CSA Week #11

We missed a week of delicious produce, because we forgot it was Thursday. I'll spread the blame over two of us. But anyway, the following week was delicious, especially after fumbling our way through a week of leftovers and sad grocery store food. I don't even know what we ate.

This last week has been all about tomatoes. And peppers. I'm not a huge fan of green peppers, because I just don't like them that much when cooked, but it turns out they're pretty tasty just eaten raw. I've taken to chopping a pepper into slices to snack on while cooking dinner... can't be that bad a habit, right?




2.5lb slicing tomatoes
2lb heirloom tomatoes
2lb green peppers
8 ears corn
1 bunch kale
2 silver something onions
2 heads of garlic
2 zucchinis

The pre-pickup email had been talking about lower yields this week because of torrential rain, and I suppose maybe this was a lower yield, but I still have a lot of tomatoes to deal with. Especially with Ed in VT, this week has been very much about putting away some food for freezing. With a couple experiments.






Like this cauliflower/corn/tomato tart. I've never made a cauliflower crust before, and I have to say that I oversalted this one almost to the point of being inedible. Luckily, the pancake-like filling wasn't very salty, and the corn kernels were so sweet that they offset the saltiness. For the filling I basically used my fritter recipe - two eggs, a quarter cup or so of corn meal, a small spoonful of baking powder and a small spoonful of salt, and corn. That part was good, creamy and crunchy. The tomatoes on top didn't add much. As an experiment, I would give this one a low grade, but passing, because I did manage to eat the whole thing. I could see myself trying the cauliflower crust thing again, but it would need to be cooked more, and not in the form of a tart. This one just sort of turned to mush.



Tomato salads for days. The best, and simplest, way that I like to eat a good tomato is to slice it up, salt it, and maybe add a drizzle of olive oil or some basil leaves. But just salt and tomatoes is enough to keep me going forever.




I tried a panzanella, but I have to admit that I didn't have cucumbers or onions at that point, so it was just tomatoes, stale bread, basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt. It was fine, but I'm still not a fan of stale bread.

Forgot to take any photos of the tomato focaccia and bruschetta topping, but it was delicious. The bruschetta was just two tomatoes, an onion, and a ton of basil. With olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt. Noticing a theme?

I stopped by the farm on my way back from the Catskills with my parents, and picked more green beans, husk cherries, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, hot peppers, and mini sweet peppers. Really enjoyed a scromelette of green beans, dill, cherry tomatoes, and eggs the other morning. And a tomatillo/husk cherry salsa.

Zucchini kale gratin

I saw this recipe, and knew that was the next thing I was going to make. Can't say no to vegetables smothered in cheese. It was the perfect thing to use up a bunch of the zucchinis, kale, and tomatoes that I still had on hand, and was relatively easy to put together.

3 zucchinis, grated
1 tomato, chunked
1 small head of kale, blanched
1 handful parsley (or any other fresh herb)
all the parmesan cheese in your fridge
2 cloves garlic
1 onion
3 pieces bacon
salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs

Put the grated zucchinis and the tomato in a colander, and toss with maybe three heavy pinches of kosher salt. Set this aside to drain as you prep the rest of the stuff.

Chop your bacon, and render that out.

As it renders, dice your onion and garlic, chop your kale and parsley, and grate the cheese. Preheat the oven to 400F.

Pour out most of the bacon grease, then saute the onion and garlic until sweated through.

Squeeze out as much liquid from the zucchini and tomatoes as you can. Put the veggies, bacon, onion/garlic, parsley, and half the cheese into a big bowl. Mix around, and taste. Adjust seasoning. Taste. Once happy with it, add the two eggs.

Spread into a greased oven-safe dish. I used a cast iron skillet, but some sort of casserole dish would also work. Super versatile in its cooking vessels, this dish isn't picky. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until the top is golden.

This would also be good with various carbs added in. Breadcrumbs, potato slices, whole grain, you name it. I'll try that next. Because this recipe was a total keeper. It would also be good with more cheesy goodness. I'm thinking cottage cheese or ricotta. I mean, you're basically talking about my basic scromelette, just baked rather than cooked on a stove, and with more cheese and bacon. How can you possibly go wrong?

I froze about half of it into individual portions for lunch, but I can't imagine that'll take away any of the deliciousness.

Cobb salad

There are two types of people in this world. Those who dress the salad in the bowl, and then serve it onto your plate, and those who serve the salad onto the plate, and then spoon the dressing on top. I am the former, Ed is the latter, and this makes for interesting salad arguments. 

Also, Ed believes that salads are the fastest thing ever to put together, and I maintain that they take a while. Case in point, this one was like an hour of chopping things and puttering around looking at what else should go into it before we actually ate. But, regardless as to how long it took to make or how you like to dress it, this salad was really good. Deserving of its own blog post!

Dressing

All quantities are to taste.

Whole milk plain yogurt

Basil. Lots.

sun dried tomatoes

olive oil

salt

lemon juice

pepper

Start adding things to a food processor, and taste frequently, adjusting as you go. Use water to thin it out at the end if it's too thick. 

CSA Cobb Salad

1 head green leaf lettuce

1 small fresh red onion, diced

~1C cherry tomatoes, halved

~1C green beans, steamed and chopped

1 beet, shredded or grated

2 links andouille sausage, cooked

2 eggs, hard boiled

a bunch of chives, chopped

I don't think you can really have instructions for a salad. Put everything in a bowl, toss with dressing, and serve. Or, put everything in a bowl, then put on your plate, then spoon on the dressing, and proceed to throw salad all over the table as you try to dress the salad. Either way.

And Ed made some delicious drinks - ginger beer, gin, and lemon. Those went down nicely! 

We only kept it in those pretty lines so I could take a photo. Then we tossed it all together and served. It was a very good salad! 

Oh right! And a cake! It was my coworker Lee's birthday the next day, and she's made me lots of cakes, so I figured it was time to return the favor. Followed this recipe for golden nectarine cake, and it came out beautifully. We served it at the office with lots of whipped cream. 

CSA Week #9: Grilled cabbage, bloody Marys, and the most amazing celery you've ever eaten

I'm falling behind again. Eh, it happens. And I think the best meal we made I forgot to take a photo. Not the most dedicated of bloggers, me. 

I forgot to take a photo of the haul, so now I have to try and remember what we got with no photographic assistance. 

2 large beets

several tomatoes

1 head celery

1 head purple cabbage

1 head green leaf lettuce

1 bunch scallions

3 green peppers

1 big eggplant

Anyway, this week started to get more colorful. Beets, tomatoes, cabbage, eggplant, all the purple-y red things are ripening now! The most exciting thing we got was a head of celery, which is green, not purple, but was just about as far from the typical pale thing you get at the grocery store as you can imagine. This stuff has FLAVOR! It's spicy, tart, fresh, and just so green tasting. Good stuff. 

Ed tasted the celery and the first thing he thought of was a bloody mary. Brunch in a glass! Lots of tomatoes, spicy vodka from Grand Ten Distillery (the extra fire puncher), celery, worcestershire sauce, lemon, and a garnish of pickles and celery leaves. I don't think I've had a bloody mary before - gotta say, with those sorts of flavorful veggies and good vodka, it was pretty good! 

With that we had a salad of celery stalks and greens, paneer (ish), and bacon. There might have been other things in that salad, but I have sense forgotten, and the photo isn't that helpful. Maybe some toasted walnuts? It was a very tasty salad, very green and fresh tasting, crunchy, with a nice softness from the paneer stuff we'd made to use up some milk. Languishing on the side of that plate is some crispy kale with last week's kale. 

Friday night we were en route to VT, so I used up the last of our zucchinis in more zucchini fritters for on the road. Saturday we finally had access to a grill! Of course I forgot to take a photo, but for lunch we grilled some eggplant slices and topped with a little salad of tomatoes and chives and basil and salt and olive oil, and it was delicious. Grilled eggplant is one of my favorite things. 

That night we grilled more things, this time some wedges of purple cabbage, a green pepper, and some scallions. All these veggies have been so flavorful that we haven't needed to do much to make our meals taste amazing - they taste like vegetables, in the best possible way. Grilled scallions, fresh from the farm, are amazing.

With that, we had a grain salad based on morrocan couscous, with onion, carrot, green beans, and topped with some fresh chanterelles in brown butter and sage, that we'd foraged that morning from the woods... crap we really are turning into foodies.

Don't worry, we stopped for a burger and a beer on our way home. Can't lose that carnivore taste!

One of the beets was a golden beet, and I had thoughts that I'd make a beet puree and it would be bright yellow, but it turns out if you also add garlic and yogurt and olive oil and sumac and zaatar and vinegar, it becomes kind of beige. Now that it's all gone, I should have added some turmeric, for color and flavor! Regardless, this was a very delicious way to eat a beet. We ate it with those wedges of pita that had been fried in a little oil on the stove, and that was a durn good combo.

Also tried a cabbage slaw. The dressing was good, a savory mix of yogurt, mustard, anchovy paste, olive oil, salt, pepper, and maybe other things that Ed added when I wasn't looking. The slaw had the other half of the purple cabbage, the rest of our celery, a red onion, and some bacon. And a bunch of thyme and savory, and a small grated candy beet. This was a fine slaw, but not my favorite thing. Too crunchy, actually, but maybe I was just tired and I'd already filled up on beet hummus and didn't feel like chewing so much.

Alongside the slaw was a salad of red onion, cherry tomatoes, husk cherries, basil, poppy seeds and olive oil. Delicious.

We've just about run out of vegetables again, so I'm looking forward to what this week will bring!

Cabbage pie

"Ooh, I know what I'm going to make! A cabbage pie!"
"a what?"
"Cabbage pie! Or maybe more like a tart. A cabbage tart."
"ehrm..."
"It'll be good. Promise."
"I'll try it, to be polite. But it sounds gross."

I'll admit, it sounds a little strange. But, we picked a massive cabbage last week ("we"), and I'd only used about a third of it in my broiled cabbage dish. I was thinking that when purple cabbage cooks down, it gets kind of silky and smooth and might go very nicely in tart format, especially if you went with that sort of deep earthy flavor profile of thyme, toasted walnuts, and blue cheese. And I have to say, it turned out beautifully. I think maybe I should have beaten an egg into the mixture, just to help it hold together, but knowing Ed's general reaction to quiche, that didn't seem like a more reliable way to win him over.

Crust
1.25C flour
Pinch of salt
6tbs butter, cut into chunks
Cold water, one spoonful at a time until crust holds together

First step was a pie crust. A food processor makes that a cinch to whip together, though in retrospect I should have made a short crust, since I was just pressing it into the tart pan anyway. Blind bake that, until it's set, ish, as you prep the cabbage.

Filling
~1/2 head of purple cabbage
1 onion
2-3 slices bacon
~1/2C walnuts
~1/4C fresh thyme and sage
Salt, pepper to taste
2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
~2C water or chicken stock or milk
~1/4C blue cheese

(sorry about all the approximate amounts. I don't think it really matters too much. I didn't pay that much attention, hence the guesses)

Slice an onion, and cook that down until it's starting to caramelize, with as much olive oil as necessary to do the job. Chop the cabbage into small-ish pieces, and saute that with a few splashes of vinegar and some chicken stock if you need more liquid. Salt, to encourage some water release, and then cook til tender. Transfer to a big bowl.

Chop and render some bacon. Two slices? three slices?

Harvest a bunch of thyme, chop some sage leaves, and throw that into the bacon pan after draining off most of the bacon grease. Either use that bacon grease or some butter to make a roux, and once the roux is nice and brown (I think it was at this point that Ed said "something smells really good"), whisk in some crumbled blue cheese.

Toast some walnuts in the oven, until toasty.

Mix everything (cabbage, bacon, roux, walnuts, herbs) in a big bowl. Spread it into the tart crust, and bake for ~20 minutes. Sprinkle more blue cheese on top, let it cool long enough so that you can handle it, and serve!








This got a great Ed-rating. He was all worried that the cabbage would be overcooked into mush, but no need to worry, it still had some chew. Also, we took a perfectly healthy cabbage and buried it in cheese and butter and bacon, and that definitely improved the flavor, texture, and satiation.




I highly recommend. Even though it's a little more involved than the light summer fare we've been making lately, this seems like a good one to repeat.

That pile of veggies next to it is matchsticked zucchini sauteed ever so briefly with the remainder of my pesto, topped with butter-toasted almond slivers and fresh tomatoes cut into spears. Quite delicious.

Gazpacho, zucchini saute, and charred cabbage

This week has been a little tough eating enough veggies, because Ed went to VT on Thursday night and didn't bring any veggies with him. He didn't get back until Tuesday, and then I was out of town over the weekend, too, so all of a sudden I'm having too-much-food-not-enough-time anxiety. Anyway, we're back now, and of course Ed stopped by the farm on the way home and picked more green beans and basil and parsley and husk cherries, because clearly that's what we needed. Eep.

So anyway, first order of business was using up some zucchinis. Smitten Kitchen just posted an excellent idea of a recipe, involving lightly-sauteed zucchini matchsticks with buttery fried almonds and some peels of parmesan cheese. While I think maybe a squeeze of lemon would have been good, I'll be saving that for the next one.
https://smittenkitchen.com/2007/08/quick-zucchini-saute/


The other thing I made to go with my pile of zucchinis, besides some steamed corn on the cob (can't go wrong there), was a charred cabbage dish. I like the deep flavor of broiled brassicas, especially when paired with bacon and toasted walnuts. I decided to lighten things up a little and mixed in some lemon zest and cilantro, and the end result was delicious and balanced. Couldn't get enough!

Also, fresh corn. mmmmmmm.



I also cooked up some beet chips. I declare this a most excellent way to consume beets. Simply peel, slice into ~1/8" rounds, and bake a 300F until they start to curl. I dunno, 20 minutes? Then flip, and cook another 20min or so, with a little salt. You're essentially dehydrating them. I took them out to eat them when there was still a little chew, and they were quite tasty. I'll make this again.



Salad of sliced raw beets, cucumbers, savory, and red onions and poppy seeds. Refreshing and sweet.



Gazpacho! It doesn't get any simpler, if you have a blender. You can get all sorts of crazy with gazpacho, but this is a pretty basic one. Two tomatoes, two cucumbers (peeled), about half an onion, a clove of garlic, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and salt to taste.

You can't have gazpacho without croutons, so I toasted up some leftover sourdough bread in butter, and chopped that up. And then browned some corn kernels from a cob, and chopped some parsley. I mean the gazpacho was pretty amazing on its own, but the additions certainly helped!





New flowers!




It may be sideways, but this was a pretty good one by Ed - salad of cooked onion, garlic, and carrot, then sauteed some green beans on top of that, and combined with boiled beets and raw tomatoes and husk cherries and topped with a poached egg.

Tasty and sweet.

We still have to use up half a cabbage, a head of kale and a head of collards, and three more zucchinis. Tonight will be a very green dinner... or maybe I'll blanch the collards and freeze for later. We'll see.