Our first CSA shipment comes in on June 18th... which seems like forever away! I'm ready to cook up some awesome local veggies now! So I woke up absurdly early on Saturday morning, tossed my fancy little canvas shopping bag into my purse and set off for the Union Square Greenmarket.

Many veggies were bought, but none brought me quite as much joy as the pricey little bundle of ramps I picked up.


Ramps, for those who haven't been introduced to these yummy little stalks of April goodness, are wild leeks. Their season is short, their collection is labor-intensive, and their flavor is incomparable. Well... that's not true, it's definitely comparable, but definitely awesome. They're sort of like a combination of garlic and onions, and are delicious either pickled or lightly sauteed and added to pretty much anything. On Sunday morning, I sauteed a single ramp in some butter, scrambled in a couple of Knoll Crest Farm eggs and then melted some goat cheese into the whole mess. Verdict? Om nom nom times a million!

Sometimes, though, you just need a big bowl of pasta. Tonight for dinner, I was inspired by What I Like's ramp spaghetti recipe. I don't really dig mint so much, so I left it out and instead tossed in a bit of the young garlic I'd picked up on Saturday. Here's the sauce cooking:

Hello, butter and olive oil! I love you!

This dish is insanely easy to put together. I just added some cooked spaghetti, stirred it around, poached an egg and plopped it atop the tangle of noodles and added salt and pepper. After a good fork-pokin', the bright yellow yolk oozed out into the pasta, making a rich and gooey sauce for the garlicky pile of spaghetti and ramps. And about ten minutes after I'd started cooking, I was getting comfy on the couch with my big plate of tasty carbs. Cheaper than takeout, and about a zillion times more exciting!


Tonight, I'll be making a spinach frittata to bring to work for lunch this week. It sounds like a great way to use up some of the massive - and cheap! - bag of spinach I picked up this weekend, as well as some of last week's leftover goat cheese and this week's dozen eggs. I'll let you know how it goes...

You've got to love early spring. The days are getting longer, crocuses are blooming in people's front yards, I'm stocking up on flip-flops and getting my bike tuned up... but even better than all of these things combined, it's finally pea season! Pea greens in a salad, chilled pea soup, freshly shelled peas steamed with a little bit of butter... I say, om nom nom to all of the above!

I haven't come across fresh peas at the farmer's market yet - though I've got my fingers crossed for this weekend - but I just couldn't resist the bag of sugar snap peas at Trader Joe's on Monday. Together with the big, lovely bunch of asparagus next to them on the shelf, they're the best part of the awesome spring-y salad I've been eating all week.

I chopped up the asparagus stalks and quickly blanched them, along with the sugar snap peas, then tossed them into a Ziplock and into the fridge. The lettuce base for the salad is butter lettuce, radicchio, organic microgreens and some chopped up fresh dill, all tossed together and popped into its own Ziplock. In the morning, I combine a bit of each into a salad-size container, add olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sea salt, a few slices of luscious, soft chevre and a sprinkle of walnuts. Voila! I may be lunching under the fluorescent lights at my desk, but I'm eating pure springtime.

Intro

Whoo hoo! My officemate, his wife and I just got word that our applications for a spot in our local CSA were accepted, and that - starting in mid-June - we can look forward to lots of fresh, local fruits and veggies coming into our kitchens. We're all really psyched, and I can't wait for the deliveries to start coming!

Excitement aside, I know myself and my history of letting even the yummiest of produce linger, uneaten and abandoned, at the back of my fridge while I order takeout for the umpteenth time this week.... so a little bit of motivation is in order! And since I really dig reading food blogs, trying out new recipes and sharpening my amateur photography skillz, what better motivation than a blog?

So from June to November - and maybe beyond? - I'll be cooking up the contents of my CSA box and miscellaneous greenmarket additions and blogging about the results. Here's hoping that it's awesome...

Yay veggies! Yay locavores! Yay community supported agriculture!