CSA farm shares

A CSA (or Community Supported Agriculture) is something that I've been wanting do to for quite a while.  Basically, its local produce that gets delivered to you in a box.  Its all fresh and seasonal.  In Houston, there weren't many CSA options and none of the delivery locations were close to me.  When I transferred to Denver, I saw that a CSA delivered right to work.  Score!  I immediately signed up for a single share in both veggies and fruit.  I like the idea of CSAs because it forces you to try new things and the food is very fresh.  Not to mention you're supporting your local farmers.

Shares are a bit of a mystery box.  You get whatever the farm has on hand at that week.  I'm in the 5th week and here's a summary of what we've received:

Week 1:

spinach, cilantro, parsley, rhubarb, red leaf lettuce, spring salad mix, and green onion

Week 2:

Lettuce (red and green), spinach, green onion, radishes, rhubarb, and cilantro

Week 3:

 Spinach, mixed salad greens, dill, green onion, garlic scapes, kale, and some sort of green lettuce

Week 4:

Green onion, mixed salad greens, spinach, mystery green lettuce, bag o' rhubarb, cilantro, and mystery purpley kale like stuff

Week 5:

eggs, spinach, kale, green lettuce, baby mixed greens, pea pods, garlic scapes, baby beets, garlic bulb, and brocoli

Finally this week (week 5) we've started to get some non-herb and salad items.  Some random observations:

• I REALLY like rhubarb.  I can't believe I've never had it before but its AWESOME.  Very tart and soooo yummy in cobbler.  Do not be afraid of this stuff (like I was).  Its the shizzle.
• Kale on the other hand... I'm not so sure.  I made some kale chips (with bacon salt).  They were weird.  Will liked them, though.  I did make some thai curry chicken with kale last night, and it was pretty dang tasty.  We shall see.
• I've eaten more salad in the past 4 weeks than I probably did all winter.
• The first week I actually cooked "real food" with my share.  Made a green onion/spinach quiche.  Salad.  Cobbler.  Now I've got a bit of an herb and spinach overload (really, I have SO MUCH spinach), so I've been cooking the spinach (or drying herbs) and freezing/saving them for later.
• My mom's turtle is a happy pet.  He's been getting a lot of the leafy things that we just can't eat. (because really, 2 things of lettuce and a bag of greens?!?!?)  He'll love the snap peas this week.
• It is possible to make scrambled eggs too herb-y.  I used some dill and garlic scapes in scrambled eggs, but used the immersion blender on them before I cooked them.  I literally had green eggs.
• I do love the suprise every week (even though they email us with the list on Monday, you don't always get what's on the list.). 

Fruit shares started this week.  Bummer is that we had a bad (frosty) spring so all the cherries didn't happen.  So I get cherry or apple cider and cherry wine.  We'll see what we do with that.  I can't wait for August when all the western slope peaches are in season.  I lurve peaches.