amaranth

One of the things I love about writing about food is trying new ingredients. When I run across something at the farmers’ market or in the grocery aisle I haven’t cooked before, it almost always ends up in my cart. When amaranth (pronounced ah-mah-ran-th) found its way into my kitchen last month, I was skeptical but curious about what this tiny grain had to offer.

Trying new ingredients usually ends up one of three ways in my kitchen:

You'll notice that the list of what's in our Harmony Valley Farmshare is getting longer. I should also point out how amazingly good the food is. And despite the fact that I have shamefully tossed out my amaranth each week, I'm happy we got it again - just in time (again) to try out that amaranth and goat cheese pizza recipe I've been talking about from Amy Boland's site (see our picture below - it was delicious). My wife wonders when enough is enough, but even she gave me grief for not picking up a few more eggplants from last week's "choice" box.

Oh Harmony Valley, you're so good to us! How many CSAs package tomatillos, jalapenos, and cilantro together in "salsa kits"? Or pre-wash and bag a variety of salad greens? Shoot, I dunno, but probably not too many, right? The food is becoming more plentiful, and the variety is truly amazing. Here's a list of the cool, tasty stuff we got in this week's farmshare box. All of the descriptions and suggestions - and the photo - come directly from Harmony Valley's newsletter. Enjoy!

My kitchen counter, covered with this week's farmshare bountyWhat am I going to do with all of this stuff? It's taking over my kitchen! My fridge is still nearly full from last week's Harmony Valley vegetables! My fruit share includes an entire bag full of apricots! I've been eating salad greens and sautee mix non-stop for weeks! I don't know if I can eat another basil vinaigrette. And now that there are tomatoes - blessed, delicious tomatoes - it occurs to me that nobody else in my family will touch them.

Here goes - words and picture straight from the Harmony Valley Farm newsletter:

How is it that we ran out of nearly everything this week? I'll admit that the amaranth wilted before we had a chance to try it (entirely our fault), but we enjoyed all sorts of salads, veggie skewers, and other fine meals this week (my wife added chard, breadcrumbs, and locally-raised bacon to our pasta tonight and it was fantastic), even eating our way through our entire fruit share.

In any case, we're thrilled that this week's box of fresh foods comes today, partly because our refrigerator is bare, and partly because my mom and step-dad are in town from Florida, and I've been talking up Harmony Valley's CSA. (I've frozen some rhubarb, and cobbler definitely is on the menu.) Here's what we're getting with a photo, descriptions, and ideas for preparation directly from the good folks at Harmony Valley Farm:

Here are the contents of this week’s box, along with notes, suggestions, and a picture from Harmony Valley Farm. I’m exceedingly happy to be getting sugar snap peas and summer squash this week, and I’m committed to making garlic scape pesto too. Slightly bummed that there’s no fruit share this week, especially since I’ve started squeezing my own orange juice. Oh well, more strawberries!