CSA 2011 - Week 12

Oh melon. Melon, melon, melon. This week we got two watermelons. Mary is a bit particular about not consuming any seeds, so cutting this up for consumption was pretty involved. The more solid colored one of these was the normal pink and the lighter one was yellow. We ate some of it and froze the rest for margaritas. This rutabaga is a harbinger of autumn, I am not at all happy about it. Thankfully they are called "storing vegetables" for a reason, so I can tuck it in the back of the fridge and pretend that it's July for a few more weeks. Glorious tomatoes. Most of what we planted this year were grape tomatoes, because they tend to do much better on our deck. It's nice to get the larger varieties from the CSA. These will go into this and that, including a corn and crab salad we're having for lunch today. Onions Garlic I am not quite sure what to do with this odd looking basil. We have a few pucks of pesto in the freezer already, so I may attempt something creative (basil simple syrup for flavoring ice tea?) or I may go easy and just make more pesto. Time shall tell.

Leeks to us are more of a spring thing for us, so we're a bit adrift with these. We'll likely sub them in for green onions, which is a bit of a stretch. What can I say, I'm a rebel. Beans I had always thought that Serrano chilies were milder than jalapenos, but it turns out I had that backwards. We are going to put most of these into a salsa that cooks the peppers to soften the heat, so hopefully that comes out well. Pears went into our fruit butter along with some of these (and if I'm being honest, last week's) apples. I also have an apple pie in progress as I type this, though it turns out our uglier apples are actually ugly pears, so it's more of an orchard fruit pie. I'm sure we'll muddle through. Pablano peppers got stuffed, and while the recipe wasn't horrible, it also wasn't anything special. The remaining ones (there are two left) are going into poblano burgers, so with luck that'll be a hit. We've thankfully found a potato salad that we love, so we've been a lot better about using them as they come in this year. Thanks Ina!

CSA 2011 - Week 11

Ah, midsummer. The corn is flowing, the tomatoes are ripe, and I am slacking off on the blog posts. All is right with the world.

Let's start with the elephant in the room, and by elephant I mean giant, elephantine mellons. The small one in the picture is a normal mellon size. The other two are....larger. Much larger. Most of the biggest one got turned into sorbet, and the other two are getting eaten as-is. If we get more next week (which seems likely) then I am going to cut it up, freeze it, and use it for a base to margaritas like we did with the watermelon last year. Corn is still sweet and delicious. So many peppers, we have no idea what to do with them. We actually made Chili over the weekend to consume some, even though that's much more a winter item. We also had them raw in salads and in a few other dishes. We'll like have to do a fridge-clearing roasted pepper salad soon. Red onions

We got two different types of apples this week, and it's looking like they will end up in pie. We also have a great fruit butter recipe that we usually make with pears that I am stumping for. We have one recipe that calls for watercress and we can never find it in the store. Do I remember what recipe that is, now that we have it? I do not. Red okra got roasted, just like the green stuff. This time I tossed it with a spice blend instead of just salt and pepper, and it turned out well. We made a fantastic vegetable gratin with these tomatoes and some zucchini. Potatoes Cucumbers These odd little fellas are actually eggplants, despite not being aubergine (see what I did there?) They are the size of a small apple and shockingly orange. We chopped them and used them in a new componata recipe, so we'll see how that is once I toast up some pitas.

CSA 2011 - Week 10

Last week's share went swimmingly, and the okra recipe we used (roasted with salt and pepper) was actually very good. There was a bit too much salt, but otherwise it was quite tasty. I'm still not buying okra.

Nice melons. These were cantaloupe and while they averaged to a normal size the standard deviation was, shall we say, high. Green peppers Garlic We were pretty thrilled to get more beets. This time they are golden beets and are going into our root vegetable gratin (along with several of these shallots.) The mail from the CSA describes banana peppers as being spicy, but I find them fairly mild in general. Not sure what we are going to do with such a pepper bonanza. Every head of cabbage is a little betrayal.

Tomatoes have arrived! We got quite a variety, with a few different types of full-sized ones as well as a bag of cherry-sized ones. We will make a salad with some of them, and a pie with the others (along with the corn from this week.) Baby artichokes are actually mature specimens of a variety that grow small. They supposedly are easier to prepare and have no toxic choke on the inside. We plan to make a salad with them. This mix of apples already contributed to a dessert with last week's pears, and the rest will become delicious maple applesauce. Baby white carrots will contribute to the gratin along with the beets.

CSA 2011 - Week 9

Despite me being gone for a fair chunk of last week, we actually did well keeping up with the share.

The cooked radishes were a success. Before cooking, these were pretty spicy and a bit fibrous and cooking really mellowed the heat and soften the flesh. It helps that the dish also had a wine, mustard, and tarragon sauce.

The other tricky bit had been the garbanzos. I had hoped to roast them, but on the day we wanted to have them we were running late, so we just boiled them in shell, popped them out (which was a huge pain in the butt since each pod contains just one to two beans), and tossed them with salt. I do still want to try roasted ones, but we can use a can for that.

I ended up triggering some bad settings on the camera this week, so the pictures are pretty low quality. I'd save live and learn, but it's hardly the first time I've done that.

This week's corn is mirai bicolor sweetcorn which the CSA administrator guy says is the the best they grow. We'll probably eat it mostly off the cob, this time around. Savanah Green Beans These six little fellas are yellow gypsy peppers. Even though we just did our grilled pepper salad, we will probably repeat that. We'll also toss some on a pizza this weekend. We have a great recipe for camponata that we'll make with this sicilian bicolor eggplant. A huge bunch of fidenza basil will get used mostly for pesto (which we'll freeze) but also allows us to make Chicken with Peaches and Basil. Yum. How surprising to see more broccoli.

This week's challenge will be okra. It's not a veggie that either of us particularly likes, though Mary is more forgiving of it than I. As with all troublesome veggies, the plan is to try it roasted. Baby vidalia onions These cool breeze cucumbers will get used for science pickles this weekend. It's hard for me to name this melon. It's milder than cantaloupe, but more strongly flavored than honeydew, with green flesh that turns orange near the seeds. Oddness. Regardless, we are just cutting it up and eating it as-is. We don't yet have a plan for these seckel pears, but I suspect that a dessert is in their future. Red thumb fingerling potatoes These tokyo green onions got eaten on tacos. How international of us.