CSA 2010 - Week 11

Last week's share went well overall. The lemon balm syrup ended up tasting as mild as it smelled, but at least it served to sweeten the tea. Mostly everything else went into recipes that we have made in the past, so not much to report there.

More oranges are going to be a challenge to use up. We'll probably just supreme the lot of them. Half of the avocados will get guacamoled and the other half will likely get given away. We really need to start searching for other avocado recipes, since it seems likely that these are not the last we will see. These white fleshed nectarines are sweet and delicious. These pluots are very odd looking. They are the size of large plum tomatoes, and firm fleshed and green. We've been working our way through the other fruit, so we haven't tried them yet to report on taste.

Two kinds of apples this week. Some will go into apple cake, some into a roasted pork dish, and some will just get eaten as is. Red flame grapes. We have a great recipe for pork with roasted grapes, but since we are doing the apple one, we'll likely just eat these as-is. Muskmelons Plums

We have gotten a surprisingly small amount of kale this year, which is a shame. We actually like it quite a bit, and have a bunch of great recipes for it. This bunch will go into a pasta dish with tubetti (we are actually using ditalinni, since we have it for a soup recipe), red pepper, and various other things. These beets are getting steamed and glazed with orange juice (one orange down!) It's a recipe that works will all forms of root veggies, but we like it best with beets. The onions this season have been a bit iffy. It's very common for them to have one or two layers that are already browned and mushy when we get them, which is an unpleasant surprise. This cilantro will go into the guac as well as into tacos. This is a much more reasonable number of tomatoes than we have been getting. These will be easy to use and go into all sorts of dishes.

Zucchini Cucumber Lettuce This eggplant has triggered the CSA paradox. We need a little more than we have to make the caponata recipe that we have, so we had to buy a second small one. In the end it was worth it, plus it used up a tomato and some of the celery from last week. A threefer! In this week's newsletter, we learned that green peppers are likely to be the only color we get. Apparently the longer they ripen (and color), the more likely they are to rot or get disease. For that reason, this slightly red-ish one may be the darkest we see. The freezing of last week's oregano seemed to go well, so I am going to try the same with this thyme. We have some storebought thyme kicking around too, which will likely get frozen with it. We will be roasting this fennel with apples for the pork dish. These hot peppers will be used here and there. This hard-neck garlic contains a small number of very large cloves within a head. We do love garlic, but having enormous cloves can make it hard to use in normal dishes. We do have a garlic based rub for grilled chicken that uses a ton, so we'll likely do that with a large portion of it.

CSA 2010 - Week 10

Last week's share went well. The watermelon margaritas were delicious, and I can definitely see myself making them again in the future. We used our standard recipe for two drinks as a base (three shots tequila, two shots fresh lime juice, one shot triple sec) and swapped the ice for four cups of frozen watermelon. The pulp from the melon added a nice smoothness to the frozen drink, and lent it a mild melon flavor.

The corn pie was also fantastic, and I would totally make it again. The pie crust was made with a lot of olive oil with some black pepper. It was great, and I can see using it for other savory pies.

Two heads of lettuce. Muskmelon and watermelon are getting cubed and eaten as is. This watermelon is a normal red one. Both are sweet and delicious. Green peppers will go in salads and some other dishes. Hot peppers are going in various dishes (chilaquiles, the dressing for a taco salad.) An onion. Lemon balm is something that my mother used to grow as a ground cover, but we never used it culinarily. I am making a simple syrup with the balm steeped in it for flavoring ice tea. It smells pretty mild, but hopefully it isn't overwhelmed by the tea.

I am attempting a technique for freezing this oregano. We don't use a ton of it, so if the freezing works then we can have it available when we do need it. Cucumber We only got one pattypan squash in our share, but we swapped a second cucumber for a small second one and a small regular summer squash. We have a recipe for pattypan that we've been wanting to make, so it seemed like a fair trade. We are going to put these carrots into a gratin. We've made it in the past with beets and carrots, and will likely pick up another small root veggie up from the grocery store to go into it. Mary doesn't much care for celery, but I like it. I'll probably end up eating it as snacks, but it may also find its way into soup or something. Tomatoes. Tomatoes sliced with salt, tomatoes chopped into salads, tomatoes roasted with lemon and rosemary, tomatoes sliced on our burgers, tomatoes in our chilaquiles, steaks with tomato jam.

CSA 2010 - Week 9

Last time we got Avocados we tried Alton Brown's recipe for guacamole, and it was delicious. Three of these are going into that, and two got passed to one of Mary's coworkers. The last will probably get sliced onto burgers. These 'dinosaur egg' pluots are fun and speckled and juicy and delicious. The flesh is golden-red-ish and the pits are quite stubborn. These are just slated to be eaten as snacks. This watermelon turned out to be golden. Some of this is partaking in an experiment and some will just be eaten as is. For the experiment, I am adapting a stirred margarita recipe that calls for the juice of four cups of watermelon. Instead, I am freezing four cups of cubed melon with the intent of making a blended one with that in place of ice. These bartlet pears are slated for a pear crisp with golden raisins and a delicious crumbly topping.

We are repeating a recipe we made last time we got peaches and making chicken with peaches and basil. It's amazingly good, for a combo you might not otherwise consider. Champagne grapes are fated for pizza. Wow we make a lot of pizza. Limes are going in the margaritas and guacamole. More cherries, more cherry pies. Billy suggested making maraschinos in a comment, but we love pie too much to spare the cherries. Mmmmm...pie.

Oh thank goodness, I was worried that lettuce season may be over. Basil for the chicken and peach dish, as well as pesto for the grape pizza. What is it about basil that makes folks want to do such strange stuff with it? Cucumbers. I overcorrected on my last attempt to make my sorbet, and it ended up tasting like lime and nothing else. It was also a little icier than I would have liked. With a bit of luck, I can get the next batch where I want it. A single small green pepper. The ones from last week had very thin shells, but these ones are more 'normal'. We had also gotten a small red pepper, but it was too little to have much use. We swap boxed it for more basil.

Apparently when I lauded the tomatoes last week, the universe heard. Of these fourteen tomatoes, a few are going in the guac, a few are going in a quiche-like corn and tomato pie, and a few will get eaten sliced with salt. That may still leave a dozen tomatoes, and if that happens then we may try making a roasted tomato sauce. We consumed the remainder of the zucchini bread from the freezer, so we're due to make a few more loaves. Onions Two ears of corn are going into the pie and two are getting grilled with burgers.

CSA 2010 - Week 8

This week we got a lot of variety, but not too much volume of any one thing. We're down to just some oranges left from the last share, and we're slowly working through those.

We were supposed to get mizuna or arugula this week. We were hoping for the later (we have a great pizza that uses it) but sadly got the former. I think that we'll press forward with the pizza anyway, even though the mizuna is much milder in flavor. Lettuce Six glorious ears of corn. We are using this with the leeks in the next picture for one of our favorite sides. It's basically creamed corn, but with fresh corn and leeks cooked in the rendered fat of bacon (which is sprinkled over the final dish) it's hard to go wrong. We got two novel herbs this week: summer savory and anise hyssop. The first looks and smells like it is in the thyme family (and is getting subbed for it in a few recipes) and the latter has a peppery anise flavor. A teeny, tiny little jalapeno pepper will make its way into a quick weeknight pork chili verde. The other peppers in the bag are hot banana peppers. I don't usually think of banana peppers as being very hot, but the newsletter said that these packed some heat. They are likely to end up in the chili as well.

This small eggplant and these squash are heading for a layered gratin-like dish. Still not out of squash recipes. A small bunch of chard will end up in our scramble with whatever herbs remain. Cucumber, I have the same advice for you that I had for the zucchini a few weeks ago: Less is more. We actually got two in the share, but I swapped out out for an extra leek since the two we had were small. I like that this CSA actually seeds the share box, since with the old it seemed like nobody wanted to start one. These green bell peppers are fairly small, but we did get four of them. No specific plans, but I am sure we'll muddle through. Oh joyous tomato season, how we love thee. These are not a mix of varieties, but a range of ripenesses. The CSA intentionally sends some that are not all the way ripe so that they will last a bit longer. These will end up in various dishes (the pizza with the mizuna, the gratin) as well as just sliced and enjoyed with a little salt. Nothing like a ripe tomato with a little salt on it to make it feel like summer.

CSA 2010 - Week 7

The internet has returned to us! Last weekend we were traveling, so I had one of my co-workers pick up (and consume) the share. It was nice to have a break from the CSA, and we were re-energized to get back into it with week 7. Not so re-energized that I got the post up in a timely way, but that's a whole 'nother ballgame. Onward!

We have found that cutting up fruit and calling it fruit salad is pretty boring, but adding some form of dressing really perks it up. This pineapple and mango both ended up dressed with a honey-lime dressing and getting tossed with mint and basil(!). I really liked the addition of the savory elements (there was also some red bell pepper in there) and we enjoyed this dish as much as the winter fruit salad we had made earlier in the season. We got a zillion more valencia oranges this week. These are very juicy, so we will probably mostly use them for that. We did make our citrus salad dessert at least once, but it took four of these suckers to make two small servings, which was a lot of work sectioning for not that much payoff.

These cherries just got pitted and frozen. There were quite a few of them, so they will likely end up in a pie a bit later in the season. Peaches were enjoyed pretty much as-is, though some were cut up and mixed with these blueberries. These apricots were also just enjoyed as snacks and with lunches. Wow, we were really boring with this fruit share. We'll have to flambe something next time or something.

Parsley is sitting in our fridge ignored, but will likely get used soon. These red and golden beets (without the greens this time) made their way into a root vegetable gratin, along with some of these carrots. We really liked this dish, and it's one that can pretty much be made with any root veggies. The beets and carrots made it sweet and colorful, but I can imagine it being good with all different mixes. In a testament to how prepared we were for the zucchinni onslaught, we have still not run out of preparations. These two went into a pasta dish along with this globe and japanese eggplant. Sweet onions Garlic

More corn is always welcome. We love it grilled with a little butter and salt. One thing that we have been impressed by with this new CSA is that when we get herbs, we tend to get very managable amounts. Not so much with this huge bundle of dill. It ended up getting split between the old and the new. The old is our favorite topping for bagels: Dill and Garlic Cream Cheese. The new was an ill-fated first attempt at poaching salmon. The recipe seemed so promising and the paoching liquid smelled so great, but we discovered at the last minute (quite literarlly, the poaching liquid was already at temperature) that the salmon fillets were still frozen. Curses! We muddled through, and it was good enough even with the blunder that we'll likely try it again. I am close to perfecting my cuccumber mojito sorbet. The batch made with these had good flavor, but was a bit too icey. I have since spun up (but not yet tasted) a second batch, and if that goes well I will post the recipe. Lettuce Salad mix with mizuna and baby chard. Mizuna is a great starter green for folks that don't tend to like the sharper flavor of a lot of non-lettuce salad greens. It adds a bit of interest, but is not overly bitter or sharp.