mi csa su csa: week 10

Tomatoes

Peppers

Potatoes

Beets

Zucchini

Melon

Lettuce

We got a ton of tomatoes again, and after not eating many of last week's tomatoes I needed something to use up a bunch. And even though it's as hot as it's been all summer I couldn't stop thinking about a tomato soup recipe I saw earlier in the week. So simple, and while it took a little longer to make than the recipe says, it was totally worth it.

With peppers leftover from the week before it was time for more stuffed peppers, this time with an italian twist. After the success of the tomato soup earlier in the week, I wanted to go in a similar direction. I cooked up some onions and tomatoes with some farm fresh ground beef (and some spices, egg and cheese) and stuffed it all into some pre-roasted peppers (the key to great stuffed peppers). The long, green and sweet green peppers (shaped like poblanos or anaheim peppers, but without the heat) were the best.

Tomato Soup

3 tablespoons butter
4 to 5 medium ripe tomatoes, halved
Flaky salt and freshly ground black pepper
⅓ cup cream
1 large sprig of rosemary or thyme, optional

Put the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. When it melts, add the tomatoes, cut side down, and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the tomatoes have released most their juices (but aren’t charred), 10 to 15 minutes. Turn the tomatoes over and cook until they begin to break down, 5 to 7 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat. After 30 seconds, add the cream and stir, scraping the bottom of the pot as you go. Use the spoon to break down the tomatoes to a chunky but spoonable consistency. Add the thyme or rosemary sprig, if desired. Taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve warm. 

Recipe from Slate.com

mi csa su csa: week 9

Lettuce

Carrots

Beets 

Melon

Peppers

Potatoes 

Tomatoes
Eggplant

The only thing we actually got to after eating out nearly every day this week were the beets, which we made into both chips and sauteed beet greens with garlic.

mi csa su csa: week 8

Carrots

Tomatoes

Cucumber

Zucchini

Beans

Garlic

Lettuce

Peppers

Eggplant

Onions

CSA share fail this week.

mi csa su csa: week 7

Rainbow Chard
Onion
Potatoes
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Peppers
Tomatoes
Lettuce

I wanted to get to the chard first, as it had the best chance to go bad before we got to it. It was beautiful - different colors, shapes and sizes. I found a creamed chard and noodles recipe that looked great, but I didn't have any noodles except for boxes of mac and cheese. I decided I could fake the creamed chard recipe, so I made the mac and cheese according to the recipe, chopped up the chard with 2 of the onions and pan fried them, seasoning with salt, pepper, Jamaican curry powder and ground ginger. Once everything was finished cooking I mixed it all together for a tasty twist on mac and cheese.

For an appetizer we chopped up a yellow and orange tomatoes to serve over a very fresh burrata with some cracked salt and pepper and a drizzle of balsamic.

Eggplant was next on the list - gorgeous dark purple, long, thin eggplants. We also got one more pepper this week so we decided to pick up some ground pork and make asian-style stuffed peppers. We made them similarly to our cabbage shumai, along with the dipping sauce, with the addition of the eggplant and onions to the stuffing. The key was roasting the oiled peppers a bit before stuffing them and then cooking them in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Served over some sushi rice, the flavors came together nicely.

We've had a beef roast from the other farm in the freezer for a couple of months and finally pulled it out to roast with some carrots and tiny potatoes from the farm, along with some parsnips and vidalia onions. The juices and scrapings from the pan made an excellent gravy.

Got through just about everything, just the lettuce and some of last week's zucchini. But we just got a spiral slicer and I can't wait to make some zucchini noodles with it.

mi csa su csa: week 6

Carrots
Onions
Potatoes
Green Pepper
Cucumber
Zucchini
Tomatoes
Garlic

With an abundance of zucchini and carrots we got to work making fritters. They were ok, but not the best version we've made. Other than that we didn't have a chance to get to much of the rest of it. But we did make up for it the next week.

mi csa su csa: week 5

From the farm share in week 5:

Dragon Tongue Beans
Carrots
Zucchini
Cucumber
Potatoes
Lettuce
Onion
Garlic
Mixed Tomatoes
Basil

We still had quite a few vegetables left over from the week before after not being home for most of the week, so when the new batch came in I roasted most of the vegetables from the week before, including carrots, turnips, lots of zucchini and onions from this week. The onions are so good they always go into meals quickly. I also peeled the rest of the previous few weeks' carrots just to have as a snack with some salad dressing. The only week 4 items I ended up starting week 5 with were the new potatoes, a ton of cucumbers and some beans.

By the end of week 5 I still had week 4's leftovers and nearly all of week 5's batch. Unfortunately the cucumbers and the beans didn't make it to the end of week 5 before going bad. I also only got through about half the basil before it turned, but I also grow my own, so it wasn't a huge loss.

The first day I made a salad of the lettuce, basil, tomatoes and some mozzarella with balsamic vinegar - good but maybe one too many items. I also used some of the tomatoes with my own basil, wrapped up in sliced Italian meat - a great little appetizer.

At the end of the week it was time to see if we could use up as much as we could before the next share comes in, and we made a perfect meal to do that. We started with a quick pickle to use up some cucumbers, though we found the previous week's batch had rotted already, but we still had plenty, and got to use the farm fresh garlic in it too. We refrigerated them until dinner and they turned out perfectly. We roasted both the new potatoes from last week and this week's red potatoes, which gave us the chance to really see the different flavor profiles of both. The new potatoes far outshined the red, though they are both very delicious. We also sliced up the rest of the tomatoes and salted them for a simple side dish. We rounded out all our great veggies with a perfectly cooked porterhouse from our meat farm share.

We got through just about everything this week, with just zucchini and carrots to go, and I should be able to find a good use for both at the beginning of next week.