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

It's getting hot and humid...

...but that didn't stop us from receiving:

- gigantic, beautiful blackberries

- cucumbers

- eggplant (which I gave away)

- several heirloom tomatoes

- a huge bunch of basil

- zucchini and yellow squash

- sweet peppers

- garlic

- a delicious sample of almond and blueberry granola

CSA Week 9

Somehow the wonderful peach pie I made a couple weeks ago has gone unmentioned. It caught my eye on Smitten Kitchen's blog because it includes creme fraiche, and I happened to have a crust in the freezer, so it seemed like an appropriate time to make my first peach pie. The local peaches had just the right amount of tartness to balance the sweet streusel and the richness from the creme fraiche. There are still a couple slices of the pie left in the fridge, only because there was no chocolate involved.

Otherwise, Week 9 wasn't too unusual. I mixed tuna salad with white beans and cucumber and tomato salad for lunch a few times. Davy and I had a few friends over and grilled our squash, zucchini, peppers, and onions along with sausage. The vegetables on the grill, tossed only with olive oil, salt, and pepper, never disappoint.

On Sunday we experimented with a recipe I found in March for breaded zucchini filled with mozzarella cheese. I knew that we'd appreciate it the most when zucchini was in season and we'd had it enough on the grill to almost tire of it. We ate it with homemade meat sauce that I refreshed with some ripe tomatoes, and it turned out beautifully: the mozzarella and breading browned on the top, and the zucchini was cooked but not soggy. There was also enough basil and garlic to make a double batch of pesto, and that played a role in our meal as well.

I marinated chicken breasts with olive oil, parsley, lemon juice, chilis, coriander seed, and cumin seed on Monday for dinner. The yellow and green beans, though almost a week old, were still crisp and fresh when we steamed them. Some potatoes held over from a previous share week were delicious roasted with olive oil and rosemary to complete the meal. Actually, the meal wasn't complete until I indulged in some peach pie.