The Great CSA Experiment: Weeks 7-9

Week 7

• 3 zucchini: shredded for pancakes as last week with the yellow squash
• a pint of cherry tomatoes and a bag of (green) romano beans made a delicious variant on a french bean salad recipe from a British cookbook. The tomatoes were halved, sprinkled with sugar, salt and pepper, and roasted for 10 minutes. After cooling, they were tossed with the cooked beans and some cubed feta cheese with a garlic and dijon vinaigrette.
• one head of brocolli was simply steamed with butter and garlic salt as a side dish
• one HUGE head of cabbage: shredded some and tossed with a store-bought poppyseed dressing for the world's fastest coleslaw, but the cabbage weighed over 2 pounds and we still have some left
• one head of red leaf lettuce was used for salads and sandwiches over the course of a couple weeks
• one bunch of beets (we both dislike them; I have an aversion to them after making a particularly muddy tasting borscht a couple of years ago during Lent) was swapped for tatsoi, to wilt down as in previous weeks

Week 8

• one pint of yellow cherry tomatoes and a bunch of purple carrots: eaten raw for lunches
• one bag of mixed (burgundy, green and yellow wax) and a second bag of yellow wax (swapped for beets): steamed with butter and garlic for a simple side
• one bunch of yellow onions: used in fried rice and zucchini pancakes
• 4 zucchini: still more pancakes. This week I learned that zucchini can be shredded, measured and frozen in individual portions, so we can have pancakes well after the growing season is over!
• one bag of sugar snap peas: stir-fried with garlic and soy sauce (so far, so good)
• one bunch of red kale: another batch of sausage and kale soup for the freezer

Week 9 isn't over yet, but I've already used most of the produce thanks to a visit from my parents!

• 6 ears of bicolor sweet corn were eaten within two days of receipt!
• a small head of cabbage is still untouched but slated to become Indian-style cabbage with mustard and coconut along with some take-out tandoori later this week
• a bunch of orange carrots and a very small head of broccoli (swapped for still more beets) were eaten raw with lunches
• a bunch of kale hearts were (gasp!) eaten raw in a Mexican-style salad with pumpkin seeds, avocado, and a honey-lime vinaigrette. I was at the wrong store to buy cojita cheese, so I used up some feta instead. Both non-kale enthusiasts in this house pronounced the salad "not bad," though I don't think it would be as good with larger kale leaves
• a bag of red potatoes is still entirely untouched. I will probably make a corn, crab, and red potato chowder for the freezer
• 3 more zucchini have been shredded and frozen for later
• 2 cucumbers--another vegetable we're not fond of raw--will be sliced and made into freezer pickles this weekend

The Great CSA Experiment: Playing Catch-up

I'm just a little behind--all this cooking has left me with less time to blog about it. Anyway, here's the quick summary:

Week 4

• one head of butter lettuce--salads
• snow peas--stir-fried with ginger and soy (or, in our case, coconut aminos); some kept for later next week in a vegetable curry
• mustard greens and collards--cooked Greek-style with rice, lemon and cilantro (swapped for dill)
• spring onions and kohlrabi and red potatoes--baked into scalloped potatoes and kohlrabi with ham as soon as the oven gets fixed
• garlic scapes--went into the casserole with the potatoes and kohlrabi
• 1 head of broccoli--steamed and served with a fennel and lemon dressing with spaghetti

Week 5

• a bag of English peas and a bunch of mini red onions--braised with marjoram as a side dish
• half a head of cauliflower, half of a quart of red potatoes and the remainder of the previous week's snow peas made a nice curry side dish to accompany tandoori chicken
• the rest of the cauliflower went into a Thai curry with turmeric
• one head of broccoli was steamed as last week
• a second head of broccoli (this must have been cruciferous vegetable week) was cooked with an entire bunch of garlic scapes and made into soup for the freezer

Week 6

• one head of red leaf lettuce--salads
• one bunch of garlic scapes (again???) and a head of broccoli--more soup for the freezer
• 3 yellow squash--made into pancakes with eggs and cheese, which Johanna just gobbled up. Winner!
• 2 bunches tatsoi (one in the box, one taken from the swap box in exchange for a bunch of beets)--wilted with a Japanese-style onion, sesame, and tamari dressing to accompany Thai-style fried rice with shrimp. Yep, folks, I'm trying to reintroduce soy this week. Fingers crossed!
• 3 sweet onions--went into the salads and soup
• one bunch of carrots--eaten raw

At the end of this stretch, I still have some red potatoes left, but that's it. The only item tossed out so far has been the frisee. Week 7 is almost over, but I'll save that for next time.