I love vegetables. My mother would be so pleased to hear that. But, she sure wouldn’t recognize some of the wonderful vegetable dishes I’ve been making from Serving Up the Harvest. A product of her times, she leaned toward frozen and canned vegetables. She was a gardner, yes, but not a vegetable gardener. From her I get my love of flowers and I focus on those and a few herbs and leave the vegetable gardening to others. Fortunately, there are plenty of community supported agriculture (CSA) options in our area so I can concentrate on flowers, purchase great vegetables and help support something that’s near and dear to my farmer’s daughter heart — agriculture.

I purchased Serving Up the Harvest a few years ago at a Michigan Master Gardener Association function and I’ve looked at the wonderful recipes many time. It wasn’t until this spring that we started cooking from it more frequently. That timing coordinated with the arrival of our CSA share for this spring.

With our CSA we get an email the day before pick up telling us what’s ready to enjoy this week. And that inspires us to be creative in recipes, which has pushed me to this book looking for new options.

The subhead - Celebrating the Goodness of Fresh Vegetables - really summarizes what this book has to offer. Since there are a lot of salad greens in the spring CSA share — it’s such a treat to have fresh, locally grown instead of winter grocery store fare — I’ve tapped into the salad recipes of course, but this book offers so much more!!!

Recently we had lacinato kale in our CSA share box. We both like kale, but this kale was particularly fresh, tasty and especially tender!!! I made the vegetarian version of Tuscan Kale with White Beans and Garlic. It was spectacular, especially the last minute addition of some olive oil/garlic/red peppy just before serving. We served that up with a side of white Italian sausage made at a local market for a spectacular dinner.

Serving Up the Harvest has quickly become my go to book for creative ways to use our CSA share each week. Now that we’re in the middle of asparagus season in Michigan I can’t wait to try their lemony grilled asparagus, which looks really easy and simple, and the grilled asparagus and chicken salad which makes the most of both the asparagus in our share and also the salad greens. Spring eating is soooo refreshing after a long winter!

If you’re looking to either add more vegetables into your diet or to break out of your vegetable cooking rut, this book is a great one to choose. It’s divided into sections that follow the seasons of the year — something that I particularly appreciate in our four season environment. It also has suggestions for a well-stocked pantry and basic recipes for dressings, broths and more. It’s a real treasure trove. You can purchase this book on Amazon by clicking the Buy on Amazon button under the cover image of the book, which is pictured below.

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