CSA Fridays: Green Garlic Pesto and Shrimp

Summer Fridays mean CSA pickup for us! This is our first year choosing a CSA over farmers market finds, and we have decided to go with Red Fire Farm because we loved their organic approach and pickup location in Cambridge between our jobs. As corporate frankenfarming takes over more of our food supply and makes us so much less healthy as a whole, we’re happy to support young farmers and healthy land. The people growing our food are not only steward of the land but stewards of our health, and we are going to try to prepare and eat everything they grow with love.

We were more than a little excited to peek into the first week box of our 20 week CSA. It was full of green things, very welcome after a long winter. Our CSA box included strawberries, green garlic, several types of lettuce, a parsnip, broccoli, cilantro, and radishes. It all looked and smelled so earthy.

Now that Friday nights are CSA nights, they are also date at home nights, time for cooking and drinking good wine and relaxing after a busy week. Our first CSA and its green garlic inspired me to make a simple pesto.

I added a large handful of fully cleaned green garlic, bulbs, greens and all, into the Ninja blender, along with a few glugs of olive oil. On top of that, I added parmesan cheese, a half cup of walnuts, salt, pepper, and a little garlic powder, since green garlic can be mild.

I blended it all into a nice paste, adding oil as I went along, and used the green garlic pesto to top bowtie pasta, shrimp, and our CSA spinach and broccoli.

We washed it down with a lovely Chardonnay from our North Fork trip and paired it with the end of our Orange is the New Black season two binge.

Friday nights at home with our fresh, organic CSA veggies have never been better. I can’t wait to see what summer brings.

Are you shopping at local farmers markets or participating in a farm share or CSA?