Last week (and the beginning of this week) was very busy and I just wasn’t able to get the details of week 8 up. My apologies! Here’s CSA Week 8:

Summer Squash-2 pounds
Cucumbers-2
Lettuce-1 head
Mini Purplette Onions-1 bunch
Provider String Beans-1 pound
Red Ace Beets-1 bunch
Perpetual Spinach-1 bunch
Cilantro-1 bunch
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket
Black Bell Eggplant-1

What did we do with all that goodness? The eggplant went into a delicious pasta dish made with whole wheat rotelli, tomato sauce, diced eggplant , garlic scapes, and some zucchini from last week. The spinach and beet greens made for a delightful fritatta. We got a few salads out of the lettuce and the cukes topped sandwiches and made for good snacks. The pattypan squash was very good steamed in the microwave along with the mini onions.

My mom was visiting last week and we discovered that beets are delightful when cooked in the microwave. It couldn’t be any easier. All you need to do is:
wash the beets and trim the greens to about an inch above the top
put the beets in a microwaveable container and cover with a lid
microwave on high for 8 minutes
let the beets sit in the microwave for 5 minutes
if the beets are small, they might be done at this point. Take the beets out of the microwave and check them (poke with finger). If they’re not done, microwave for 3 minutes more and then let them sit in the microwave for 10 minutes.
Peel and eat or chill.

peaches
+nectarines
————-
super delicious

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.

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!

I had been craving chocolate chip zucchini bread for a few days. Partly out of my desire to use up some of the zucchini from last week’s share before we get more this week and partly … I don’t know. I just really wanted it. I didn’t want an entirely chocolate bread or cake, which most of the recipes I had in my cookbooks were, I just wanted some nice zucchini bread, not terribly sweet, with a few chocolate chips for good measure. Yesterday afternoon I found a recipe online for Chocolate Chip Orange Zucchini Bread and it looked pretty good, so I used it as a jumping off point and made my own modifications. It turned out wonderfully.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread – Sheri’s Modifications

INGREDIENTS
3 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups grated zucchini
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS
1. Sift or whisk together flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and spices.
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar, and continue beating until well blended. Stir in oil, vanilla, zucchini, nuts, and chocolate chips. Blend in sifted ingredients.
Turn batter into two greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans or 4 mini loaf pans or one big loaf pan and two mini …
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 50 minutes, or until bread tests done. Remove loaves from pans, and cool. Chill before slicing.

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.

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.