The abundance of our CSA box made me so happy this week. We picked it up on Wednesday as usual but I haven’t been home during daylight hours for my little bi-weekly photo shoot.
It’s strange that the first week of September is giving us such “summery” foods. Everyone else is talking about fall, and I’m staring at a counter full of these:
But wait, there’s more…
Today’s lunch was a simple stir fry that used the green beans mixed with some cubed tofu, garlic, ginger, and miso.
I haven’t tried the melons yet, and these fancy eggplants intrigue me greatly.
The veggies have landed! After some confusion last week, we are back on track.
And so is summer! The coldest July in 75 years did not exactly do much for heat-loving summer crops, but we’re finally getting a few.
This week we also got micro basil and mini-white cucumbers, but I neglected to take a photo of them. You can see them from a previous week if you want.
A few recipes ideas for using up your CSA vegetables:
There’s a raw beet and carrot salad I’m thinking of making, we’re pickling some of the carrots for a special project, and I have some other ideas. I’m pretty excited about the fava beans and okra, but they might have to wait until my day off to devote some time and daylight to using them.
Two days of work down! Other than the fact that my entire body hurts, it’s going well. The first day we taped out the stage on the floor of the rehearsal rooms which pretty much entailed squatting for about 4 hours. These days were prep before the first rehearsal, so tomorrow is when all the real fun begins.
In the meantime my husband has been holding down the fort at home. Today he went and picked up the CSA share. I’m too tired to type it up tonight, but I made dinner with some of these ingredients tonight and took some quick photos that I am really excited to share with you — it’s one of our favorite summer dishes.
This was a race to beat the setting sun, but I managed some photos. Without further ado!
We got two green tomatoes and a handful of red ones, a slew of mixed peppers including banana and peppadew that I’m excited about, and more summer squash (I have an awesome breakfast recipe coming up with those). It’s been a while since we’ve had lettuce, so I’m actually looking forward to it, especially so I can pack a small salad with my lunches.
Ever since we moved to California everyone has assured us that the weather is not normal. The torrential rains we got this winter were unheard of, the late rains in spring were bizarre, a cool cloudy July was strange. We don’t have a basis of comparison there, but we’re told it’s not usual.
My only real problem with the weather is that we don’t have tomatoes yet. Until this week! The tomato plants were getting enough hours of sun, but not enough heat to ripen the fruit. Finally, they’re arrived!
…. and I’m in Minnesota. Mom and I hit the farmer’s market this morning for potatoes, and she picked up beets and summer squash on Sunday. Two posts are forthcoming from the trip already. However, my brave spouse is on CSA retrieval duty while I am gone and is not supplying us with photos. I’ll recycle the few repeats I’ve got!
This was a hard-won box of vegetables. We pick up at a nearby chiropractic office between 11am-2pm or 3pm-6pm. Today I decided to go before my husband’s work shift so he could have the car and I could stay home and get work done. Except the office was apparently closed this morning, so then I had to drive my husband to work (45 minutes round-trip), go back to the office to pick up the veggies (another 15-20 minutes depending on stoplights), and then have to go pick the hubby up again at 11:30pm. It’s a new pick up spot so there are some kinks to work out (and our CSA guy didn’t know they would be closed this morning), but I didn’t expect to spend quite so much time in the car today.
Good thing the share is full of tasty things. Luckily the sun came out long enough for me to have enough light for photos, too.
Lots of things this week are green. The pepper is called “Beaver Dam.”
Some are yellow. The cucumbers are technically white, but they have a creamy tinge.
Onion sprouts are white and green.
So are pea shoots which are great. Crunchy and tender at the same time.
Here is my little hill of beans. These aren’t shelling beans like last time, I think they’re more like the burgundy beans we got last fall. Except … not burgundy.
We also got a bag of spinach that was feeling shy, mostly because half of it (and some fennel) went into my lunch. Recipe coming soon!
A few basic prep ideas in lieu of recipes this week:
Pea shoots: heat neutral oil in a skillet, add minced garlic, stir 30 seconds, add pea shoots, stir until wilted, serve sprinkled with coarse salt
Celery and carrots: add leeks or onion for soup stocks (mirepoix!), or add diced/grated to potato or bean salads
Fennel and carrots (and summer squash?): (sweet potatoes and onions are good, too) toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast at 425F for 30-45 minutes, stirring a few times until caramelized
Chard: also good sauteed with garlic, but longer, the stir into mashed potatoes (amazing with kale)
I have to think on the rest. Also I have about 3 recipes to post so I need to edit photos for you guys. I’m a giver.
These are shelling beans! Tiger’s Eye beans, in fact. The yellow ones popped right out of a somewhat-dry pod, so I decided to prep the rest while I was at it.
Aren’t they pretty? I have a few ideas for what I might do with them.
This is more micro basil — I generally just toss it into salads for extra flavor or use it as garnish on pasta dishes.
I’m not linking recipes this week since I don’t think I have a ton of specific ones, though I am pretty sure that onions are an ingredient in the majority of savory dishes I cook. I’ll work on figuring some stuff out and getting it posted soon!
I’m pretty sure this is our last pint of strawberries, too. I know a ton of Midwestern CSA shares are just starting. What’s in your share this week?
One of the things I like best about having a CSA is that I barely have to grocery shop. Most of our starches and dairy I order monthly in bulk. The pantry items and vegetables I supplement with fruit and cheese from the natural food store and I’m pretty much good to go.
Lots of greens to start out, but it gets more colorful:
It looks like I haven’t posted a quick pasta dish that I make all the time with summer squash, so I’ll work on getting that on the site. Another recipe I make often but don’t have blog-ready is an easy sesame noodle dish that those cucumbers would suit quite nicely. Off to the kitchen!
After getting a healthy dose of vitamin D by taking a long walk with my husband at the Wild Animal Park this afternoon we picked up our latest share of CSA bounty on the way home.
Lots of good stuff. I tried a few onion sprouts on a veggie burger tonight for dinner and it was tasty.
My husband is actually working some earlier shifts this week and will be home for dinner multiple nights in a row! My hopes are high for using some of this produce in fun ways, much to his dismay. We shall see. If you guessed that two likely candidates are pizza and tacos, you are correct.
We now pick up on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays and five miles closer to where we live. Pretty exciting, huh?
Ok, not really. But what is exciting is the transition from winter to spring produce. Here’s what we got this week, in alphabetical order just for fun (yes, I think alphabetizing is fun, and yes, I know I’m weird):
Arugula, wild!
Broccoli, another 1.5 pounds! I blanched and froze about 2 pounds last week because we couldn’t eat it fast enough.
Micro basil. My cat will not eat this, just sprouts still in dirt. I tried. Weird cat.
Potatoes! This is a new item for the farm.
Squash.
Strawberries, three pints again. Yum.
The farm has another tour scheduled this weekend and I may take some friends to check it out. By which I mean pick my body weight in strawberries. Just saying. It’s a scientific endeavor to compare spring to winter in this new-to-me climate and report back to you, my faithful readers?
I’m moving a little slowly today. Last night my friend and I went to an hour-long Bollywood dance class not far from her house. In that hour we did about 10 minutes of warm up followed by 45 minutes or so learning a piece of Indian dance. Those 45 minutes got us about 30 seconds of the actual choreography at speed and a serious work out. It was really fun, but I was really sweaty. Today my back muscles are sore in a good way.
Still, I managed to heave our CSA share home. Wanna see?
First, the roots:
Radishes, carrots, and beets.
Then the greens (or reds?):
Red monarch kale, red romaine lettuce, and red chard.
An ample supply of peas…
An even more ample supply of broccoli (over 3 pounds!)…
Micro tatsoi and sprouted wheatberries
Three pints of delicious ripe strawberries — there are both Albion and Camarosa strawberries in each bin.
A patch of “winter-like” weather (cool and rainy) is approaching so I am thinking of soups and steaming bowls of stir-fry to ward off the damp chill, or maybe something with some spice to keep me warm. A front is moving in and our apartment just gets cold when it’s windy, so tonight is a good night for baking bread or making a big batch of tortillas.
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Midwestern girl, SoCal address. Tries to keep it healthy but delicious. 
