Organizing the loot

Organization is a large part of being a CSA member, and part of the reason why Ruth and I wanted to start this blog.  It might seem really daunting to have to 'deal with' fresh-with-dirt veg and de-stemming and chopping and drying, etc.  I remember when I was thinking about signing up - I would grill Ruth about how much washing and salad spinning was involved and whether there was dirt caked on to every little thing.  It's not bad.  Trust me.  We both have kids, we both work a lot - but we can still make this work.  

Here we go - box contents and what I did with them and what I plan to do with them for the week:

1. Beets.  They come with their tops on which are not only incredibly tasty and healthy - they turn to slime in like 36 hours.  I separated the tops from the root.  Roots went into a ziploc and the greens (snipped off with kitchen scissors - $2 at Ikea) went into a plastic bag and into the crisper.  We'll make them tomorrow and either eat them right away or I'll use them in a lentil salad (awesome combo - lentils & beet greens).  The next time I have the oven on, I'll roast the beets and we'll use them in salads.

2. Stir-fry mix.  A mix of chard, kale, collard greens.  I'll wash it right before eating.  That entails putting in the salad spinner.  Soaking.  Removing from water w/o spinning - the water helps the saute/steam process.  We will probably cook this with the beet greens.

3. Spinach.  To eat sauteed one night with loads of fresh garlic (see below).  Will wash right before eating.  The spinach takes about 3 water changes.  It's really not a big deal as I'm in the kitchen doing other stuff, I swish it, dump the water, repeat.

4. Swiss Chard.  See stir-fry mix.

5. Asparagus.  Nothing to do until I'm about to cook them.  My favorite way is roasting.  Snap off the bottoms, peel the stalks (these are thick) and throw into a hot oven after tossing with salt, pepper and olive oil. 

6. Radishes.  The bunch we got this week is BIG.  The leaves are no good - they get composted right away and the radishes go into a bowl in the fridge.  I basically eat these on my own, with bread, butter and salt as an appetizer almost every night.  I really look forward to this simple pleasure!

7. Garlic.  Nothing to do except eat them. :)

8. Cherries.  See garlic.

9. Strawberries.  See cherries.

10. Mint.  Place in jar with a little water.  Covered with a plastic bag.  Put in fridge.  Will use for tea, fava bean spread, in dessert, mojitos, ...

11.  Lettuce.  I keep it in the bag until I'm ready to use it - then I wash and spin it.  It takes about 2 rinses.

Tonight I spent about 30 minutes total disassembling the box and putting things away.  All while dinner was getting made.  Pretty painless!

Spring Goodies

I feel like I haven't updated you re: our box contents recently.  I think my new favorite food season might be spring.   For years and years, it was fall.  Fall meant applesauce and roast vegetables and roast beasts and cozy family dinners.  All that is still true, but the produce in the fall just can't rival that of the spring and summer.  Each week is so exciting as there is always a new little surprise in there.  It started with green garlic, then snow peas, and now fava beans.  This past week we received:

Leeks, carrots, green garlic, sugar snap peas, fava beans, kiwi, apples, spinach, red lettuce, asparagus, a grapefruit and...lemon balm!

Per the farm's suggestion, I made a tea with the lemon balm (and some mint I had) and MAN is it delicious late in the evening.  Very soothing.

The first week with fava beans, they were small enough to only have to shell once.  I tossed them with some pasta and green garlic and pecorino.  This week, I made a spread with them (per a fellow farm member's suggestion) by throwing them in the food processor with some (green) garlic, parsley, lemon juice and olive oil.  That combination, spread on multigrain bread with a glass of white wine is what I'm having right now and I'm in heaven.

Weekly menu

I have been a major slacker in the 'weekly menu' category! It should be more like the 'quarterly menu' at the rate I post it. Sorry! Here is an idea of how we have been eating our wintry veg:

Roast chicken & veg (sweet potato fries, onions under the chicken, stuff like that)

Chicken soup - broth made from chicken - includes veg from CSA box
[Chicken salad for lunch - leftover roast chicken]

Roasted fish, salad, broccoli

Flank steak, sweet potato fries, spinach

Stir fry: stir fry mix (basically baby chard, baby collards and some chinese veg), tat soi, tofu


I think that stands out most from this is how simple everything is. The whole family gets home around 6 - so there is a real time crunch to get dinner ready and on the table by 7. We are able to do this every night by keeping things easy peasy! The roast chicken is a Sunday meal. There is nothing better than a/ smelling chicken stock boiling Sunday night and b/ eating the soup the next day!

Summer Abundance

In this weeks' box were:

Heirloom tomatoes - 3 small, 2 large and 2 pints of cherry tomatoes
Cucumber - some of them were so long they wouldn't fit in the box! I wonder how long mine was to start with...
Eggplant - a pretty shade of lavender. I should take a picture
Onions - flat, white ones that are larger than a cipollini but smaller than a regular onion - at first I thought they were huge heads of garlic
Strawberries - swear to you. and in my opinion, they are now at their sweetest
Green beans - I have no idea what to do with all the green beans in my fridge!
Corn - three ears
Serrano chiles - 3 peppers
Zucchini - 3
Basil - a bunch

Stay tuned for our weekly meal plan. I think we are having pizza tonight - my mouth is watering thinking about a pizza covered in tomato, eggplant, zucchini and basil! And, still no problem for us to turn on the oven to 475 even though it is July 27. Gotta think positively about the San Franciscan weather.
-M

7.12.07

Better late than never...I get to our plan for our CSA contents this week.

In my box were:
cabbage, onions, plums, swiss chard, garlic, zucchini (why does Eatwell insist on calling this summer squash instead of zucchini? is it a regional thing? all summer squash that is not yellow is, to me, zucchini), green beans, yellow finn potatoes, heirloom cherry tomatoes, 2 big heirloom tomatoes (yellow & red). I was really bummed there was no corn! Hopefully Ruth got some to make up for the week when it was in my box and not hers.

I pick up my box on Thursday. It is now Monday, and all of our plums and cherry tomatoes are long gone!

For the two heirloom tomatoes, red onion from last week and the garlic, I am going to make a panzanella for my lunches.

Last night, I made a lemon slaw with the cabbage. Gist of the recipe is this:
4 cups cabbage
3 carrots
1 cup (bunch) scallion
4 tbsp mayonnaise (or 2 tbsp mayo + 2 tbsp sour cream)
1/2 tsp lemon zest
4 tsp lemon juice
s & p

It was so delicious - and I am not a big slaw person. Ruth has been talking it up for a few months - I should have listened a few months ago!

Tonight we are having chicken tikka masala and will add zucchini, green beans and maybe even some potatoes. The prepared curry is admittedly A/ not local B/ not organic and C/ REALLY GOOD.

Tomorrow night will be sauteed chard next to some potatoes and fish or steak.

Wednesday is my birthday and we were talking of having....lobster ;) Hey, it's only once a year! I'll be making up for it by eating totally local Friday night at this restaurant.

6.28.07

Oops, I'm already not keeping up with this!

Contents of our box last week:

4 ears of CORN!
pint of cherry tomatoes
4 large, light green zucchini
bag of BLUE potatoes
swiss chard
parsley
apricots
cherries
strawberries
onions

A few things we have done with the contents:

Steamed the corn and ate it pronto.
Grilled the zucchini and last week's yukon gold potatoes
Sauteed the swiss chard with the onion (wow are they sweet!!)
Parsley has had many uses!

The thing about summer produce is that you don't really need to really 'do' anything with it or to it. I'm going to have to start getting creative with the zucchini, though. Seeing Ratatouille over the weekend reminded me what a great dish that is in the summer.
-M

Diving right in

It is not really fair to be diving in like this, as my partner in crime is not in town this weekend. She is attending the Eatwell Farm Solstice campover (did I just make up a word?) with her family - how fun! We are just not campers, or we would have loved to go. We have no camping equipment to speak of, and just got back from a long vacation back east. I can't wait to hear all about it and see some photos. I'm also dying to know if they heard coyotes, and how loud they were.

One thing I would like to do each week on here is to share my weekly menu. My husband and I both work full time and need to have our meals pretty scheduled so we know what we are doing when we get home. We still don't eat before 7, but the girls are pretty used to it. (Until we figure out how to differentiate authors, I guess we will sign off on the bottom. One clue is that I (M) have two girls and (R) has two boys.)

Our box from Eatwell this week was fab - but next week's looks even more amazing. The best part of this week's delivery was a non-food item: a HUGE bunch of lavender!

In our box this week were:

Cherries
Strawberries
Lettuce
Garlic
Onions

Green beans
Summer Squash (green zucchini)
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Radishes or Turnips (we got turnips)
Red Cabbage
Lavender
Mint

The lavender immediately went on my table...and the rest in the bathroom! It is pure luxury to have a huge bunch of it in my bathroom like that. I am purposely doing nothing else with it :) The other thing I scored was a 2nd bag of cherries. Someone left it in the trade box - I have no idea why someone would do this. There was also an extra bunch of lavender, but I dared not take two extra items!

Anyway - our menu for this week, incorporating the above goods, looks like this:

Shepherd's Pie

- Husband's specialty. He'll use the potatoes*...that's about it. The carrots would have been used, but we are saving it for later in the week. The ground lamb comes from Diamond Valley. Not exactly local, but it is minimally processed, free range, etc. He will use the onions* and garlic* we received.

Stuffed flounder, green beans*, wild rice, maybe salad*

- The flounder is a new find from Trader Joe's. Pacific flounder stuffed with crab and cheese. It is *very* rich.

Couscous w/ Fatted Calf merguez, chicken legs, carrots*, zucchini*

Steak, fries, salad*

Stir fry shrimp (includes cabbage*, leftover vegetables*, onions*, garlic*)

That's what we've got up until Thursday. Tonight we are having mojitos (mint*!) and calzone (I know, they don't go together in any way) using swiss chard* I had sauteed and mixed with ricotta a few weeks ago. Thanks to a fellow Eatwell member for that fabulous idea.

If you haven't figured it out, the * indicates what came in our CSA delivery. You may have noticed I have no usage for the turnips. I'm not a huge turnip fan. Usually I give them away, but I'm thinking of pickling this time...

Ok - this was fun - can't wait until R gets back!

- M