CSA: Week of May 5 to May 9

This week has been flying by, due in part to busy times at work but mostly to my workout schedule, which is gradually getting back to normal. I am slowly working out ways to plan ahead and prepare meals efficiently, but in addition to the choreography of planning and shopping (especially since I'm now trying to ride to work three days a week), there's the hand-wavy, dubious art of predicting what I'll feel up to making on any given night after work and exercise. Sometimes it doesn't quite play out as planned, but I'm making progress.

In any event, I have a great bunch of produce this week, and I've already gotten a good start on it. One of the two baskets of strawberries has already disappeared; half of the asparagus and a handful of the mushrooms went into dinner last night; and half of the carrots came to work with me for afternoon munching. I'm sure the rest will be gone in no time:

- Baby mixed lettuce (8 ounces). I've been making a delicious orange and fennel salad with my CSA greens. The dressing has lemon juice, olive oil, a touch of mustard and honey, and some orange zest. Very tasty.

- White button mushrooms (8 ounces). I think I might make pizza this weekend and put some sliced, sauteed mushrooms on it. For the last few weekends I've been reviving the BSG + pizza tradition, but I have yet to make my own. This might be a good weekend to make some pizza.

- Strawberries (2 pints). As I said above, I devoured one of the basket yesterday afternoon and evening. The other basket might make it through today... but probably not. Yes, I am aware that one can overdose even on water-soluble nutrients like vitamin C; no, I don't think that two pints of strawberries puts me at risk.

- Yellow onions (2). Plenty of uses for these, including storage in the fridge. I don't feel the need to use them up right away, so I'm squirreling them away for later use. I will probably use at least one of them this weekend.

- Pink lady apples (1.5 pounds). Yum! It seems a shame to do anything to these beyond eating them raw, but as I have some brioche buns that need using up, I might make an apple bread pudding or something like that.

- Nantes carrots (1 bunch). As I said above, half are here at work with me. The other half will come to work with me tomorrow. Mmm, carrot sticks.

- Asparagus (1 pound). I confess I am starting to get a little bored with asparagus, but I'm not sick of it yet. I'll probably use a bunch of the remaining asparagus in place of broccoli in a skillet chicken & pasta dish that I like.

- Cilantro (1 bunch). It must be getting on toward summer, as the cilantro is looking a bit stretched. I have some unused tomatoes on the counter and a poblano pepper in the fridge, not to mention those onions in the fridge, so salsa fresca might be in my future. The chicken with cilantro pesto that I mentioned a week or two ago wasn't a winner, so I'm not exactly falling over myself to try that recipe again. Chips and salsa, however, are always winners in my book. They'll pair nicely with a delicious steak fajita recipe that I tried last weekend and am itching to make again.

- Rhubarb (1/2 pound, or two stalks). This time around the rhubarb is going into a crisp or a crumble (for which my oft-neglected 5x5" ceramic baking dish will be perfect). There are plenty of candidate recipes, I just have to pick one and go with it!

Happy almost-Friday, folks!