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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!