Sharing the Local Produce Love with a CSA Summer Recipe

Recently, Oneupweb joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), which is a growing social and agricultural movement that encourages small farm preservation and profitability by directly linking local growers with local community members. The farm that we chose is Meadowlark Farms and we got our first batch last week! It was so fun to get the huge box of vegetables and see what was inside. We had several varieties of lettuce, herbs, baby beets, white Japanese turnips (SO good), shallots and radishes. Since it is so early in the growing season I was expecting to get mostly lettuce, but was pleasantly surprised with all of the veggies.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love vegetables—not just like them but love them. On any given day, I eat 10+ different vegetables. So needless to say, I am always looking for new ways to eat them, stuff them, roast them, grill them, juice them…

As I was looking for recipes online, I was super happy to discover a company called Door to Door Organics. If you don’t know of them, you need to check them out. Currently, they operate out of CO, MI (but not yet to Traverse City…hint hint), PA, KS, WI and IL. I have fallen in love with not only what the company does, which is partner with farmers to bring fresh, organic produce and groceries right to your doorstep, but also Door to Door Organics’ Pinterest page, which offers a variety of recipe boards from summer eating to detoxifying diets!

We thought it would be fun to start a blog series of recipes we made, using our new local and organic produce. So I’ll start it off with a simple salad of red butterhead lettuce, white turnips and grilled radishes (a tip I got from Door to Door Organics). High heat tempers the spicy bite of the radish, and turns things mellow and delicious. The grill works wonders, imbuing the radishes with smoky sweetness. The great thing about using produce that’s in-season is that you don’t need a lot of extra flavor for it to taste amazing; the vegetables shine by themselves.

Salad Ingredients:

White Turnips

Lettuce

Radishes

Italian Parsley

Salt and Pepper

Fresh Lemon Juice

Olive Oil

Apple Cider Vinegar

Shallots

Directions:

First heat your grill pan (or outdoor grill) to high heat. Wash and dry your radish greens, trim off radishes and cut them in half. Place the greens in bottom of salad bowl and once the grill pan is hot, lightly drizzle the radishes with olive oil, salt and pepper and pop them on the grill. Chop up the (washed) butterhead lettuce and turnips and put them in the bowl with radish greens. Get out your salad dressing shaker and squeeze a couple lemon slices in, a tablespoon of chopped shallots, a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and a tablespoon or two of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Give it a good shake (if you don’t have a dressing shaker, use a leftover pickle jar (everyone has those, right?). Once the radishes have some nice grill marks on all sides, toss them on top of everything else. Finish off the salad with your homemade dressing and a sprinkle of chopped parsley; give it a quick toss and Voilà your masterpiece is finished and ready to be enjoyed.

Side note: If you need a little protein, grill up some organic chicken and toss ‘er in!

Stay tuned for more posts highlighting delicious, fresh and organic vegetables from Meadowlark Farms, in the meantime try this salad and let me know what you think!