Every week we receive wonderful farm fresh foods and then have to figure out how to use them all before the next week when more wonderful farm fresh foods arrive. Sometimes it is just a challenge to figure out what the item IS, let alone how to eat it all before it goes bad or you are inundated with more yummy food.

With some preparation and creativity, you can use these items up every week, receive enjoyment from these healthy foods and reap the full benefits of what a true bargain getting produce from a CSA, when broken down week to week, is. My first action on getting home is cleaning and storing everything properly. I find that if I soak the lettuce, really cleaning it and storing it properly, it can last an entire week and I'm more likely to use it on a daily basis. The same goes for all of the other items. Only having to clean your veggies once a week can encourage you to cook more and order in less. The _Joy of Cooking_ is a wonderful resource for storage and usage tips but generally if you put a veggie in your crisper, wrap it loosely in a paper or cloth towel and then put it in a bag and it will last a week. If the item is something like summer squash, green beans, sugar snap peas or cranberry beans, make sure there are a few holes in the bag so the items can get a small amount of air. Root vegetables wrapped in paper towels and put in a plastic bag can last months in a crisper and this goes for carrots, beets and radishes, as well as fall items like turnips. There are a variety of eco friendly bags online and available at health food stores perfect for vegetable storage and reuse. Tea towels and old burp cloths are wonderful substitutes for paper towels and all you have to do is simply launder them between uses.

This past Tuesday's share included some unusual items and some fairly common items. Here are just a few thoughts on how to use them but look around online. There are a myriad of wonderful food blogs out there giving creative ideas out every day:

Cress is a wonderful salad green. Go ahead and clean it and store it as you do lettuce. It tastes wonderful on a sandwich, tossed into a soup or pasta dish and it can create a wonderful pesto.

Lavender dried makes a lovely sachet for drawers and is a key ingredient in the herb mixture, Herb de Provence. You can also make several interesting items such as lavender simple syrup, which is lovely in cocktails with gin and vodka as a base spirit and lavender butter which makes a lemon poundcake truly lovely and special.

Sugar Snap Peas should be easy to "dispose of" but they aren't just for simple saute or steaming. They taste amazing in alfredo sauce with spring onions. They are wonderful raw simply dipped in hummus instead of baby carrots or chips.

Dill is an essential in making pickles but it also enhances grilled, baked or roasted salmon, is wonderful tossed into your potato salad recipe and can be infused into vodka simply by submerging a stalk or two in a bottle of your favorite brand and letting the bottle sit in a cool place for a few days. After the dill steeps, you can remove the stalk or leave it in and store the vodka in your freezer for a quick cold summer cocktail. Try  putting 2 oz. of the vodka in a glass with ice and a slice of lemon and then filling the rest of the glass with club soda, tonic or seltzer water.

Sage is a wonderful herb but it is hard to know what to do with such a large amount sometimes. Try drying a portion and setting aside some for use over the next few weeks. Store the portion you'll use fresh wrapped in a towel and, if you want, a bag in your crisper. Additionally, sage makes a wonderful pesto. Take your favorite basil recipe and replace the basil with sage, the pine or walnut with pecans or almonds and use melted butter instead of olive oil. You can leave out any citrus and garlic altogether, if you like, and toss it with sweet potato gnocchi. This freezes well.

Mustard Greens are best simply sauteed in salt and butter or olive oil but they also serve as a great substitute for kale in recipes.

Swiss Chard is also wonderful simply sauteed. Additionally, it is a wonderful addition to quiches and other egg recipes, a great topping on a savory tart and a good substitute for spinach in many recipes. You might even put a little blanched swiss chard into your pesto to amp up the nutritional value.

Cherries are amazing in clafloutis, made into jam, baked into a tart or pie and just eaten outright. The shares for fruit start out smaller, but as the season progresses you'll find you need many uses for your apples. Toss them into green, chicken and tuna fish salads. Bake them into pies and tarts, puree them for sauce and toss some into your latke recipe (with zucchini or potato). Bake muffins that freeze well and use the apple sauce you make as a substitute for oil and/or dairy in your favorite baked goods recipes.

Enjoy your food and while sometimes it is work to prepare it, it often is worth the effort!

Cress Pesto

- 1 and 1/2 cups cress loosely packed
- 1/4 cup pecans (or almonds)
- 1 clove of garlic
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tsp. lemon juice

Put all into a mini-food processor, food mill or blender and puree into paste. Toss with your favorite pasta. Carmelized onions and chicken apple sausage make a nice addition to the pasta tossed with this pesto.