Salad Dressings from Karley's Demonstration at the Farmers Market

Balsamic Sorghum Vinaigrette
Combine equal parts Balsamic vinegar and sorghum with two parts extra virgin olive oil.
Shake until emulsified and serve.

Serving suggestion: Dress a green salad topped with thinly sliced beets and onions

Red Wine Vinaigrette with rosemary and garlic
Combine one part red wine vinegar with two parts extra virgin olive oil.
Add chopped herbs and garlic, if desired. Shake until emulsified and serve.

Serving suggestion: Toss with chopped tomato, cucumber, and onion. Refrigerate for half an hour before serving to let flavors combine.

Creamy and Sweet Lemon Vinaigrette
Combine equal parts lemon juice and sweetener; shake until sweetener dissolves.
Add equal parts of sour scream or yogurt and extra virgin olive oil.
Shake until thoroughly combined and serve. Keep refrigerated.

Serving Suggestion: Dress a mixed greens salad

Travelling with greens and using all those stems

This week you'll find a sun-tea bag in the shares with three types of mint and red clover. If you like a strong tea, add a couple bags of green or black tea with the contents of the bag to a quart jar and leave it in the direct sun for a couple hours. Use a larger jar for a more dilute flavor. Sweetened with honey, this makes for a delicious and refreshing drink on a hot day.


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 Lettuce, lettuce, and more lettuce. Buttercrunch is really putting on a nice show this spring, and the colors are really starting to pop.






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The greens bunches are getting huge. We're eating them in everything, from scrambled eggs to pasta dishes.

I know a lot of you are traveling this summer. If you're wondering how to use the greens in a car-friendly dish, try making a nut butter salad:

Chop the greens up in fine ribbons, like in the Greens Crash Course. In a blender or food processor, combine raw cashews, a liberal amount of curry powder, healthy drizzle of apple cider vinegar (ACV), lemon juice, and some salt and pepper with enough water to form a thick sauce. Add more cumin if you feel like it. Toss with the chopped greens and let everything meld for an hour.

Other combinations to try:
cooked chickpeas, curry, garlic, onion, ACV, healthy oil (nut free)
peanut butter, soy sauce, ginger, honey or sorghum, ACV, healthy oil

These dishes are fine for a few hours without refrigeration. They make great summer potluck salads, in addition to healthy road food.
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What about all those colorful stems? Don't throw them in the compost bin just yet!

The stems are crunchy and have way more flavor than celery, so you can chop them up and use them anywhere you'd use raw celery:

deviled eggs
tuna, egg, chicken, pasta, potato, etc salad
inside wraps
sprinkled on top of green salads
baked into quiche or a fritatta
delivery vehicle for creamy herb dips
crou d'etat platters

Chopped up stems looks like confetti!

If you like spicy foods, try these Siracha fridge pickles.

Lovely Lettuce

While popular and familiar, iceburg lettuce, by itself, makes for a pallid salad. Unless, of course, it's a wedge salad with blue cheese and bacon dressing garnished with sliced green onions and cranberries.

Romain and butterhead type lettuces are far more nutritionally dense than iceburg, which is mostly water. Lettuce leaf stalks have more fiber than the leaves, where vitamins and minerals are concentrated. 

Lettuce stored as a full head maintains quality longer than if prewashed and cut. Damaged or cut leaves release an enzyme that causes the degradation of Vitamin C and discoloration.

If storing cut leaves, dry thoroughly with a spinner or by gently tumbling in a clean towel. Store wrapped in a damp paper or dish towel in a sealed plastic bag or container.

 

The tight, blanched inner leaves of a head of Romaine or butterhead lettuce make crunchy, delightful scoops for egg, tuna, and chicken salad or dips like guacamole and chunky salsa.

We're used to eating salads as a small primer to the main dish, but fresh lettuce is so delicious and beautiful, you really can showcase it as a main dinner event.

A giant bed of lettuce can be the base of a “taco” salad. Pile on browned ground beef seasoned with cumin and chili powder, cooked brown rice, chopped green onions, cilantro, and salsa. If you're feeling indulgent, be generous with the sour cream and cheese; otherwise trying substituting Greek yogurt for the sour cream. Crumble some tortilla chips on top and dig in!

Another favorite main dish salad at our farm is a dish that my mother taught me, and her mother taught her. Buttercrunch is my favorite to use for this salad, but any fresh lettuce will do. Mix one part honey or sugar with one part lemon juice. Toss the lettuce with a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil and some salt. Pour the sweetened lemon juice over the salad and server with chopped boiled eggs. I have found bacon to be an excellent addition to this salad, but then there are few things that don't taste better with bacon! Served with a thick slice of whole wheat toast, this sweet and savory salad makes for an excellent light dinner at the end of a hot day spent planting okra and corn.

Make a vegan-friendly, but still robust and filling, salad by using chickpeas. I highly recommend buying (and then cooking) dried chickpeas, as they taste much better and have no added sodium, but canned will do in a pinch. In a blender, combine half the chickpeas with some water, a lot of curry powder, generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and fresh or powdered garlic. Process until smooth. Salt to taste. Toss the rest of the chickpeas in this curry chickpea dressing and pile the combination onto a mounded plate of lettuce. A ripe avocado makes a great addition to the dressing or topping the salad.

Whether you're working to improve or maintain your health, including salads as a major part of a few meals per week will help you towards your goal. With a little culinary creativity, there's no way you'll get bored with green salads before the spring lettuce bolts and makes way for summer tomatoes.

Week 4 CSA

Expect greens, greens, and more greens. And the last of the garlic scapes!

If you're like us, you've got more jars of jellies in your pantry than you know what to do with. Try combining the jelly with peanut butter (or cashew or almond butter), add a little water to loosen, apple cider vinegar and lemon to taste, add a couple good squirts of Bragg's amino acids, and a healthy drizzle of extra virgin olive oil in your blender and process it until it's smooth. It makes for a sweet, creamy dressing that will impress your friends and use up those homemade jellies!

You'll also be receiving a head of cabbage from Eddie Ray in Smithville. They're organically grown and a great size for a small family or couple. If you'd like to make kraut, let us know, and we'd be happy to provide you with beautiful cabbage from our farmer friends.

The season's first cabbages marks kraut making time! Homemade sauerkraut is nothing like the mushy stuff in a can from the store. Store-bought kraut has been heated to make it shelf stable, which completely destroys all the health benefits of this fermented food.

Fermentation, which makes nutrients easier to absorb during digestion, occurs when sugars in food are broken down, resulting in lactic acid, which lowers the pH (raising the acidity) of food below the growth range of dangerous bacteria, preserving the food and all its nutrients without refrigeration.

Lactic fermented foods add good bacteria to your stomach. An entire ecosystem of bacteria inside each of us is responsible for actually breaking down food we eat into forms that can be absorbed by our bodies.

Fermented foods help balance your body's pH. The good bacteria absolutely vital for digestive health cannot thrive in an acidified environment. A standard Westernized diet high in animal proteins, processed fats, and sugars leaves our bodies chronically acidified.

Fermentation can be carried out on your kitchen counter. All it requires is finely shredding your cabbage or other vegetables and packing them down with salt in a ceramic or glass vessel to release the juices, which mix with the salt to create a brine that covers the vegetables. Cover and let the vessel sit a few days to a few months, until it acquires the flavor you desire. 

Properly prepared, fermented foods are as delicious as they are nutritious. Local author, Sandor Katz, is internationally known for his fermentation skills and knowledge. His book, Wild Fermentation: the flavor, nutrition, and craft of live-culture food, is a great introduction to fermentation. It's available at the Liberty Library in the old high school building in Liberty.

Week 3 shares

Salads, salads, and stir-fry! TWO heads of lettuce, in addition to the last of the Asian greens, some very spicy mustards bunched with the season's last watercress, leeks, onions, carrots, and GARLIC SCAPES! These succulent treats will probably only be around for another share or two, so be sure to get creative and savor them!





There are lots of recipes available online suggesting creative uses for scapes.


Here's one for Northern Bean and Garlic Scape Dip (and the website I lifted the picture from)

Garlic Scape Pesto

And a collection of recipes

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 Today we have a couple gluten-intolerant Wwoofers over, so I made a big bowl of egg salad and served it on top of the "farmer food" lettuce... which is what we call the stuff that's too ugly to put in your shares! It still makes a beautiful salad.

Don't forget to use the ribs from you greens to add a fun crunch to stuff like egg salad.

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 This is the first year we've harvested the tops of the bolting chard. I think I'm in love. They're so tender and delicious, and to boot, they cook up really quickly in a stir-fry.

When in doubt, chop it up, throw it in a pan with some rice, try some seasonings like soy, ginger, and garlic or cumin, coriander, and a little curry powder, and you've got yourself a quick, healthy, flavorful meal. Experiment with adding exotic ingredients like coconut milk simmered with lemongrass to keep it exciting!

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You'll find a variety of little edible flowers and herbs. The light purple poofs of small flowers are chive blossoms, the yellow are kale flowers, white flowers are arugula, and the dark purple is sage. Sprinkle them over a big pile of lettuce for a salad prettier than a picture!

Week 2 Shares

You'll find the same mix of fresh produce as last week, with the addition of some other goodies, like baby carrots and hardneck garlic scapes.


You can just chop up those greens, heat up some coconut or extra virgin olive oil, and toss everything in a saute pan. Add some grated or finely chopped fresh ginger, soy sauce, and a little black pepper for a simple, fast dish with lots of flavor. Serve with fast-cooking Basmati rice, quinoa, or pearl couscous to round out the meal and have dinner ready in under 30 minutes! (Take that Rachael Ray!)

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 One of my favorite things to do with chard is add it to tomato sauce. Add the chopped greens just a few minutes before serving. It pairs very well with the acidity and tang of the tomatoes.

I use chard and kale ribs in place of celery to add crunch in pretty much everything, from deviled eggs to tuna salad.

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A favorite go-to fast meal here on the farm is to make a giant salad for dinner. I'll top it with a couple boiled eggs, some chopped bacon, and dress it with a sweet lemon dressing. The dressing isn't terribly healthy; lemon juice to sugar at a 1:1 ration with a healthy drizzle of olive oil. But oh my GOODNESS it's delicious... and I figure if you're having salad for dinner, you can afford to splurge on the dressing. My mother taught me that recipe, and her mother taught her.


Part of the fun of CSA and seasonal eating is thoroughly enjoying produce when it's available. We just straight up refuse to buy lettuce in the store (SO inferior), so when it's not in the garden, we don't eat salads. But when the lettuce looks as beautiful as it does now, we eat it for lunch, snacks, and dinner, and sometimes even breakfast.

Soon enough it'll be 100 degrees and tomato season; the lettuce will have bolted and be bitter. Enjoy these beautiful greens while they're here! Experiment, and you never know when you'll taste your new favorite food!

More chard, our beautiful lettuce, and salad dressings

If you haven't dropped by the farmers' market, located in Smithville behind Ace Hardware, this is the perfect weekend to come on down. We've got two vendors selling fresh produce, so you can get the season's first lettuce, cabbage, kale, chard, and spring onions. The early birds got the eggs and fried pies; they go quick. There are all kinds of baked goods, canned goods, handmade soaps and lotions, vegetable and herb plants, fresh and dried herbs, and the best barbecue, hot wings, and smoked meats you've ever put in your mouth. 

Saturday, June 9th we'll really kick off the produce season with a “grand re-opening”, but there's plenty of good stuff to be had right now!

The fresh produce season starts off with a profusion of greens. I've encountered more people than I can count who have been turned off eating greens by a run-in with mushy, bitter greens. I can't emphasize enough that properly prepared greens are never mushy, never tough, and not bitter.

One of the leafy greens that's in season right now is Swiss chard. Swiss chard looks almost identical to beet greens because it's in the same family as beets. Chard leaves are rich in phytonutrients, which provide antioxidants with powerful anti-inflammatory benefits. One cup of cooked chard will supply you with more than your recommended daily allowance of vitamins K and A, in addition to a slough of other vitamins and minerals, including vitamins C, E, and B vitamins, and minerals including calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese, iron, fiber, and protein. Believe it or not, that list isn't complete, but it serves to demonstrate what a nutrient-dense food chard is.

Since chard is rich in protein and fiber, it is an excellent addition to your diet if you're managing diabetes. Protein and fiber help regulate the speed at which carbohydrates are converted to simple sugars during the digestive process, which minimizes blood sugar spikes.

Fresh chard isn't tough; you can use both the leaves and the ribs. I am absolutely in love with the bright colored ribs produced by the Bright Lights chard we grow at our farm. The variety of colors of the ribs represents a variety of phytonutrients, so including as many colors on your plate as possible ensures a wide variety of nutritional benefits!

You can use chard raw to dress your green salads, but people with a sensitivity to oxalic acid should eat their chard cooked. Quickly boil the chard, but only for 3 minutes. Pour off the water and season with a touch of salt and pepper and a dash of your favorite vinegar. You can also lightly sauté a bunch of chopped chard in some heated olive or coconut oil and season it the same way. It only needs to be sautéed for 5-7 minutes over medium-high heat. The color should still be green when it's done cooking—never, never brown! Sautéed chard is a great side dish served with pork chops, steak, chicken breasts, fish fillets, or tempeh or tofu. 

Chard pairs remarkably well with tomato sauce, so when it's in season, I almost never make spaghetti without chard leaves in the sauce. I chop up the ribs and sauté them with the onions and garlic that start off my spaghetti sauce. About five minutes before the sauce is ready to eat, I throw in the uncooked, chopped chard leaves with a handful of fresh herbs. After just a few minutes of lightly simmering, the leaves are still bright green, and the herbs have infused the sauce. As an aside—did you know that six leaves of oregano have the same antioxidant content as an entire apple?

Another fantastic fresh green available right now is kale. If the only kale you've ever eaten was out of a can or that pre-chopped abomination in the grocery store, I implore you to give it one more try. 

Kale is a nutritional powerhouse. It contains vitamins K, A, and C, manganese, and fiber, in addition to having antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties. Its nutritional profile also includes high concentrations of carotenoids and flavonoids which have powerful cancer preventative properties.

Any of the recipes listed above for chard work just as well for kale. In fact, kale and chard mixed together make an excellent combination. However, my very favorite way to enjoy kale is by eating an entire cookie sheet worth of baked kale chips.

Baking kale chips is the ultimate route to winning over new kale eaters. No kidding, it's as easy as this: Lightly toss the washed and dried leaves with a little olive oil. They shouldn't be drenched, just lightly dressed. Arrange the leaves in a single layer on a cookie sheet and season with a very small amount of sea salt and pepper; add some garlic powder if you're into that. If you're feeling fancy, sprinkle on a little freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Bake in a preheated 350º oven for 7-12 minutes, depending on your oven. You want the leaves crispy and dried but only barely browned. Before trying it, you can't conceive of how delicious this easy recipe really is.

Fresh salads are another delight of the spring season. Lettuce can shake off a light frost, and some varieties will hold out through some hot weather, but by the time the tomatoes are rolling in, the lettuce will be gone. Iceburg lettuce is popular and familiar, but the world of lettuce is vastly more exciting and aesthetically pleasing than those ubiquitous light green heads. You can grow varieties that are lime green with splashy red speckles, some with frilly, curled leaves, heads that grow a foot and a half tall, intense red frilly leaves, loose-head buttercrunch varieties with soft red speckles, iceburg style heads with pink speckles; the list goes on and on and on.

We've all tried the usual ranch, honey mustard, and French style dressings, but you shouldn't limit yourself to such a finite palate. Fresh dressings are infinitely variable and extremely easy to make. I usually make them in a canning jar so I can put a lid on and shake to emulsify (combine) the ingredients and store the leftover dressing in the fridge. 

Here are a few of our farm's favorite dressings:

For a simple vinaigrette dressing use a 1 to 3 ratio of vinegar to oil. Combine red wine, balsamic, or white wine vinegar with extra virgin olive oil. Add a dash of salt and pepper and maybe some dried herbs. Shake until emulsified and eat up! You can add freshly chopped garlic or garlic powder, use freshly chopped herbs instead of dried herbs, or try out grapeseed or sunflower oil instead of olive oil. You can't mess it up, so just experiment until you find a flavor combination that knocks your socks off. This style of simple vinaigrette goes great with a salad that's dressed up with feta cheese, green onions, and chopped kalamata or black olives.

To give your salad a more gourmet, exotic twist, try a ginger, peanut butter dressing. I know this combination of ingredients will sound a little strange, but I absolutely guarantee it'll blow you away. Combine about a tablespoon of peanut butter (the creamy, natural kind works best, but I've been known to make this with the regular crunchy kind, too), a teaspoon of soy sauce or Bragg's amino acids, a plop of honey, a half inch chunk of fresh ginger, grated, a dash of black pepper, a couple tablespoons of white wine or apple cider vinegar, and about a ¼ cup of olive oil. Shake, shake, shake until all the ingredients have combined, and give it a taste. Depending on your palate, you might want a little more tang, so add some more vinegar, or maybe a little sweeter, so add some more honey. I usually end up adding twice as much ginger because I just can't get enough of it. The recipe is just a guideline; play with it to suit your taste. We love this dressing so much, sometimes I'll make an enormous salad just as an excuse to make this dressing.

Since you've got ginger leftover from trying the peanut butter dressing, the next night you can try out a lemonade ginger dressing. Combine equal parts sugar and lemon juice, add as much freshly grated ginger as you want, a dash of salt to bring out the flavor, and top off with extra virgin olive oil at the same 1 to 3 ratio, using the lemon juice instead of vinegar. This sweet and tangy dressing pairs phenomenally well with a salad that's jazzed up with some chopped fruit, like apples, strawberries, or peaches.

Just because most of the fresh produce right now is green doesn't mean it has to be boring or bland. Part of the joy of seasonal eating is enjoying the changing palate throughout the year and becoming a more robust and creative cook. Experimentation is fun. There's literally no end to the number of dishes you can create utilizing fresh greens!

Some delights of spring: chard, kale, and lettuce

If you haven't dropped by the farmers' market, located in Smithville behind Ace Hardware, this is the perfect weekend to come on down. We've got two vendors selling fresh produce, so you can get the season's first lettuce, cabbage, kale, chard, and spring onions. The early birds got the eggs and fried pies; they go quick. There are all kinds of baked goods, canned goods, handmade soaps and lotions, vegetable and herb plants, fresh and dried herbs, and the best barbecue, hot wings, and smoked meats you've ever put in your mouth.

Saturday, June 9th we'll really kick off the produce season with a “grand re-opening”, but there's plenty of good stuff to be had right now!

The fresh produce season starts off with a profusion of greens. I've encountered more people than I can count who have been turned off eating greens by a run-in with mushy, bitter greens. I can't emphasize enough that properly prepared greens are never mushy, never tough, and not bitter.

One of the leafy greens that's in season right now is Swiss chard. Swiss chard looks almost identical to beet greens because it's in the same family as beets. Chard leaves are rich in phytonutrients, which provide antioxidants with powerful anti-inflammatory benefits. One cup of cooked chard will supply you with more than your recommended daily allowance of vitamins K and A, in addition to a slough of other vitamins and minerals, including vitamins C, E, and B vitamins, and minerals including calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese, iron, fiber, and protein. Believe it or not, that list isn't complete, but it serves to demonstrate what a nutrient-dense food chard is.

Since chard is rich in protein and fiber, it is an excellent addition to your diet if you're managing diabetes. Protein and fiber help regulate the speed at which carbohydrates are converted to simple sugars during the digestive process, which minimizes blood sugar spikes.

Fresh chard isn't tough; you can use both the leaves and the ribs. I am absolutely in love with the bright colored ribs produced by the Bright Lights chard we grow at our farm. The variety of colors of the ribs represents a variety of phytonutrients, so including as many colors on your plate as possible ensures a wide variety of nutritional benefits!

You can use chard raw to dress your green salads, but people with a sensitivity to oxalic acid should eat their chard cooked. Quickly boil the chard, but only for 3 minutes. Pour off the water and season with a touch of salt and pepper and a dash of your favorite vinegar. You can also lightly sauté a bunch of chopped chard in some heated olive or coconut oil and season it the same way. It only needs to be sautéed for 5-7 minutes over medium-high heat. The color should still be green when it's done cooking—never, never brown! Sautéed chard is a great side dish served with pork chops, steak, chicken breasts, fish fillets, or tempeh or tofu. 

Chard pairs remarkably well with tomato sauce, so when it's in season, I almost never make spaghetti without chard leaves in the sauce. I chop up the ribs and sauté them with the onions and garlic that start off my spaghetti sauce. About five minutes before the sauce is ready to eat, I throw in the uncooked, chopped chard leaves with a handful of fresh herbs. After just a few minutes of lightly simmering, the leaves are still bright green, and the herbs have infused the sauce. As an aside—did you know that six leaves of oregano have the same antioxidant content as an entire apple?

Another fantastic fresh green available right now is kale. If the only kale you've ever eaten was out of a can or that pre-chopped abomination in the grocery store, I implore you to give it one more try. 

Kale is a nutritional powerhouse. It contains vitamins K, A, and C, manganese, and fiber, in addition to having antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties. Its nutritional profile also includes high concentrations of carotenoids and flavonoids which have powerful cancer preventative properties.

Any of the recipes listed above for chard work just as well for kale. In fact, kale and chard mixed together make an excellent combination. However, my very favorite way to enjoy kale is by eating an entire cookie sheet worth of baked kale chips.

Baking kale chips is the ultimate route to winning over new kale eaters. No kidding, it's as easy as this: Lightly toss the washed and dried leaves with a little olive oil. They shouldn't be drenched, just lightly dressed. Arrange the leaves in a single layer on a cookie sheet and season with a very small amount of sea salt and pepper; add some garlic powder if you're into that. If you're feeling fancy, sprinkle on a little freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Bake in a preheated 350º oven for 7-12 minutes, depending on your oven. You want the leaves crispy and dried but only barely browned. Before trying it, you can't conceive of how delicious this easy recipe really is.

Fresh salads are another delight of the spring season. Lettuce can shake off a light frost, and some varieties will hold out through some hot weather, but by the time the tomatoes are rolling in, the lettuce will be gone. Iceburg lettuce is popular and familiar, but the world of lettuce is vastly more exciting and aesthetically pleasing than those ubiquitous light green heads. You can grow varieties that are lime green with splashy red speckles, some with frilly, curled leaves, heads that grow a foot and a half tall, intense red frilly leaves, loose-head buttercrunch varieties with soft red speckles, iceburg style heads with pink speckles; the list goes on and on and on.

We've all tried the usual ranch, honey mustard, and French style dressings, but you shouldn't limit yourself to such a finite palate. Fresh dressings are infinitely variable and extremely easy to make. I usually make them in a canning jar so I can put a lid on and shake to emulsify (combine) the ingredients and store the leftover dressing in the fridge. 

Here are a few of our farm's favorite dressings:

For a simple vinaigrette dressing use a 1 to 3 ratio of vinegar to oil. Combine red wine, balsamic, or white wine vinegar with extra virgin olive oil. Add a dash of salt and pepper and maybe some dried herbs. Shake until emulsified and eat up! You can add freshly chopped garlic or garlic powder, use freshly chopped herbs instead of dried herbs, or try out grapeseed or sunflower oil instead of olive oil. You can't mess it up, so just experiment until you find a flavor combination that knocks your socks off. This style of simple vinaigrette goes great with a salad that's dressed up with feta cheese, green onions, and chopped kalamata or black olives.

To give your salad a more gourmet, exotic twist, try a ginger, peanut butter dressing. I know this combination of ingredients will sound a little strange, but I absolutely guarantee it'll blow you away. Combine about a tablespoon of peanut butter (the creamy, natural kind works best, but I've been known to make this with the regular crunchy kind, too), a teaspoon of soy sauce or Bragg's amino acids, a plop of honey, a half inch chunk of fresh ginger, grated, a dash of black pepper, a couple tablespoons of white wine or apple cider vinegar, and about a ¼ cup of olive oil. Shake, shake, shake until all the ingredients have combined, and give it a taste. Depending on your palate, you might want a little more tang, so add some more vinegar, or maybe a little sweeter, so add some more honey. I usually end up adding twice as much ginger because I just can't get enough of it. The recipe is just a guideline; play with it to suit your taste. We love this dressing so much, sometimes I'll make an enormous salad just as an excuse to make this dressing.

Since you've got ginger leftover from trying the peanut butter dressing, the next night you can try out a lemonade ginger dressing. Combine equal parts sugar and lemon juice, add as much freshly grated ginger as you want, a dash of salt to bring out the flavor, and top off with extra virgin olive oil at the same 1 to 3 ratio, using the lemon juice instead of vinegar. This sweet and tangy dressing pairs phenomenally well with a salad that's jazzed up with some chopped fruit, like apples, strawberries, or peaches.

Just because most of the fresh produce right now is green doesn't mean it has to be boring or bland. Part of the joy of seasonal eating is enjoying the changing palate throughout the year and becoming a more robust and creative cook. Experimentation is fun. There's literally no end to the number of dishes you can create utilizing fresh greens!