First CSA 2012: Glazed Hakurei Turnip Salad

After patiently waiting for months, today was our first CSA pick up of the season! We were super excited.

Yeah, Honey Brook Organic Farm!

 Our cute pick-up location: Healthworks Natural Food Store in Collingswood, NJ.

 Collingswood is SO cute!

 Onto the box! We weren't sure what to expect since Honey Brook was hit with a hale storm on May 24th that devastated many of the spring crops, including tens of thousands of heads of spring lettuce! Also damaged to untold levels were kale, collards, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, and one of my FAVORITES, fennel.  Sigh.  But, we had hope.

 Week 1 (all Local and Certified Organic): Red Leaf Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Spinach, Kale, Garlic Scapes, Hakurei Turnips, and Leeks! I thought this was a HUGE amount of produce from a farm that was just wrecked by a hail storm.

 The star of the show: Hakurei Turnips.  I was SO glad to try these for the very first time instead of the omnipresent radishes that one always gets in May. YES.

 Spring Snakes (garlic scapes!). Fun to use instead of scallions in various recipes.

Then, we had to de-rib, wash, dry and bag ALL THOSE GREENS.  I had forgotten how long that takes, and there were SO many greens!! It took like an hour to do them all.

 I had these bags from a while ago, I don't know that they really do anything to help slow the demise of produce, but I figured I'd try them since I had them.

 Here is everything, washed, dried and bagged, phew!

Now, onto the cooking!  We made Glazed Hakurei Turnip Salad, and it was AMAZING.

Here's the salad part:

 Red Leaf Lettuce (one head), Garlic Scapes (one long scape) and Organic Grape Tomatoes (not from the CSA).  The dressing was about 1 Tablespoon Jalapeno Olive Oil, the juice of one (organic) lemon, salt and pepper.  All of the cooking syrup from the Glazed Turnips was also added (amazing!!), the babies thrown in with the bath water, so to speak.

Glazed Hakurei Turnips garnished with Garlic Scapes. Here's the recipe I used, just use a non-dairy butter instead of dairy butter to make it vegan.  I had to reduce the recipe by 2/3 since I only had one bunch of the turnips, though.  We added all the turnips and their wonderful glaze to the greens above and it was STUPENDOUS.

I LOVE MY CSA! Thank you, Honey Brook :-)))

What did you guys get in your first CSA boxes, or if no CSA, what seasonal produce have you been cooking up?  Do tell!