CSA Weeks 12 and 13

Two weeks ago when I picked up our share, including a basketball-sized watermelon, I had every intention of cutting it that night. Instead, my bachelorette party and a Michael Franti concert happened and I still hadn't touched it, and I didn't think that we would get more than a few days worth of the fruit. When I finally managed to chop it into bite-sized chunks, I filled a tall plastic container with only a third of the melon, and it lasted for a week's worth of mid-morning snacks.

The following week I tackled another large piece, and filled another tall container for the week. It's still crisp, pink, and fresh after several days on the counter and even more time in the fridge, and the best part is that it's saved me many trips to the grocery store. I'm not even sick of it's summery flavor.

The other produce has been just as useful and satisfying for the past couple weeks. We had some gorgeous bright red tomatoes that went into a Caprese salad on a night where there was an abundance of leftover grilled potatoes and sweet potatoes. More of the tomatoes were incorporated in a quick saute with zucchini and squash for the following dinner, which was then tossed with penne and mozzarella.

You may begin to see a theme developing: for dinner on the third day we ate chard sauteed with garlic and our first homegrown Italian pepper of the season. Davy chopped tomatoes and added Italian sausage to the pan, which was then eaten over pasta.

After another eventful weekend full of delicious meals, I revived the remaining pasta and sausage sauce by stirring in pesto, the rest of the mozzarella, and a mixture of sauteed zucchini, garlic, and grape tomatoes. All of it went into a casserole dish and I grated fresh parmesan cheese over the top before baking it for 20 minutes or so.

One of the best surprises from the share so far was the Roma beans, which I had never tried before. I found a recipe for roasting the beans with thyme, olive oil, and garlic. They were remarkably tasty for a vegetable, and I've been waiting for more of them to arrive in the share every since. If you get the chance to buy some, it's really worth roasting them this way and eating them like chips.

We got seven sweet peppers in our package, all of which were crunchy and tasted fresh even in their second and third weeks. I made turkey tacos in honor of Davy's birthday, and the chopped peppers were an added bonus. They were also good as an afternoon snack with hummus, and as a topping for Asian noodles with shrimp, edamame, and peanut sauce.

Even though I was able to spend more time in the kitchen during the past two weeks, I neglected to take pictures. I guess there's still watermelon to document...

Enough for 10 Caprese salads

Basil and tomatoes are in abundance right now at the markets, and our CSA share was no different. Yesterday I picked up:

- a huge bunch of basil

- sweet peppers

- a nice sized watermelon

- heirloom tomatoes

- grape tomatoes

- roma beans

- radishes

- chard

- zucchini

- summer squash

CSA Week 10

The title of this post isn't completely accurate, because we kept the full share for Week 10 and were out of town for Week 11. I managed to make a cucumber and tomato salad that lasted for a few days, and Davy and I showed off our stuffed, baked zucchini at a cookout.

A couple weeks ago I watched Rachael Ray make a Mexican lasagna with tomatillo sauce, and located the recipe for Thursday night's dinner. I lightened the components of the dish and changed the amounts to accommodate the number of tomatillos I had on hand (nine). Instead of ground pork and hominy, I used ground turkey and fresh corn. My version was about two-thirds or three quarters of the original recipe, and after three meals there was still plenty of lasagna to go in the freezer. The picture below doesn't quite do it justice, but it's enough to get an idea.



I have a few other food photos from past weeks to share: purple and yellow potatoes before going into the oven to roast, peppers and onions being sauteed, and some crisp green and yellow beans. Enjoy!

Tomatillos

I can't remember ever having cooked with tomatillos, but I'm looking forward to testing them out this week. We received:

- a pint of tomatillos

- a pint of onions

- potatoes

- a cucumber

- sweet peppers

- zucchini

- tomatoes

- basil

- green and yellow beans