I have a large cardboard box with a bunch of plastic bags in it that I use every week when picking up my CSA share. On Wednesday, I went to collect the share and put my box down on the floor, as I usually do. I picked out some squash and put them in my box. I picked out some carrots and put them in my box. Same actions repeated with daikon, collards, shallots, etc. I had everything in my box and when I went to pick it up, I noticed that there was an extra daikon in my box. I thought that was very strange. One of the people working the shift said something about maybe someone confused it with the swap box. I didn’t think anything of it and I put the daikon back in the daikon pile.

When I got home, I unpacked everything and laid things out on the counter so that I could take a photo. It didn’t look right. It looked like I was missing something. Why? Because I was! If I’m giving the benefit of the doubt, then indeed, someone confused my box with the swap box (which is a large blue plastic laundry hamper, so how did that happen?) and I had no yellow carrots. I was wracked with anger and torment. I really wanted the carrots because a) I’ve never had yellow carrots, and b)I was planning to roast the yellow carrots with some orange carrots for a pretty dish. I’m pretty sure someone must have seen this swapping take place. Couldn’t they have said something to stop the person or warn me?

I wasn’t certain that if I did go back downtown, that there’d be any carrots left. Usually there’s just enough of each veg for every share. Bill smartly pointed out that I would make myself crazy if I didn’t go check, so I hopped in the car and quickly made my way back to the pickup site, as it was almost closing time. There were quite a few shares that hadn’t been picked up yet, so there were plenty of carrots and I was able to get my bunch after all. In case you’re wondering, if there are any shares left at the end of the day, they go to our charity partner.

And now, here’s the share for week 17.

Acorn Winter Squash-2
Carnival Winter Squash-1
Yellow Carrots-1 bunch
Cauliflower-1 head
Collard Greens-1 bunch
Diakon Radish-1
Shallots-3
Apple Mint-1 bunch

Anjou Pears
Honey Crisp, Cortland, Macoun Apples
raspberries

I was out recruiting during Week 15, so no photos. Jeremie did pick up the share and put all the vegetables away, which was very nice of him.
Here’s what we got last Wednesday, for week 16.

Delicata Winter Squash-2
Carrots-1 bunch
Red Ace Beets-1 bunch
Scallions-1 bunch
Rosemary
Broccoli-2 heads
Turnip Greens-1 bunch
Blue Potatoes-2 pounds
Green Winter Cabbage-1 head
Hot Peppers

Bosc Pears
Honey Crisp and Macoun Apples
Long John Plums

We’re getting in to the veggies that will hold for awhile, which is good. Sunday night I made roasted vegetables: carrots and cauliflower from the csa and some parsnips that I picked up at the farmers market on Saturday. I’ll probably make another onion pie since I have two weeks’ worth of scallions in the fridge and a few shallots hanging around.

Now, lets talk about beets. 4 bunches of beets. This is a substantial amount of beets. I like raw beet salads but I’m the only one in the house who does, so a little goes a long way. It’s been too hot to be in the mood for roasted beets until very recently, and the beets were starting to pile up so I started to look for other ways to use beets. Like baking! I used up three bunches of beets making chocolate beet cake and chocolate chip beet bread (same recipe as my chocolate chip zucchini bread, but with beets instead of zucchini).

clockwise from top left: chocolate chip beet bread in the mixer, chocolate chip beet bread – finished, chocolate beet cake – finished, chocolate chip beet bread – cut

Yes, I’m backfilling a bit.

1 head cabbage
2 pounds Norland red potatoes
4 gourds-just for decoration
4 Pablanos
2 pounds tomatoes
1 bunch leeks
3 heads broccoli
1 head lettuce
1 bunch parsley
1 bunch Siberian kale
3 Lipstick Sweet peppers

Concord Grapes
Mac and Gala apples
Seckle pears

What did I make?
What can I remember?
Potato Leek soup, oven roasted tomato confit, pasta with kale and chicken sausage, cabbage salad, bulgur with tomatoes and parsley. Oh, and a pear cake with the seckle pears. Here’s a picture of that and a picture of the giant bowl of pesto I made with basil from my garden.

I harvested an incredible amount of basil. I should have taken a picture of it.

This weekend was the annual farm visit to Stoneledge Farm, the source of our CSA. The program was similar to last year and again we were told to pick whatever we wanted from some of the patches as we were walking through the fields. We came home with winter squashes, poblanos, a couple habaneros, a couple jalapenos, some sweet peppers, green onions, a small handful of cherry tomatoes, and 17 tomatoes. I already had 11 tomatoes on the counter, from my garden and the share this week. This afternoon I picked 9 more tomatoes. This is a lot of tomatoes, in case you didn’t notice.

I woke up on the early side this morning and started planning my attack. Today I made:
Sweet Squash Puree soup

recipe from Everyday Food, Great Food Fast. Called for Butternut squash but I subbed a different sweet squash. Good. Will make again.

Tomatillo Squash soup

recipe from Moosewood Favorites. This caught my eye last night because I had a bunch of tomatillos to use up. Very good. Will make again if the stars align all the ingredients in my kitchen.

Tomato Red Pepper soup

I made this one up. Cut up a bunch of sweet red peppers and a few tomatoes. Put in 4Qt Le Creuset and simmered for awhile. When soft, pureed with food mill. Put everything back in the pot and cooked down a bit. Very good. Will make again.

two batches of slow cooker tomato puree
Indian Spiced Eggplant

Made this up last year. Very good.

a caramelized green onion eggy tart
Chilies Rellenos Casserole

From the Whole Foods Market cookbook. I follow the recipe, except for the part about stuffing the poblanos, battering them and frying them before putting them in the casserole. What a pain. I spread a little of the corn mixture in the bottom of the pan, then layer poblano pieces and cheese in two layers, then top with the rest of the corn mixture and bake. Much easier.

The freezer wasn’t empty by any stretch of the imagination before, but now it’s definitely full. We had some of the green onion tart for dinner, along with a nice green salad. I’ll take some of the casserole for lunch tomorrow & then I’ll freeze the rest. I’m tired, hence the skimpiness of the descriptions. Perhaps some pictures tomorrow.

I see a lot of salad in our future and I think I’ll have to make some tomato puree for the freezer in order to get through all of these, plus the tomatoes I picked last night. That being said, this week’s share isn’t too crazy and I think we’ll be able to finish it and whatever we have left from previous weeks. This week I went for a bit of an artsy shot, rather than a show-all-veg-to-the-max shot.

Red Sails Lettuce-1 head
Grand Rapids Lettuce-1 head
Slicing Tomatoes-4 pounds
Sweet Peppers-4
Genovese Basil-1 bunch
Red Ace Beets-1 bunch
Scallions-1 bunch
Tomatillos-1 pound
Eggplant-2

Sheldon Pears
Gala Apples
Blackberries

The blackberries were a last minute change (we were expecting nectarines) and they’re absolutely delicious. Some are tart, some are sweet. I love surprises.

Bright Lights Swiss Chard-1 bunch
Red Sails Lettuce-1 head
Buttercrunch Lettuce-1 head
New White Potatoes-2 pounds
Scallions-1 bunch
Edamame-1 bunch
Slicing Tomatoes-6 pounds
Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket
Lipstick Sweet Peppers-4
Italian Flat Leaf Parsley-1 bunch
Jalapeno Peppers-hot-take them if you like (I took 4)

Bartlett Pears
Honey Crisp Apples
Long John Plums

What did I do with everything? Let’s see… I made a few salads with the red sails lettuce and I still have the head of buttercrunch to finish. A wee bit of a problem since we’re getting two more heads today. I still haven’t used the scallions or potatoes, but they’ll keep so I’m not worried. The edamame we just ate, after steaming it in the microwave. Tomatoes: some were eaten sliced plain, some sliced with fresh mozzarella, good bread, and basil, some went in to salads, a couple were chopped and added to a second batch of eggplant gnocchi, I made a fresh tomato soup with several, and I have a couple left. I forgot to mention that on top of the 6 pounds of tomatoes from the CSA, I easily had another 6+ pounds from my garden. It’s tomato time. Cherry tomatoes we popped like candy, pretty much the same with the lipstick peppers. They’re so sweet and delicious. The apples were incredible and we ate all of them by the end of the weekend. I still have a handful of pears and plums left that I’ll need to do something with. Forgive me for this completely uncreative entry.

I say tomato, tomato, tomato. 6 pounds of tomatoes this week! We’re going to the Minnesota State Fair this weekend and I didn’t think that the tomatoes would be in great shape by the time we got back, so I have two in my carry-on to take to Grandma’s house and 6 or so went in to the oven last night and became roasted tomato confit. I had a little on my eggs this morning. Very tasty. We ate two tomatoes for dinner last night with olive oil, good paisano bread from Zingermans and maldon sea salt. We had one giant yellow tomato and one smaller red tomato from my garden (the variety is escaping me right now). Both were fantastic.

Roma Beans-1 pound
Summer Onions-2
Edamame-1 bunch
Slicing Tomatoes-6 pounds
Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket
Lipstick Sweet Peppers-4
Basil-1 bunch
Beets-1 bunch
Eggplant-1

This week, pears are the main event in the fruit department. Luckily they’re pretty hard so I think they’ll still be ok when we get back. I think there will be too many to eat before they go bad, so I’ll probably have to do some pear-based baking.

Red Clapp Pears
Peaches
Plums

On with the rest! Week 10:

Summer Squash-1 pound
Lettuce-1 head
Bright Lights Swiss Chard-1bunch
Romano Beans-1 pound
Cilantro-1 bunch
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket
Lilac Peppers-2
Slicing Tomatoes-2 pounds
Orient Express Eggplant-2
Sweet Onions-2
Tomatillos-1 pound
Fennel-1 head

I finally have everything I need to make gazpacho (I have cukes leftover from last week) and I think I’ll whip up a batch tonight. The other thing I’m definitely going to make is gnocchi with sauteed eggplant, chopped tomato, and basil. We’ll just have to see with the rest.

yellow peaches
nectarines
prune plums

To eat the plums or make plum cake? These are tough decisions.

I’m very excited about this week’s share. The ethereal flavor of the donut peaches is just too hard to put in to words. I did a lot of cooking yesterday, but first things first.

Summer Squash-2 pounds
Cucumbers-3
Lettuce-1 head
Provider String Beans-1 pound
Cilantro-1 bunch
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket
Pablano Peppers-4
Slicing Tomatoes-2 pounds
Orient Express Eggplant-2
Scallions-1 bunch
Tomatillos-1 pound

donut peaches
yellow peaches
nectarines

I haven’t baked anything with the peaches/nectarines so far. They’re just too delicious and I’m perfectly happy to eat them plain or in yogurt, without any pastry. The summer squash was all zucchini this week, which was just fine by me since I wanted to make more chocolate chip zucchini bread. I made a double batch of batter last night and baked it into 4 mini loaf pans and 1 large bundt pan. I still have all of this share’s cucumbers and one of last week’s left, so I’m a bit long on cucumbers right now. I ought to make some type of a salad out of them but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. For shabbat I made a vegetarian mexican fiesta. I made salsa fresca with heirloom tomatoes, cilantro, mini purplette onions from a previous week, and some kosher salt. I made tomatillo salsa by throwing tomatillos in the food processor along with garlic, onion, and cilantro. It was very tasty but I might try and drain it a little bit next time, as it was a little on the watery side. I chopped up some onion, lettuce, green peppers, and poblano peppers to serve with it all. We also had guacamole, black beans, rice, cheddar cheese, and tortillas to round out the yummyness.
Sunday afternoon I made a good noodle salad with somen noodles tossed in a spicy peanut dressing, which I made from peanut butter, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sriracha, and a little sesame oil. To all that I added finely diced poblano peppers, green onions, julienned carrots, and diced garlic scapes. For dinner I served chopped arugula with balsamic vinaigrette and rough chopped tomatoes tossed with kosher salt and lots of fresh basil alongside grilled japanese eggplant. I halved the eggplant the long way, brushed the cut side with olive oil, and grilled for about 8 minutes per side. The eggplant were creamy and delicious.

Now I’m tired and hungry!

Last week (and the beginning of this week) was very busy and I just wasn’t able to get the details of week 8 up. My apologies! Here’s CSA Week 8:

Summer Squash-2 pounds
Cucumbers-2
Lettuce-1 head
Mini Purplette Onions-1 bunch
Provider String Beans-1 pound
Red Ace Beets-1 bunch
Perpetual Spinach-1 bunch
Cilantro-1 bunch
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket
Black Bell Eggplant-1

What did we do with all that goodness? The eggplant went into a delicious pasta dish made with whole wheat rotelli, tomato sauce, diced eggplant , garlic scapes, and some zucchini from last week. The spinach and beet greens made for a delightful fritatta. We got a few salads out of the lettuce and the cukes topped sandwiches and made for good snacks. The pattypan squash was very good steamed in the microwave along with the mini onions.

My mom was visiting last week and we discovered that beets are delightful when cooked in the microwave. It couldn’t be any easier. All you need to do is:
wash the beets and trim the greens to about an inch above the top
put the beets in a microwaveable container and cover with a lid
microwave on high for 8 minutes
let the beets sit in the microwave for 5 minutes
if the beets are small, they might be done at this point. Take the beets out of the microwave and check them (poke with finger). If they’re not done, microwave for 3 minutes more and then let them sit in the microwave for 10 minutes.
Peel and eat or chill.

peaches
+nectarines
————-
super delicious