CSA Week 11

I am going to use this upcoming long weekend to get back in to a place where I’m not constantly trying to catch up.

Here’s what we got last week:
ed Sails Leaf Lettuce-2 heads
Romaine-1 head
Edamame-1 bunch
Opal Basil-1 bunch
Tomatoes-3 pounds
Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes-1 pint basket
Pablano Peppers-4, mildly hot
Green Bell-4
Biscayne-4
Black Bell Eggplant-1
Potatoes-1 quart
Rosemary-1 bunch.
Shiro Plums, Red Clapp Pears, Peaches

Last night I made an amazing pasta dish with the eggplant and fresh tomato puree made from the last of the CSA tomatoes and some of the uglier tomatoes from my garden. I had a bunch split on the vine, not sure if it’s from too much sun or too much rain or something else entirely, but what’s ugly eatin makes delicious sauce. The plums were very good but they don’t hold a candle to the amazing peaches and pears. We’re going to get a freezer so that we can preserve some of this bounty and better deal with the load.

I did a lot of cooking today and my feet are tired! Early this morning I roasted 5 eggplants on the grill for “Grandma’s Chopped Eggplant”. Once the eggplant were nice and charred, I took them off the grill and seperated the smoky flesh from the crispy skins. The hot mash cooled down in the fridge for several hours and then I whirled it in the food processor. Grandma usually does all the cutting by hand but we discovered last weekend that the food processor does almost as well. That made three large vacu-bags for the freezer. Yum.
Next up was “Mom’s Gazpacho”. We love gazpacho and whenever we order it out at restaurants, it’s never quite as good as the recipe we have. I made a big pitcher all with veggies from the CSA.
Today we got the email letting us know what would be in next week’s share. We’re getting 4 more pablano peppers and I haven’t yet used this week’s four, so I started looking for recipes. In my Whole Foods Market cookbook, there was a good sounding recipe for a Chili Rellieno Casserole which just happens to take 8 pablanos. Perfect! I’m planning to make it on Wednesday after we pick up the share. One of the ingredients for the recipe is Adobo sauce, either from a can or from the recipe included in the book. That recipe called for 2 ancho peppers (dried) and I just happened to have 3 left from the second week of the CSA, so of course I used all of them. It’s so nice to use things up. The adobo is incredibly spicy but in a rich and delicious way, though calorie-wise it’s not rich, rather than an I’m-going-to-die spicy way. Super tasty.
I’m getting tired just typing all of this! I made two more dishes tonight: a delicious two cabbage soup (green cabbage, red cabbage, onions, carrots, garden fresh tomatoes, fresh dill & seasonings) and a cabbage salad with the remainder of the red and green cabbages, a few carrots and an onion in an Italian vinegrette. I’ll be taking that for lunch this week. Oh! I almost forgot! I made banana pudding too.
Now, time for sleep!

CSA Week 10

If anyone has great ideas and recipes for the pablano and chili peppers, please let me know! We still have 1 red cabbage left from last week but we were able to polish off everything else by this evening.
I picked the edamame off the stems (huge mess) and boiled them up for 4 minutes with a bit of salt in the water. They’re very tasty.


This post looks different because I used flickr’s “blog this photo” feature. I’m not sold yet.

Let me just say, I have never had such delicious apricots before.

Red Cabbage-1 head
Kohlrabi-1 bunch
Roma Beans-1 quart basket
Summer Onions-1 bunch
Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket
Black Bell Eggplant-1
Peppers:
Green Bell-2
Biscayne-2
Lilac-6
Dill-1 bunch
Slicing tomatoes – 2
Shiro Plums, Apricots, Nectarines
We ate one of the slicing tomatoes and the eggplant on the first night and the sungold cherry tomatoes were gone within a few minutes. The last of the apricots disappeared this morning, but everything else is still around. I went away for the weekend and now I have a lot of veggies to use up pretty quickly. I’m planning on making vegetarian stuffed peppers tonight and I’ll probably make some gazpacho as well. That should take care of everything but the beans and the kohlrabi. I have a few ideas for the kohlrabi but I haven’t settled on anything yet. I still need to look up prep for the beans. They’re “string beans”, which is not the same thing as green beans and I’m not quite sure what to do. I’m sure they’ll be delicious.

Here’s the update from week 8. I’ll try to be more timely about the week 9 update. Still no luck getting all the ingredients for gazpacho in one week, but I still have hope.

Red Potatoes-1 quart basket or 2 pounds
Bright Lights Swiss Chard-1 bunch
Cilantro-1 bunch
Islander Purple Peppers-2
Biscayne Cubanelle Peppers-2
Jersey Wakefield Cabbage-1 head
Chiogga Beets-1 bunch
Orient Express Eggplant-6
Mini Purplette Onions-1 pint or 1 pound
Summer Squash-1 pint
Shiro Plums-1 bag
Peaches-1 bag
Nectarines-1 bag

Last night I made a really excellent egg dish. I carmelized three big onions (took about an hour) and sauteed up the chard mentioned above. In the big pan I layered the chard on top of the onions and poured my egg mixture over the top. I used a dozen eggs, since I wanted leftovers to take for lunch this week. I flecked a bit of goat cheese into the egg layer and let it cook on the stove for a few minutes. Then I popped it under the broiler until it got nice and brown. Unfortunatly, the middle wasn’t quite set yet so I let it sit in a 375 deg. oven for about 12 minutes. Very delicious. I didn’t take a picture of it, but I should have.
I did take a picture of the rustic peach tart I made over the weekend. It was divine and not too much work.
Here it is before oven time:

and done:

Tasty!