After a cold spring, the weather finally turned and it is finally fresh vegetable season again!

I switched CSAs this year. The Groundwork Hudson Valley lost some of its funding, so many projects like the farm market and CSA got cut. We loved Peace and Carrots farm, but they aren’t delivering down to Yonkers anymore without the support of Groundwork. I searched for another CSA that delivers nearby and I found the Sisters Hill Farm, sponsored by the Sisters of Charity New York. We pick up every Tuesday at Mount Saint Vincent College in the Bronx. There are still spots if you’d like to join!

Here’s what I plan to do with this week’s share:

• Bok Choy and Mini Choy: We love bok choy with garlic, shallots, and soy sauce. We first had it like this at Hoy Wong with Peking duck and char siu.
• Green Leaf and Red Leaf Lettuce, and Arugula: We’re making lots of salads this week! We picked up two pollos al carbon (charcoal chickens) from Pollo Poblano in Yonkers, shredded them, and prepped salads for lunch for both of us for the rest of the week. We also made a big salad for tonight’s dinner. (I also took some of the arugula and gave it to a neighbor who I want to join the CSA!)
• Spinach: We included half of the spinach with the salad mix and froze the other half for chickpea and spinach stew or creamed spinach.
• Radishes: We chopped up the radishes to include with the salad, but radishes are also great to quick pickle. In future weeks we’ll probably quick pickle them as an appetizer or as an addition to Momofuku’s chicken and egg rice bowls.
• Tatsoi: We might include this with the salad, or we’ll sauté it up with some cannellini beans and garlic, then serve it on fried bread with some pecorino.

Salad dressings

Since most of this week is dedicated to salad, here are a few dressings we love:

1. Lemon juice, olive oil, and black pepper – This is a regular for us. We squeeze half a lemon on some greens, drizzle some nice olive oil on top, give it a few cranks with your black pepper mill, and mix it all up. We’ve been using this Frankies 457 olive oil. We found a great deal on it locally.
2. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, and black pepper. For two people, we do 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 table spoons of balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and a few cranks of black pepper. We often mix it together right in the bowl with the salad greens and toss everything to coat. It is worth using some quality balsamic since it is the backbone of the dressing. We’ve been using this 18 year from The Olive Scene.
3. Creamy oil-roasted garlic dressing
4. Not a dressing, but this is our favorite seasoning for salads: Sunny Paris from Penzeys.

See you next week!