CSA Week 12

Week 12 arrives. The squashes and apples are coming out at the farmer's markets, the air's getting a little cooler, and I'm already thinking ahead to Halloween candy and waaay ahead to Christmas shopping. It's now after Labor Day, so it's unofficially the end of summer, even though fall doesn't 'officially' begin until September 22. Fall is my favorite season by far - the gorgeous leaf colors, bundling against the chill with scarves and boots, pumpkin and apple everything, cider, Halloween, Thanksgiving, it's when you start stockpiling coziness to ward off winter's chill later.

With that said, the arrival of fall also reminds me that my CSA with Silverbrook Farm will be ending soon. But not to worry! I've purchased a bi-weekly winter CSA share from The Kitchen Garden Farm in Sunderland, Massachusetts. Every other week from November through May I'll pick up, in the words of the farm, "tons of fresh greens like spinach, kale, lettuce, salad mix, herbs and bunched roots - all from our greenhouses - as well as stored garlic, onions, potatoes, carrots, beets and other roots, plus occasional treats from neighboring farms such as apples, pears, cider, yogurt, flour, cheese, jam, etc." So I'm definitely looking forward to that!

This week saw:

Mixed greens, a head of lettuce, 3 ears of corn, apples, pears, a green pepper, tomatoes, potatoes and an onion.

I started the week out pretty lazily, and slapped together some corn, tomatoes, onions, lettuce and beans with avocado and cheese in a tortilla. Gotta love quick, dirty Mexican-esque food!

(The pic uploader sometimes rotates my pictures and I can't correct them, blargh, sorry!)

I put more of the tomatoes into this recipe for spicy kale lasagna. I also replaced the ricotta cheese with a vegan tofu version, which I found here. While not spicy in my opinion, it had all the warm appeal of classic lasagna.

Next, the lettuce and potatoes went into a quick salad topped with salmon, inspired this Martha Stewart recipe.

To celebrate Acorn Squash Day on the 7th, I made this amazing recipe for Acorn Squash and Roasted Garlic Strudel from The Kitchn. I've never eaten or made strudel before, and was surprised how relatively easy it was to make something so fancy looking (admittedly, mine was a bit rougher than the website pictures). The one thing I will say, however, is that I hate working with phyllo dough. It was the first, and if I have anything to do with it, the last time I worked with the stuff and it was a nightmare. Beyond paper-thin sheets of soft dough that tear and disintegrate when your're just trying to separate them, much less use them in your recipe. I pulled it off - barely, but I plan on finding a way to substitute puffed pastry for phyllo whenever I can from now on. Anyway, the strudel was fabulous, and I served it with the mixed greens and fresh cranberry beans, braised in garlic oil.

 And lastly, the inevitable question: what do I do with all this corn?! I had been toying with the idea of 'corn pie', but how to execute it? Filling a double pie crust with corn seemed too heavy, but I eventually found what I was looking for in this recipe for Pueblo corn pie. Once I had constructed it, I felt a more fitting title would be 'Mexican shepherd's pie'. It's a warm, gooey mixture of corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, onions and pinto beans baked between sheets of creamy cornmeal. This was delicious, and I'm kind of desperate to make it again.

Next week - I may finally be conquered by corn!

CSA Week 11

This week's haul included:

Pears, lettuce, mint, 4 ears of corn, green beans, peaches, onions, green peppers and tomatoes.

First up, the lettuce, peppers, some onions and some tomatoes went into a big green salad with cannelini beans.

For dessert, I followed the recipe provided by Silverbrook for individual peach 'cobblers'. I made a bed of homemade granola with dried cranberries following this recipe, then warmed the peaches in a mixture of butter, brown sugar and lemon juice. Topped with mint, it was crunchy, sweet and yummy! 

 In a desperate attempt to keep using up all the corn I receive, I started stuffing random vegetables with it. There were a few large green pattypan squashes at the farmer's market, and they were too cute to pass up. I made a seasoned mixture of corn, tomatoes and onions, stuffed it into the squash and baked everything, then garnished with parsley. Veggies galore!

Next came a big messy amateur homage to chiles rellenos - or stuffed chili peppers. I also saw some gorgeous mole and poblano peppers at the market and snatched them up. I made another mix of corn, tomatoes, onions and black beans and seasoned it with taco seasoning and lime juice. Then I sliced open the peppers, stuffed them with the corn mixture and baked them. Everything went on a brown rice tortilla with guacamole and cashew lime cream (a nice vegan substitute for sour cream, just blend cashews with lime juice). These were awesome, messy and filling and totally vegan.

 Lastly, the green beans and remaining tomatoes topped a dinner of penne, with parmesan cheese and pine nuts based on this recipe. I'm starting to develop a taste for pine nuts, which I never really liked before. 

That's all for now, more next week!

CSA Week 10

Week 10 brought:

A head of lettuce, corn, basil, a mixed bunch of braising greens - kale, rainbow chard, bok choy, baby carrots, shallots, okra, tomatoes and peaches.

To start off, I've decided to start celebrating food holidays! Have you ever heard someone say "Hey, it's national s'mores day", or "Happy national doughnut day!" and wonder where the list of these days is kept? Well, thanks to The Kitchn, I found this website, which lists the food and drink you can celebrate on just about every day of the year. How 'official' it is, who knows? But I've taken note of the days I'd like to celebrate as a means of fun menu inspiration.

First up, last Sunday was both National Potato Day, and International Hot and Spicy Food Day. To celebrate, I found this mouth-watering recipe for spicy potato, bok choy and shallot hash at Serious Eats.

Heat the main ingredients in a skillet, and top with a fried egg and plenty of sriracha and gochujang (Korean red pepper paste), it's a hot, fiery, homey hash. These two sauces will burn the fear out of you.

 Next, I used the lettuce and carrots to make a milder meal - a large salad that included fennel, borlotti beans and tofu with a mustard vinaigrette and a side of local fresh bread.

 I'm running out of ideas for using up corn! I decided to try vegan corn chowder, which turned out sweet and delicious, with homemade croutons and I paired it with the braised greens and more local bread. 

 Lastly, the tomatoes and basil went into a tofu and eggplant curry, and I stewed the okra in a tamarind sauce, both recipes from The Complete Curry Cookbook.

Looking forward to Week 11!

CSA Week 9

Week 9 has come! The time seems to be flying by. What am I going to do after October when my CSA ends?! This week brought:

Peaches, tomatoes, a bunch of basil, corn, a head of lettuce, eggplant, onions and green peppers.

I've also made a habit of picking up fruit every week from the Noquochoke Orchards stand at the farmer's market, and this week they had monster-sized Granny Smiths. This green giant weighed 3/4 of a pound!

A quick trip to the store for some pantry staples, and the first dish I made was a simple pasta with tomato sauce. But most importantly, it was fresh tomato sauce based off of a recipe from Silverbrook. Tomatoes, basil, olive oil, garlic, balsamic vinegar and a touch of crushed red pepper. Combine and let sit. The taste of summer.

Next I got a bit more complicated with coconut-crusted tofu with peach lemongrass salsa (via Eating Well), and an accompanying salad of lettuce, cucumber, edamame and mushrooms in a soy ginger dressing. Both dishes were delicious and I'd love to make the tofu and salsa again.

Another two dish dinner was next, with ginger-miso glazed eggplant (via Bon Appetit) paired with chilled crab and corn salad (via Martha Stewart). The eggplant was rich and savory, and went well with the cold crunch of the corn salad, which included onions and extra basil.

Last but not least, I made black rice salad with mango and peanuts, which I had been drooling over after seeing it in a recent issue of Bon Appetit.

Needing to use my green peppers, I stuffed them with the salad, which ended up working very well. I'd never had black (or forbidden) rice before, but it is very sweet, chewy and nutty, almost to the point where, if eaten alone, it is too rich to eat very much. But combining the salad with the fresh, crunchy peppers helped balance the taste.

To close, I wanted to share this hilarious clip from a recent Simpsons episode which featured a song about food blogging. (The episode also included a cameo by Anthony Bourdain. What's not to love?)

Until next time.

CSA Week 8

Week 8 brought:

More purple basil, leeks, a head of lettuce, 3 ears of corn, 2 green peppers, 2 tomatoes, 1 zucchini, and 4 peaches. I also bought a bunch of golden beets, a beautiful array of hot peppers, apples, plums and 2 lemon cukes.

What is a lemon cuke? I was wondering that myself, so I bought two. They are plain old cucumbers on the inside, but they are round and yellow like lemons. A great farmer's market find.

The cukes and lettuce went into bowls of bun, a cold Vietnamese noodle dish that's one of our favorites (see recipe in sidebar).

 Next, I made sure to use the purple basil as soon as possible. I made pesto for the first time, using this great recipe for a vegan version. It didn't come out black as I had thought, which was a plus.

The pesto went into a delectable batch of pesto risotto with roasted zucchini from the great vegan recipe site Post Punk Kitchen.

Next came a failed attempt at beet salad. I cleaned the beets and wrapped them in foil, then baked them for an hour at 425 degrees, as instructed in various beet recipes, only to find out when the hour was up, that my toaster oven hadn't maintained the heat for the full amount of time. The beets were still hard as rocks and there was no way I was cooking them for another hour. Discouraged, I tossed the beets and made a wacky whatever-I-can-find salad out of lettuce, garlic sauteed beet greens and Trader Joe's vegetable pakoras (Indian vegetable fritter balls) to replace the beets. With a mustard vinaigrette and almonds, it was...unique. I served it with salmon in an onion-parsley butter sauce. Not the best meal we've had.

Last but not least, the green and hot peppers went into curried shrimp with coconut milk. Much to my surprise, one of the green peppers had a little spider living inside - that's how you know it's farm fresh! I also used a chayote for the first time, an awesome squash that looks like this. I also had thought up until this point that the leeks I had recieved in my share were scallions. (It's kind of hard to distinguish between a skinny leek and a scallion without cutting them.) When I began cleaning and chopping them for a garnish, I thought something was differnt, and it took GP and I awhile to agree that they were leeks. This led to the term 'sneaky leeks'. (A food industry version of WikiLeaks?) In the end, the shrimp were great.

We gifted the corn and remaining leeks to GP's parents, and I snacked on the fruit and tomatoes.

Week 9, here I come!

CSA Week 7

Week 7, and we have:

Onions, 3 ears of corn, a head of lettuce, a bunch of purple basil (!), kale, 2 peppers, 1 cucumber, and baby  pattypan squash. The treat of the week was blueberries, but I already have over a pint frozen from last week, so I gave them to my office as a communal treat. 

First of all, purple basil! I didn't even know basil had a purple variety! The bad part: like last week's lettuce, it went bad before I got around to using it. I was going to make a pesto with it (though in retrospect, the pesto would have been black, maybe a blessing in disguise), but I've now learned my lesson - that a bunch of cut basil needs to be eaten pretty much immediately.

I started out making a massive taco salad using the lettuce, onions, corn and peppers, and adding tomatoes, pinto beans, jalapenos, cheese and tortilla chips. This fed us throughout the week and was incredibly tasty.

 More salad! I also picked up green beans and scallions at the farmer's market to make smitten kitchen's pesto potato salad with green beans. As previously mentioned, my pesto plans for the purple basil didn't pan out, so I dressed the potatoes and beans with scallions, herbs, vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic oil, almonds and parmesan cheese. The result was still yummy, even without the pesto! 

 After the salads, I got into a 'snacky' mood, and made kale chips and took my first stab a quick-pickling cucumbers, following this Japanese-style recipe from The Kitchn.

 Also in my snack mood, I made thumbprint jam cookies. Admittedly, I didn't use anything from my CSA this week, but the jam is from the farm that I received in past weeks.

Lastly, I used the squash in a delicious recipe I found for shrimp with squash in a butter parsley sauce.

On to week 8!

CSA Week 6

Week 6. What's in store?

1 cucumber, 1 yellow squash, a bunch of basil, a head of lettuce, a bunch of kale, 4 ears of corn, onions, 2 purple peppers and the treat of the week: blueberries. I also bought a fennel bulb, cherry tomatoes and a bunch of cranberry beans separately.

It turned out to be a very 'beany' week. I started out making two veggie dishes: potatoes, green beans and corn in lemon brown butter sauce (courtesy of TheKitchn), and roasted squash and fennel with sage (courtesy of Eating Well - I swapped sage for the thyme). Both were sweet and earthy and complemented each other well.

Next, I went nuts with the cranberry beans, also called Borlotti beans. The beautiful pink and purple-speckled white pods contain even more beautiful pink and white beans. 

I first made a breakfast out of half the beans, following this recipe for warmed beans with onions, tomatoes and an egg. I garnished it with chopped basil and served it on a bed of brown rice. Definitely going to make this again!

The remainder of the beans went into a quick bean salad with corn, basil and a vinaigrette dressing.

The peppers, onions, remaining tomatoes, basil and kale went into one of my favorite one-pot vegan meals: Protein Power Goddess Bowls from the vegan blog Oh She Glows. You can eat this filling combo of grains and veggies hot or cold, and it's consistently flavorful and creamy thanks to a tahini-lemon dressing. 

As for the remainders: the cucumber went into a batch of our favorite cold soba noodles with wilted bok choy (see sidebar), the blueberries were frozen for as yet undetermined future use, and the lettuce unfortunately went bad before I could figure out what to do with it. Alas, the first casualty of my CSA! But what can you really do with lettuce besides salads or lettuce wraps?

I'll post next week's meals soon. I got another head of lettuce and put it to good use!