One of the challenges of belonging to a CSA program is to use the bounty that Farmer Kev brings us each week. In Maine, the end of June is still early summer, and the harvest therefore consists of greens, greens, and more greens. Radishes and sugar snap peas are also thrown in, and they certainly add dash to the plethora of greens. When it comes to the peas, my husband, Clif, and I do not have to wonder how to use those beauties. We are crazy about them, and in grocery stores sugar snaps—never mind organic ones like Farmer Kev’s—are quite expensive. Into stir-fries, pasta, and wraps the sugar snaps go, delicious to the very last crunch. Radishes keep well in a bowl of cold water in the refrigerator, and my husband, Clif, and I love to add them to salads.

But what about all those greens? Bags and bags of spinach and lettuce? Swiss chard and beet greens.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Clif and I are not all that keen on plain cooked greens. We like them in salads, and we don’t mind them as part of a dish. Every night, therefore, we have been eating big green salads, but they do not use a sufficient amount to deal with the many bags of spinach and lettuce we have in our refrigerator.

I have therefore developed a two-pronged approach. The first is to cook with some of the greens—a bag of spinach will shrink to nothing once it is sautéd in a bit of oil. Last week I made spinach with pasta, and I was only moderately pleased with the results. This week, I had another idea. At the Winthrop Farmer’s market, I had bought some garlic sausage from Wholesome Holmstead. I thought, why not make a garlic sausage and spinach dish? And, why not make a sweet and sour sauce, which both Clif and I love, to mix in with the sausage and spinach? How would that taste? I’m inclined to think that sweet and sour sauce, if it’s homemade, improves the taste of almost anything. All right. Maybe not quiche, but sweet and sour sauce sure is good in stir-fries and on chicken and even with white beans and rice. Still, I’ve been cooking long enough to realize that what the imagination conceives might not match reality. (In fact, this is true of a lot of things.)

I am pleased to report that in this case, imagination and reality were in perfect accord. The sausage and spinach with sweet and sour sauce tasted exactly the way I hoped it would. The spinach and the spicy sausage were a perfect pairing with the sweet and sour sauce. We ate it over rice, of course, and not going back for seconds took tremendous willpower. Good thing a big green salad was waiting for me. And, yes, there was spinach in it.

Clif’s response to the sausage and spinach dish? “Pretty good,” he said. And since Clif comes from a long line of Yankees, this is his version of high praise.

My second approach with the surplus is to give some of it away. This week, I brought Swiss chard and beet greens to my friend Lee Gilman, who lives up the road from me. She was happy to receive the greens, and I even threw in a bunch of radishes, since Farmer Kev had given me two bunches this week.

As I drove to deliver the greens and radishes to Lee, black clouds scudded across the sky. The water on the Narrows Ponds, upper and lower, was dark and choppy, and thunder rumbled close by. Keeping an eye on the sky, I spoke with Lee for a bit, and her Sheltie, Lucky, watched us in the bright way that Shelties have. Lee had come in from her own garden, and she was holding a hoe. As we said our goodbyes, Lee moved the hoe back and forth, and with a happy growl, Lucky chased it. Home I went, getting inside just as the rain poured down, making it too wet for Clif to mow the lawn. Ah, well. At least he could get the spinach ready for cooking.

Sausage and Spinach in a Sweet and Sour Sauce

This is more of a guideline than a recipe. Unfortunately, I cannot share the sweet and sour sauce recipe, as it comes directly from a cookbook, and I make it pretty much the way it is written. However, there are many recipes online and in cookbooks. I will tell you the ingredients of the one I use: sugar, cider vinegar, pineapple juice, ketchup, and garlic powder, something I rarely use but is somehow perfect in this recipe. Then, I boil the mixture and thicken it with water and corn starch. Now, at least, you have something to go by.

For last night’s dish, I used 7 ounces of garlic sausage. Any sausage would be good, but that garlic sausage was outstanding, perfectly spiced and with just the right amount of fat. As with any dish, the better the ingredients, the better the results. Not putting any oil in the frying pan, I stir-fried the sausage, which came in a solid pack rather than in links. By the time I was done, I had nice little chunks.

When the sausage was cooked, I added a bunch of spinach. No, I did not measure. I just threw it in until it seemed like enough. (It was.)

Ditto for chunks of pineapple, from a 20 ounce can. Last came the sweet and sour sauce, and I used the entire batch. A pound of meat and more spinach would take a double batch.

While I was cooking the sausage and spinach, I had a pot of jasmine Thai rice simmering on the back burner. Brown rice is better for you, I know, but I can’t help it. I am just crazy about jasmine Thai rice, and that is what we eat in our house.

When the pineapples were heated through, the mixture was spooned over rice.

Time for dinner.