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.

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!

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.

Going away for the weekend means coming home to … a lot of zucchini. I made another batch of the chocolate chip zucchini bread. This time I substituted 1/2 C of applesauce for 1/2C of oil and because the applesauce I used was pretty sweet (I think I made it from macintosh apples and I know I didn’t add sugar to the sauce) I reduced the sugar by 1/4C. This version was every bit as good as the original and who doesn’t love things a little bit lighter? I’m going to try making the next batch with even less sugar. And there will be a next batch, because by the end of the evening I’ll have 20 zucchini in my fridge.

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!

Due to the July 4 holiday our CSA share was delivered on Thursday, not Wednesday. On one hand that was a good thing, as it gave us more time to eat the veggies from the previous week. On the other hand, we have one fewer day to get through this week’s veggies and as you’ll see, the squash isn’t letting up.

Buttercrunch Lettuce-1 head
Romaine Lettuce-1 head
Garden Cress-1 bunch-
Sugar Snow Peas-1 pint basket
Perpetual Spinach-1 bunch
Opal Basil-1 bunch
Summer Squash-12 [Zucchini, Zephyr (green with yellow), Sunburst (yellow pattypan)]
Garlic Scapes-4 each

I’m in a spot of trouble. I still have two zucchini left over from last week. For Friday night dinner I made a dish with whole wheat couscous, red onion, pesto, a Zephyr squash and one of the new zucchinis. For lunch today I had a steamed Zephyr squash. This still leaves me with 11 squash in the fridge. It’s far too hot to bake or cook anything right now but I need to get busy tonight. For dinner I’m planning on making a take off of this: Pasta Salad with Broccoli and Peanuts. Instead of the broccoli I’m going to put in some carrots, zucchini, the perpetual spinach, and the snow peas. I don’t have any peanuts so I’m going to use chunky peanut butter for the dressing, which would be more clever if I had creamy peanut butter as well as chunky, which I don’t. If it cools down enough to run the oven tonight, I’m going to make my Mom’s spinach vegetable kugel, with zucchini instead of spinach. I made that substitution last year and it was quite tasty. If I still have any squash left then I might make a zucchini bread/cake thing.

According to the latest email from the farmers, we’re getting 15 summer squash next week. Oh dear.

Week three of the CSA season and we find ourselves awash in zucchini. Good thing I absolutely love zucchini. We are also overcome by lettuce and while I still love salad, it’s hard to believe that in a couple of weeks there will be no more lettuce for quite awhile.

Boc Choi-1 bunch
Buttercrunch Lettuce-1 head
Red Sails Lettuce-1 head
Grand Rapids Lettuce-1 head
Garlic Scapes-6
Bright Lights Swiss Chard-1 bunch
Oregano-1 bunch
Summer Squash-7

There are two bunches of Boc Choi in this picture and no oregano because I made a trade with the swap box.

This year I planted arugula in my garden for the first time and I’m proud to say it’s doing wonderfully. I picked a big bunch last night to have with dinner and there’s still many more leaves to be harvested. We had the arugula in our tofu taco/burrito thingies. I cooked up the tofu with “taco seasoning” and the results were delicious.

This week’s booty, or bounty, or let’s just say greens with a couple of radishes for color:

Boc Choi-1 bunch
Chinese Cabbage-1 bunch
Buttercrunch Lettuce-1 head
Red Sails Lettuce-1 head
Mizuna-1 bunch
Arugula-1 bunch
Garlic Scapes-6
Radish-1 bunch
Summer Savory-1 bunch

Last night I made a very tasty salad with chopped chinese cabbage in a dressing made from peanut butter, soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, and garlic. I’ll try to make it again and pay attention to the amounts of each ingredient so that I can pass the recipe on to you nice people.