Category Archives: Food

Finally, up to date on CSA posts! pickup was tuesday the 10th – so I’m only 2 days behind. not too bad.

spinach, onions, 1 head lettuce, english peas, white turnips/radish, cilantro, broccoli.

now, I have to admit – when I started putting this stuff away I was in the depths of despair. HOW could I be SO FAR BEHIND when I was only on week 4? and then today when I looked through the photos I realized that I am on week 5! which makes more sense!

I sorted out all the old lettuce – I had heads in there from wks 2 and 3. THREE HEADS. so I washed and ate 2 1/2 heads of lettuce with trader joes green curry tuna on top. kind of a wilted lettuce salad. I had to toss the mizuna from wk 3. such an early failure! sigh. Today I ate the last of the blueberries – I gave away 4 pints but ate the other 8 pints myself (SO GOOD).

so this leaves me with:

wk 1 oregano (keeping pretty well in the fridge in a glass of water with it’s parsley and cilantro friends)

wk 2  white radishes, parsley, frisee (you can only eat so much of this at a time… I’m working my way through it!)

wk 3 white radish or turnip, broccoli,

wk 4 kohlrabi, cilantro, 2 heads of garlic, sugar snap peas, white turnips

I plan to cook the broccoli and kohlrabi tonight. I need to figure out what to do with those turnips/radishes/whatever. I think they’re meant for eating raw, because they’re SALAD turnips. maybe if I grate them and mix with something salady? or maybe I could slice them thinly and dress with an acidic dressing… sort of salad pickle. I’ll fiddle around with them at home. Tonight I am going to cook all the broccoli and make a cheese sauce to eat it with. I love broccoli and cheese, and if that is wrong, then I sure don’t want to be right.

Again, very poor records! pickup was 7/3.

and included kohlrabi, cilantro, 2 heads of garlic, sugar snap peas, white turnips, spinach, and bok choi.
This week, I tried to address the part where I was SO BEHIND. so I went crazy in the kitchen:

first I made dinner:

my old standby: arugala wilted in garlic olive oil and tossed with toasted pine nuts and romano cheese over whole wheat pasta. so yummy. I ate a whole lot of it. thusly using up all the arugala from week 2.

then I made this garlic scape soup from supernatural cooking:

it called for 24 garlic scape and all I had was 20, plus mine were a few weeks old, so it didn’t turn out as garlicy as I expected. it tasted like a green (good!) potato based soup. the green comes from spinach, by the way – and therein i used up the scape from wk 1 and the spinach from wk 4.

and then I sauteed all the bok choi from wks 2 and 4:

I saute in butter with splashes of soy sauce and eat over pasta or rice with nutritional yeast (or romano cheese). so tasty! this was made up for lunches over the week.

so after all this cooking, I was left with this in my fridge:

wk 1 oregano

wk 2  white radishes, parsley, lettuce, frisee

wk 3 blueberries, white radish or turnip, broccoli, 2 heads of lettuce, mizuna greens

wk 4 kohlrabi, cilantro, 2 heads of garlic, sugar snap peas, white turnips

again, I was so busy/tired/etc. from work/running/etc. that I didn’t post or make careful notations of the CSA. Wk 3 was picked up on 6/26 and was Very Exciting!

most of all exciting was the ENTIRE FLAT OF BLUEBERRIES I had an opportunity to buy. it was $45 extra. TOTALLY WORTH IT. um. as far as I’m concerned.

in addition to the TOTALLY AWESOME AND EXCITING BLUEBERRIES, I received:
white radish or turnip, broccoli, green onions, 2 heads of lettuce, cilantro, 2 bunches of mizuna greens

still working on:

wk 1 20 garlic scape.
wk 2 white radishes, bok choi, parsley, lettuce, frisee, and spinach.

I did take the opportunity to shell and eat the english peas – I cooked them quickly in the microwave and tossed them with two chopped hard boiled eggs. it was SO INCREDIBLE. totally totally divine. Can’t even explain. and so quick and easy!

During the week I also made and ate for dinner 3-avocado guacamole, using the green onions (which wilt pretty fast if you just toss them in your fridge, btw) and the cilantro.

I’m posting all this way behind. My 2nd week pick-up was 6/19:

obviously, I didn’t write down the vegs so I have no idea what I got. this list is MOSTLY correct and at least PARTIALLY complete:

white radishes, bok choi, parsley, english peas, lettuce, frisee, and arugala.

remaining from wk 1: one of the three heads of lettuce, garlic scape, and oregano.

I didn’t mention this earlier, but I switched my CSA this year. Paramus was just too hard to get to after work, and also, there weren’t any community activities. I have a new pickup in Montclair and so far they’ve had (and I’ve missed) a farm day and a membership meeting. This CSA is more grass-roots organized, and that’s what I like.

Last Tuesday was the first pickup!

there were three kinds of lettuce, oregano, radishes, and garlic scape. what a perfectly sized first CSA share! that said, I haven’t eaten a blame thing from it. I have been too busy at work and running around to actually wash lettuce. Sigh. Tomorrow is the second pickup and I’m behind all ready!

I was on vacation last wednesday so I didn’t get a csa share. While I do wonder what I missed, it’s ok sometimes to not get a zillion veggies every wednesday. I’ll get by.

So, this week:

mystery cabbagey food, (so! many!) tomatoes, potatoes, hot peppers, corn, water cress, green peppers, purple and white eggplant, beans, radishes.

by mystery cabbagey food, I mean:

which tastes like cabbage if I eat it raw. any idea what it is?

leftovers:
week 7: green pepper
week 8: potatoes, beets, radishes, hot peppers, chard
week 9: cubanelle peppers, potatoes, kohlrabi stems?
week 10: beans, cubanelle peppers, green peppers, hot peppers, little onions?, cabbage
week 11: none – no pickup

I’d made the eggplant from week 8 and 10 and 11 into baba ganoush for the beach, and took with me the corn and tomatoes.

I’m embarrassed to say that I have no idea how the radish and peppers from previous weeks are doing. I need to check that out.

the cabbage I have plans for an egg noodle gulash sounding dish that should be really good with some brats. I had to pitch some potatoes b/c they’d rotted (weird!) and I am thinking that the kohlrabi stems are more of the mystery cabbage flavored food that I got so much of this week.

I’d like to say that I’ll spend sunday evening cooking like crazy, but then, I don’t want to make any bets. we’ll see what happens. if I did, I’d make that cabbage thing, an eggplant dish to properly display the pretty white eggplant, and some of that tasty spicy cubanelle-feta spread. maybe a cornbread with real corn in it and some jalepenos. and DEFINITELY something with those beans. man! I have 2 bags, and I tossed another one this week.

corn, beans, eggplant, tomatoes, cubanelle peppers, green peppers, hot peppers, shallots?, cabbage, sunflowers! and I just ate all my cabbage! and now I have more! crap!

leftovers

week 7: green pepper
week 8: potatoes, beets, radishes, hot peppers, chard, thai eggplant
week 9: cubanelle peppers, white and purple eggplant, potatoes, kohlrabi stems?

I had to toss the beans from weeks 6 and 7. And I didn’t use all the mint, but I did use some. I am going camping next week so I’ll try to do that feta/cubanelle pepper spread again, and will make baba ganoush, and might do something with the cabbage. or might not, that stuff will keep! and I’ll bring all my tomatoes with me (at kelly’s request), as well as all radishes and green peppers. and then I’ll only have a little bit of stuff left!

cubanelle peppers, white and purple eggplant, basil, potatoes, peaches, tomatoes, kohlrabi stems? and 2 jars of honey.

when I first picked up the share I thought maybe I had grabbed something fancy and not meant for me! the giant bunch of basil and the 2 jars of honey threw me – but the farmer posted to her blog that she’d traded for some south jersey wild flower honey. it’s unpasteurized, too, which means I’ll have to be a little faster about eating it once it’s open. it looks SO GOOD.

Now I’m wondering if I can “grill” peaches on the broiler or should I invest in a grill pan. I asked my friend jesse in his new cooking blog (which is super! awesome! a must-read!) cause y’all know what’s good with honey: grilled peaches. Dizam!

I’m still due for the tomato-eggplant risotto from world vegetarian. my copy of the book came while I was at the beach. And I am going to visit a friend in bklyn who recently gave birth on sat., so I want to bring her something to eat too.

leftovers:
week 6: beans.
week 7: cabbage, eggplant, green pepper, cranberry beans.
week 8: potatoes, beets, radishes, mint, basil, hot peppers, chard, purple and thai eggplant.

I had to toss the chard and the beans from week 5 but brought all the tomatoes with me to the beach and ate them up. I am hoping to go to a bbq on sat. where bringing some kind of elaborate cabbage dish would be appropriate. And I MUST cook the cranberry beans because they are so weird and good sounding.