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.