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: BROCCOLI – GREEN CABBAGE – COLLARD GREENS – CUCUMBER – KOHLRABI – GARLIC SCAPES – CILANTRO
BROCCOLI
When we’re looking for a simple side for dinner, we usually cycle through Brussels sprouts, broccolini, a salad, and broccoli, so there was no issue putting this broccoli to use.
What I made:
Sohla El-Waylly’s Broccoli & Cheese Galette (Start Here, page 337)
I wanted to change things up from my usual roasted broccoli and make something a little more special, and this galette was the perfect use. Think creamy broccoli and cheddar in tart form: a rough puff crust infused with cheddar, topped with a cheddar-mustard mornay sauce and chopped broccoli, then baked until the crust is golden and the broccoli is slightly charred. SO GOOD!
Other ideas:
- Smitten Kitchen’s Broccoli Slaw
- Ali Slagle’s Roasted Broccoli With Vinegar-Mustard Glaze
- Beverly Kim’s Broccoli Spoon Salad With Warm Vinaigrette
No-recipe route: Cut the broccoli into small florets, peel and slice the stems, then roast everything until browned at the edges. From there, turn it into whatever you need: toss with pasta, lemon, chile flakes, and Parmesan; pile over rice with a fried egg and chili crisp; fold into a frittata; or make a grain bowl with farro, tahini sauce, herbs, and something crunchy.
To preserve: Broccoli freezes well if you won’t get to it in time. Cut it into florets, peel and chop the stems, blanch briefly in salted boiling water, shock in ice water, dry well, then freeze on a sheet pan before transferring to a bag.
GARLIC SCAPES
This was week two of cooking with garlic scapes. 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:
Via Carota’s Scapi di Aglio con Fagioli – Garlic Scapes with Lima Beans (Via Carota, page 53)
I went a very different route from last week’s pesto. Gigantes beans are boiled until tender – mine were apparently very old, because after an overnight soak and a 45-minute boil they were still tough and crumbly, so I ended up boiling them for another 45 minutes. The result was still very tasty: creamy (if a bit busted) beans in a savory broth infused with a hint of garlic scapes.
Other ideas:
- Kristina Razon’s Garlic Scape Hummus (Serious Eats)
- 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.
GREEN 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:
Smitten Kitchen’s Charred Salt and Vinegar Cabbage (Keepers, page 103)
This is my go-to cabbage recipe and the easiest way to eat a full head of cabbage in one sitting. Chunks of cabbage roast with cubes of butter until nicely browned and charred in spots, then get finished with a healthy splash of white vinegar and roasted until the vinegar evaporates. Pure perfection.
Other ideas:
- Ina Garten’s Blue Cheese Coleslaw
- Melissa Clark’s Parmesan Cabbage Soup
- Ma’s Egg Rolls
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: Cabbage will keep for a while in the crisper drawer so no rush on this one. But you could make sauerkraut
COLLARD GREENS
I have only cooked with collard greens a couple of times, and it has always been the classic long simmer with some sort of pork. Delicious, obviously, but I was on the lookout for a different use this time and found a much fresher route with Sohla El-Waylly’s Collards & Corn with Ranch Dressing from Start Here.
What I made:
Sohla El-Waylly’s Collards & Corn with Ranch Dressing (Start Here, page 31)
Ribbons of chopped collards are massaged until tender, then tossed with an absolutely divine homemade ranch dressing, fresh corn, dill, and chives. It all gets topped with crushed corn nuts, which add the exact salty crunch I want in every salad.
While I probably won’t make the full salad again, my friend Laura strongly disagreed with that assessment, so take my verdict with a grain of salt. What I will absolutely be making again is the ranch. It’s bright, herby, creamy, and the kind of dressing that makes you wonder why you ever bought the bottled stuff.
Other ideas:
- Von Diaz’s Coconut-Braised Collard Greens
- Andrea Nguyen’s Greens With Magical Sesame Salt
- Sam Sifton’s Braised Collard Greens
No-recipe route: Remove the tough stems, stack the leaves, roll them up, and slice into thin ribbons. From there, you can sauté them quickly with olive oil, garlic, chile flakes, and a splash of vinegar for a fast side. Add white beans or sausage and call it dinner, or toss the greens into soups, stews, grain bowls, scrambled eggs, or pasta.
To preserve: You can cook them down with garlic and olive oil, then freeze that mixture as a future shortcut for soups, beans, pasta, rice bowls, or a quick side when you need something green and already did most of the work.
CUCUMBER
Cucumbers are one of our most-used vegetables. Between smashed cucumber salads, green smoothies, snack platters, cocktails, and the occasional eating directly from the fridge, there is no shortage of ways we put them to work.
What I made:
The green smoothie returns for week 3: 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:
- My Spicy Cucumber Salad with Pickled Red Onions
- Jasper White’s World Famous Lobster Rolls
- Melissa Clark’s Chilled Cucumber Soup with Avocado Toast
No-recipe route: Slice cucumbers and toss them with salt, rice vinegar, sesame oil, chile crisp, and a little sugar for a quick smashed cucumber-style salad. Or go more Mediterranean with lemon, olive oil, dill, yogurt, and plenty of black pepper.
To preserve: Quick pickle them.
KOHLRABI
The only time I’d ever had kohlrabi was in a shaved salad from a local restaurant, which we ordered every single time we went. I loved it, but had never actually worked with it at home. Kohlrabi is a member of the brassica family, which means it’s related to cabbage, broccoli, kale, and turnips. The bulb is the part you usually see, though the greens are edible too. Raw, it’s crisp, juicy, and slightly sweet, almost like a cross between a broccoli stem, cabbage, and a very mild turnip.
What I made:
Andy Baraghani’s Stir-Fried Kohlrabi with Bacon and Scallions (Bon Appetit)
This felt like the perfect first kohlrabi recipe because with bacon, scallions, garlic, and soy sauce how could you go wrong. The peeled kohlrabi is cut into wedges and browned until golden, then tossed with the scallions, garlic, kohlrabi greens, bacon, and soy sauce. I loved that you used both the bulb and the greens. The kohlrabi keeps a little bite, the bacon adds richness, the soy sauce brings salt and depth, and the scallions and greens keep it from feeling too heavy. It’s a recipe that makes an unfamiliar vegetable feel very doable.
Other ideas:
- Martha Rose Shulman’s Greek-Style Kohlrabi Pie or Gratin With Dill and Feta
- Andy Baraghani’s Shaved Kohlrabi with Mint, Tahini, and Pistachios
- AllRecipe’s Roasted Kohlrabi
No-recipe route: Peel it, thinly slice it, and treat it like a crunchy salad vegetable. Toss with lemon juice or vinegar, olive oil, salt, herbs, and something creamy or nutty like tahini, yogurt, feta, pistachios, or walnuts. Or cut it into matchsticks and use it anywhere you’d want a crisp slaw: tacos, grain bowls, sandwiches, or alongside anything grilled or roasted.
To preserve: Quick pickle it.
CILANTRO
Cilantro is one of those ingredients where Ina and I agree to disagree. She hates it, and I can’t get enough. I garnish so many things with it: soups, tacos, rice bowls, curries, salads, eggs, anything that needs a little fresh, green wake-up. But I also have a bad habit of buying a bunch, using a handful, and then discovering a sad, wilted bag lingering in the bottom of my crisper a week later. So this week, I was on the lookout for dishes that used a lot of cilantro, not just a polite sprinkle at the end.
What I made:
The Woks of Life’s West Lake Soup (The Woks of Life Cookbook, page 266)
This may be my new favorite soup. It’s basically egg drop soup, but better! Diced steak is velveted, quickly blanched, and then added to chicken broth that’s lightly thickened with cornstarch and seasoned with white pepper. Then come the egg ribbons, tofu, and a very generous amount of chopped cilantro, which is exactly what I was looking for. It’s silky, savory, comforting, and still feels light. The real win here is the flavor-to-effort ratio. It tastes like something much more involved than it is, which is my favorite kind of cookbook magic.
Other ideas:
- Nermine Mansour’s Egyptian Bissara (Split Fava Bean Dip)
- Samin Nosrat’s Cilantro-Date Chutney
- Shilpa Uskokovic’s Green Chutney Chicken
No-recipe route: Make a big herby sauce. Blend cilantro with lime juice, garlic, salt, olive oil, and a little jalapeño or chile. Spoon it over roasted vegetables, grilled chicken, fish, tacos, rice bowls, or eggs.
To preserve: Make cilantro chutney, herb sauce, or cilantro oil and freeze it in ice cube trays for future soups, curries, beans, rice, and marinades.
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