Dear Katie,

I’m excited to embark on this culinary collaboration with you! I must admit that I’m jealous that your CSA has already started. I’ve got probably another month or so before I start getting my shares.

I want to take you through my thought process because I think it speaks to the level of obsession I’m willing to put into cooking. My initial reaction to your box for this week was soup. My limited understanding of turnips is that they’re cabbage flavored with the texture of potatoes, so in my book, that’s a soup vegetable. I also really like greens in soup – rainbow chard would be perfect.

From here, I pondered whether fava beans would be good in soup. I decided yes, despite my only knowledge of fresh favas coming from Chopped (which is the only reason I know you have to shell the beans from the pod and peel the skin off of each individual bean to make them edible). Combine that with the fact that you have venison and I really wanted the solution to be a stew, but alas, I don’t think any of your cuts of venison are meant to be stewed.

I’d still make a vegetarian soup, though. I was going to suggest throwing the spring onions, turnips, fava beans, and rainbow chard together with some vegetable broth, which you certainly could do for a nice and simple vegetable soup. But then I poked around the internet for a bit, and I found this. It requires some additional vegetables and a few of the amounts might need to be fudged a bit, but it has a lot of the ingredients from your box and looks much more interesting than my basic soup idea. So that was a big buildup to just link to a recipe. Welcome to my thought process; it’s a bit of a wild journey.

Other thoughts: I’m super jealous of your strawberries! I like the idea of using strawberries in a salad with the salad mix, and I’d throw in some goat cheese and walnuts or pecans with a balsamic vinaigrette. Maybe have that on the side of some roasted venison loin? If you’d prefer to go sweet, I recently made a crisp with strawberries, blackberries, and peaches which I highly recommend (especially topped with vanilla ice cream). I’ve also made balsamic roasted strawberries with Spanish goat cheese – I was inspired by the strawberries and cheese dish at Viva Madrid! Of course the strawberries would be fantastic just eaten fresh.

I believe I’ve rambled enough. I hope that this has provided you with some inspiration. I look forward to hearing about the delicious creations that come from your haul. Happy cooking!