill pan and seared snap peas, carrots, and broccolini.
Other ideas:
- The Woks of Life’s Roasted Root Vegetables with Miso Glaze
- Smitten Kitchen’s Carrot Salad with Tahini and Crisped Chickpeas
- Marcella Hazan’s Braised Carrots with Parmesan Cheese
No-recipe route: Cut carrots into sticks or coins toss with olive oil and salt, and roast at 425°F until browned and tender. From there, treat them like a blank canvas: add acid, something creamy, something crunchy, and maybe a little heat. Think yogurt + lemon + pistachios, tahini + chili crisp, goat cheese + herbs, or butter + miso + a splash of vinegar.
To preserve: Carrots will last for a while in the fridge, but if they go limp, cut them up and place them in ice water for several hours to revive them. You can also pickle them, like RecipeTinEats’s Vietnamese pickled carrot and daikon.
GARLIC SCAPES
Garlic scapes were new to me this week, and I honestly had no clue what to do with them. They look like curly antennae and taste like garlic’s milder, greener cousin: allium-y and fresh, with a little chive/scallion energy and less of the sharp bite you get from raw garlic cloves.
What I made:
Merrill Stubb’s Arugula and Garlic Scape Pesto
While I won’t be abandoning my basil-based pesto anytime soon, this was a nice alternative, with peppery arugula and the oniony, garlicky bite of the scapes. It was the perfect low-stakes way to figure them out: blend them into something delicious and spoonable, then put it on pasta,
Other ideas:
- Kristina Razon’s Garlic Scape Hummus (Serious Eat)
- Melissa Clark’s White Bean and Garlic Scapes Dip (NYTCooking)
- Anne Taylor Pittman’s Creamy Garlic Scape Soup (Southern Living)
No-recipe route: You could use these anywhere you’d use garlic, scallions, or chives. They’d be great chopped into scrambled eggs, folded into softened butter, sautéed with potatoes, tossed into stir-fries, blended into vinaigrettes, or stirred into white beans.
To preserve: Make pesto and freeze it in small portions, or chop the scapes and freeze them on a sheet pan before transferring to a bag. You can also make garlic scape butter or pickle them if you want something punchy for sandwiches, grain bowls, or snack plates.
KALE
Kale is one ingredient I never have trouble using up. Between our daily morning smoothies and massaged kale salads, it’s probably our most-used green. We typically prefer dino kale over curly kale, but we use them interchangeably.
What I made:
Every morning, Alex and I have a green smoothie for breakfast. It’s the same ingredients each day, but everything is eyeballed: about 2 handfuls of spinach, ½ cup coconut water, 3 large kale leaves with the stems removed, 1 cored Granny Smith apple, a quarter of a cucumber, and a handful of ice, all puréed until smooth. A powerful blender is needed unless you want to strain out the pulp, which I absolutely do not. Alex adds a little cayenne to his.
Other ideas:
- J. Kenji López-Alt’s Kale Caesar Salad (Serious Eats)
- Smitten Kitchen’s Ziti Chickpeas with Sausage and Kale
- Ina Garten’s Crispy Roasted Kale from Foolproof
No-recipe route: See green smoothie above. Or massage kale with a little olive oil and salt for the base of any salad. Just add mix-ins and dressing.
To preserve: Make Love and Lemon’s Kale Pesto and freeze.
KOMATSUNA
Another new-to-me ingredient this week was komatsuna, a leafy green also known as Japanese mustard spinach. It looks a little like spinach crossed with bok choy, with tender leaves and stems you can use. Flavor-wise, it’s mild, slightly sweet, and a little mustardy, but not nearly as bitter or aggressive as some other greens.
What I made:
Riverford’s Komatsuna and Shiitake Mushroom Stir-fry
Loved this quick and easy vegetarian stir-fry with shiitake mushrooms, Thai bird chiles, and tender komatsuna, all flavored with soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and sesame. It was simple, satisfying, and exactly the kind of low-effort dinner that makes an unfamiliar CSA green feel a lot less intimidating.
Other ideas:
- Oishi Washoku’s Komatsuna and Scrambled Egg Stir-Fry
No-recipe route: Treat komatsuna like spinach or bok choy. Chop the stems and leaves separately, then sauté the stems first with garlic or ginger before adding the leaves at the end. Finish with soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, or whatever direction dinner is going.
To preserve: Just One Cookbook’s Tsukemono – Shoyuzuke (Soy Sauce Pickling)
NAPA CABBAGE
Cabbage is not one of those vegetables I have any issues using up. “You smell like cabbage” was an insult my brother lobbed at me often growing up, but now I take it as a completely fair assessment. I love cabbage. It’s cheap, sturdy, lasts forever in the fridge, and can go a million different directions depending on what you do with it.
What I made:
Hetty Lui Mckinnon’s Roasted Napa Cabbage with Sesame Sauce from Tenderheart, page 105
I love a complex sauce made with ingredients I already had in my cupboards and fridge and this umami-bomb is truly the star – a tasty mix of tahini, soy sauce, garlic, mirin, miso and rice vinegar – drizzled over tender, charred cabbage and sprinkled with cilantro and sesame seeds.
Other ideas:
- The Woks of Life’s Sichuan Napa Cabbage Stir-Fry
- Maangchi’s Cabbage Pancake
- Smitten Kitchen’s Napa Cabbage Wedge with Miso Dressing
No-recipe route: Slice it up and toss it with lime, olive oil, and salt for a crunchy topping you can add to tacos, grain bowls, salads, or really anything that needs a little freshness. Or, my preferred method: make clean-out-the-fridge egg roll filling. Thinly slice it and sauté with whatever odds and ends you have: scallions, garlic, carrots, leftover rice, ground meat, tofu, eggs, herbs, or any sauce lurking in the fridge. Soy sauce, sesame oil, Shaoxing wine, vinegar, fish sauce, miso, or gochujang can all take it somewhere good.
To preserve: Make Eric Kim’s Perfect Jar of Kimchi. It’s the best future gift to yourself: a little upfront effort, then weeks of kimchi fried rice, eggs, noodles, grilled cheese, and “I have nothing for dinner” saves.
RED ONIONS
Red onions are another ingredient I never have any issue using up. They’re just too useful, whether I’m cooking them down into caramelized onions for burgers, steaks, and sandwiches, adding them raw to salads for crunch and bite, or quick-pickling them for an acidic topper that makes almost anything better.
What I made:
Don Angie’s Red Onion Poppy Jam from Italian American, page 26
This was such a fun way to turn red onions into something a little more special. The onions cook down into a sweet-tangy jam with just enough pop from the poppy seeds to keep it interesting. It’s the kind of condiment that would be great with cheese, spooned onto sandwiches, served alongside grilled meat, or honestly eaten straight from the jar if no one is watching.
Other ideas:
- My Spicy Cucumber Salad with Pickled Red Onions
- Ina Garten’s Panzanella
- Ina Garten’s Smashed Hamburgers with Caramelized Onions
No-recipe route: Cook them low and slow with olive oil, salt, and a little patience until they collapse into jammy caramelized onions.
To preserve: Pickled Red Onion (what I do with every leftover red onion)
SCALLIONS
Scallions are one of those ingredients I use almost daily, yet I still always find a few sad, limp ones forgotten at the bottom of the veggie drawer. So I’m always looking for ways to use up the stragglers beyond just sprinkling them on top of something and calling it a day.
What I made:
My husband whipped up a simple shrimp fried rice, cooking the scallion whites with the rice and garnishing with the greens. No recipe here. While I’m recipe-bound, he just walks into the kitchen and whips up magic like it’s nothing
Other ideas:
- The Woks of Life’s Shanghai Scallion Pancakes
- Ina Garten’s Green Herb Dip
- Smitten Kitchen’s Scallion Meatballs with Soy-Ginger Glaze
No-recipe route: Use the whites like a mild onion and the greens like an herb. Add them to scrambled eggs, fried rice, noodle bowls, soups, dumpling filling, tuna salad, baked potatoes, grain bowls, or anything that needs a little fresh oniony bite.
To preserve: You can make Ginger Scallion Sauce, scallion butter, or scallion oil, which instantly makes future rice, eggs, noodles, or roasted vegetables feel like you had a plan.
What I learned from week two
I am getting into the swing of this and finding uses, both recipe-based and freestyling to make sure nothing goes to waste!
Check out CSA WEEK ONE
