Geauga Family Farms Summer CSA – Week Four

Geauga Family Farms Summer CSA – Week Four

In this week’s CSA, we received half a dozen hot Hungarian wax banana peppers, two white onions, a watermelon, two tomatoes, a pint of multicolored cherry and grape tomatoes, a green pepper, a small patty pan squash, a head of lettuce, a small bag of redskin potatoes, and half a dozen ears of sweet corn.

I was happy with the amount of last week’s ingredients we used.  We still have redskin potatoes leftover from week two, which is no big deal as they last quite awhile.  I ended up burning the green beans because, well, it happens to the best of us.  I was making crispy roasted green beans.  I check them and they were almost done.  Another five minutes went by and they were charred to a crisp – and not in a good way.  Ugh.  Other than that, we had one of the two green bell peppers from last week turn into a rotted, disgusting mess by Tuesday evening.  The lettuce is the only thing that’s really “leftover,” so a couple salads will have to be in the works this weekend.

We fired up the grill to make whole grilled golden trout and grilled corn, which used up a couple ears of the CSA corn.  Naturally, the charred pepper sandwich used a CSA green bell pepper.  Finally, the esquites, or Mexican street corn salad, used the remainder of the CSA corn.  Many of the peaches were eaten out of hand, but a couple went into a blackberry and peach jam that I will be posting in the near future.  We used the cabbage in an Asian noodle stir fry that Zak made.  Finally, the patty pan squash was stuffed.  I’ll be posting the recipe soon.

I’m very pleased with this week’s share.  I’m going to use the corn to make more esquites to bring as a side dish to dinner at a friend’s house this evening.  I would like to make some version of a stuffed pepper with the Hungarian hots.  I’m not sure what to do with the patty pan, since Zak has declared a deep and abiding hatred of it.  He says, not incorrectly, that it’s a very bland squash.  We never seem to have a problem using up tomatoes, although I also have two huge, juicy heirloom tomatoes from my dad that need to get eaten in addition to the ones we received today.  As for the watermelon, I don’t know whether we should just eat in yummy, chilled slices or try to make a juice (which can be a bit time consuming, though very rewarding).  I definitely want to make a big salad with our leftover lettuce and the new lettuce.

Some of you might wonder why I end each share post with a summary of how I think I might use the produce.  First and foremost, it’s because Zak and I usually do any grocery shopping we need to do on either Saturday or Sunday.  By talking myself through what I’ll be making with all of the CSA ingredients (or most of them) I try to ensure that I’ll use everything up, and be able to create a shopping list that includes anything “extra” I might need to make what I intend.  This saves money and time because I won’t be wasting food, buying things I don’t need, or having to run to the store more than once in a week.

Geauga Family Farms Summer CSA – Week Three

Geauga Family Farms Summer CSA – Week Three

I’m very excited about this week’s haul.  In our share this week, we received a head of green lettuce, two patty pan squash, a pint of jewel-like cherry and grape tomatoes, six gorgeous peaches, a pint of blackberries, a yellow onion, a head of cabbage, two green peppers, and half a dozen ears of Ohio sweet corn.

We did a good job of using up last week’s ingredients.  All we have left are the green beans and potatoes.  It has been too damn hot to turn on the oven, otherwise I surely would have made crispy roasted green beans and some roasted and smashed potatoes.  The heat is supposed to break a little bit, so I’m thinking those are on the table for this week.  The miso glazed beets I posted this week used the beets from week one of the CSA.  The mushroom and silken tofu in miso-dashi broth used a knob onion from last week, though not much else.  I made a pesto-like spread using the fennel fronds which I should be posting shortly.  We also ate a big salad with loads of CSA vegetables including the zucchini, some cucumber, onions, all of the lettuce, and some of the tomatoes with a homemade Caesar dressing using anchovies – delicious!  Zak made a really yummy stir fry using up a lot of other vegetables as well.  Finally, another onion and the fennel bulbs were braised in beer and vegetable stock and served over creamy polenta.

As I already stated, I am really, really, really happy about this week’s share.  The variety is awesome, and I have so many ideas for how to use it all.  I definitely want to tackle the leftovers from last week by roasting and smashing the potatoes and making crispy roasted green beans.  I want to stuff the patty pan squash with some sort of cheesy rice and/or barley mixture, so hopefully the weather will accommodate and grant me with a cooler day to do that.  I want to make a broiled and/or fried pepper sandwich with at least one of the green peppers.  The berries and some of the peaches are going to wind up as blackberry and peach jam, since I’m almost out of my blueberry jam.  I’m not sure what to do with the cabbage and don’t have anything “fancy” planned for the corn (yet).

By the way, if you’re a member of a CSA and want to share what’s in your box (is it bad that whenever I hear “what’s in the box?” I think of Brad Pitt saying it in a hysterical voice over and over again during the last scene of “Seven”?) or need some inspiration for what to do with your box ingredients, check out the link party at In Her Chucks.  It’s got loads of links to other CSA’s and ideas for what to do with the ingredients in them – it’s become a go-to source for me over the past couple of weeks to drool over, envy about, and put on my “to do ” list.

Geauga Family Farms Summer CSA – Week Two

Geauga Family Farms Summer CSA – Week Two

In this week’s CSA, we received half a dozen baby redskin potatoes, a green pepper, two fennel bulbs with fronds attached, a green head of lettuce, a red head of lettuce, a pint of multi-colored cherry tomatoes, a bag of green beans, a small zucchini, two sweet knob onions, and a small cucumber.

We did a pretty good job of using up last week’s ingredients.  In fact, the only thing we didn’t use was the beet tops, which dried out really quickly and I had to toss.  The barley and roasted zucchini in lemon caper butter sauce made use of the zucchini, and it was incredibly sweet and tender.  Naturally, the blueberry jam used the entire pint of blueberries, and has made an appearance every day on a piece of toast or a whole wheat crumpet for me.  We ate a ginormous salad with caesar dressing and loads of CSA vegetables for dinner and then both packed it for lunch the next day.  I will be posting the recipe for some miso glazed beets that I made over the next few days.  It was definitely awesome to use everything up.

I am extremely excited about the variety in this week’s share.  Because we purchased some knob onions at the store this week, we have loads of them.  I have an idea I got from Saveur for how to use some of those up, luckily.  For dinner tonight, we’re making a whole fish with a spin on the fennel frond pesto I posted awhile back.  There will certainly be salads in our future to use up the lettuce and some of the vegetables.  Zak also has plans for a stir fry of some sort.  The variety of the basket puts a lot of options on the table, so I know no matter what we end up doing, I won’t be disappointed!

Geauga Family Farms Summer CSA – Week One

Geauga Family Farms Summer CSA – Week One

Hooray, hooray, hooray!  The first week of our summer CSA through Geauga Family Farms has finally arrived.  I can’t say how much I’ve been looking forward to today.  This year, I signed up for the shorter 15-week single share so I’ve been extra-anxiously awaiting our pick up day.

Anyway, without further ado, in this week’s share we received, from left to right, a box of blueberries, two tomatoes, two heads of lettuce (one green, one red), one zucchini, one cucumber, a box of orange grape tomatoes, two beats three beets (oops …) with greens on, and one sweet onion.

There are definitely going to be some salads on the horizon for lunch at work this week.  I’m almost definitely going to make a blueberry jam of some type, since I have a lot of homemade pectin hanging out in the freezer that needs to get used up.  The beets will be roasted and the greens sautéed, though I don’t know yet to what end.

To see what other people around the country are getting in their CSA boxes, check out this link: http://inherchucks.com/whats-in-the-box/.

Geauga Family Farms Winter CSA – Week Five

Winter CSA – Week 5

In this week’s CSA, we received a small butternut squash, the hugest bok choy I’ve ever seen, a loaf of whole wheat bread, a half dozen eggs, two little heads of cauliflower, a bunch of kale, a bag of spinach, a bag of potatoes, some carrots, two little heads of crazy-but-awesome looking green lettuce, and a head of red lettuce.

As usual, I have an excess of lettuce.  I really, really need to eat more salads.  I love dark leafy greens like kale and collards – those fly out of the fridge.  But lettuce – not so much.  I have to force myself to make at least a side salad a few days this week to mow through some of the copious amounts of lettuce we have from this and previous CSA weeks.  I ended up throwing some lettuce into the stock bag and some into the trash last night, which I absolutely loathe doing.  Other than that, I used up almost everything from last week’s share, although I have a couple of butternut squash milling about at this point as well as some potatoes and half a head of red cabbage.

I’m not sure what I want to do with everything this week.  I’m thinking about some braised dark greens (and perhaps red cabbage) with cannellini beans one night.  I ate one of those cute little heads of lettuce for breakfast today with two over-easy eggs and some toast with a splash of balsamic – it sounds weird, but it was totally delicious and I’m looking forward to a repeat performance soon.  Potatoes and carrots are always perfect for a stew – I made one last night for which I will be posting the recipe, and since stews are so comforting and easy, I’ll probably be making more.  I will probably use the super-huge bok choy in a stir-fry (or two or three), but we’ll see.