CSA Week #23 & #24

Because of all the traveling last weekend, I didn't have a chance to update the CSA blogging, so this is two weeks squished together. Unfortunately, I only have the food listing for one week, but for the other, it was the same sort of thing: fall veggies, apples, eggs.

Dinner #1

Roasted the squash and the garlic. Used it with some pearl barley, some of the parsley, chives, green onion, salt, pepper, saffron, water, and some white wine to make a barley risotto. While that cooked, I sautéed the greens and then added them to the risotto. Topped it off with Parmesan cheese.

Made a salad with spinach and apple to go with it.

If you skip the cheese and use a vegan wine, this recipe is easy to make vegan. Otherwise, vegetarian.

Dinner #2

Took one of the sweet potatoes and used it to make sweet PLTs, one of our very favorite recipes.

I also decided to use the potatoes and some of the marinara in my freezer to make this grown-up alphabet soup recipe. I used fresh tarragon and thyme from my garden, and added parsley from the CSA. I also used frozen corn instead of peas, since that happened to be what I had.

Vegetarian.

Dinner #3

I made mashed kohlrabi, using buttermilk and what was left of the parsley, as well as salt, pepper, and a bit of garlic.

Made cornbread.

Took some black beans and grated sweet potatoes, and stir-fried it with onion, garlic, cumin, oregano, chili pepper, salt, pepper and beer.

Dinner #4

Had lots of leftovers of the black bean and sweet potato mix, so put two cups of it in the food processor with half a cup of oats, an egg, a tablespoon of cornstarch, and a bit of smoked paprika to make a mushy mix that I then shaped into burgers. I baked it at 375 for 15 minutes on each side and served it topped with yogurt and kale I had sautéed with garlic.

Made a lentil soup with lemon and dill using this recipe.

Used the lettuce and a bit of apple to make salads.

Vegetarian.

Thanksgiving

Friends invited us over for dinner, and so I made a soup from CSA ingredients. I used this recipe for butternut squash apple soup, but added more apples than it calls for and roasted the butternut squash first. I wanted it be a bit sweeter than the recipe called for, because hey, Thanksgiving.

Vegetarian, though if you used olive oil instead of butter, it would be vegan. 

CSA Week #22  

Dinner #1

We had carnival squash! Carnival squash is the best. So I decided to make stuffed squash. I ground together some stale bread ends, ricotta cheese, an apple, a couple of eggs, herbs from the garden, chickpeas, and roasted garlic, and used all this for stuffing. When they came out of the oven, I topped them with marinara sauce.

Took the dill and made a yogurt sauce with it. Steamed the broccoli and served this dill yogurt sauce on it.

Made a couple of dinner salads with an apple and some of the lettuce. Dressed those with the dill sauce as well.

Everything got a heavy dose of salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese.

Vegetarian.

Dinner #2

Made cornbread.

Took the collard greens and the carrots and cooked them with green onions, garlic, thyme from my garden, salt, pepper, paprika, and pinto beans. Used some veggie broth to help it along.

Made a salad with the lettuce and a tomato from the farmer’s market. There was a little tomato left over, so I tossed that in to cook with the beans and greens mix.

Dessert was apple crisp, using what was left of this week’s apples.

Vegetarian. 

CSA Week #20

I had two weeks worth of vegetables, basically, because I had been out of town for a week. But I wasn't going to just let that food disappear, having pre-paid for it, so Marc picked it up. Most of it was in good condition, since our fridge is pretty cold, but some of it was a tad soft and required creativity. The older broccoli was the only unsalvageable thing. I try not to feel too bad about tossing it. Americans toss about 40% of food they buy, and we probably toss 5% at the most, and even then, I doubt it's that much. Not wasting food is really important to me for two reasons: 1) I don't like waste and 2) I don't like taking out the trash. So I make it a priority. 

Tips below on how not to waste food much appreciated!

Lunch

Took the eggplant, some greens from last week, some hot peppers, an onion, and tofu and made a basic garlic/ginger/soy stir fry with it. Added fresh basil, since I still have tons. Served over rice.

Dinner #1

Shredded apples and carrots in equal parts. Made a basic dressing using this recipe, and tossed it. Didn’t bother with raisins, which I’m sure some people would find scandalous, but I don’t like them enough to care. I don’t hate them, but not going out of my way is all.   

Roasted potatoes with thyme in the dutch oven inside my oven.

I had some black beans and greens in the freezer, and I defrosted them, nuked them, and served them on the side.

Vegetarian.

Dinner #2

I had radishes and cilantro, so clearly the thing to make is this delicious radish salsa, a recipe I’ve made before and absolutely adore. I like to fold leftovers up into omelets, especially. This stuff does not go to waste in my house.  

I made one of my faves---kidney beans with red wine---but instead of carrots, I used roasted sweet potatoes, I used cumin and chili powder instead of thyme and rosemary, instead of red wine used beer, and instead of serving with corn bread, I served it as if it were tacos on steamed corn tortillas, with the radish salsa and some goat cheese.

Used the mesclun mix from the CSA and the pears to make a pear salad, with sesame dressing from the fridge.

Vegetarian.

Dinner #3

Tons of apples, seriously. So I made this chickpea and apple curry and served it over rice. I didn’t use canned chickpeas, though. It’s cheaper to use dried beans that you cook beforehand, and it makes a lot less waste.

Vegetarian.

Dinner #4

I had a very serious “sad carrot” situation in the refrigerator, as well as tons of apples still. So it was clearly time to make some apple carrot soup.

Dark Avenger sent me this recipe for a kale/squash “lasagna”, so I made it with a couple of modifications. I had a lot of broccoli, so I chopped it into bits with my mini-chopper, and I mixed it up with the herbs, some ricotta instead of the recommended cheeses, and the diced tomatoes. Put that on top of the squash/kale layers.

Made apple muffins with the Simply Recipes zucchini muffin recipe, but with apples instead of zucchini. Since apples are sweet, I was able to cut the sugar in half.

Somehow, miraculously, I used nearly every single ingredient from two weeks worth of CSA pick-ups.  We still have apples, but they do tend to last. The one exception was that some of the broccoli that was nearly two weeks old went bad. But on the whole, not bad!

Vegetarian.

With all the traveling I've been doing, I haven't kept up with the CSA blogging at all. I have been cooking with it, but everything's been so rushed that I haven't written much down. Here's some of the last things I logged in:

CSA Week #17

Dinner #1

There’s a million variations on dal (here's a typical recipe), but I used Bittman’s recipe because I have his cookbook.  His is not spicy enough, however, so I chopped up some hot peppers and put it in the dal. I also chopped up the radishes and tossed them in there.  And even though it’s unorthodox, I tossed the broccoli in there, too, because there wasn’t really enough of it to justify serving it on its own. Towards the end of the cooking cycle, I added parsley.

You usually eat dal with rice or naan, but I served it with leftover cornbread muffins, due to my “waste not” philosophy. This worked out well; it was delicious.

I served it all with a pear and spinach salad that had goat cheese sprinkles and the leftover basil dressing from last week.

For dessert, I made these pear cookies.

Vegetarian

Dinner #2

It was a super orange dinner. I looked for savory pear recipes to use up all these pears I have and found this amazing one that also uses butternut squash.  So I made a ton of butternut squash/pear soup, since soup is a perfect food to have around for lunches as well as quick dinners of the sort I often eat at home. Because I have an immersion blender, it was a lot easier than the instructions on this page.

I also made one of our favorites, sweet PLTs, a delicious variation on the BLT that uses backed sweet potatoes with smoked paprika instead of bacon, and goat cheese instead of mayo.   

Vegetarian.

Lunch stuff

I roasted the beets and cooked the collard greens in a skillet with garlic and salt, put it all in the fridge, and used it to dress my homemade veggie burgers that I ate alongside the soup for lunches. 

The next week will be, by my count, week 20! This week will be an interesting challenge, for two reasons. One, we're deep into fall vegetables right now, and there are simply fewer recipes for localvore-leaning recipes for these vegetables. In fact, one reason to have this project is to explore that issue and find solutions. Two, I'll basically have two weeks worth of veggies to cook instead of one. Marc collected the CSA last week and I'll collect this week's. I suspect I'll be making a lot of stuff for freezing. And soups/sauces, to work through some of the sad vegetables that have been sitting in the fridge for a week. The good news is I'm unlikely to run out of onions. In fact, in a minute I'll be going into my kitchen and pursuing what we've got, since last night all I wanted to do was crash out on the couch after flying all day. 

What are some of your favorite recipes for fall vegetables such as squash, greens, turnips and radishes?

It's still warm and rainy, so it's slightly weird to see so many fall veggies showing up at the CSA, but it is what it is. The good news is a lot of them go well with the still-thriving summery herbs like basil that are growing on my patio. And I'm still getting plenty of tomatoes from the farmer's market. 

The fruit share is really working out well, I've decided. We sometimes get overwhelmed by fruit, but it's really fun finding creative uses for it.  There are also non-creative uses that are equally excellent. Say I have to meet people for a late-ish dinner; on the walk to it, I can eat an apple to keep myself from getting faint and crabby, as is my unfortunate habit when I'm hungry. (Always has been. I don't know what that means, if anything.)

As you can see, I have a new photo filtering system called Be Funky. I'm breaking up with Instagram. 

CSA Week #16

Dinner #1

I had to do something with all these pears.  So I started by making this pear bread recipe.

I was feeling casserole-y, and I had eggplant and corn left over from the week before, so since I had the grating mechanism on the food processor out, I went ahead and grated the eggplant, some well-pressed tofu, and an onion, mixed it with garlic and the corn and some parsley and thyme (and salt and pepper).  I greased a lasagna pan, spread the mix around, mixed an egg with some milk, and just juiced it up with that.  Tossed it in the oven with the bread for 45 minutes. This is a technique known to home chefs everywhere known as “see what you need to use up before it goes bad, and cook with that”. Anthony Bourdain would sneer, I’m sure, but it’s quite economical.

I also like making breads and casseroles when I’m going out that night for a party or whatever. While it’s in the oven, I get a chance to shower and do my hair, and also to get most of the dishes done before we eat. Time economical! Plus, this recipe made two loaves of pear bread, so I was able to use one as a host gift. /thinking I’m turning into a housewife, except one who doesn’t have time.

After doing the dishes, I took the lettuce, cut up a pear, and made a green salad that I served with some sesame dressing I had in the fridge.

Vegetarian. 

Dinner #2

I had some mozzarella left in the fridge that I wanted to use up so I wouldn’t mindlessly snack on it, so I decided to use it with the potatoes.  I sliced up the potatoes, laid them in the Dutch oven with a little butter, salted and peppered them, added some various herbs, and then baked them for like 30 minutes with the lid on at 475.  I pulled them out, sprinkled the cheese on them, and put them in for like another 5 minutes to melt it.

I had a ton of broccoli from both having some already and from the CSA, so I decided to compress it all into broccoli soup.  I browned the broccoli and an onion, and then poured enough veggie broth to almost cover it.  I wanted it spicy, so I put a whole head of garlic, some ginger, turmeric, chili powder, and cumin, and the two jalapenos from the CSA.  When everything was good and soft, I blended it with the immersion blender, and added yogurt to make it creamy.

Served it all with some of that leftover pear bread. 

Vegetarian.

Dinner #3

Made kohlrabi puree using this recipe.  Added basil, but left out the cream.

Cut up an onion and the carrots and sweated them a little with salt and pepper.  Added kidney beans, a bay leaf, veggie broth, and tomato paste.  Put in some thyme and sage from the garden.  Added wine and balsamic vinegar. Let it cook until the flavors married well.

Sliced some apples from last week, put them in a pan with cinnamon and honey, added a little water and lemon juice and cooked it until it was soft.

Vegan.

Dinner #4

Made cornbread. I’ve been using Bittman’s recipe, which is dry, so I added like a ¼ cup of applesauce in it to juice it up.

Took the rest of the potatoes and the kale, cut it all up and put it in the skillet on the stove with some salt, pepper, garlic, chili powder, and thyme.  Cooked with veggie broth.  Added some leftover kidney bean mix from the last dinner.

Made a salad with spinach, some of the pears, and goat cheese.  I made a dressing based off this recipe, but added chives.  

Vegetarian

Okay, I suck: For some reason, many of the pictures didn't take, so I just deleted them all and figured this could be a picture-free week.  Additionally, I didn't keep good track of what I cooked this week, because I was playing catch-up, so most of this is just from the last CSA that I didn't post because I was traveling in Baltimore.  But I will mention one thing I did make with week 15's CSA, which was the transition from summer to fall veggies.  This list is from week 14, which I picked up, but I had to have Marc pick up week 15, so didn't get a picture of the veggies listed.  Needless to say, apples are beginning to show up. 

CSA Week #14

Dinner #1

At the farmer’s market, they had tomatillos on  sale, so I bought some and decided to make enchiladas.  To make the sauce, you roast tomatillos, cook ‘em on the stove with onions, green peppers, jalapenos, garlic, oregano, and veggie broth, and then use the immersion blender to turn it into a smooth sauce.

This is what makes the mini-chopper so awesome, as well.  I then used it to shred some zucchini, and pinto beans, and mixed that in with some corn for an instant filling.  This gave it a nice mushy-to-firm consistency you really want for enchilada filling.

I’m a big fan of New Mexican-style enchiladas, where you stack instead of roll.  You take each corn tortilla, lay it flat on an oven-proof plate, cover with sauce, lay down  filling, pour some more sauce (and cheese, if you’re using it, which I wasn’t), repeat until you have a stack as high as you want.  Cooking in the oven for 30 minutes at 350.  Pull it out and serve directly, being careful not to burn anyone.  Traditionally, you can also finish off with a fried egg on top, but I didn’t do that.

The reason I kept the enchiladas light is that we had a dessert of peaches and vanilla pudding, which is quickly becoming our favorite thing in the world.

Vegan dinner, vegetarian dessert.

Dinner #2

My tarragon in my garden had finally come back, so I decided to use the potatoes and fennel to make this.  I roasted it in a Dutch oven; I’ve found that keeps more of the moisture in.

I still had a lot of the zucchini/corn mix from the night before, so I made some barley, mixed that in, and then cooked up the kale with a pepper, garlic, onions and mushrooms in red wine with salt, pepper, and thyme from the garden.  Mixed it all together.  We ate only a bit of what I made, because it was so much, but I had tons of leftovers for lunches.   

Vegan, if you use vegan wine.

Dinner #3

It was our farewell night to the bar we would go to periodically for grilling food and drinking and hanging out with good buddies.  They’re going condo which means they’re going away.  So for the occasion, I took the last green chilis I had and roasted them to make green chile cornbread.

Cut up the eggplant and watermelon for the grill.  Watermelon goes on directly, but I did rub olive oil, salt, and pepper on the eggplant.  

CSA Week #15

As I mentioned before, I've been scattershot, just tossing food together instead of being careful about it. But it was getting late in the week, and I realized I still had zucchini and broccoli from the store, and onions, squash, hot peppers and a shit ton of carrots from the CSA left in the fridge.  Clearly, the solution was squash tagine. There are a million ways to make it, but my preferred method is to cut all the veggies up, put them in a dutch oven (or a tagine, if you have one) with garlic and ginger, sprinkle them with turmeric, cinnamon, cumin, and chili powder.  Let that take a little, add some broth, put the lid on it, let that cook a bit, add a can of diced tomatoes, let that simmer longer (you really want the spices to marry each other), add some cooked chickpeas (I'm really an eyeball-it sort), and then you serve it over couscous.  Or, if you're me, you serve it over quinoa, because it's more bang for your nutritional buck than couscous---lower in calorie, but higher in protein and fiber.  And I just like it better. 

CSA Week #13

Dinner #1

It was just me, and I needed to have a bunch of leftovers for lunches during the week, so I decided to make polenta.  After putting the polenta in the oven, which is the lazy way of making it that I highly recommend, I chopped up the eggplant, some green onions, a red bell pepper, the corn, and some of the CSA hot peppers.  Threw it on the stove with salt, pepper, and garlic.  Threw some chives in from the garden, added some already-cooked kidney beans, cooked it in a little white wine, took it off the heat, and put some chopped up garden basil on it.   Poured that over the polenta, and a nice, simple meal for me, with lots of leftovers.

Vegan.

Dinner #2

I cooked the green beans with some onion, garlic and a hot pepper, plus salt and pepper.  Took it off the heat, added balsamic vinegar and some basil. 

I had cooked the chard earlier with some garlic and so I warmed it up, and served it with goat cheese from the farmer’s market, homemade beer bread, and sliced pre-cooked beats I bought on sale. 

For dessert, I made this recipe, but with raspberries instead of cherries.

Dinner #3

Made this salsa with the plums and the cucumber and hot peppers.  However, I’m lazy, so I just threw it all in the food processor and made something more smooth and less chunky.

Cooked some black beans, onions, garlic, what was left of the hot peppers, and eggplant, which I browned some, then added chili powder and oregano, and then touched up with some tomato paste and a bit of veggie broth.  Served it on tortillas with the salsa.

Vegan.

As promised, a bonus cat picture:

CSA Week #12

I just have to say that my cooking life has gotten even more awesome due to this birthday present from my mother:

These are the elevated utensils from Joseph Joseph, and they are the shit.  They're rubber, so they don't hurt anything, but they are hard rubber, so you have none of the floppy, hard-to-use issues.  They are streamlined.  Most importanly, they have these stands built in so they don't touch whatever surface you're using.  No spoon rest, no mess.  Seriously, life-changing. 

Dinner #1

The hurricane was a-coming, so I tried to use up at least some of the eggplant by making eggplant sandwiches with fresh buns.  I used this recipe for the buns, figuring that since they keep well in freezer bags, the leftovers would be good to have if the electricity went out.  I cut an eggplant in slices and pan fried them with  some mixed herbs.  Served them with what was left of my fresh cheese (so it didn’t go bad), some sun-dried tomato spread, the basil leaves and tomato. 

I  used the green beans, making a warm salad with a red wine vinaigrette.   I had some tomato and eggplant leftover from the sandwiches, so I threw that in with the beans.

I also had some leftover quinoa that I had mixed with the black beans and peach mix from last week, so I nuked that and served it as a side for lunches. 

Vegetarian

Watermelon juice

I took y’all’s fine advice and pureed that entire watermelon, and put it in the fridge for gin cocktails to celebrate surviving the storm.

Luckily, the electricity didn’t go out, so I was able to serve these fine concoctions over ice.

Hurricane survival celebration

Prior to Irene coming to New York, I hard-boiled what was left of my eggs and made some hummus.  My intention was, if it knocked out the electricity, to served these things with raw carrots and zucchini and crackers.  I saw no reason to not go through with this plan just because we didn’t lose electricity, but I decided to add baba ghanoush to the mix, using this recipe.  I used vegan mayo, tho. Because we had juice, I went ahead and roasted the zucchini, because, you know, tasty.

Dinner #2

I made a orange-and-ginger baked tofu recipe taken from Veganomicon.

Inspired by this recipe, I decided to make the corn and nectarines into a dressing for the tofu.  So I pan-grilled the corn and nectarines with some salt and pepper briefly, mostly to get them juicy, turned off the heat, added chopped up Jersey tomato and basil from my garden.  Served it on top of the tofu.  

I took the carrots and green chilis that were piling up in the fridge, cut them up with an onion and browned them a little over the stove.  Added cumin, ginger, garlic, salt, chili powder, pepper, and turmeric, and then covered the whole thing with veggie broth.  Let that simmer covered for a long time, and then blended it with the immersion blender.  Added yogurt. 

Vegetarian

CSA Week #11

I wanted to take a picture of the sign, as I've been doing, but some guy at the pick-up location must have been really bored, because the entire time I was there, he was erasing and rewriting parts of the sign.  He did this throughout the entire loading-up process, and I even waited around for a few minutes to see if he would wrap it up, before I realized he was probably never going to wrap it up.  If he's still there, erasing and rewriting, I wouldn't be surprised.

Zucchini

Cucumber

Heirloom tomato

Slicing tomatoes

Eggs

Peaches

Melon

Bell peppers

Jalapeños

Corn

Cherry tomatoes

Lettuce

Eggplant

Basil

Pickles

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the cucumbers---which I like, but tend to forget to eat---I went ahead and made quick refrigerator dill pickles.  I love pickles, so I knew I’d eat those.  In fact, I did eat most of them, but there are still a few on hand, which I bet I'll appreciate if we lose power. 

Dinner #1

I had a ton of cherry tomatoes, so I made pasta with this baked cherry tomato sauce.  I didn’t make my own pasta, but I imagine at some point in my life, this will come up.  As the recipe I linked stated, this was unreasonably good.  I highly recommend trying it yourself while cherry tomatoes are cheap and abundant.  

I took some more cherry tomatoes and served them as a salad with the lettuce.  I made my own salad dressing by blending some sun-dried tomatoes, basil, garlic, and balsamic vinegar in my mini-chopper.

Vegetarian.

Dinner #2

I made eggplant and bean burger recipe, using black beans instead of white beans, and replacing the hummus with cornstarch and an egg.  I served it with regular sandwich bread, but some of the sun-dried tomato dressing, which had firmed into more of a spread, and a Jersey tomato and some lettuce.

I still had some kidney beans and red wine from last week, so I repositioned them as a side dish, by taking some onions and corn, browning that a bit in a frying pan, adding the beans, a little veggie broth and chili powder.  Threw a few cut up cherry tomatoes in, and served it as a side.  Of this new mix, I had some leftovers, so I mixed it all up with some quinoa and used it as a side dish to go with lunches

Peaches and pudding for dessert.

Vegetarian, but Jamelle’s version of the burgers is vegan.  

Melon cocktail

I still had a melon, too, so I googled around and found a few variations on the melon + gin cocktail. So I pureed the melon into a juicy mess with ginger and pepper, added gin and ice, and had it for after-dinner cocktails.

Dinner #3

I had black beans left from the recipe before and lots of peaches, and googled around to see what I could do with them. As I suspected, there were many variations on the black-bean-and-peach combo---a sweet and spicy kind of thing---so I decided to put the black beans with the peaches, an onion, garlic, the bell peppers and the jalapenos into on big concoction that I served over rice.  I seasoned it with oregano, chili powder, and cumin.

Vegan. I forgot to get a picture, so I apologize.  It wasn't that interesting-looking anyway.

**************************

As you all probably know, I'm sitting in Brooklyn in the holding pattern, waiting for the hurricane to hit.  We're relatively unconcered about danger from the storm itself; we're out of the evacuation zones, and the evacuation orders appear to be based on a worst-case scenario, as opposed to the Category 1 or even mere tropical storm we're facing.  I'm worried about people in the area where it's hitting, but barring some miracle where it bounces back into the sea and gains more energy, I'm not too worried about New York.

That said, I'm fully prepared for the possibility of electricity loss.  This will make for an interesting approach to eating, and I'll do my best to document anything that we end up doing.  My feeling is that one can aim for some middle ground between having delicious food all the time because you have a fully functional kitchen and the sad food I'm seeing some people stock up on (energy bars?).  With that in mind, I'm trying to prepare some stuff that could go well with raw vegetables, like crackers and hummus.  I'm also making and freezing batches of beans, so that we can defrost and eat cold, perhaps with some veggies.  This website has some other ideas of food that keeps well that is better than trail mix and energy bars.  Hard-boiled eggs, for instance, are a good idea. 

One problem I see is that people tend to over-refrigerate, and there's a lot of food that doesn't need it, or at least doesn't need it if you're going to eat it within a day or two of purchase. Many vegetables don't need to be refrigerated at all times, and the assumption that they do causes me to wonder how people think our ancestors ever ate vegetables at all. I refrigerate a lot of stuff only because I'm not using it for 3, 4, or 5 days, but some stuff, like tomatoes or onions, shouldn't really be refrigerated at all.  In fact, most uncut fruit could probably fit into that category.  I recommend getting yourself some basics, like crackers or some other form of dried out bread, some stuff that can be stored without refrigeration, and of course, canned or frozen beans or hard-boiled eggs to eat with it.  I'm guessing, as well, that it's better to have stuff that takes time eat, because with all the juice out, you're going to be bored.  

What are your tips for eating reasonably well during a power outage?

CSA Week #10

Dinner #1

Made some cornbread. 

Cooked some pinto beans until they were soft.  Cut up onions, green peppers, and hot peppers, browned them a little on the stove with some garlic, salt and pepper.  Added the beans and some veggie broth, as well as chili powder and cumin.  Let that simmer for a bit so the flavors could meld a bit.

Cut up some zucchini, and roasted it in the oven with garlic salt, pepper, and thyme. I made a yogurt sauce with yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and parsley to serve it with. 

Vegetarian.

Pre-cooking

Using this recipe, I converted the eggplants and basil into eggplant pesto.  Stored it in the fridge.

Dinner #2

Boiled some noodles and tossed them with the pesto.  Topped it off with parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

Chopped up two cucumbers, the two melons, and the cherry tomatoes, tossed them with arugula, and served it all with a sesame-ginger dressing.

Vegan, if you hold off on the cheese, which I never do. 

Dinner #3

Made peach gazpacho using this recipe.

Made zucchini bread.

Made a modified version of this kidney beans and wine stew recipe, but didn’t put it in the oven, just made it on the stovetop.  I also added sage, since my garden has so much of it. 

The gazpacho and kidney beans are vegan, if you use vegan wine, and the bread is vegetarian. I ate leftover kidney beans later for breakfast with a fried egg on top, which worked out well. 

For various reasons, the past two weeks have been hinky when it comes to recording CSA stuff---my iPhone camera failed me a couple of times, I was too busy to record the last shipment, stuff like that.  But here's some of last week's that I meant to post and didn't; I promise that things will be better from here on out.  

CSA Week #8

I highly recommend breaking down a CSA shipment or a farmer’s market run as soon as you get it home.  For instance, I pulled apart all the basil and put it in a produce-preserver, did the same to the purslane, and cut up the corn.  It took some time, but it was a weekend and I was just listening to turntable.fm and drinking coffee during that time anyway.  Later, when time is more precious, you’ll be grateful that it’s already broken down.   Plus, it’s messy, so why not just make one mess to clean up instead of a number of messes?

Soup

I had a little time to kill but wasn’t making dinner, so I decided to make the zucchini into a soup.  It’s simple: zucchini, onion, veggie broth, garlic, salt, pepper, basil, parsley.  Puree it when it’s all cooked.  I put it in the fridge to eat later. 

Dinner #1

Took the corn, the peppers and the purslane and cooked it with black beans, onion, and garlic.  Flavored it with a Goya packet and some of the parsley.  Served it with tortillas and salsa verde.

Using a variation of this recipe, I put the watermelon, cucumber, basil and a tomato from the farmer’s market together, dressed it in balsamic vinaigrette and goat cheese.

Vegetarian.

Dinner #2

It turned out to be good that I had made the soup beforehand, because I was able to slap together a soup-and-sandwich dinner in 15 minutes before I settled into a really late night of working on policy wonking type journalism.  Lesson learned: pre-prepping food can be a real life saver.  The sandwiches were just tomato, cheese, cucumber and basil sandwiches, and I added a dollop of yogurt to the soup.  Peaches for dessert.

Vegetarian. 

Week 9

I got a very similar shipment, with corn, melon, zucchini, that sort of thing. I didn't record what I made, because I was so far behind, but here's a sample of things that are like what I did with it all:

Summer corn salad

Pearl couscous tagine

Watermelon and apricot as a savory dinner dish

CSA Week #7

Decided to post a picture of the sign telling us what we get at the CSA pick-up rather than just hand-type it.  So you have a better idea of amounts, as well. 

Cucumber cocktails

Like last year, I started to get overwhelmed with cucumbers, and there was a party on the horizon, so I made cucumber cocktails.  You start by juicing the cucumbers by peeling and  pureeing them and then straining them.  I put the dill in with the cucumbers in the mini-chopper, to give the cocktails a little extra something. You have to really push the puree into the strainer to get the most out of it.

Some people say you should make this with vodka. Those people are wrong.  You mix 2 parts cucumber juice, one part gin, and a dash of sugar and lemon juice to taste. Sadly, these cucumbers didn’t make enough juice to really make a solid amount of cocktail to take to party, so I did a part tonic water/part cucumber mix to mix with the gin.  Usually you would ice this down and strain it in a shaker, but I just poured it in a plastic bottle and refrigerated it instead. Because of this, I actually put another ½ part tonic water in to make up for the watering down properties of the ice.

Cocktails are totally vegan.

Dinner #1

Chopped up onion, zucchini, fennel and cooked it with some chickpeas, garlic and the purslane.  Added basil, and of course salt and pepper.  Served it with pita bread and yogurt. It was a super simple dinner, because I was feeling tired and not at all like cooking much. 

Dessert was peaches and blackberries with whipped cream. 

Vegetarian

Dinner #2

Dig my new toy/tool?  It’s so awesome.  I bought one for a friend’s birthday and then had to get one for myself, it was so cool.  Anyway, I used this toy to use up some onions and zucchini, by cutting them up and sautéing them with a bit of wine, garlic, salt and pepper.  Then I added a can of diced tomatoes and then some basil from the garden.  Served over farro. 

Vegetarian.

Dinner #3

I still had a ton of zucchini, so to use it all up, I made a zucchini-centric dinner.  I grated all the zucchini I had, and put some of it in zucchini bread, and put the rest in a colander with salt for about half an hour. 

I used the rest to make fritters using this recipe, except I added cornstarch, tumeric, and chili powder and baked it at 350 for  40 minutes (30 on one side, 10 on the other) instead, because it’s easier than frying and better for you.  You serve these with yogurt.   I ate one for breakfast with an overeasy egg on top. 

I still had the Asian melon and some blueberries left, so obviously only one thing to do: fruit salad.  I chopped up the melon and mixed it with blueberries, a touch of honey, lemon juice, and yogurt.

Vegetarian.

CSA Week #6

Kohlrabi

Broccoli

Eggs

Blackberries

Blueberries (3 pints!)

Zucchini

Asian honeydew melon

Cucumbers

Onion

Lettuce

Basil

Lunch

I took the basil, the zucchini, and the broccoli and used it to make a whole bunch of barley, which I use for side dishes when I eat my lunch (usually a homemade veggie burger). 

Blueberry spread

Took a couple of cups of the blueberries, put a little cream with them, and used the mini-chopper to make a spread.  To eat with stuff like zucchini bread.

Dinner #1

Made a salad with the Asian melon, a cucumber and the lettuce, using a sesame ginger dressing.  It accompanied this recipe, except I also added eggplant and didn’t use the plum tomatoes.

Blueberry cookies

I had a ton of blueberries and a grilling get-together to go to, so I used this recipe to make blueberry oatmeal cookies.  So far, this is the most genius use of blueberries ever.

Dinner #2

This one takes a bit of time for pressing and marinating, if not much in labor, so good for the weekends.  I work at home, so it was fine on a weekday, since I didn’t actually have to do much---just lots of waiting. I thought this recipe looked good, so I decided to make it with tofu instead of pork.  Which means pressing the tofu for a couple of hours to get it really dry, and then marinating it for a few hours instead of the pork.  I also baked it instead of grilling it, since I don’t have a grill.  Pressing tofu is really easy, for those who don’t know how.  You just cut it up, lay it flat in a towel, fold the towel over, and then put something flat and heavy---Dutch ovens work great---on top of it for a few hours. It pushes all the liquid out and allows other flavors to seep in.  

Taking the advice of many here, I also used the new batch of kohlrabi to make pureed kohlrabi.  I used the immersion blender instead of pouring it into the food processor, though.

To go with the blueberry theme, I made cornbread with blueberries in it.  It’s the same as any other cornbread, but you just fold blueberries in at the last minute.   

Vegetarian

CSA Week #5

Kale

Basil

Kohlrabi

Cucumbers

Lettuce

Blackberries

Blueberries

Eggs

Zucchini

Beets

Broccoli

Bok choy 

Potluck

Some friends in the CSA, some friends not, Marc and I had a grilling party at a local bar that has grills for this purpose.  I still had a TON of blueberries left from last week, and got some more.  Time for blueberry pie.  I used Martha Stewart's recipe for the filling and Mark Bittman’s recipe for the crust.  

Made kale salad with a tahini-based dressing similar to this one. Because I had to wash the kale for this, I went ahead and cut of the greens from the beets and the kohlrabi and cleaned those, too.  And then quickly sautéed them for future use.

Last but not least, I made a cucumber salsa to go with the tacos another friend was making. Basically, it’s pepper, cucumbers, jalapenos, onion, garlic salt, and tomatoes, with a dash of cumin, all in the food processor.  How much of each depends on your preferences.

Dinner #1

Roasted the beets and the kohlrabi.  The beets I did in foil, but I cut up and sprinkled the kohlrabi with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika. The kohlrabi tasted like a combination French fry/potato chip.  I put a little leftover salsa on them.

Put a cup of lentils and a cup of barley in about 8 cups of veggie broth, and added a little wine.  Started it cooking.  Added onion and garlic.  Let it cook for awhile, then added some chopped broccoli.  Then the basil for the last few minutes.  Mixed in some goat cheese and parmesan.

When I took the beets out, I chopped ‘em up and made a salad with them, the lettuce, some goat cheese and a balsamic vinaigrette. Sprinkled parmesan over it.  I had a beet left over to eat with sandwiches for lunch.  

Vegetarian.

Dinner #2

Still had lots of salsa, and so I decided to mix the greens with some pinto beans, a leftover jalapeno, onions, garlic, some potatoes that were on sale, the bok choy (why not), a zucchini and some diced tomatoes.  Flavored it with oregano, cumin, a Goya packet, and chili powder. Served it with corn tortillas and the salsa, with a little goat cheese. 

Dessert was pudding with the blackberries. 

CSA Week #4

Broccoli

Kale

Basil

Dill

Blueberries

Raspberries

Spring onions

Zucchini

Eggs

Lettuce

Spinach

This week, Marc had to pick up the CSA since I was out of town, so I didn't get a picture of it.  But you have that lovely picture above to look at!  This time around, my CSA picks up on Saturday and not on Wednesday, and I find this works out really well. I get to put this blog post up, and then immediately go get the new one. And I'm often invigorated to work with it, because I just blogged about it.  A perfect cycle. 

I find that I'm more interested in making salads than I used to be.  I think it's because everyone in the house is on a fitness kick, and eating salads feels like a healthy thing to do. Also, my immersion blender makes it easy. 

Lunch

I took the spinach, wilted it, and put it in some barley that I made to eat as a side dish with sandwiches. 

Dinner #1

Roasted the spring onions and the zucchini.  Cooked some farro up, scooped the roasted veggies in it, added some tomato, yogurt, and the basil.

Took the kale and chopped it with the grating mechanism on my food processor.  Made a dressing with a touch of olive oil, red wine vinegar, some lemon, a touch of tahini, and some wasabi and red pepper flakes (as well as salt and pepper).  Tossed it with parmesan cheese.  I actually made this all about half an hour ahead of time and put it in the fridge so the dressing had time to soak into the kale.  

Vegetarian.

Dinner #2

The zucchini had grown a little sad and wilted, making it no good for steaming or sautéing, but I realized I could use it in a sauce.  So I made a marinara and let it soak with it for a long time.  Marinara is basically crushed tomatoes, bay leaves, onions, garlic, salt, pepper and a little sugar or honey that is simmered for an hour.  I added the broccoli and herbs from the garden---basil, parsley and oregano. 

I made a dressing with the dill, some balsamic vinegar, some white wine, lemon juice, a touch of honey, wasabi, salt, pepper, and some olive oil.  I used the immersion blender to get the dill really pureed.  I made a salad with the lettuce and some of the blueberries (I’d eat some---and all of the raspberries---as a snack earlier), and used this as dressing. 

Vegetarian, because of the inevitable sprinkle of parmesan cheese. But otherwise, vegan.