So I haven't been posting as frequently, but I attribute that to not having been cooking as frequently. I've been hit with a bout of culinary laziness lately, and have often turned to takeout Chinese and pizza for dinner. With the days getting darker earlier and my CSA shares getting a bit smaller, I'm not as motivated to jump into the kitchen every night after getting home. With that said, I think I can concisely combine what I've concocted over the past three weeks.
Week 13's share included:
3 ears of corn, lettuce, carrots, mixed greens, okra, tomatoes, bell peppers, potatoes and Asian pears.
To start off, using the lettuce, and some of the carrots, I made a large salad with edamame, radishes, tofu and kimchi with a soy sauce vinaigrette.
The okra inspired me to try and make a vegan gumbo. I've always wanted to try authentic Louisiana gumbo and I realize that the real thing is far from vegan. I figure I'll wait to try the legitimate version from a real Cajun cook, meanwhile I'll dabble with my own meatless variation.
More of the carrots, some tomatoes, okra and the rest of the peppers went into the gumbo with kidney beans and rice. I found the recipe from Whole Foods, and used Trader Joe's soy chorizo. While the gumbo turned out alright, the soy chorizo was terrible. Rather than being solid, like a real sausage, when removed from its plastic casing, it disintegrated into neon-red mush and didn't add anything to the dish.
Next, to celebrate National Peanut Day came some bun, which I've posted about before. The last of the carrots and a few greens went on top of vermicelli with radishes, cucumbers, herbs, shrimp and peanuts with a soy and rice vinegar sauce. Fresh, filling, a great goodbye to summer.
The potatoes, mixed greens and more tomatoes were sauteed with garlic, onions and Indian spices per this recipe, and served on top of garlic naan with yogurt.
Then came the first of two National Guacamole Days on September 16. Let me tell you, guacamole is a big deal in my house. GP just about faints every time I buy an avocado, he loves our 7-ingredient guacamole so much. So for dinner, we basically ate 1.5 bowls of guac apiece, with tortilla chips and broiled fish for garnish. We each had a bowl of our homemade guac with chips, and then made an entree of fish fillets seasoned with cayenne pepper and cumin, and topped with a seasoned salsa of chopped avocado, corn, green tomatoes, onions and garlic. We reeked of garlic for days, but it was worth it. :)
Lastly, this dish didn't use any of my CSA food from this week, but I finally put my long-frozen blueberries from several weeks ago to use. For breakfast on the weekend, I made a nice batch of Smitten Kitchen's blueberry yogurt multigrain pancakes.
Moving on to week 14:
To be completely honest, I was pretty disappointed with this week's share. It was a bit small, with the bulk of it being hand fruit: apples, Asian pears, and bosc pears, but part of owning a CSA share is accepting the chance that yields for some weeks won't be as bountiful as others. My disappointment stemmed mostly from the quality of the food. Half of the apples seemed to have been burrowed into by insects and were rotting from the inside out, the kale was chock full of so many aphids, it practically crawled of my counter, and it was also inhabited by a big caterpillar who showed himself just seconds before I would have chopped him in half. Lastly, I was given a jar of the farm's own orange marmalade, but it must not have been sterilized or sealed properly, because opening it for the first time, I found a layer of green mold on the top.
So I ended up tossing about 1/3 of what I was given, but I did manage the make some delicious dishes with what remained. In addition to the foods already listed, I also received: 2 ears of corn, lettuce, potatoes and tomatoes.
Firstly, to use up the last of the mixed greens, okra and corn from the previous week, I made The Bitten Word's pan-roasted corn and okra, throwing in the greens to wilt. Alongside, I followed Silverbrook's recipe for pears topped with goat cheese and honey. The vegetables were crunchy, salty and smoky, and the pears - fuggehdaboudit. My mind was blown by the combo of goat cheese and honey. I have fallen so in love with goat cheese that I'm thinking of making a concession to my dairy-free ways. (Though, let's be honest, if you've been reading this blog, you'll see that I've dropped the no-dairy restriction while cooking through my CSA shares. I've started using cheese, yogurt and sour cream now and then, as you'll see this week).
I had some leftover vermicelli from the bun last week, so I put it to good use with this great Indian recipe for semiya biryani. It's pan-cooked chopped vermicelli with Indian spices and any vegetables you have on hand. I used corn, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and peppers, then topped the dish with mint, basil and cucumber raita (cool yogurt with chopped cucumber, lemon juice, salt, pepper and mint).
The lettuce, more tomatoes and boiled potatoes went into a household favorite: Nicoise salad, with green beans, cucumber, shallots, olives, tuna and hard boiled eggs.
More corn and the remaining tomatoes went into Martha Stewart's summer succotash which was incredibly tasty. It's a bright mix of blanched wax and green beans, corn, tomatoes, avocado, and borlotti beans in a light vinaigrette - it's absolutely made for the late summer farmer's market offerings. With this, I also made a vegan, Greek potato gratin with herbs and mushrooms which was so flavorful, filling and easy that it earned a permanent home in my recipe box.
Lastly, I invented a recipe for other random veg that I picked up at the farmer's market. I would make a pizza with butternut squash puree instead of tomato sauce, and top it with Brazilian eggplants, garlicky kale and goat cheese. As previously mentioned, the kale fell through, so I replaced it with basil, and it turned out quite well. I'm getting more creative with trying recipes of my own creation.
Week 15 offered:
Romaine lettuce, 3 ears of corn, pea tendrils, mixed bok choy and kale, buttercup squash, apples, potatoes and concord grapes. I also bought ground cherries out of curiosity (Silverbrook calls it 'farm crack'), and tiny pumpkins for decoration.
I only took two pictures of things I made this week, because they were all pretty simple. The first was on National Corned Beef Hash Day. I'm breaking the ovo-pesco-vegan diet again for this one, because I grew upon corned beef hash and I looooove it. GP and I fried up a can of it, with toast, eggs, sauteed bok choy and kale chips.
I turned the buttercup squash into southwestern squash soup with ancho chile cream and spicy toasted pepitas. This was a recipe I learned in a cooking class I'm currently taking at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts (more on that later). It was made by others in my class on the day we learned soup recipes, and I loved it so much that I recreated it at home. I admit that it wasn't as good as my classmates, but I was proud of my presentation and it was a perfect soup to start off autumn.
As for the rest of the vegetables: I made caesar salad with the Romaine and paired it with broiled bluefish; the pea tendrils I sauteed with beans and served on naan bread; the corn went into another batch of pueblo corn pie; and I ate the apples and grapes as snacks. The concord grapes are amazing by the way. They are the 'grapiest' grapes I've ever had - they taste purple.
So there's my long-winded three-week recap. I'll post week 16 soon, and then there are only three weeks left of my Silverbrook CSA. Sad day.
Until next time!
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