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!