CSA Week 20

Sigh….Next week will be the last week for our CSA. I’ll miss the creative meal planning to use up the weekly share; I’ve enjoyed it. I’ll have to shift the way I shop in my grocery’s produce section to achieve a similar result. In past years, it has been too easy to slip into the purchase of the same fresh veggies week after week.

We managed to eat the entire week 19 share so I had both crispers clear for the week 20 produce. That has worked out well. The pac choi is huge! I traded the hot peppers for arugula (someone getting a full share had put it on the trade table) but otherwise cheered for the variety and quantity of peppers: green bell peppers, sweet pepper mix and colorful bell peppers. There were the slender Japanese eggplants in the mix; they are my favorite for stir fries.  I used one in the stir fry last night along with stems and leaves from one of the kohlrabi, some arugula, and some pac choi.  I am trying to decide if I want to use the broccoli in soup or salad!

I have a few things that will last for quite a while from the CSA: garlic, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash. I’ve added the sweet potatoes from the CSA to the ones I harvested from by deck garden. The pile is in the glass bird bath that I recently brought indoors for the season.

CSA Week 18

When the CSA shares first started back in June, I always tried to have both crispers pretty empty when I picked up the weekly share. It didn’t work this week because I was away for too much of the week. I had Romaine lettuce, green beans, hot peppers, and escarole left (having made kale chips to get the kale out of the refrigerator earlier in the day!). All that fresh produce filled almost an entire crisper.

Unfortunately - all the items for week 18 are in the refrigerator now along with what is left from week 17. The crispers are overflowing with the added:

• Red leafed lettuce (upper right)
• Red Russian kale (lower left)
• Rainbow chard (yellow and pink stems at the top)
• Broccoli (upper left)
• Arugula (lower right)
• Scallions (the green tips peeking out to the left of the broccoli)
• Eggplant (purple and white with an elfish looking cap)

I managed to eat the last of the green beans, a hot pepper, two chard leaves, and some arugula in a stir fry for dinner which helped the crowding a little. Then again - the crowding is really bounty worth celebrating...good eating in the days ahead.

CSA Week 16

I finished everything from the week 15 CSA share….and harvested my own sweet potato leaves for good measure. They make nice green bouquets in multiple vases of water in my kitchen.

Then the week 16 share included sweet potato leaves as well. I’ll eat them first because they are more wilted looking.  They are with a lot of other greens: chard, lettuce, Portuguese kale, and Pac Choi.

The peppers, 2 types of eggplant and the butternut squash are the non-greens for the week! Hurray for fresh veggies!

CSA Week 15

Week 15 of the Gorman Produce Farm CSA - it’s another week of great food!

There is a little bow wave of garlic, potatoes, and winter squash from previous weeks - but those foods keep for weeks and months. I did make a fabulous custard with leftover baked butternut squash this past week; mixed up in the smoothie maker with just a little honey, baked into a light consistency custard, and then drizzled with maple syrup just before being eaten. Yum! I’ve also enjoyed the small purple potatoes in stir fries (only 2 at a time to not get too overwhelmed with calories. We made a bit batch of spaghetti sauce to have made good use of some frozen tomato sauce I’d cooked when I was overwhelmed with tomatoes a few weeks ago.

The big surprise to me this week is that sweet potato leaves are edible!  Evidently they can be used raw or cooked.  I’ve going to try them both ways and, if I like them, go ahead and cut the leaves from the sweet potato on my deck to enjoy; supposedly it is a good thing to do a few weeks before the sweet potato harvest.

I traded the poblano pepper for an additional bundle of Dinosaur Kale since I enjoy kale chips so much.

Notice that I got all yellow tomatoes too!  They’ll look beautiful with the red leafed lettuce.

Note that I’m using my own bags rather than bringing any plastic produce bags into the house. It feels good to avoid items that will become trash (or recycle if they stay clean).

CSA Week 12

It’s hard for me to fathom that we managed to eat the entire week 11 share from the Gorman Produce Farm CSA except the potatoes and garlic - which will easily keep. I even cleaned out some things I had frozen from the weeks I was not in town earlier in the month: the squash, cucumbers, and fruit beety.  I was surprised at the amount of tomatoes we consumed. The large yellow ones looked beautiful and tasted excellent atop chili.

Now we have another week - another large crop of tomatoes (there were no yellow ones in the bin by time I got there….but the large red ones will be just as good). I traded the 2 poblano peppers for 2 banana peppers. I did get 2 jalapeno peppers and plan to make homemade salsa.

CSA Week 5

I had a few things left from the 4th week share from Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) when it came time to pick up week 5: a couple of carrots, one leek, an onion, a few cloves of garlic and 1/3 of the cabbage. All the more fragile veggies were consumed before they were spoiled. I have discovered that I can enjoy a whole cucumber in one sitting made into a smoothie with pineapple salsa and water on a hot afternoon. The vines on my deck have a lot of small cucumbers right now so the cucumber + salsa smoothie might become a summer afternoon tradition!

The share for week 5 includes:

• 1 bunch of carrots
• 1 bunch of leeks
• 1 head of magenta lettuce
• 2 onions
• 2 small heads of cabbage (from at 3 types!)
• 2 kohlrabi
• 1 pound squash (yellow and zucchini)
• 2 pounds of cucumbers
• 1 bunch of kale (my choice instead of chard or collards)

I already made most of the kale into chips! And we’ve made a start on the magenta lettuce and purple cabbage as part of last night’s salad.

I am most thrilled about the kohlrabi since I discovered how great it tastes in stir fries when it was part of the week 3 share. They are such an odd looking vegetable but have become my favorite new food so far this summer (although the beets in Fruit Beety are a very close second!).

CSA Week 4

I managed to have empty crispers by the time I picked up the 4th week share from the Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Drying most of the parsley (cutting it up coarsely with kitchen scissors and just leaving it out on a cookie sheet for a couple of days…now it is stored away for use in other cooking) and making collard green chips (same technique as kale chips) cleared the overflow condition within 24 hours of picking up the share!  Then I alternated between salads and stir fries and green smoothies to finish off everything except the beets - which I used for the special treat: Fruit Beety (see picture in yesterday’s post, recipe in CSA Week 3 post)

There is a shift in week 4 - it not as overwhelmingly leafy green! Can you find all the items on the list in the picture below?** (Hint: I chose the kale rather than chard or turnips). The cucumbers will make excellent smoothies with plain yogurt and pineapple salsa (and maybe I’ll use some leek too). The lettuce and cucumber are the only two items that are not candidates for stir fry. I’m trying to decide whether to use the kale for chips…or save some leaves for stir fry and salad - there’s really enough for all three!

** Starting at the upper left and moving clockwise: red leaf lettuce, cucumbers, onions, cabbage, kale (lower right), summer and zucchini squash, garlic, carrots, and leeks.

CSA Week 3

I did a reasonable job of using up the veggies from week 2 of the Gorman Farms CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) ….although not quite as good as the week 1 share. I ended week 2 with some broccoli and spinach left to eat….and some beet leaves in the freezer. I discovered that the dandelion greens were excellent in salads, kale chips are wonderful snacks, and beets are yummy in Fruit Beety. Here’s the recipe for Fruit Beety:

Combine in a food processor: 3 cooked beets, 3 oranges, 2 tablespoons coconut (unsweetened), 1 teaspoon honey, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 teaspoon grated lemon or orange peel, pinch salt, scant teaspoon of raspberry vinegar. Process for a minute or two. Mine was the consistency of a thick applesauce. Adjust honey or vinegar to taste. Chill to blend the flavors. This recipe results in 3 large snack servings (6 servings if with a meal). It is good by itself or with a dollop of plain yogurt!

Lessons learned from week 2: 1) have a salad or stir fry twice a day that uses a significant amount of produce, 2) make kale chips with the whole bunch right away next time they are included in the share (they keep well enough for a few days), and 3) remind my husband to eat at least one salad a day and sneak a leaf or two of something green into his strawberry smoothie.

Now for week 3:

I already have ideas for everything in this share….a lot of excellent meals ahead this next week!