Missing the Weekly CSA Share

This is the first week I don’t have a CSA share since the season ended last week and won’t start again until next June. It feels odd to not have the bounty of fresh veggies coming in from that source. I am intent on getting every bit of goodness out of what is left --- wondering how long I can go before I’ll buy veggies from my grocery store’s produce section. It won’t be this week certainly.

The refrigerator was so full that the ‘cool’ actually got a bit cooler and some of the greens froze…so I used them in soup and stir fry. I still have lettuce, spinach, radicchio, and cabbage for salads…lots of root vegetables (carrot, turnips, sweet potatoes, and radishes) for slaw. I have peppers, pac choi and tatsoi for stir fry. I’m trying to eat the most fragile veggies first.

I thought the cilantro might degrade first so I made salsa with it (using tomatoes and hot peppers from earlier in the CSA season and frozen). I love the blend of the veggies with onion, garlic, and half a lemon. I use salsa for more than just tacos; it becomes salad dressing and stir fry sauce…a drizzle on the top of soup.

There is still a butternut squash, small white potatoes, and garlic along with a lot of sweet potatoes that don’t take up any room in the refrigerator and will be edible for quite some time.

I’ve got dried thyme and parsley/carrot tops that will season foods into the winter too.

The big lesson learned from the CSA is how good vegetables can be. I am a little spoiled with getting them the same day they are picked so I choose carefully in the grocery store during the offseason. I don’t try to eat the same all during the year. During the winter I like to have warm meals so I tend to eat a lot less salad type greens and stick with the sturdy greens (kale, cabbage, pac choi) that hold up well in stir fries or soups. Sometimes my grocery store has organic greenhouse dandelion greens and that is a treat in winter!

CSA Week 17

I still have a few potatoes, sweet dumpling squash, chives, and bell peppers left from week 16. The potatoes will keep. I’ll bake the squash in a few days I should freeze the peppers and endeavor to use up the chives as quickly as possible.

The share this week was a typical fall bounty:

Beets ---- I am making fruit beety with the beets and using the stems/leaves in stir fries

Broccoli ---- We were warned by the farmer to soak the broccoli to get the insects out of it. I’ll probably make slaw out of it after that….which can be used in salads and stir fries

Bell peppers and snack peppers ---- It’s a bit overwhelming but I like peppers both raw and cooked

Parsley – I’ll use as much as I can fresh but will probably end up drying some of it.

Thyme – I traded my hot peppers to get a second bunch! I’ve become a fan of thyme in stir fry and soup…and it dries very easily

Kohlrabi – I’ll use the leaves and stems in stir fries. The bulbs may become part of the slaw I make with the broccoli

Tomatoes – We are down to a pound of the red tomatoes this week. I got a pint container of the sun gold tomatoes as my pick from the overage table.

Butternut squash – This is probably my favorite winter squash because it is big enough to have enough left over to make custard (made with the cooked squash instead of pumpkin but otherwise the same ingredients)

Eggplant - There are two again this week. I plan to make another batch of eggplant balls and may freeze some of them.

Yummy meals in week ahead!

Beautiful Food - September 2015

I decided to do a monthly post on ‘beautiful food’ and am finding that it easy to select foods that are luscious looking and tasting to me. I thrive on variety! Our CSA prompts some of the variety; in September the tomatoes were still abundant and we had sweet potato leaves one week. Somehow eggs were prevalent in my diet than usual this month. So here’s the top 4 ‘beautiful foods’ for September:

This month I enjoyed toasted pita wedges with homemade orange/lemon marmalade (recipe here),

Egg salad (hard boiled eggs and hummus in a food processor until ‘spreadable’) wrapped in sweet potato leaves (only available for a short time, just before the sweet potatoes are harvested at our CSA),

The jewels of small tomatoes,

And eggs in a nest (recipe here). I went a little overboard on the ‘nest’ so this was a hearty dinner!

CSA Week 15

I’ve put another gallon ziplock of tomatoes in the freezer; this week we only got 3 more pounds of sauce tomatoes…the beautiful small ones are done for the year. I did pick up an heirloom tomato from the overage box to savor with a little salt and fresh oregano.

New in the crisper this week are chard and scallions. I have eggplant to make into balls - a big batch. The garlic supply is replenished. There were 3 kinds of peppers (bell, snack and hot; I traded the hot ones for more chard).

There were also 2 more pounds of potatoes. Fortunately they last without refrigeration since the other items were bulky.

Overall - the bag for this share was seemed heavier that previous shares (except for the ones that included a watermelon).

My crispers are full and there are bins in the other part of the refrigerator. It is all good eating - but almost too abundant. More than tomatoes may need to be processed into the freezer. 

CSA Week 13

My husband picked up this week’s share…there will be processing and good eating when I return home (the day before the CSA week 14 share will be distributed. The 5 pounds of red tomatoes will go into the freezer and maybe some of the 2 pounds of cherry tomatoes will too. My husband kept the poblano peppers rather than trading so I am planning something he will help be eat!

The ‘new’ foods this week are marjoram and acorn squash. I’ll have to search my recipes for one that requires marjoram. I already know I want to back the acorn squash and eat it with butter and cinnamon; I remember eating it cooked that way at a Yosemite lodge more than 25 years ago and it has always been my favorite way to enjoy the squash.

My husband chose watermelon from the overage table and is saving it for when I return. Good choice.

CSA Week 12

Wow - do we have tomatoes! The four pounds of red tomatoes we got in this week’s share have already been processed (minimally - the top of the core and blemishes cut out, otherwise whole) and are in the freezer. I plan to slice and eat the heirloom tomato as soon as possible since it is very ripe. Then I have a little over 3 pounds accumulation of the small multi-colored cherry tomatoes (I traded my poblano peppers for another 1.5 pounds!); they’ll be my snacks for the whole week; they taste good and I like the variety of their colors.

There are a lot of peppers too (even without the poplanos) - 5 snack peppers and a red bell pepper. They’ll be additions to salads and stir fries

I haven’t decided what I will do with the eggplant…maybe include it in a stir fry or cut it in wedges and roast it.  It was a different shape that the traditional eggplant - still the same deep purple color.

The spaghetti squash can be quite a treat….as a veggie ‘spaghetti’…as another ingredient in a stir fry…as a component of quiche or custard. I won’t have any trouble eat it up.

Fortunately the onions, garlic, and potatoes will keep just fine not in the refrigerator...because I have a watermelon taking up a lot of space right now!

CSA Week 11

It’s a good thing that some of the veggies this week do not need to go into the refrigerator (onions, garlic, potatoes) because we got both a watermelon and cantaloupe along with 3 kinds of tomatoes (3 heirloom, a pint of cherry, and 2 pounds of romas) and 2 kinds of peppers (1 bell and 4 snacking (since I traded my 2 jalapenos for snacking)). I decided to put the thyme in water on the window sill since I am using it up pretty quickly (I’ve already finished the bunch I got a few weeks ago). I had to make two trips to the car for this share since the watermelon was so heavy it had to be carried by itself; the same thing happened to me last year.

I am enjoying the herbs from the CSA (thyme, basil, chives and oregano so far) and the ones I have in my garden (basil, chives and mint). They - along with the garlic and onion - definitely add a lot of flavor to foods very quickly. Stir fry sauces are not needed when there are so many herbs readily available around the kitchen!

Am I to the point of freezing the cherry tomatoes? Maybe. I did it last year about this time and they were very easy to pop into soups - still frozen - to provide tomato flavor and color in the dead of winter. I like to just make sure they are clean then put them into a plastic container to freeze. Usual their skin does not break - or if it does the tomato is already frozen enough that the juice does not leak out. For me - it is the fastest way to save the goodness of summer tomatoes until winter.

Beautiful Food - August 2015

With the bounty of fresh veggies in August, it is easy to prepare a beautiful plate - full of color, great flavors, and nutrition. One of my favorites is a large heirloom tomato with cucumber….a little sprinkle of salt and a few leaves of fresh oregano.

Apples are often not so good in August because it is just before the new harvest. I had a bag of apples that should have been great for eating fresh but they had too many brown spots - so I made a huge apple crisp to use them up. I modified the recipe to give it a summer flavor by replacing the cinnamon with lemon and mint. And I replaced the flour with flaxseed meal and teff flour since I already had them on hand.  There is beauty in the ingredients, the big skillet in the oven, and the finished product! I always like the hint of red in from the cooked apple skin.

Topping:

• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
• 3/4 cup teff flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• Pinch baking soda
• Pinch baking powder
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Apples+

• 2 lemons
• 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves (or 1/4 cup dry mint) --- optional
• 10 cups apples
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1/2 cup water

Spray the pan with cooking spray. This recipe will take a large one!

Process/grind the oatmeal if you want a fine texture topping. Combine topping ingredients in a bowl and mix with a fork until the lumps are small.

Cut the ends from the lemon and then cut into 8 wedges. Take out the seeds. Put the wedges (pulp and skin) into the food processor along with the mint leaves. Process until pureed.

Use the slicer on the food processor to slice the apples. I cut an apple into 8 wedges, cut the seeds/core and any bruise away, then start the food processor. Drop the apple wedges through the smaller opening in the top of the processor to get even slices (this was recommended in the booklet that came with my Cuisinart food processor).

Heat the oven to 350⁰ F.

Place the apple slices with the lemon/mint pulp into the pan. Use a spatula to distribute the apples and lemon/mint evenly in the pan. Sprinkle sugar and flour over the apples then drizzle the water on top.

Arrange the topping mixture on top of the apples.

Cook for 45 minutes.

Enjoy just out of the oven or cool from the refrigerator. It is good any time of day - for breakfast, snack or dessert!

CSA Week 10

About all I have left from the week 9 share is chives, onions and leeks…a few purple skinned potatoes. But I think the week 10 share is a bit overwhelming.

The variety and amount of tomatoes skyrocketed this week: 2 big heirloom tomatoes, 1 pint cherry tomatoes, and 2 pounds red tomatoes. There was some fresh oregano which encourages me to make homemade tomato ‘something’ - soup or sauce.

We also got potatoes - this time with red skins. Fortunately potatoes last long enough that they won’t go to waste even if we don’t eat them this week.

The assortment of peppers went up: snack peppers of all colors (I got red/green ones), bell peppers, and jalepenos (which I promptly exchanged for another bell pepper).

We had a choice between cucumbers and summer squash; I picked the squash to I can make squash hummus again.

We had our choice of cantaloupe, red watermelon or yellow watermelon this week. I got a red one - just to be different from last week’s yellow one (which we enjoyed).

One of the items available on the overage table was lettuce….it will go well with the tomatoes and peppers for summer salads.

Once again - the next week is going to have a lot of good eating --- enjoying the bounty of summer foods!

CSA Week 9

Hurray! The share this week included a small watermelon! I had a choice between yellow and red….and chose a yellow.

There were also two kinds of peppers (bell and snack), two kinds of tomatoes (cherry and heirloom), two ‘onions’: chives and purple, purple skinned small potatoes that were still wet from a rain a few hours before our pickup time. I had a choice between lettuce, eggplant or okra and I chose lettuce. And I chose leeks from the overage table.

I envision all kinds of good meals this week…the ones I am thinking of right away are:

Large salads with lettuce, tomato, pepper, chives (edamame or peanuts for protein to make it a meal)

Hash browns made with shredded potatoes (leaving on the purple skins), onion, and bell pepper

Eggs with chives or leek

Stir fry with leek, pepper  and mushrooms (the last ingredient from the grocery store)

CSA Week 8

I cleared out most of the remains of past shares before I picked up the week 8 haul. Only cucumbers, leeks, onions and garlic were left!

There was another onion in the week 8 share - and a bunch of scallions. It was a second week for tomatoes and continuation of summer squash/cucumbers. Items new this week were thyme, bell pepper and potatoes (purple!). I got three small kohlrabies from the overage table.

And there was a sunflower too! I cut off the stem a bit to fit it into an old wine decanter.

A special treat this morning for breakfast….purple hash browns seasoned with rosemary and scrambled eggs! Yum!

CSA Week 7

I have a lot of veggies to eat over the next week - most of the week 5 and 6 share left when I picked up week 7 share. There are going to be two full meals each day that are heavy on veggies (salad or stir fry are my favorite generic recipes to use lots of veggies fast)!

The veggies in the week 7 share include lettuce, leeks, zucchini, cucumbers and onions. There was a choice between carrots, beets, okra, eggplant, or cherry tomatoes; I chose the tomatoes even though I know in a few weeks I’ll probably be overwhelmed by tomatoes and be looking for ways to preserve them to use after the season.

I was also allowed a pick from the overage table and I couldn’t resist picking up a small purple cabbage; I like the additional color it adds to salads.