One of my favorite poems is “This Is Just To Say” by William Carlos Williams and I can’t stop thinking about it as I sit here dreaming about the sweet plums waiting in my refrigerator. I’ll shake things up this week and show you the fruit first.

Yellow Peaches
White Peaches
Sugar Plums

A couple of the plums in the bag had split open and I felt it was my duty to eat them as I was putting the vegetables away. They’re delicious. The peaches need to sit for a couple more days until they’re a little softer.

Summer Squash-2 pounds
Cucumbers-3
Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage-2 heads
Dill-1 bunch
Scallions-1 bunch
Red Sails Lettuce-1 head
Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket
Green Beans-1 pound

Mini Purplettes-1 bunch
Summer Squash-16
Red Ace Beets-1 bunch with greens
Bright Lights Swiss Chard-1 bunch
Sage-1 bunch
Cukes-4
Orient Express Eggplant-2

16 squash. That is a lot of zucchini, to be more specific. Luckily they were a little smaller this week than in previous weeks, which helps to get through them a little more quickly. Thursday night I made yet another batch of chocolate chip zucchini bread and I’m no where near sick of it – it’s that good.

To prove to you that I am indeed insane, I offer you this: I went to the farmers market on Thursday and bought tomatoes, parsley, carrots, bread, and cheese. I bought the parsley and tomatoes because I had all the nice cucumbers from the share and I’d been craving tabouli, which I made on Friday. I also made some roasted zucchini for dinner Friday night. I pretty much had the day off from cooking on Saturday but Sunday afternoon it was nose to the grindstone again. I made ratatouille (debated between Confit Byaldi of Ratatouille (the movie) fame and a simpler oven-baked version, went with option 2) and “Spinach” pie. I put spinach in quotes because I used beet greens and swiss chard instead, stems included. The recipe I followed (mostly) was from the Everyday Food tv show. I wanted to give it a try because it doesn’t use quite as much fillo or butter as my regular recipe, which is for cocktail-sized spinach pies. It’s FANTASTIC, but making the individual triangles does take a lot of time and is a better winter project than a summer one. Anyways, back to the everyday food recipe – I used half light feta and half regular feta and I don’t think the results were noticeable. I think the recipe calls for too much salt, given how salty feta usually is. If I make this again, I would definitely reduce the salt by a teaspoon or two.

Kitchen Kabaret! Anyone? Anyone?

April showers bring May flowers.
What do May flowers bring?
ZUCCHINI IN JULY

Yes, we have lots more zucchini this week. I’m not yet totally tired of it, so I think that’s a good sign.
Here’s the bounty from week 5:

Red Norland Potatoes- 1 pound
Scallions-1 bunch
Summer Squash-15
Beets-1 bunch with greens
Bright Lights Swiss Chard-1 bunch
Genovese Basil-1 bunch
Sugar Snow Peas-1 pint basket
Cucumber – 1

annnnnnnnnnnd, it’s the first week of fruit!

Regional Blueberries-1 pint basket
Local Sweet Cherries-1 bag
Homegrown, organic Currants-1 basket

For dinner last night I made fettuccine with a deconstructed pesto, using all but a few leaves of the basil. For dessert, I washed the currants, took them off the stems, put them in two tiny white bowls, topped them with a couple of teaspoons of sugar, and served them with tiny spoons. Delicious! We ate the blueberries and half of the cherries for breakfast this morning and the rest of the cherries are in my bag for the airport. So is a generous hunk of the chocolate chip zucchini bread. Yay for nature! Yay for treats!

Today was the first delivery of CSA veggies for the season. I’m part of the Stamford CSA, which contracts with Stoneledge Farm in South Cairo, NY for delicious organic produce. Our vegetable season is 24 weeks long and our fruit shares run 20 weeks, starting 4 weeks into the season. The share is mostly greens for the first few weeks of the CSA, but that is just fine by me. Here’s what we got today:



Rhubarb-1 bunch
Boc Choi-1 bunch
Chinese Cabbage-1 bunch
Great Lakes Lettuce-1 head
Red Sails Lettuce-1 head
Mizuna-1 bunch
Arugula-1 bunch
Chinese Chives-also called Garlic Chives-1 bunch
Sage with Flowers – 1 bunch
*I saw some rhubarb in the swap box so I swapped my sage for the rhubarb

I think we’ll have the Red Sails lettuce as a salad tonight and we’ll dig in to the rest of the greens tomorrow. I’ve already made the rhubarb into a sauce and I’m very excited to have that as my little treat tonight.

Potatoes-2 pounds or 1 quart
Carrots-1 bunch
Collards-1 bunch
Winterbor Kale-1 bunch
Brussels Sprouts-1 stalk
Acorn Winter Squash-2
Sage-1 bunch
Purple Top Turnips-1 bunch
Jacob’s Cattle Dry Beans-1 pound
Garlic-2

I didn’t take a picture of the fruit because my camera battery died but we got a mix of Fuji Apples, Golden Delicious Apples, Anjou Pears and Bosc Pears.

Yesterday I made a soup out of 1 bunch of collards, several bunches of stems from kale and collards, cauliflower leaves, and onions. I cooked the onions and the stems together for awhile, then i added the leafy greens and a few cups of water and let that come to a simmer. After I felt the greens had cooked enough, I pureed the soup with a stick blender. It turned out very sweet and delicious. It almost has the consistency of a cream soup but without any cream or potatoes. Very tasty.

We bought more vegetables and fruit at the farmer’s market. 3 delicata squash (SO fabulous), 3 different kinds of apples and a gigantic head of cauliflower. This is on top of week 21’s bounty:

Carnival Winter Squash-2
Onions-4
Red Russian Kale-1 bunch
Collards-1 bunch
Cabbage-1
Parsley-1 bunch
Beets-1 bunch
Celeriac-1
Potatoes-2 pounds

and more apples and pears.

This weekend I made:

• sesame garlic collards – very light on the sesame flavor, sadly. They were tasty, nonetheless.
• roasted fingerling potatoes with rosemary from my garden. Delicious.
• roasted beets, carrots, and parsnips. Delicious.
• quinoa salad with balsamic, dried cherries, raw sunflower seeds, parsley, and peas. For lunch today. Seems delicious.

I was planning on making Tarte Tatin but I was tired yesterday afternoon. I could make it tonight but I really need to get some exercise a lot more than I need to bake. It’ll get made sometime this week.

It’s unseasonably warm today and it’s so tempting to pop out of the office and go get some gelato. Alas, I won’t do it since I want to leave on time so I can hand out candy tonight.
Saturday night I made pumpkin soup from the CSA pumpkins we got a couple of weeks ago. Peeling a pumpkin is no easy task, but the end result was worth the effort. We ate some soup Saturday evening and my feeling was “it’s an ok soup”. A little time in the fridge did the the soup a world of good and it’s really very delicious now. Besides that, we’ve been eating our greens in a tasty, uncreative fashion. Fine by me!

Here’s what we got for Week 20:

Acorn Winter Squash-2
Garlic-2
Gold Turnips-1 bunch
Winterbor Kale-1 bunch
Collards-1 bunch
Carrots-1 bunch
Austrian Crescent Fingerling Potatoes
Mint-1 bunch
Kohlrabi-1bunch (I’ve given up on liking kohlrabi so I traded it for an extra kale. Smart)
Golden Delicious Apples, JonaGold Apples, Anjou Pears, Bosc Pears.

Delicious foods and a wee glimpse of our new counter tops.

So guess where I had dinner Sunday night? Babbo! Guess who else was there? Gwyneth Paltrow. La di da. I was really looking forward to dinner and it did not disappoint; the food was fabulous. Ordering with 5 people was a challenge but it was good trying things I wouldn’t have normally ordered. On our waiter’s recommendation I went with the duck for my main course and it was the most incredible duck I’ve ever had. Perfumed with rosemary, it was tender where it should be tender and crisp where it should be crisp. The pastas, main course and dessert were all very good. The weakest spot, in my opinion, was the antipasti but even that was good. I’d definitely go back.

I haven’t been writing (or taking many pictures) because I’ve been cooking. I took pictures of last week’s CSA share with Jeremie’s camera but I’m not quite sure where it’s hiding in the house. I took pictures of this week’s haul with my camera but I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of veggies and I’m afraid it’s not very artfully arranged. After eating a little something, I got so caught up in cooking and putting the vegetables away that I forgot to take pictures of the fruit. Maybe later. Anyway, here’s the haul:


Loads of collards, broccoli, turnips with greens, garlic, chili peppers, habanero peppers, summer squash, beets, potatoes, and two pumpkins. Holy cow. Last night I made garlicy kale with kale from last week, roasted a bunch of beets for the fridge & freezer, roasted the turnips and also roasted some kohlrabi from a couple of weeks ago. We also tried to dry some peppers in our convection toaster oven but it was taking a really long time and I needed to go to bed, so I turned it off overnight. I should’ve just stayed up with it since I didn’t fall asleep until 3:30a anyway.

On Wednesdays we pick up the CSA share for the week. On Wednesdays I become infected with a strange desire to cook like a crazy person. It was only a couple of weeks ago that the 11 cubic foot freezer arrived and I’ve almost filled it. That is just nuts. Here’s what we got this week:



Leeks-1 bunch
Black Bell Eggplant -2
Lipstick Peppers-4
Lilac Peppers-2
Green Bell Peppers-2
Siberian Kale-1 bunch
Turnips w/ Greens-1 bunch
Summer Squash-6
Rosemary-1 bunch
Potatoes-1 quart or 2 pounds
Tomatoes-2

The fruit smelled so good, I was nibbling on the grapes before I even left the distribution area



Macintosh apples
Nectarines
Concord grapes

Last night I made pear butter with some pears I had from last week’s share, carmelized leek soup, potato leek soup and sauteed chard. It doesn’t sound like a lot but it was a good 4 hours worth of work.

I can’t sleep so I thought I’d put up the pictures now. Here’s what we got this week, veggie-wise:

Buttercrunch Lettuce -1 head

Slicing Tomatoes-2.5 pounds

Purple Peppers -4

Scallions-1 bunch

Beets-1 bunch

Kohlrabi-1 bunch

Black Bell Eggplant-1

Swiss Chard-1 bunch

Summer Squash-2

Lime Basil-1 bunch-small leaves with a distinctive lime flavor

…and fruit…


Macintosh Apples, Nectarines, Gala Apples, Bartlett Pears and Raspberries.

With a couple of days off from cooking, I was in the mood again tonight. I made roasted beets with two weeks worth of beets, roasted new potatoes with a few mini onions and rosemary, boiled beets with one week’s share of beets and a spicy sesame noodle salad with scallions from the share and a spicy fresh chili from last week or the week before. The noodle salad was very good and I’d definitely make it again, perhaps I’d even add more fresh chili. The fridge is full and I’m going to have to figure out what I can put in the fridge. I still haven’t done anything with the apples and peaches from last weekend, so it will be a busy Sunday cooking or freezing all of that. I will try to make myself tired thinking of that.