Week 2: That's an onion?

We still have some leftover food from last week — surprisingly a whole bunch of salad greens! (Typically that's what we eat most often.) I used up the radishes in a salsa (see recipe) from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, served with fish tacos. The salsa was just a bit too spicy and needed something, so I added the juice of 1 orange. That perked it up into a nice bright garnish.

Its more work than I thought it would be to not waste any food. Hopefully by late summer, we'll be eating/storing each week's allotment like pros.

So, yesterday meant a new pick-up! What was in that box? 3 beets, with greens attached; 5 baby artichokes; 2 white onions, with tops; 4 zucchini; 1 head green cabbage; 1 bunch Swiss chard; 1 carton strawberries; 3 lbs red potatoes; and 1 bag mixed greens. By 8PM, I'd already braised the new Swiss chard and roasted 3 beets, and everything else was washed and in the refrigerator. I ask "That's an onion?" in the post title because I had never seen an onion still attached to its green tops. The upper part looked just like a leek that somehow had its root still attached (see picture below).

The most interesting item this week is the baby artichokes. Having never prepped or cooked or really eaten artichokes before (to my mother's dismay I'm sure), this will be an unfamiliar endeavor. I've always seen artichokes pressure cooked or steamed which is apparently great for large artichokes. But, small artichokes are so tender that they can be braised or sauteed in the same manner as an artichoke heart. Schnieder (author of Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini) says that although you wouldn't know it from their appearance, they're at their very best as soon as they're picked and the quality deteriorates quickly. So in the next day or two, they're being cooked! The recipe I plan to use is from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home. More details to come.