CSA Week 6

Hard to believe summer is virtually half over. Rains have greened up the desert and draped an unfamiliar blanket of humdity over everything. And our veggies love getting the moisture.

This week's haul:

1 lb of carrots
1 bunch of rainbow beets (still beautiful and welcome)
1 bunch kale (traded for squash)
1 bunch swiss chard (traded for squash)
1 zucchini
1 Mexican gray squash
1 yellow crook neck squash
1 yellow and green patti pan squash
4 sweet yellow onions
1 red onion & 1 ear sweet corn (from the surplus bin)

We are eating out more this couple of weeks due to nephew's visit, but will certainly enjoy the squash, add the beets to the pickle jar and maybe make a carmelized onion pizza. Yummy.

Our farm is recruiting for the fall season so we'll sign up directly with them and pick up closer to home on Sundays beginning in Sept. We'll do a second share as well at the original location but with the other farmer to widen our variety, increase the volume and be able to reduce what we purchase from the grocery store. Fall will be a bountiful season, especially if these lovely rains continue.

CSA Week 5

Working in my home office on pick-up day this week so I invited Tenney to come along for the ride to the CSA. Our earlier than usual arrival found the place to be rather quiet - perhaps a reflection of summer vacations, holiday week. Our share was bountiful.

1 lb summer squash (a variety of yellow straight neck, flat yellow and green patti pan type, round green speckled and zucchini. There were 7 or 8 total so you know they were the cutest tender babies)
1 bunch thumbelina carrots
1 bunch white beets (going into the pickle jar this week - yum)
1 bunch kale (traded for another bunch of carrots this time)
3 kohlrabi (plus 1 from the surplus basket)
1 bunch swiss chard (beautiful deep green with red stems)
1 bunch green onions
3 heads garlic

Supper was leg quarters from a Costco chicken Tenney snagged with a $3 off coupon. Plus fried shredded Simply Potatoes with CSA sweet onions from last week. I cubed the baby squash, steamed, then tossed with butter, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese for a terrific side to the chicken. We ate it all.

Fourth of July celebration today with our community of friends. Sure to be great eats!

CSA Week 4

The pick up this week fell on the first day of monsoon-cooled temps in the mid-70s. I'm certain I felt a collective sigh of relief waft about the city.

Here's the line up:

1 bunch of beets, mostly white, one golden
1 bunch Hercules carrots
1 bunch kale
2 kohlrabi
3 sweet onions
1 head garlic
1 bunch green onions
Surplus: 1 more kohlrabi and 1 fat cucumber

For supper, we ate big salads with veggies on hand plus the green onions and some kohlrabi. We boiled the beets, peeled and quartered, then seasoned with butter, salt, pepper. Tenney has found a new favorite veggie. He likes the golden over the white but did put away a good size serving.

Tonight, Jack will help us do a salmon/pasta/veggie stir-fry.

CSA Week 3

The only thing we discarded from week 2 was the beet greens; just not enough motivation and time to get them fixed.

This week, our share consisted of

1 bunch of beets with greens
1 bunch escarole
2 kohlrabi (I chose 2 green ones over the purple this week; the green were larger)
2 oninons
2 heads of garlic
2 leeks
Choice of kale or rapini (I chose rapini but traded for 2 extra kohlrabi)
Choice of braising greens or arugula (I chose arugula but traded for 2 extra onions)

Guess I wasn't feeling all that adventurous this week. Tenney is promoting another savory stir fry for tonight so we'll be reporting on that.

Recipe Results from Week 2

Let's see... the week flew by but I want to jot down what happened to the veggies. The beets were boiled, peeled and added to the pickling jar. The "rainbow" mix was truly a variety of white, yellowish gold, pink and red beets. As predicted, Jack and Grandma are the pickled beet eaters in the family.

For Father's Day, I tried to sneak the turnips into the garlic mashed potatoes. They didn't cook up as soft as I expected so the result was underwhelming. Not bad, just not spectacular. We at every speck of the carrots in glazed form; interesting how a huge bunch of carrots with their greens turns out to be just about enough for one serving per family member.

Another good stir fry later in the week with left over bits of sirloin steak, kohlrabi, broccoli, green onions... sauced up with a can of apricots with their juice, soy sauce and red pepper flakes. All this mixed with pasta (thin spaghetti). Comfort food!

Now on to the next week...

Sourdough Adventures

Back in the old days, the sourdough starter being passed around was the flour and water type, no milk, less sugar and not as sweet as the "Amish Friendship Bread" starter. We kept it in a crock in the fridge and fed it every week or so. It made terrific pancakes as I recall.

So now that our Amish starter from Jen is going and going and going, and one can only eat so much Amish bread, I've tried a few more recipes with varying results. I'm a better cook than baker but, here's the results:

Muffins - Two different recipes (recipes are all over the internet), one with nuts and one with nectarines. The latter was better although the oven temp recommended (425) was too high. I'll lower the temp next time and maybe use part white flour instead of all whole wheat and more sugar or Splenda. I did not peel the nectarines and some chunks turned a weird bluish color inside the muffin but the taste was not altered.

Biscuits for Strawberry Shortcake - Jackson loved these just hand to mouth before we even made it to the strawberries. I just sweetened a regular biscuit recipe. Would try it again. Memo to self: look for a nice sharp round biscuit cutter set.

Pancakes - These are a definite keeper! Light, fluffy and just a hint of sourdough flavor. Drop on fresh blueberries while the first side browns. Butter, maple syrup...awesome and a real carb boost whether you need one or not! Simple, simple recipe using sourdough batter, water and buttermilk pancake mix. The proportions are arbitary, in my opinion, so I just mixed up 2 cups starter with 1 cup water and then added pancake mix to get the right consistency for fluffy pancakes. My challenge is having enough patience not to overheat the pan but to get it hot ENOUGH. Practice is in order :) We had so much pancake batter that we froze about 8 pancakes. We're thinking of popping them in the toaster for quick snacks later.

Nate has requested corn bread which we may do for Dad's Day.

CSA Week 2

This week's choice included:

1 kohlrabi choice of purple/white (I chose purple - its a color thing)

1 bunch sugar snack carrots (huge bunch I may glaze for Dad's Day lunch; Jackson will be happy)

2 leeks (yea!)

1 bunch rainbow beets with greens (bigger bunch than last week; more for the pickle jar! I've been looking at what to do with the greens, too)

3 sweet yellow onions

6 purple top turnips (no greens) (Tenney is a little worried about these :) but I'm thinking mashed potatoes and turnips for Dad's Day)

2 garlic heads (perfect specimens)

1 bunch kale (I traded this for another 2 leeks)

1 bunch frisée (fancy lettuce)

Surplus basket: I was so looking forward to more of those sweet potatoes but there were none. There were a few smallish onions, some grapefruit and a couple more leeks. I elected not to take anything this week.

So, since we are still in the midst of a grimy bathroom remodel, supper is kinda seat-of-the-pants. Never know when we'll get around to it... But tonight we had a cheesy leek and potato frittata. I sliced up all 4 leeks plus 4 russet potatoes, seasoned and cooked together on the stove top until potatoes were tender and a little brown. Beat 8 eggs and poured over the veggies; simmered for about 5 minutes to cook the bottom half; then under the broiler for a few minutes to cook the top half; topped with 8 oz shredded colby jack and back under the broiler to melt and just barely start to brown. We cut this in quarters and were completely satisfied with one portion. Plus we have another portion each for breakfast or lunch the next day!

Beet Report

Last night's supper was open-faced tuna melt with tomato. The pickled beets were a great accompaniment with just right sweet tartness to go with the cheese, mayo and egg in the tuna salad.

Pickled Beets & Friday's Supper

On Friday, here's what's was left of this week's Thursday share:

1 kohlrabi
1 bunch thumbelina carrots
1 bunch beets
2 onions
1 Napa cabbage
2 sweet potatoes

Tenney doesn't care for beets so much so I decided to pickle them using a recipe from the CSA web site. 2 cups apple cider vinegar, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup (maybe a little more) sugar all brought to boil then added teasp each of mustard seed, coriander seed, whole cloves. Simmered while I boiled the beets, peeled and sliced them into a glass canning jar. Poured the vinegar over the beets and refrigerated. Will taste them later today. Now if more beets come in, I can add them to the jar.

For supper, I did a stir-fry of everything above (except the beets) in olive oil with a little soy sauce. Added some leftover pasta and grilled chicken. It was fantastic; sweet from the veggies just the way we like it. We were pleasantly surprised at the kohlrabi which neither of us had ever eaten. Nice and sweet both raw and cooked. We're down to one sweet potato, one onion and a handful of carrots - and its only Saturday!

First CSA Share

I bought my first share in a community-supported agriculture group! 13 summer weeks for $247; not a bad deal. The supplying farm for my pick-up day is at a higher elevation than here in the 100 degree desert so this week's produce seems nearly out of season.

• 1 kohlrabi
• 1 bag braising greens
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 bunch thumbelina carrots
• 1 bunch beets
• 1 bunch escarole
• 2 onions
• 1 Napa cabbage
• bonus from the surplus pile: 2 sweet potatoes

For supper, I fixed us salads with the escarole, lite canned pears and shredded mozzarella drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Our entree consisted of braising the greens and the kale in olive oil with sliced garlic cloves, salt, fresh-ground pepper, lemon juice. Then I placed orange roughy fillets on top of the greens, seasoned with Heads, covered and steamed them with more lemon juice.

The pear, escarole and cheese was superb!

Next time I would sort the greens and remove fibrous stems, also add some sweetness to the greens/ fish, perhaps in the form of fruit juice or balsamic vinegar (can't get enough of that!). But it was all good. Nutritional value terrific with vitamins, fiber, protein, did I say fiber?

So, between the two of us, we consumed one third of our weekly share the first day. We're already talking about buying another share from the other farm supplier so as to have a wider variety of veggies with pick-up two days a week. This is gonna be great!