Carrots

Carrots

Carrots are one of the most fun and versatile vegetables out there, although they are deceptively ubiquitous and thus, unfortunately end up as the bland, overcooked endgame of a lot of recipes. Carrots feel like the nondescript, reliable friend that hides a vast, sprawling secret love of poetry. Not many other vegetables can span across almost every cooking culture and even make their way innocuously into fluffy cakes or even gingery sorbets.

Growing Lots’ carrots are sweet and tender, and the tri-colored variety offers a few varying levels of sweetness while still holding up to a good baking (or even grilling). I like to roast them until they are almost a bit crispy and blackened on the edges, rounding out their sweet caramelization with a note of bitterness. If I’m feeling lazy on a hot day, but still want to add some vegetables into whatever I’m eating, I’ll shave a few coins on a mandolin and have them over top of cooked salmon, or tossed into a salad for a bit of crunch.

The grassy tops, similar to parsley, can be used for pestos or in salads as a nice herbaceous bite, allowing usage of the entire carrot!

Some Carrot Recipes

Roasted Carrot Fries with Tahina

Ingredients:

About one pound of carrots, washed well, peeled if you’d like, and halved (or quartered if they’re quite large)

1 tablespoon of neutral oil

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon chopped garlic (or garlic powder)

Optionally, ¼ cup parmesan, grated or microplaned (or ¼ cup nutritional yeast if you’d like to keep it dairy free!)

1 tablespoon chopped parsley (or carrot tops!)

4 medium-to-large cloves garlic, pressed or minced

¼ cup lemon juice

½ cup tahini

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

Pinch of ground cumin

6 tablespoons ice water, but more as needed

Method:

For the carrot fries, preheat your oven to 400*.

In a bowl, combine the carrots with the oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, lemon zest, and parmesan, if using. Spread the carrots on a baking sheet, being careful not to crowd the sheet.

Bake the carrots for approximately 15-20 minutes, until they are tender and lightly browned. Once they are cooked, remove them from the oven and toss with fresh parsley or carrot tops, and nutritional yeast, if using.  Salt a little more as needed, and serve with tahina.

For the tahina, let the minced garlic marinate in the lemon juice for about 20 minutes, and then strain it out, pressing the garlic against the sieve with a spoon to really get those bits of juice out of there. Reserve the garlic for another use (like roasting with the carrot fries). Whisk the tahini, salt, and cumin into a bowl, adding ice water a few tablespoons at a time to help keep the mixture from seizing. The ideal tahina is fluffy and soft! From here, you can adjust the seasoning as you’d like, with extra lemon, salt, or cumin.

Turmeric Dill Pickled Carrots

Ingredients:

4-6 medium carrots, scrubbed and peeled

½ an onion, julienned

3 cloves of garlic, crushed but left whole

A good little bunch of dill, approximately 4-5 stalks

3/4 cup apple cider vinegar

½ cup water

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

½ teaspoon black peppercorns

½ teaspoon mustard seed

1 teaspoon coriander seed

1 teaspoon sugar

Method:

Begin by cutting the carrots into large matchsticks (I usually doing this by halving the carrots, then quartering each piece, until they’ll fit into a glass mason jar), or alternately you can slice the carrots into coins. Place the carrots into a pint sized mason jar along with the sliced onion, dill, and garlic cloves.

Bring the apple cider vinegar, water, salt, and the rest of the ingredients for the brine up to a boil on the stove. Once it is boiling, pour it carefully over the carrot mixture in the jar. Let it come down to room temperature, then seal the jar with a lid. Refrigerate overnight and enjoy the next day!

Carrot, Apple, and Beet Salad with Kale

Ingredients:

4 carrots, scrubbed (and optionally, peeled)

1 apple (Fuji or Honeycrisp preferred, but whatever feels good!)

2 small or 1 medium beet, peeled

½ a bunch of kale, stemmed

Any mix of fresh herbs to taste, such as: carrot tops, parsley, cilantro, or basil

Toasted nuts or seeds to taste, such as pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, sliced almonds, or chopped cashews

½ cup of apple cider, rice wine, or white wine vinegar

2 teaspoons honey or maple syrup

1 teaspoon of dijon mustard

1 tablespoon of salt

1 cup of neutral oil

½ teaspoon chili flake

Method:

Begin by chopping the carrots, beets, and apples into thin slices (or matchstick them with a mandolin). Stem the kale and roll it up into one big wrap, then slice it thinly into a chiffonade. Toss all of the salad ingredients into a bowl and give it a mix. Tear some fresh herbs into the salad, and add some nuts or seeds if you would like.

For the dressing, combine the vinegar, sweetener, mustard, chili flake, and salt in a bowl, then slowly drizzle the oil in while whisking constantly. Season to taste. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss to combine. Garnish with a few more herbs over top and more seeds, as you’d like.

writing credit: Sadie Sayre, CSA member

Beets

Beets

Ahhh, beets. Nature’s candy! Just kidding, but they do feel like a zaftig gem that I often forget about until I’m biting into unctuous, meaty wedges of beet, and am taken aback by their unabashed alacrity. It’s my own loss that I forget about the magic of beets, until I finally roast some up and fall back in love with them, a surprise every single time. The irony here, of course, is that when I was once a chef at a fine dining restaurant in Minneapolis, my one highlight dish on the menu was a sweet little beet salad, tempered by an earthy pistachio pistou, blanched lemon peel, and the bitter pop of torn radicchio leaves. The beets were buried at the bottom of the plate and it now feels like a perfect metaphor for my rediscovery of beets, an awakening in every single bite.

Last summer when I got beets with my Growing Lots CSA, I saved up a couple weeks’ worth of them (they keep in a crisper drawer really well), and then roasted them until their skins slipped off easily. After that, I pickled them in a sweeter, gingery brine with some coriander seeds, and proceeded to throw those beets into any dish I could think of! I feel like I’ve waxed poetic about roasted beets a lot through here, but there’s also something to be said, on a hot day where turning on the oven just won’t do, for thinly shaved beets tossed with a little lemon juice, olive oil, crunchy salt, and maybe a little arugula for a peppery, astringent note to offset the full body of the beets.

Like carrot tops, beet greens can be reserved and used in any recipe that recommends chard, spinach, or bok choy. The greens are intensely earthy, but retain their texture well and are a lot of fun to throw in with a last minute pasta or salad!

Some Beet Recipes

Simply Roasted Beets (and a recipe to pickle them, as well)

Ingredients:

2 pounds of beets, scrubbed but left whole

A drizzle of oil, salt, and pepper

Enough water to fill the bottom of the pan, about 1”

To pickle the roasted beets, you’ll need…

¾ cup apple cider vinegar

¾ cup water

¼ cup fresh ginger, sliced

A couple bay leaves, if you have them

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon of coriander seeds

2 star anise

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 teaspoon salt

Method:

To roast your beets, preheat your oven to 375. Scrub the beets, then oil them up and give them a little sprinkling of salt and pepper. I’m never sure if this seasoning actually makes a difference, but it certainly can’t hurt. Pop the beets in a baking dish, then add water. Put a lid (or a tight wrap of foil should do the trick) over the top of the baking dish, and place the baking dish in the oven for between 45 minutes to a little over an hour, depending on their size. 

Take them out and check on them at any time, but the beets will be perfect when they can be pierced easily all the way through with a fork. All of the water might evaporate, and that’s okay--it’s just to give the beets a little bit of an extra steam so the core can cook through as well.

Let the beets cool, and then the skins should just slip right off as you rub them! I hold them inside of a towel that I don’t mind staining, and paper towels work fine too. If the skins seem a little sticky, it’s fine to take a peeler to them once they’re all cooked.

To pickle the beets, once they are peeled, slice them into wedges (or round slices) and add them to a pint sized mason jar with the sliced ginger. Bring all of the brine ingredients up to a boil and then pour them over the beets. Let cool and refrigerate overnight before enjoying!

Shaved Root Vegetable and Crispy Chickpea Salad with Sumac Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

2 medium beets, peeled

1 bulb of fennel, halved but core intact

1 medium kohlrabi, peeled

½ a red florence onion

Torn or chopped herbs, including: fennel fronds, garlic chives, parsley, basil, and mint

A few segments of orange of grapefruit

1 can of chickpeas, liquid drained

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon smoked paprika

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup champagne vinegar

2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup

1 tablespoon sumac, plus more for garnish

¾ cup olive oil

1 lemon, juiced

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

Method:

To make the salad, simply shave all of the vegetables finely on a mandolin or slice them very finely by hand. (I’m terrible at this, so I really recommend a mandolin if you can!) Keep all of your vegetables separate until it’s time to plate, or the beets will bleed all over everything. The herbs can be torn and mixed together, and the fruit segments can sit in their own juice until you’re ready.

To roast the chickpeas, give them a good rinse and try to remove some of the outer skins if you can--but don’t fuss over it too much. Dry them on a baking sheet with paper towels on either side until they are pretty dry, then toss the chickpeas with the oil, salt, and spices. Spread them flat on a baking sheet and bake them at 375 for 45-60 minutes, giving them a shake or stir every 15 or so minutes, until they are crispy and browned (but not hard and dark).

To make the vinaigrette, combine the vinegar, honey, sumac, lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a mason jar, and give everything a good hard couple of shakes, then add the olive oil and shake that up as well.

To serve, toss the vegetables together with the vinaigrette to taste and adjust the seasoning with more salt, pepper, or lemon as needed. Garnish with the crispy chickpeas, more sumac if you’d like, and more fresh herbs on top!

Beet Latkes with Horseradish Sour Cream

Ingredients:

1 medium russet potato (270 g), peeled

1 large or 2 small beets, peeled

1 medium yellow onion

1 large egg

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

¼ cup (30 g) all-purpose flour

Freshly ground black pepper

Vegetable oil, for frying

1 tablespoon kosher salt

¼ cup prepared horseradish

1 cup sour cream (or yogurt works too!)

2 tablespoons chopped chives or scallions

1 teaspoon of salt, and a little more to taste

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

Method:

For the latkes, grate the potato coarsely on the large holes of a box grater (or in a food processor using the grating blade). Wrap the grated potatoes in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze vigorously to get rid of any excess liquid. Transfer to a large bowl. Do the same with the onion. If you don’t care about staining your dish towel, do the same with the beets--otherwise, grate the beets and squeeze out the moisture by hand; add to the bowl with the potatoes and onion. Add the egg, thyme, flour, and black pepper; mix to combine.

Line a plate with paper towels. Fill a large nonstick skillet with vegetable oil to a depth of ¼ inch and heat the oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, stir the salt into the latke mixture, pick up a small handful, and squeeze out even more liquid (depending on the potato and onion you use, you might have quite a lot of liquid).

Shape the mixture into round, flat patties about 3 inches in diameter and carefully add them to the hot oil. Leave yourself  plenty of room between the latkes to flip them! Fry until the latkes are crunchy and slightly browned, about 3 minutes on each side. Transfer to the paper towels to drain. Salt the latkes once you pull them out of the oil.

For the horseradish sour cream, simply combine the horseradish, sour cream, chives, lemon juice, and salt in a bowl and adjust seasoning as needed.

Bonus: Beet Chocolate Cake

Of course, I don’t have my own well-tested recipe for this, but just thought that I would include this recipe (thanks Bon Appetit) because beets in sweets can’t be beat!: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/heartbeet-chocolate-cake

writing credit: Sadie Sayre, CSA member

Long Red Florence

Red Florence Onions

I’m so smitten with these onions, the leather jacket wearing bikers of the onion world. I didn’t know about them until my CSA last year with Growing Lots, and I’m permanently changed now. An Italian heirloom onion, we are really the winners here, getting this tiny red gem: more elongated than a typical onion, a little similar to a shallot in size, but packing a sweet and funky punch to anything they come across. We got these a lot through our season with Growing Lots, and I liked how the flavor changed slightly as we went further into the season--going from tender and mild to a spicier sweetness as the weather wore on.

The standalone taste in these onions is really helpful in dictating preparation, from raw to cooked. Depending on what flavors you’re wanting to tease out of them, these little bad boys are perfect, whether thrown on the grill whole or just sliced raw into salads. They make an easy accompaniment to roasted chicken (if you feel like turning on your oven) and root vegetables. The tops can even be chopped as a garnish for soups or added to pestos for a little kick!

Some Red Florence Onion Recipes

Onion Top and Arugula (or whatever greens!) Pesto

Ingredients:

¼ cup arugula (or whatever green you’d like--we’ve even done purslane and it’s pretty good)

3 tablespoons onion tops, roughly chopped

1 clove of garlic

3 tablespoons of walnuts, almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds, or whatever nut or seed you like

Optionally, you can add ⅓ cup of grated cheese such as parmesan or pecorino

½ cup olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon red chili flake

Method:

Place the arugula, onion tops, garlic, salt, and chili flake in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse everything a few times until it’s looking pretty roughly chopped, then add your cheese and nuts or seeds and pulse it a few more times until it’s very roughly combined. Turn the food processor on and slowly drizzle olive oil in until a desired texture is achieved--you can either drizzle it in quickly and go with a chunkier pesto, or you can let it go a little longer for a smoother texture.

This pesto is perfect folded into pasta with fresh tomatoes, or spread onto flatbread with a little goat cheese (or also some fresh tomatoes). You can dazzle it up with some more herbs that you might have around, like parsley, basil, mint, or cilantro, depending on what you’re feeling!

Charred Onion and Tomato Compote

Ingredients:

1 pound onion, tops and bottoms trimmed but left whole, tops reserved for a later use

½ pound cherry tomatoes, stemmed

9 tablespoons of oil, divided into 3 tablespoons and approx. ⅓ cup

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons salt

The peel of an orange or lemon, and a squeeze of their respective juice, if you would like

Torn herbs that you might have on hand (basil and mint are nice here)

Method:

Begin by tossing the onions and tomatoes in the three tablespoons of olive oil. You’ll char them either by grilling them nicely until they are caramelized on mostly all sides, or by broiling the vegetables until they have a nice char on the outside. That char is key here, since the bitterness will lend itself nicely to these otherwise sweet vegetables!

Once everything is charred, place the vegetables in a bowl, add your torn herbs, and cover it tightly with plastic wrap until they are room temperature. In the meantime, warm the vinegar, sugar, salt, and orange peel in a small pot until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Pour this mixture into the bowl of vegetables and herbs, then stir in the rest of the oil. Keep in the fridge in a little jar and enjoy over toast, cheese, or stirred in with grilled or roasted vegetables!

Roasted Mixed Vegetables

Ingredients:

1 pound onions, ends trimmed and then cut into quarters

2 pounds tri-color carrots, ends trimmed and then halved

1 pound turnips, ends trimmed and then quartered

1 pound beets, peeled, ends trimmed, and then quartered

1 pound peppers, julienned

3 cloves of garlic, smashed and sliced

⅓ cup of oil

1 tablespoon of salt

½ tablespoon of pepper

1 teaspoon coriander, ground

1 teaspoon cumin, ground

2 teaspoons fresh oregano, chopped

2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, chopped

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1 tablespoon whole grain mustard

Method:

This is a pretty simple one. Preheat your oven to about 375 degrees.  Prepare your vegetables as intended (you definitely don’t need to go with my recommendations--just whatever feels good and ends up making them a similar size), oil them and toss them in the salt, pepper, herbs, lemon zest, juice, and spices--I usually save the mustard until the end and then toss that into the warm vegetable mixture for a little bit of textural pop.

Roast your vegetables until they are tender and caramelized, approximately 30 minutes but maybe a little bit more depending on how hot your oven runs. Once everything is fork tender, stir everything up with the mustard, and serve warm or cold with dressed greens or any prepared grains like farro, quinoa, or couscous.

Bread-and-Butter-esque Pickled Vegetables

Ingredients:

½ pound onions, julienned

3 carrots, sliced thinly

2 red peppers, julienned

4 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 cup of apple cider vinegar

¾ cups of water

¼ cup of sugar

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

½ teaspoon coriander seeds

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

½ teaspoon celery seed

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

Method:

Slice up your onions, carrots, peppers, and garlic, and fit them tightly into a glass mason jar. Bring the rest of the ingredients up to a boil and pour the boiling hot brine over top of the vegetables. The brine should completely cover the vegetables. Let cool to room temperature and then refrigerate overnight. This is so delicious over sandwiches or mixed into salads and can be more easily customized with what’s in season (green beans, hello!), as well!

writing credit: Sadie Sayre. CSA member

Summer Squash

Garlic-Herb Summer Squash

Balsamic Zucchini

Vegetarian Linguine Recipe

Nettle

Nettles just might be my all time favorite edible plant.  At Growing Lots, we work so hard cultivating all the veggies that make their way to our plates.  Nettles however, just show up for us!  Nettles are among the first edible plants to break ground with their bright green nutrient dense leaves each spring.  When I’m weary of winter their early arrival makes my hungry heart soar! Despite their “weedy nature” and temporary stinging qualities they couldn’t be a more welcome gift. 

This entire plant is edible!  Nettles are a great source of a wide variety of vitamins and minerals.  Because of their extraordinary nutrient density the first thing I use nettles for is nettle broth or soup!  I think of these recipes as spring tonics!  I can easily cook them up in my eggs for breakfast or make a nettle quiche that I can enjoy through out the week.  I also love celebrate spring by treating myself to a couple novel nettle dishes like farro pasta with nettle sausage or nettle ravioli!  Keeping their super food qualities in mind they make excellent additions to smoothies. It’s also easy to think of nettles as a green that’s interchangeable with cooked spinach therefore nettles do well in palak paneer or simply steamed/ sautéed with garlic!  Being that a good nettle patch is typically very productive I will keep harvesting nettles through out the spring and early summer to preserve in a few ways.  The easiest way to preserve nettles is to dry them for tea.  You can also grind dried nettle leaves up to use as a super food powder to add to soups and smoothies through out the year.  Lastly I freeze them! You can blanch and freeze nettles to store as is or you can whip up a batch of nettle pesto to freeze for quick snack dips, pasta’s and savory pastries! 

 Soups

Nettle Broth

Nettle Sausage and white Bean Soup

 Pastas

 Farro Pasta with Nettles and Sausage

Nettle Ravioli

 Nettle super food smoothies

Foraged Tropical Nettle Smoothie

 Palak paneer

Nettle Palak Paneer

 sautéed

Saute'ed Stinging Nettles

 Nettle Tea

Indigenous Nettle Tea Medley

 Super Food Powder

Super healthy Nettle Powder

 How to Freeze nettles

How to Blanch and Freeze Nettles

 Pesto

Walnut Nettle Pesto

 Nettle quiche

Stinging Nettle Quiche

 Savory nettle pastry

Nettle Cheese Puff Pastry

Radish

I just think radishes are freaking adorable!  Their fresh crisp flavor pairs so well with the many other offerings of spring!

 It’s easy to think salads right off the bat because thankfully radishes make their first appearance among the sea of spring greens!  I’ve included a number of CSA friendly radish salads in the recipe box below. 

  You can also think of radishes as snacks.  One of the purest ways to enjoy a crisp radish is simply raw with a little salt and pepper.  You can also take it one step further and do as the French and dip them in butter.  Radishes can be a vehicle for many homemade dips that you might whip up from your CSA box.  Think nettle pesto or later in the season eggplant baba ghanoush!  Radishes make great hors d’oeuvres on a cracker with some fetta and mint!  Then of course there’s lots of open face sandwich mash-ups staring radishes that could help you up your avocado toast game!

 Radishes add a lot of flavor to pickles, slaws and salsas!  Thankfully mint and cilantro make their appearances as early and as often in CSA boxes as radishes and are a key pairing to many of the recipes in this category that I’ve listed below! Tacos, nachos, fajitas, burritos and quesadillas are all the natural home of the radish!

Last but not least, honestly one of our favorite type of radish, roasting radishes are often overlooked but make a great side dish to any spring or summer soup or roast you might enjoy!

 Salads

Radish Carrot Cilantro Salad

Radish and Shaved Fennel Salad

Bok Choy and Radish Salad

Herb Vinaigrette Potato Salad With Radishes

Crispy Chickpea and Radish Salad

Arugula and Radish Salad

Mexican Radish Salad

Shaved Radish Salad With Mint and Feta

Spinach Salad With Ham and Egg

Roasted Chickpea Banh Mi Salad

Open faced sandwiches

Radish Sandwiches With Butter and Salt

Radish Avocado Toast

Buttered Radish Breakfast Sandwich

 Roasted radishes

Roasted Radish Side Dish

 Tacos

Steak Tacos With Cilantro Radish Salsa

Loaded Radish Chip Nachos (Keto)

Relish

https://naturallyella.com/radish-scallion-salsa/

https://www.rachelcooks.com/2019/05/15/pickled-radish-recipe/

https://theliveinkitchen.com/radish-salsa/

https://www.finecooking.com/recipe/kohlrabi-radish-slaw-with-cumin-and-cilantro

Salad Mix

Behold the backbone to any good CSA!  Salad mix is one of our most popular items for our CSA and markets.  You’ll find lots of salad recipes sprinkled in with so many of our other veggie profiles that I’m not going to list recipes for salad here…but I am going to brag a bit about what makes our mixes so awesome!  Also I’m going to give you a few tips about how to keep your salad in its original state of awesomeness for over a week! 

We call our salad blend magic mix! Aside from being a blend of our favorite lettuces, and flavorful mustard greens the magic comes from the hot pink wild greens and edible flowers we mix in as often as possible! The star of this mix is magenta spreen lambs’ quarter, which is so nutrient dense that it’s hot pink star burst center literally sparkles with mineral crystals! We also add plenty of baby amaranth which brightens the mix with its’ purple and bright pink hues.  Add a dusting of edible flowers and you pretty much have an edible version of a magical fairytale!

The secret to keeping the magic alive once you get your salad home is to give it a quick rinse to refresh before sticking it in the fridge.  Use a salad spinner to dry off your salad, but also to store it. Storing it in a salad spinner can help your salad last for weeks!  There’s a reason salad comes in big plastic clamshells at the grocery store, they help salad last longer than a plastic bag would.  Salad spinners are easily found at thrift stores or are relatively affordable to buy new.  If your committed to eating plastic free local greens it will be a valuable kitchen tool for years to come!  

Spinach

Spinach is one of the hardest crops for me to grow!  At one point in my farming career I swore I was DONE trying to grow spinach.  Spinach is extremely temperature sensitive, and seems to need just the right blend of nutrients to thrive.  Plus I think this green is about as popular with pests as it is people.  So every time you are eating a spinach from Growing Lots, just know that your farmer’s are dang proud of their accomplishment!  

 There is no shortage of things you can do with spinach.  Just because it’s a salad green does not mean it’s only good for salads, quite the contrary!  Spinach can be cooked up into a variety of soups, pasta’s, savory pastries, eggs bakes and quiches, as well as served raw in salads, wraps and sandwiches! I’ve listed many recipes in all these categories below!  I easily came up with a ton of recipes for spinach.  If you run out of spinach before you can try all of these recipes know you can substitute with many of the other greens you’ll find in your CSA!  

 Pasta

Easy Spinach Lasagna Recipe

Miso Spinach Pesto and Ramen Noodles

5 Ingredient Spinach and Parmesan Pasta

Garlic Butter and Spinach Pasta

Spinach Chicken and Butternut Gnocci

 Soup

Spring Spinach Minestrone

Spinach Chicken Soup with Carrots and Mushrooms

Spinach Egg Drop Soup

Spinach Tomato and Cannellini Bean Soup

Spicy Sausage Spinach and White Bean Soup

 salad

Easy Japanese Style Spinach Salad

Cannellini Beans With Spinach

Classic Spinach Salad

Spinach and Chicken Waldorf salad

Butternut Squash Spinach Salad with Maple Rosemary Vinaigrette

Lentil Spinach and Chickpea Salad

 Curry

Saag Paneer with Feta

Spinach Lentil and Chickpea Dahl

 Pastry

Easier Then You Think Greek Spinach Spanakopita Pie

 Creamed spinach, dips, side dishes

Vegan Creamed Spinach

Spinach Yogurt Dip With Sizzled Mint

 Breakfast

Green Eggs and Ham Bake

Spinach With Chickpea Fried Egg Skillet

Snap Peas

Sugar! Snap! Peas! This is one crop that will forever taste better straight from the farm in the spring than in any grocery store. On the off chance you can resist snacking on all your peas before they get to your kitchen I’m going to give you a couple tips about what to do with these precious spring treats! Being that sugar snap peas are one of life’s simple pleasures, preparing them should also be simple.  Eat them as snacks with dips (maybe nettle pesto, spinach mint feta dip?). They go great in salads or lightly sautéed in butter with lemon!  Because we’re just as obsessed with cooking as we are growing food, we only select stringless pea varieties, so there’s no need to string or trim the peas you get from Growing Lots!

 Salads

Kale and Sugar Snap Pea Salad

Sugar Snap Pea Salad With Radishes, Mint and Ricotta

Sautéed

Sugar Snap Peas With Pancetta and Parmesan

Sauteed Sugar Snap Peas

Mint

Growing lots has been blessed with mint!  Well sorta…depending on how ya look at it.  Mint is a pervasive weed at our lot next to costal seafood. When we first started farming that lot a rogue patch of mint had almost entirely taken over our veggie beds.  With some persistence we’ve been able to get the weed pressure of mint under control, and have come up with abundant ways to use it along the way.  

 Mint can be used to flavor a salad, or make a dressing.  It can be used as tea both fresh and dried making the most refreshing drinks. It can also be pureed into dips and pestos.  My personal favorite way to use fresh mint is with ice cream!  Muddle mint in milk and make the best shamrock shake known to man, mince it up finely and mix it into a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream!  You can also make a mint simple syrup to not only cover ice cream, but to mix up into your favorite summer cocktail!

Cocktails

11 Essential Mint Cocktails

 Ice cream/ smoothies

Energizing Cucumber Mint Smoothie

Strawberry Mint Smoothie

Coconut Kale Smoothie With Ginger and Mint

Fresh Mint Chip Shake

 Salads

Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Radishes Mint and Ricotta

Mediterranean Tabouli Salad

Fennel Slaw with Mint Vinaigrette

James Beard Fennel Mint Salad

Spring Salad With Mint Walnuts and Parmesan

 Dressings/ dips/ spreads/ sauces

Spinach Yogurt Dip With Sizzled Mint

Mint Chutney

Pea Mint Fetta Dip

Yogurt Sauce With Garlic and Mint

Fresh Mint Dressing

Lamb Pasta With Kale and Mint Pesto

Rhubarb

There’s this legend about my dad pulling a rhubarb heist back in his day!  Story goes he snuck through the back yards of his hometown snatching up all the rhubarb from discarded patches.  In the still of the night he managed to fill his little pick-up truck full of rhubarb.  Nobodie’s mom or grandma was none the wiser, until a couple nights later when a sweet treat of rhubarb bread showed up on their doorstep. This is what rhubarb is to me, it’s a little sour but spirited sweetness of homemade goodness that is simply meant to be shared!  

For the most part rhubarb is used for sweets and baked goods!  There’s also a lot of fabulous ways to make beverages with rhubarb infusions. Recipes for rhubarb simple syrups or bitters for soda or cocktail purposes are abundant.  Surprisingly there are a handful of savory ways to use rhubarb as a dressing, in summer salsas, in rice pilafs, as BBQ sauces, or as fixings to go with salmon or chicken!  By far the simplest way to enjoy rhubarb is fresh or dried with mint as refreshing tea!  

 The mother load of baller rhubarb recipes!

80 Recipes for Spring Rhubarb

 Savory rhubarb recipes

Rhubarb and Mint Tea

Spinach Salad With Rhubarb Dressing

Tacos With Rhubarb Salsa

Rhubarb Lemon Chicken Bake

Rhubarb BBQ

Roasted Salmon and Rhubarb

Wild Rice and Rhubarb Pilaf

Scallions

I think scallions are a must if you want to feel just as bourgeois eating home cooked meals as you do eating out at all the hip restaurants Minneapolis has to offer! Garnish everything with scallions for a perfectly plated instagram worthy dish.  I mean why not!  I think sometimes eating local seems intimidating, like if I don’t pull something fancy off with all these gorgous veggies I haven’t done them justice. To be honest that sentiment is simply not true.  These veggies have been growing longer then food trends have ever existed.  They were brought to you not by elite chefs, but by clever peasant farmers trying to feed their communities something good!  So get fancy with your scallions or simply chop them into your scrambled eggs in the morning, either way they offer their delicious nourishment just the same!  

 Scallions are abundant at Growing Lots so you’ll find them in your CSA frequently throughout the season!  There are so many ways to make scallions a staple in your CSA diet!  The simplest way is to add it raw as a garnish on just about everything!  Below I’ve included a article on how to chop up scallions in fancy ways.  Toss them in salads for fresh flavors, or make them into sauces and dressing!  In Mexican cooking it is popular to put whole scallions to be charred on a grill after you soak them in soy sauce and lime!  Yum!  Scallions can make for incredible savory pancakes or do well chopped up in any egg dish for an impressive weekend brunch!  If that doesn’t give you enough direction I’ve included an article with 31 recipes praising scallions, ginger, and garlic as the holy trinity of flavor, much of which are asian inspired recipes!  

 31 reason Garlic Scallion and Ginger are the Holy Grail of Flavor

Savory Pancakes

Cheddar and Scallion Savory Pancakes

Grilled Scallions 

Cebollitas! Mexican Grilled Scallions!

Sauces, Dips and Dressings!

Green Onion Dip

Ginger Scallion Sauce

Chicken Salad with Charred Scallion Dressing

Scallion Vinaigratte

Kale

Kale gets a reputation of being the basic bee of greens!  But on the farm veggies are not food fads, they are simply what grows.  Even though kale chips aren’t currently sweeping the nation there are still 100’s of tasty kale recipes to be explored.  We always offer some sort of green in each of our CSA boxes, during the thick of the season you’ll find kale, collards, and chard on almost constant rotation!  Keep in mind that many recipes that call for greens can be easily switched out for another, especially kale!  

There’s endless ways to prepare kale beyond salads, though a good kale salad is not to be overlooked! I love slightly charred kale in a salad which is easy to do if your family has a love for cooking on the grill all summer long.  Kale always goes well with any egg dish!  So many soups are completed with a bunch of kale torn up or sliced into ribbons.  There’s endless ways to incorporate kale into smoothies!  Kale is easily sautéed as a side with garlic, or cooked down as a creamed green! It also can be wilted and tossed in with pasta or cooked into a risotto!  There’s even kale pestos and sauces that can be used as condiments that go with pretty much everything!  

Pro tip:  Kale can go into just about anything, but skip the kale brownie recipes.  My mom tried this with her grandkids once, and they ran away crying “grandma’s putting salad in our brownies.”  It didn’t turn out well for anyone…

 The Internet is rife with kale recipes here’s a few links that list dozens of intriguing kale recipes:

 31 Ways to Enjoy Kale Beyond Salad

37 Ways to Eat Kale Cause You Can Never Have Enough!

50 Ways To Never Get Bored of Eating Kale

Kohlrabi

It’s a running joke in the farming world that the number one reason people quit a CSA is because you gave them too much kohlrabi. Kohlrabi is not a common veggie, and it does look like it could be from mars!  But the good news is that it will only show up in your CSA boxes once or twice a season and it does indeed taste delicious!  If you somehow bred a cabbage, radish and an apple all into one plant that’s what kohlrabi tastes like.

 So what exactly does one do with Kohlrabi?  Well being that I’ve asserted that it’s one part apple you can peel off the outer layer and literally just eat it like an apple for a snack!  When roasted its’ natural sugars nicely caramelizes on its’ surface!  You can shred it or spiralize it into chop salads or slaws or put it in salads.  Because kohlrabi is best when eaten raw it’s always a delicious vehicle for any of the dips and pestos you may have whipped up from your CSA box!  

Pro tip: kolorabi stores incredibly well. Keep it wrapped in a plastic bag so your fridge doesn’t dry it out and it can last for months.  Also kohlrabi is basically kale that is bred for its’ swollen stem, so feel free to use the tops of this plant exactly as you would use kale!

 Roasted

perfectly Roasted Kohlrabi

Roasted Kohlrabi and Buttered Hazelnuts

Kohlrabi and Butter Glazed Radishes

Saute'ed Kohlrabi With Onions and Cream

Salad

Shaved Fennel and Kohlrabi Salad

Kohlrabi Parmesan Arugula Salad

 Slaw

Kohlrabi Apple Mint Slaw

Carrot Kohlrabi Slaw

 Soup

Creamy Kohlrabi Soup

Fennel

Fennel bulbs are pungent and sweet like onions, yet reminiscent of licorice.  The subtle licorice flavor is where this veggie gets controversial.  You either love it or leave it!  Fortunately in the CSA crowd of adventurous eaters most people easily learn to love this veggie! 

 Fennel bulb is pretty cool because it is treated both as an herb and vegetable.  The frilly fronds that top fennel bulbs can be used as an herb to sprinkle on salads, garnish meals, or make dressings.  I once heavily sprinkled fennel fronds over the top cheese layer of lasagna and they sizzled up with the cheese to perfection!  You can use the stocks of fennel as a substitute for celery in stocks and soup!

 You’ll only find fennel in the spring/ early summer and Fall at Growing Lots because it loves cool temperatures.  In the spring it goes well shaved into salads with other CSA veggies.  You can braise or grill it on it’s own with just a little salt, pepper and parmesan.  It also makes great with other roasted spring veggies, or cooked up with a carrot soup puree.  I’m really excited about trying the fennel mint spring broth with salmon soup recipe I’ve included below!

 When Fennel appears in the fall you can use it as you would an onion in lots of pasta sauces and lasagnas!  It also goes extremely well with fall root veggie roasts!  

Pro Tip: There’s a lot of simple fennel recipes, but if you google fennel you will come up with a lot of gourmet seafood recipes. Growing Lots is located just a block from Costal Sea Foods which is one of the best places to access seafood in the Twin Cities! One of our lots is right next door to their store front and they are incredible neighbors who support us by letting us have access to their water free of charge!

Salad

Wilted Rainbow Chard and Shaved Fennel Salad

Radish Fennel and Parmesan Salad

Mushrooms Fennel and Blue Cheese Salad

Pastas

Lemony Kale Fennel Pasta

Olives and Fennel Pasta

Angle Hair Pasta with Fennel and Spicy Tomatoes

Sausage and Fresh Fennel Lasagna

Roasted/ Braised/ Grilled

Roasted Carrots and Fennel

Braised Fennel With Parmesan and Breadcrumbs

Fennel with roasted fall veggies

Soups

Fried Salmon With Fennel Mint Spring Vegetable Broth

Roasted Carrot Fennel Soup

French Fennel Lamb Soup

Seafood

Clam pan roast with sausage and fennel

Sea Food Soup with Fennel and Garlic

Hakurie Turnips

Hakurie turnips aka Tokyo turnips or salad turnips are not to be confused with the big honking purple top turnips that come around in the fall.  These turnips are entirely different and in my opinion are the most delicious!  They have a silky buttery texture and a sweet crisp flavor.  Hakurie turnips can be harvested at the size of ping-pong balls or grown to the size of baseballs while keeping their mouth-watering qualities.  

 Hakurie Turnips are a great snack eaten raw!  They are a vehicle for any dip you might have whipped up from your CSA box.  Salad turnips as their namesake suggests make wonderful additions to salads.  They also work great in Asian inspired stir frys. If you have a large hakurie turnip it’s fun to shave them and add them to spring rolls or sushi!  Oh and these little buttery balls make for insanely good pickles that go great on falafels and pita wraps!  They make a darn good gratin too!

 Pro Tip:  Eat the green tops, they are good for you!

 Gratin

Hakurie Turnip Gratin

 Salads

Shaved Turnip Salad with Arugula and Prosciutto

Roasted Turnips With Couscous

Farm Fresh Hakurie Turnip Salad

Strawberry Arugula Hakurie Turnip Salad

 Glazed or stir fried

Grilled Bok Choy Turnip Rice Bowl

Glazed Hakurie Turnips

Easy Sautéed Hakurie Turnip

Ginger stir fried Turnips

Sautéed turnips with Bok Choy

Miso Roasted Hakurie Turnips

 Pickled

Pickled Hakurie Turnips

Quick Pickled Salad Turnips With Red Pepper

Bok Choy

This elegant green grows abundantly both spring and fall at Growing Lots! It’s related to cabbage so it carries that famously crisp smooth flavor! It’s most commonly used in stir fries. It can easily be grilled or braised. Bok Choy is also a popular vegetable used in Ramen or Asian inspired soups.

Soups

Bok Choy Chicken Soup

Bok Choy vegetable Pho

Bok Choy Ramen Bowl

Stir Fries

Bok Choy Shitake Stir Fry

Bok Choy and Spring Pea Stir Fry

Ginger Scallion Garlic Bok Choy Stir Fry

Grilled/ Roasted/ Braised

Grilled Bok Choy

Sesame Roasted Bok Choy

Salads

Simple Bok Choy Salad

Bok Choy Salad With Ramen Crunch

Mustard Greens

This vegetable energizes me like non other! It’s hot pungent flavor warms me up and gets me going when I am often feeling sluggish. I swear a good heap of mustard greens can also cut right through my brain fog. This plant is a good friend to me and I am grateful!

Mustard greens are used like so many other greens! Serve it cooked down as a side of greens, add it to stir frys, use it in place of lettuce on your favorite sandwich. Sometimes mustard greens can even get big enough to serve as a wrap and you can skip the sandwich bread all together. Tear it up and add it to soups and whole grain salads. Did I mention that mustard greens and beans are like a match made in heaven?

Southern Style Mustard Greens

Crispy Tofu Bibimbap Bowl with Mustard Greens

White Bean Soup With Mustard Greens and Parmesan

Mustard Greens with Chorizo and White Beans

Easy Curried Mustard Greens

Chinese Mustard Green Stir Fry

Shitake Mushrooms and Mustards Stir Fry

Bacon and Egg Mustard Green Veggie Sandwich

Collard Greens

At Growing Lots we grow Collard Greens for science! We are in partnership with the University of Minnesota doing a three year study on the ecological benefits urban farming brings to the city. Collard Greens are our guinea pig or test crop rather. We are hoping to gain insight on how our regenerative farming practices might effect things like storm water run off, carbon capturing, and biodiversity. We hope someday these studies will be used to influence both policy and practice to help make way for more Urban Farming! So we are not only eating greens cause they are good for us, we eat them for the sake of good science!

The best tip you will ever get about cooking with collard greens is to cook the crap out of them. They are much tougher then other dark leafy greens, so take that into account. Often times cooking the crap out of collard greens means cooking them up with something greasy like coconut oil or bacon. You can also slow cook collard greens with well seasoned beans in a crock pot. Eating raw collard greens can make you gassy so they don’t do well in salads or smoothies. They do however cook up well in soups, and cook down great into heaps of greens that are wholesomely nourishing!

Crock Pot Black Eyed Peas and Collard Greens

Quick Southern Collard Greens and Bacon

Vegetarian Southern Collard Greens

Vegetarian Collard Green Soup

Curried Collard Greens

Ham Hock Soup With Collard Greens

Chard

Chard wins the prize for most the most beautiful green!  Chard comes in a variety of colors; white, red, pink, orange, yellow! At Growing Lots we only grow a mix called bright lights rainbow chard, because we can’t get over how gorgeous all the colors are!  Chard is very similar to beet greens, offering the same sweet earthy flavor.  Use them in much the same way as you would kale; sautéed, as a creamed green, in soups, sauces, pasta’s or with your morning eggs!  I’ve included the long lists of fabulous kale recipes that I easily scrounged up on a quick google search.  The internet currently doesn’t celebrate chard in the same way as kale, but make no mistake they are interchangeable!  Below I’ve linked up a few extensive lists that cover every angle of cooking with greens.

Pro tip:  Do not let anyone tell you to discard those gorgeously colorful chard stems!  People often recommend doing this with kale too, but I never discard kale stems either.  With chard especially the stems are among the best part, and they add such a colorful pop!

47 Greens Recipes That Go Beyond Salad

37 Ways to Eat Your Greens Cause You Can Never Get Enough

50 Non Boring Ways to Eat Healthy Greens