CSA Showdown!

 We're drowning in excellent produce!

As we contemplate which CSA to join, we're ordering produce from a number of great places. What you see in the photo, save for the big pumpkin in the back, is the combined loot from two deliveries: Albert & Eve and Farm Fresh To You. The produce is fresh and wonderful in both boxes; we get more or less the same stuff (unsurprisingly, as both outfits send out organic, seasonal, local produce); and the price is comparable. We're going to have to make some tough decisions, and I'm even considering going with both CSAs on alternating weeks!

In the meantime, this became a good problem to have, and I decided to get cooking. I ate some fresh tangelos, tangerines, and apples, and am waiting for the pears to ripen. Which, as a friend informed me, does not happen on the tree, so it's worth a wait. 

Meanwhile, for lunch, I'm having steamed broccoli and kale chips. I'll devote a separate post to the latter. As to the former, since I'm also making a giant pot of soup, with carrot, squash, celery, beets, beet greens, onions, and broccoli stems, it made sense to simply steam the broccoli florets atop the soup, thus getting two things done at once. I found this magical steamer/colander, flexible and pliable and shaped like a cabbage leaf, at the Denver Museum of Art store, and use it almost on a daily basis. Steaming something over a cooking soup is a classic time and space saver, and as a bonus, the steamed vegetable on top comes out more fragrant.