I’ve been traveling a lot lately. Three trips in the past four or five weeks and I’m going away again on Sunday. The weekend before last, I got almost caught up veg-wise. Last week I left for Michigan on Thursday, the day after picking up the share, and as a result the fridge is still pretty full of veggies and the fruit basket is overflowing with apples and pears. I’m thinking about making a pie or perhaps some pear jam but that requires me to actually be home and to feel good, which I don’t right now. I feel pretty darn crummy. I haven’t been sleeping very much, I have a terrible headache, and I just feel generally run down. I need to pull it all together before my next trip. Woof.

Here’s last week’s share:

Acorn Winter Squash-2
Butternut Winter Squash-1
Siberian Kale-1 bunch
Garlic-2 heads
Red Cabbage-1 head
Orange Carrots-2 pounds
Celariac-1 head
Sage-1 bunch
Broccoli-2 bunches

Bosc Pears, Golden Delicious Apples, Cortland Apples, Empire Apples

I’ve eaten some of the carrots, but that’s about all so far. I need to get back in the kitchen.

Delicata Winter Squash-2
Winterbor Kale-1 bunch
Black Radish-1 (sometimes called Spanish Radish)
Blue Potatoes-2 pounds
Red Ace Beets-1 bunch
Onions-4
Italian Flat Leaf Parsley-1 bunch
Broccoli-2

honey crisp, golden crisp, cortland and anjou pears

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.

This weekend we have our annual Farm Day visit to Stoneledge Farm, the source of all our fabulous, organic CSA veg. Part of Farm Day is a potluck lunch and I spent some time thinking about what I should bring. Hoping to avoid going to the store, I opted to try out a recipe for Pear Custard Tart that I’ve had my eye on, as I have plenty of all the ingredients, including pears. The recipe is a huge winner.

There’s more gone now. It was really good last night, warm from the oven. I put it in the refrigerator overnight and I sampled a bit of it this morning – it’s even better. The vanilla totally filled out.

The recipe is from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast.
Jeremie typed the recipe up last night, but I need to double check it before I post it, as we have a discrepancy in the amount of flour used.

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.

We had a very nice weekend in Minneapolis but we came home to some fruit that needed to be taken care of. Last night I made some baked pears and I have enough left still for another big batch or some pear cake. I wanted to make the pear cake last night since I already had the oven on, but it was after 10 by the time the plum cake was done, so that was a no go. The plums were a little past what I like for eating, which meant they were perfect for plum cake. I had some cake flour that I wanted to use up, so I used that instead of AP flour and the results were totally different. Instead of a dense cake with the plum halves glistening on top, the cake rose above the plum halves.

It’s pretty, but different. I’ll report back on how it tastes once I’ve tasted it.

Last night I made:

Everything, especially the gnocchi, was amazingly delicious. I should have taken a picture, but I didn’t. We had pasta alla Norma at Babbo the night before and my gnocchi dish was better.