CSA Bag Contents: peppers, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, basil, parsley, chard
See what we got in CSA 2008 Week 11
Archive for the 'CSA 2009' Category
One Local Summer – Week 10
Published August 9, 2009 CSA 2009 , In the Kitchen , One Local Summer 2009 4 Comments
One thing I forgot to mention in my post about eating through our CSA share was hash. It’s generally a dish I make in the cooler months with sausage but we’re swimming in potatoes so I thought I’d make a summer version. Since I didn’t use any sausage I started with the chopped potatoes in a little bit of oil until they were getting crispy. Then I added some chopped summer squash, corn cut off the cob, salt, pepper, and rosemary. About four months ago I tried a recipe for a different hash that encouraged the use of a poached egg on top. It was so good with the runny yolk sort of binding the hash together so it’s something we always add now. However, I stink at poaching eggs. So, instead I soft boil an egg and get almost the same result.
- rosemary (0 miles)
- potatoes, squash (30 miles)
- eggs (32 miles)
- corn (100 miles)
CSA Bag Contents: zucchini, okra, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, eggplant
See what we got in CSA 2008 Week 10.
One Local Summer – Week 9
Published August 2, 2009 Cooking , CSA 2009 , In the Kitchen , One Local Summer 2009 2 Comments
Our all-local meal this week was herbed lamb patties with veggie pizza on the side. The local ground lamb was combined with garlic and parsley from our CSA, and mint and rosemary from our garden and shaped into patties and then fried in a little non-local oil. The pizza dough was made with local spelt flour and topped with local ricotta, and a sauté of local summer squash, onions, and shitake mushrooms. After the pizza was cooked we added some basil and drizzled a totally non-local reduction of balsamic vinegar over the top. You can see Papa went a little overboard in his reduction artistry.
- basil, mint, rosemary (0 miles)
- lamb (17 miles)
- ricotta (19 miles)
- spelt flour (30 miles)
- garlic, parsley, squash (30 miles)
- shitake mushrooms (78 miles)
I think the most frequent question I get about our CSA share is if we use it all and how we use it all. I seem to be getting the question even more this year so I thought I’d try to share my answers with everyone. The first thing is that when you are in a CSA you start to learn what produce needs to be used quickly and what can languish in the fridge for a little while. For example, in what we got this week we’ll need to use the basil and chard especially quick, before the weekend really. On the other hand, the potatoes, garlic, and onion will be fine in the fridge for a few weeks. Things like the beets, eggplant, and squash fall somewhere in the middle. Knowing how quickly your veggies will be inedible helps you plan your meals accordingly.
When there is an abundance of some things I usually freeze some for use in the winter. We have a separate chest freezer that we use for additional cold storage. Like this week we got a whole bunch of okra. The only way we’ve found that we like okra is in gumbo. We’ve had gumbo every week for the last few weeks and we’ll have it again this week but we have enough okra that I’ll be making extra gumbo to store in the freezer for sometime when I can’t cook. When the tomatoes really start coming in I oven roast them and freeze them and some ingredients I just chop and freeze like fennel, celery, and herbs. My best advice is to freeze these types of ingredients in usable amounts — 1/4 cup for the veggies and a tablespoon or two for the herbs — that way you don’t have to defrost 2 cups of chopped chives to get the little bit you need to garnish your soup.
A lot of recipes, especially older recipes, call for ingredients that are in season at the same time. We’ll be having ratatouille this week because it’s a meal made with eggplant, peppers, onions, squash, garlic, and tomatoes. In fact when I picked up our share this week it just about shouted ratatouille to me. Finding dishes that use a whole bunch of ingredients from a CSA share is actually easier than you might think.
Another quick way to use up some veggies is to sauté up whatever you’re trying to use in some olive oil with onions or shallots if you have them and use it to top pasta, rice, or pizza. We love halved cherry tomatoes with corn, summer squash with red onions, green beans with garlic. This is a great way to use up the odds and ends the day before your next CSA share arrives.
Probably our last resort is to give food away or compost it. I have a neighbor who loves beets. We have yet to prepare them in a way that is palatable to anyone in the house — though we did like them at the solstice dinner — so this weeks beets will probably be a gift to her. She’ll love them and I’ll be happy they don’t go to waste. Sometimes our chard ends up in the compost bin. I really try to avoid this but we just don’t like chard that much. If I’m thinking ahead I chop it, blanch it, and freeze it for use in a lasagna later but often it’s too far gone before I’m ready to deal with it.
So there you go, that’s how we eat through our CSA share each week. Believe it or not we head to the farmer’s market every Saturday morning too. Admittedly, we buy mostly fruit, cheese, and meat on Saturdays but we do get more veggies too. Each week our share is a bit like a puzzle and we just have to figure out which pieces to put together for the best meals all week.
CSA Bag Contents: chard, basil, beets, onions, garlic, plum tomatoes, okra, eggplant, squash, peppers, potatoes, flowers
See what we got in CSA 2008 Week 9.
One Local Summer – Week 8
Published July 26, 2009 Cooking , CSA 2009 , In the Kitchen , One Local Summer 2009 1 Comment
I thought we’d switch-up our local meal and make a brunch this week. A successful brunch for me needs to have something sweet and something savory. For sweet we had plum kuchen made with local plums, eggs, butter, and flour — no local baking powder, sugar, or cinnamon. I also made a crustless quiche — I hate rolling out pie crusts — with local eggs, bacon, chives, milk, and cheese. Both were made last night so after church today I just heated the eggs and then we dug in. Yum.
- cheese (17 miles)
- butter (19 miles)
- spelt flour (30 miles)
- chives (30 miles)
- eggs (32 miles)
- plums (69 miles)
- bacon (88 miles)
We’re old-timers at our CSA and what I mean is that we’ve been members of the CSA for a bunch of years, six actually. I think each CSA has a different system for pick up and this year our farm changed their system. In previous years they labeled wooden crates with each family name. This year they simplified and just fill all the crates and let you take whatever one you want (they all have the same amount of veggies). There are a couple of families — we are one — that get robust shares which means we get more veggies each week. They tie ribbons on the robust crates but someone accidentally took ours this week and we were left with a regular share. So, we were told to pick an additional $10 of produce from the farm stand and that is how we got those delicious orange tomatoes and all that okra. We’ll be having gumbo again soon.
CSA Bag Contents: sweet onions, new potatoes, basil, parsley, beets, eggplant, squash, okra, flowers
See what we got in CSA 2008 Week 8.
One Local Summer – Week 7
Published July 19, 2009 Cooking , CSA 2009 , In the Kitchen , One Local Summer 2009 2 CommentsThis weeks meal was made in an effort to use up some of what we had in the fridge that was nearing the end of it’s usable life. The roasted chicken was leftover from another meal, and the summer squash was a week old. The fresh pasta is made somewhat locally and our CSA farm sells it at their roadside stand. I combined the chopped squash with minced shallots and diced tomatoes from our garden. In the meantime I made a roux — with local flour — and added chicken stock and local cream to make a sauce. I added a splash of wine and about 10 oz of shredded local gouda cheese to the sauce and stirrred it until smooth. The only thing left was to combine the pasta, vegetables, and cheese sauce and top with some basil from the garden. Yum.
CSA Bag Contents: sweet onions, fresh garlic, thai basil, asian eggplant, shallots, swiss chard, chocolate mint, squash, okra, blueberries, flowers
See what we got in CSA 2008 Week 7.
