CSA Share - Spring Week 1 and Quick Stir Fry

I can't properly put into words how excited I get when it's time for our CSA to start again.  We're lucky to be able to get CSA shares from spring until fall, but there's still a long 5 months that we go without it.  Well, not exactly without it, because I have a lot in my freezer to stretch it out.

But by the time spring comes around, resources are running low, and my family is usually pretty desperate for vegetables that taste like true vegetables.  This week was the first week of our spring CSA with Green Earth Institute, and after the long, cold winter we had, I couldn't have been more ready for it!

Here's what we got: a HUGE bag of lettuce, Harukei turnips, pea shoots, beet greens, potted oregano (we could choose either oregano or thyme, and as much as I love thyme, I already had a bunch of it planted), and a ton of bok choy.

Here's how I'm using it:

First off, knowing that it was a CSA day, and having the farm's predictions on what would be in the week's share, I had thawed some chicken and set some rice to cook to be ready for a stir fry.

For the stir fry, I chopped an onion into thin slices and then sauteed it in a mix of olive and sesame oils while I chopped the chicken into pieces.  I added the chicken to brown it.

I chopped up most (but not all) of the bok choy, and the Harukei turnips and their greens.

I added the veg into the stir fry for a quick cook, and then added some teriyaki sauce...I have made my own at times, but it's a busy week, and there are some really delicious natural options for teriyaki sauce out there, so I went with a pre-made.

Serve over rice and boom: dinner.

The next night, we had a salad with dinner made from some of the lettuce and some pea shoots, and the day after that, a similar salad made its way into the kids' lunches.  I'm sure we'll have at least one more salad from this too, besides the other plans I have.

A good half of the lettuce went into a batch of lettuce soup.  Watch for the recipe here on the blog next week!

It turns out that pea shoots are supposed to be excellent stir-fried, so I might finish ours off that way for my lunch soon.  Maybe with this Pea Shoots with Garlic recipe from the CSA.

The rest of the bok choy will go into a bok choy salad that my family just loves.

The oregano is now planted in my garden with my other herbs.

I used some of the beet greens sauteed up over my morning grits, but I'm thinking I'm going to put most them into good use in a risotto.

And that will wrap it up!  I'm really looking forward to seeing how the shares grow and change from week to week, and to eating all the fresh veggies!  Next week's veg prediction looks pretty similar to this week's, but we'll see what that day actually brings!