I’ll be honest, I wasn’t feeling as excited about this week’s pick up.  I mean there’s only so much excitement you can feel about spinach and arugula — and I have a feeling we’ll be seeing much more of those two things — and the “OH MY GOD, GARLIC SCAPES” ship I was on two weeks ago has apparently sailed.  There’s really only so much pesto a person can eat.  But I think we made the best of it anyways.

CSA Pick-Up #3 Included:

• Spinach
• Arugula
• Fava beans
• Garlic scapes
• Swiss chard

What We Cooked:

How crazy-huge are fava beans?!

We served them up plain and simple as a side dish for a summery pasta salad (below).  Joey and I were really surprised by the taste/texture of the beans.  They’re pretty soft and have this flavor that’s pea-like but potato-y at the same time?  Upon first taste, Joey declared it “his new favorite bean!” — do people have favorite beans? — then decided they smelt weird, ha!  I would certainly try them again, but we’ll have to wait till next year as fava bean season is super short and this will probably be the only time they’ll be offered to us.

As for that arugula I was so excited about, we tossed it in this salad.  We swapped millet for orzo, and arugula for spinach because that’s what we had on hand (and I had other plans for the spinach :P) and it turned out fabulously.  There’s something about fresh corn and a light lemony dressing that just screams summer.  And look, I know it isn’t quite corn season yet and what we bought at the grocery store probably wasn’t local, but CORN IS SO GOOD!  No lie, after we boiled this corn and cut off the kernels, Joey and I stood over the sink and ate anything that was left on those cobs.  It was very classy in our kitchen that night.

Okay, stay with me on this one.  I was at a serious loss for what to do with the Swiss chard.  It was actually Joey who suggested I use the leaves as a wrap.  I just smeared some hummus and pesto on the leaves then tossed in some cheese and cherry tomatoes.  Plus a good sprinkle of salt and pepper, of course, it wasn’t half bad and I’ll admit I repeated this meal a few times.  Still, I think I could do with any more chard in our CSA bundle.

The spinach went to good use in a homemade pizza.  We just sautéed some onion and spinach and tossed it on some pizza dough — homemade, mind you! — then topped it all off with some fresh mozzarella.  I can’t remember the first time I ate fresh mozzarella, but I imagine it being a very strange taste if you’ve never tried it before.  And I mean plain, not inside a fried breading!

My plan was to use the garlic scapes in place of anything that called for garlic this week, but it after making my favoritest summer pasta dish with them, I realized scapes and regular garlic maybe aren’t so interchangeable.  They’re kind of crunchy!  That being said, nothing could ruin this pasta dish, especially when paired with some butter roasted carrots and a glass of white wine.

Also, this is what garlic scapes look like, for any of you who’ve never come across this weird looking produce.  They’re usually even more weird looking, but it’s the end of garlic scape season, so this happens to be a smaller bunch.

And thus ends this weeks edition of “the weird (and probably extremely unappetizing-looking) things I did with a bunch of produce I wasn’t all that jazzed about.”  I’m sure it was crazy exciting to read, huh?

Anyways, I hope you all have a wonderfully fun and exciting 4th of July!

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Is there a certain vegetable (or vegetables!) you just really don’t care for?

Have you ever seen a fava bean?

Favorite kind of pizza?