Out of the Box, Week 10

Just popping in to post a picture of this week's spectacular haul.
It's almost too much to fit in the frame!
Okay, let's pull out and see it all:

The quantity of vegetables this week is mind-boggling. We have:
--two small heads of lettuce
--two small bunches of bitter field greens
--two heads of bok choy
--assorted potatoes
--half a dozen onions
--SEVENTEEN tomatoes!
--a pint of assorted baby tomatoes
--three cucumbers
--two small yellow squash
--one delicata squash
--green beans
--six ears of corn

We already had an eggplant, four ears of corn, hot peppers, and garlic left over from last week, as well as a big bag of cucumbers from Dan's boss. I should have no problem sticking to just vegetables this weekend. In fact, I think I'll have to in order to get through all of this.

(By the way, these photos were taken with a borrowed camera - mine's almost certainly beyond repair.)

Out of the Box, Week 8

Last week, purple peppers; this week, purple garlic! Isn't it beautiful? This must be the garlic that sent off the scapes we got a few weeks ago. I just love this color.

Speaking of color, it's that time of the season when the box is packed with so many different colors (not just green, like we had in June). Of course we are still getting lots of lettuce (curly red stuff, this time), which is good since salads are such a staple in our house. We also got a huge bunch of basil this time as well as a big load of scallions. There's also fennel - another new food for me - and some cucumbers. Beets, carrots, tomatoes, and tender, little summer squashes add punches of color between all the green.



The first thing I tackled was the basil, since we still had some from week 7 and I didn't want any of it to go to waste.

I've heard that the best way to preserve basil is in oil and in the freezer, and pesto is probably the easiest way to do this. I whipped up a few batches of this on Sunday night, some of which went on our pizza. I put the rest in a plastic-wrap-lined ice cube tray so I could freeze it in small blocks, which I later transferred to a freezer bag. Now when we want pesto it will be easy to grab one or two cubes to thaw.

To make pesto, all you need to do is combine fresh basil and pine nuts (about one packed cup of basil and 1/3 c. pine nuts is a pretty good ratio). You can use a blender or a food processor; my mini-Cuisinart works great for this. Once the basil and nuts are well-blended, you need to add a little olive oil. Ideally, you want it to emulsify with the other ingredients, so if possible, pour it in a thin stream while your blender or food processor is running. The MiniCuisinart actually has a small well with a tiny hole built into the lid for exactly this purpose. Once these three ingredients are blended, mix in some grated parmesan or romano cheese (roughly 1/3 c. to 1/2 c., according to your preference). If you are going to freeze the pesto, hold off on the cheese and instead add it to the thawed herb blend right before serving.

We used our pesto on wholegrain pizza dough with some fresh mozzarella and a little feta, served, of course, with a big leafy salad on the side.

Out of the Box, Week 3

Clockwise from top left: chard, garlic scapes, sugar snap peas, parsley, lettuce, zucchini, kai-lan.

I had planned to stir-fry the kohlrabi in the middle of last week, but when I heard we might be getting some bok choy in box #3, I decided to hold off and use them together. It looks like we ended up with kai-lan instead, but that's just as good for stir-frying.

The garlic scape, like the kohlrabi, is exactly why I wanted a CSA. Not only had I never bought garlic scapes, I'd never even heard of them. I think they are strangely beautiful. If I were a floral designer, I'd be sticking these babies in arrangements whenever I could get my hands on them. Here is a nice little article about them. You can use them however you would use garlic, steam them and serve them with butter, or make pesto with them. I decided to split my share in half, using some for the stir fry and some for this spinach pesto recipe, which will also help me use up the last of that gigantic bag of spinach.

Here are all my stir-fry ingredients, ready and waiting while the fire heats the wok. In the colander are most of this week's sugar snap peas. I have cubed tofu and bottled oyster sauce, for convenience. Some frozen corn and a shredded carrot add color. The leaves are from the kohlrabi and kai-lan. In the little prep bowls, clockwise from top left, are garlic scapes and the white scallion parts, kohlrabi, and kai-lan stems.

Less than ten minutes later, dinner was ready. I had previously made scallion pancakes with the last of the bunch from week two. I used the recipe from the New Moosewood Cookbook. These were a little tough. I may have kneaded the dough too much. I baked these, instead of frying them, in a small nod to nutrition.

Overall the stir fry was tasty and I really liked that I got to use so many new vegetables in it. We had plenty left over for today's lunch, too, and even a little more for tomorrow's bentos.

Last but not least, we enjoyed a tasty glass of cheap bubbly to celebrate the fact that I am now fully self-employed!

by special request

Strawberry soup, because my hubby asked for it.

Just strawberries, yogurt, and orange juice blended together. Really more of a thin smoothie, served with a spoon. I made a simple salad (lettuce, carrots, apples, cheddar) and we ate while watching Goodnight Burbank.

That didn't last long.

It was a very simple meal, but Dan loved it. It's nice that he's so easy to please.

Out of the Box, Week 2

Clockwise from top left: lettuce, spinach, scallions, unidentified leafy bunch, oregano, kohlrabi.

This week brought a lot of greens, which is to be expected, and a vegetable that I had never tried before: kohlrabi. This is exactly why I signed up for a CSA; I wanted to be forced to try things that I wouldn't normally choose. I've seen kohlrabi in the supermarket before, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you what it was. It looks like a mutant radish from outer space. I'm definitely excited to try it out.

First, however, we still had spinach left over from week 1, and now we have more! This bag of spinach doesn't look that big, but it's tightly packed - about as heavy as a basketball. I couldn't even begin to think what to do with it all, so I used what was left to make a veggie lasagna.

This is kind of a skinny/flat lasagna - I only had the spinach, which I steamed first, and carrots, which I shredded. Normally I like to add mushrooms, too, but I didn't have any on hand. With some low-fat ricotta and mozzarella, leftover jar sauce, and no-boil lasagna sheets, this was a quick and easy meal, rounded out with sliced cucumbers and some homemade garlic bread. It was so satisfying that I decided veggie lasagna would be a good solution to the spinach problem.

I spent most of today steaming a good portion of this week's spinach and layering a huge veggie lasagna (with mushrooms, this time). I didn't have any sauce on hand, so I made some, based loosely on Rebecca Blood's no-cook pizza sauce. I used the oregano from the CSA box, as well as some garlic and dried rosemary, tomato paste, water, and a big can of diced tomatoes.

I froze the entire lasagna (cutting it up and wrapping each piece individually), so that will be nice at some point later on when I just don't feel like cooking.

spinach, two ways

After a couple of days of salads for dinner, I was ready for something a little different. I decided to tackle the rather large bag of spinach. I'm not a huge spinach eater; I do use frozen spinach a lot in the winter when fresh, local greens aren't available, but given the option, I'll usually choose other greens. The one exception is this amazing pomegranate and spinach salad recipe from The Armenian Table, an excellent cookbook that I received as a Christmas present from my (Armenian) mother-in-law. That salad was so wonderful I must have made it about ten times in three weeks, and I went through withdrawal when the pomegranates disappeared from the grocery store shelves.

Anyway, back to the spinach - I decided to use some of it for a pasta dish. I sauteed it with some onions and garlic in a little olive oil, then tossed it with penne and (for lack of ricotta) cottage cheese. A little grated asiago on top finished it off. It was an okay supper, but not quite as good as I expected it to be. I think next time it would be better with feta. (Doesn't that sound like a tagline? "Everything's betta with feta!")

We had some leftover, so I put it in our bentos the next day, along with a simple salad (lettuce, carrots, walnuts, dried cranberries) and some turkey pepperoni for protein.

By the next night, Thursday, I was really sick of salads and terrified of how much spinach remained. I decided it could only be handled with cheese. Bring on the calzones!

Whole-wheat pizza dough from the Coop is reasonably healthy but probably did little to counteract the cheesezilla action as seen in this picture. Four different cheeses combined to make this one tasty calzone: mozzarella, provolone, ricotta, and feta. At least they were all low-fat cheeses, but the cumulative fat factor = not so great. Still, there was (some) spinach in there. We added a little marinara for dipping and had one deliciously cheesy meal.

Now for the bad news: we STILL have spinach left from week one, and today, in box number two, we received more. Lots more. Probably like five pounds more. And there's only two of us (that are human). Unless Ashley the cat takes a liking to fresh greens, I think we're stuck with a spinach surplus.

salad, take two

Now this salad, while similar to the last one, was much more satisfying. In fact, it was downright hearty. I was so stuffed that I didn't even eat dessert (a VERY RARE occurrence).

I used the enormous mutant lettuce as a base, and topped it with celery, carrots, Granny Smith apples, cheddar cheese, dried cranberries, and walnuts. It's dressed with my mustard vinaigrette, as usual. This time I shredded the carrots using our Salad Shooter. It's one of those weird little gadgets that I probably wouldn't have purchased on my own, but we received one as a gift from my sister-in-law and it has turned out to be one of the best gifts I've ever received. It's amazingly fast and easy, and I use it constantly. It takes so much of the work out of the whole shredding process - my grater is pretty much obsolete at this point.Post Options

Here's the first of many salads that we will eat this week. I used some of the colossal lettuce as well as some mixed greens (baby spinach, mustard, arugula, and several more that I can't identify). This night, I was craving all things crunchy, so I loaded up on celery, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, and sunflower seeds. I used my basic mustard vinaigrette (salt, dried mustard, champagne vinegar, and olive oil) that I put on almost all salads.

It was a tasty salad, but not quite filling enough. Thankfully, we had the rhubarb for a delicious dessert. I used Phat Duck's compote recipe, made with orange liqueur, and it was fantastic! The liqueur and the touch of butter really enhanced the natural flavor of the rhubarb. It was a little sweet for my liking, though, so next time I would cut the sugar down to a scant half a cup.



When I have rhubarb, I pretty much do a compote (with or without strawberries) or sometimes a crisp. My grandmother makes wonderful strawberry-rhubarb pies. But I'd like to do something different with it - do you have any suggestions for unusual rhubarb recipes? If so, please post in the comments! I'd love some new ideas.

By the way, that nice cold glass you see in the corner of the compote photo is spiced rum and ginger beer, a favorite drink of mine for summer (so refreshing!).

Out of the Box, Week 1

I've wanted to sign up for a CSA for a few years, but we've been thwarted by life events (one year hoping we would move out of state, then the next year knowing we would). Finally secure in the knowledge that we'd be in one place for a whole growing season, we signed up for a weekly small share from Luna Bleu Farm.

Not surprisingly, this early in the season, we get A LOT of greens. Take, for instance, this mega head of lettuce.

I think the fact that I have giant man-hands is throwing off the perspective of this picture. This lettuce was seriously HUGE - it must have been 18 inches across. It took a few hours to clean and spin the whole thing.

In addition to the colossal lettuce, we received a good-sized bag of spinach, a bag of mixed greens, and a handful of rhubarb spears. Clearly, the first week of eating out of the box would entail many salads. Pictures and details of just what we did with all those leaves to come in future posts.