The first of the fall carrots are here! Photo by Scott David Gordon

We know that our CSA members love the bounty of local, organic veggies they receive in their shares every week. But we also know that even the most inspired home chefs can have trouble figuring out how to cook with another weeks worth of eggplant - we get it! Eating locally and seasonally is a joy, but comes with it's own set of challenges as well. This week, we asked our staff, family, and friends (and scoured Brenton's enormous cookbook collection!) to help us round up a list of favorite cookbooks to help tackle your weekly share of JBG veggies.



1. Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker

What cookbook list would be complete without this perennial classic? Hailed by the New York Public Library as one of the 150 most influential books of the 20th century, and described by Julia Child as “a fundamental resource for any American cook,” Joy of Cooking is a resource for everything from knife skills, to basic cooking techniques, to canning and pickling, and recipes for the grill, oven, microwave and more! This was Brenton's first cookbook in college, and the start of his collection.



2. From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce, by FairShare CSA Coalition

Created by CSA members, for CSA members, From Asparagus to Zucchini breaks it down by vegetable. This cookbook offers storage tips, nutritional information, and a huge variety of recipes for even the strangest and most unfamiliar of CSA vegetables.



3. The Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen

Now in it's 41st year of publication, Moosewood is an absolute favorite database for vegetarian recipes, inspired by the changing seasonal menu of the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, NY. Mollie Katzen hand wrote and illustrated every recipe in this book, making it a handmade treasure for your kitchen (the kiddos love it too!). Moosewood has a number of other great, vegetarian cookbooks not to be missed.



4. Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables, by John Peterson

Farmer John, of Angelic Organics, created this cookbook specifically for his CSA program in Illinois. As you might imagine, the recipes are seasonal and vegetable based, perfectly fitting for a weekly CSA share, and Farmer John makes this cookbook special by adding in stories from the farm, letters from CSA members, and more. We like your pitchfork and boa, John.



5. Good and Cheap, by Leanne Brown

Ever heard someone say that eating organically is too expensive? Leanne Brown could certainly prove them wrong with this book. Written to accommodate the budget of someone living on SNAP benefits (about $4 per day),  this cookbook has a ton of ideas for cooking healthy and economic meals, using lots of vegetables and basic pantry staples - plus, offers suggestions for ingredient substitutes, to help take down that glut of zucchini! For every book purchased, a book is donated to a low-income household, but you can also download the cookbook for free in PDF format. This week's CSA member-submitted recipe came from this book!



6. Eating in Season: Recipes from Boggy Creek Farm by Carol Ann Sayle

This one is about as hyper-local and seasonal as it gets, from the folks at Boggy Creek right here in Austin! Brenton added this one to his collection when he started the backyard garden and was visiting Boggy Creek to get garden ideas. Carol Ann does a great job creating fuss-free recipes perfectly conducive to our growing seasons here in central Texas.



7. Jerusalem: A Cookbook, by Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi

This cookbook is the favorite of Ada, our office manager: "Wonderful, simple approaches to Mediterranean inspired food, which coincidentally is largely plant based, and super useful for considering seasonal veggies in a new and fresh way. Great when you need inspiration for what to do with more eggplant that often employs flavors that aren't intuitive to the average American-home cook. Not to mention the beautiful photographs and narrative on every page!"



8. Chez Panisse Vegetables, by Alice Waters

Alice Waters of the famed Chez Panisse and the Edible Schoolyard Project, believes that "cooking should be based on the finest and freshest seasonal ingredients that are produced sustainably and locally." This cookbook, with it's beautiful linotypes of veggies, has load of vegetable specific information, and recommendations from the restaurant with each dish. Perfect for impressing dinner guests with recipes from Michelin Star chefs.

Now it's your turn, CSA members -- we want to know what cookbooks you turn to when your JBG box shows up every week. Leave us your favorite in the comments!