The CSA Chronicles: Week 2

This summer and fall, In Season columnist Stephanie Witt Sedgwick is sharing her experiences as a member of a community-supported agriculture program. CSA members pay in advance for a weekly delivery or pickup of produce and other fresh items from a local farm.

Here is her quick take for the week. Check out her recipe for Green Beans With Sweet Onion and Fresh Herbs, which uses ingredients from her CSA bag, and watch for her column, which appears on the first Wednesday of every month in Food.

Filling my bag, I immediately noticed things are beginning to change. My take is getting larger; this week it included garlic, four sweet onions, a bag of green beans, Swiss chard, parsley, basil, oregano, lettuce and a pound of new potatoes.

The latter are this week's surprise, procured from a farmer friend of my CSA. These lovely small, oval-shaped potatoes are a gift I'm happy to receive. I also realize that I'm in danger of drowning in herbs. Every bag for the past few weeks has included some. I still have chives to use from last week.

My herb-loving husband is in heaven. He's happy to top just about everything with a sprinkling of fragrant leaves. It's a good thing he likes them, because I can't stand to see them go to waste. There's a lot of "herbed this" and "herbed that" on our dinner table.

I was pleased to get some favorites (potatoes and green beans) to cook with, and I went right to work on them for dinner. I cut the potatoes and one of the large sweet onions into chunks, tossed them with salt, pepper and olive oil, then roasted them. I cut and boiled the green beans, then mixed them with herbs and diced onion. I served them alongside grilled, sliced steak, making my meal and my CSA share a success.