A different mustard for your sandwich

Last Saturday, I picked up my biweekly allotment of vegetables from the Upper Meadows Farm CSA, a community supported agriculture program where I subscribed for a year and receive a share of every harvest. You never know what will be in your basket of vegetables on a given week. Sure, you can pretty much expect tomatoes and corn from mid-July though mid September, but other than that, it's a crapshoot.

My latest basket included whole young mustard plants, with gorgeous yellow flowers, tender light green leaves, and roots still attached. The first thing I did when I got home was to place the mustard plants into a pot of soil and set it in the sun. Since then, I've enjoyed a taste sensation that can't be duplicated any other way at any price.

The volunteer at the CSA pickup site suggested layering the young leaves into sandwiches as a seasoning and vegetable. I've been placing these zesty leaves in with Dutch Gouda and tomatoes on toasted rolls to create spicy CLTs. The mustard leaves impart that familiar mustard tingle to the nose, plus a peppery, bittersweet note on the tongue. Their leafy crunch adds a texture similar to watercress.

Community supported agriculture is a way to support local farmers, whose business is reliant on cash infusions during the very early part of the season, when they don't have much to sell. You pay up front, and that helps them plant and cultivate their crops. Later, when they reap the harvests, so do you. To find a CSA near you, go to www.localharvest.org.

Jay Weinstein's blog posts are provided by LifeWire, a part of The New York Times Company.