"Goodness, greatness, great balls of . . . squash . . ."

wednesday we picked up our first csa basket from southcoast farms and i have to confess that i nearly burst into tears seeing these gorgeous baskets overflowing with fresh herbs, squash, peaches, plums, kale, cucumbers, tomatoes. . . and sunflowers.  the sunflowers did it.  the greens and a few stone fruits i expected, anticipated--but the flowers seemed sow onderfully but necessarily  indulgent.  

to start out we signed up for the every-other-week option for the fall quarter and since nana & papa come out on wednesdays they joined in to share in the bounty (hurrah papa for his healthy commitment!).  i anticipated it would be more fun to share recipes and ideas and was warned by sarah at the farm that they were a lot of work--and once i was finished marvelling at our basket i was glad to have help lugging the 50 pound (i swear!) basket in t he car and then sorting, washing, and storing the produce.  (note to self: break down and get a salad spinner!).  

in the midst of a highly emotional week  (see post below) , though, the entire ritual was wonderfully calming.  it was like yoga for vegetables.  there i was with a pile of dirt crusted, rubberband-bound greens, swishing them in the sink full of cold water while owen devoured all the fruit he could find (michael asked if there was any fruit in the basket today--but it only lasted about 20 minutes in the house) and my dad divvyed our stash--making a rainbow spread across my dining room table while my mom distinguished between kale and chard.  

this morning with michael home we looked up recipes (love the epicrurious app!) over coffee and made our shopping list to round out our fridge then had a family jaunt to trader joe's with owen in charge of the list--and he doesn't mess around ("mom! i don't see bananas on the list.  i'd better add it" and of course we have to break into gwen stephani to spell b-a-n-a. . . well you know how it goes). and i have to add that not only have i never felt so wonderfully nourished--the baskets are full of organic, local produce; rather than buy a giant slab of raide salmon we bought smaller portions of wild alaskan. . . it seems we've managed to trim our grocery bill down considerably.  i'm used to a more sparse refrigerator, buy thoughtful pantry items and with the basket can get wholesale prices on otherwise pricey organic produce.  (mind you all of this menu planning is a gift with michael here but i'm hoping the practice of ingredient-centered meal planning will stick!)

anyhow, we had planned a ricotta-greens salad to go with our grilled salmon (oh! check out this monterey bay app as well: seafood watch) but after watching jamie at home have a "genius barbecue" we were inspired to try his salmon loaded with fresh herbs (he used fennel but i just snipped whatever was growing in my pots--some thyme, purple basil, chives, and parsley) and was excited to use the cucumbers, kale and chard from our basket for the accompanying yogurt sauce and foil-pouch steamed greens.  the salmon was tender and the herbs worked wonderfully across the menu making this a satisfying, healthy and delish sunday night dinner!  we've already decided to add jamie's herb-citrus bbq sauce to our menu next weekend (michael won't leave until monday so we're going to make the most of our weekend together at home. . .).

tomorrow we'll shop for our red curry ingredients while we're in riverside and spend the rest of the week working  our way through our harvest and down the chalkboard!