Michelle Smiles

Teaching my children to question authority, except mine.

Another CSA update

July5

CSA pick up is Wednesday mornings and I get so excited. It is so fun to see what the box contains each week. I try to snap a photo of it all before I put it away.

I’ve not been updating the CSA thing regularly. Mostly because I don’t have anything interesting to say. I’ve made some yummy things and a few more average things. I roast a lot of veggies because I’ve found just about everything tastes decent when tossed with a little olive oil and roasted for 20-25 minutes at 425*. I’ve been eating a lot of vegetables that I’ve never been a huge fan of but if roasted or cooked in ways that involve cheese, I’ll eat it. For those who are thinking about doing one and like seeing what might be in their box every week, this might be interesting. For everyone else? Snooze fest.  I’ve been documenting for my own information as well as for some people who talked about being curious if they would like doing it themselves.

A large purple cabbage, sugar snap peas, beets, green onions, patty pan squash, blackberries, 1/2 dozen eggs, 2 packages of bratwurst, and pork chops.

I didn’t use the whole cabbage – I made a slaw type thing with 1/2 of it but it is harder to eat raw than some other cabbage (harder to shred and chew). I don’t tend to like cooked cabbage so I wasn’t sure what to do with it. The blackberries didn’t make it through the day. The brats are yummy. The chops were good but a little fatty. Roasted the beets (for Steve – blech) and the squash (which I always thought were just decorative gourds for Thanksgiving – oops). The snap peas I threw in something along the way.

Cherry tomatoes, corn on the cob, eggplant, patty pan squash, onion, eggs, dragon tongue beans, white cucumber, 2 packs of chicken breast, and italian sausage.

The dragon tongue beans were so pretty before they were cooked – whitish with purple streaks. The streaks fade when cooked and they taste a lot like green beans. We LOVE the italian sausage – so good. The chicken was good – we grilled it. The corn was fine (let’s not discuss the huge worm that I cooked in one – the world of no pesticides – eeekkk) but just isn’t as sweet as the corn up north. Sadly through a calamity of errors (aka life), the eggplant didn’t get eaten. Steve brought home a huge zucchini from someone at work and I did with it what I intended to do with the eggplant. I sliced it, breaded it with mix of 1/2 breadcrumbs and 1/2 parmesan cheese, then baked it. (Then our a/c went out in the middle of the heat wave and I didn’t cook for 4 days because it was too stinking hot so the eggplant got too soft.)

 Dragon tongue beans

2 packs of chicken quarters (with the legs attached), green beans, napa cabbage, tomato, that yellow thing is a little melon, rutabaga, red potatoes, eggs.

The chicken is in the freezer. I ate the napa cabbage as a salad with some oil and vinegar (really a fan). The tomato went into some sauce. The melon was okay but nothing to rave about. The beans and potatoes were side dishes on different nights.

Cherry tomatoes, green beans, tomatoes, dill, ground beef, onion, chuck roast, patty pan squash, red potatoes, white cucumbers, and eggs.

The roast was yummy in the crock pot. The usual treatment for everything else. The ground beef – 1 pound is in the freezer, the other went into spaghetti sauce as did the 2 big tomatoes.

We don’t eat raw tomatoes much so I was at a loss as to what to do with all of the cherry tomatoes. Then I decided to make a simple spaghetti sauce. I halved them, put in a whole bulb of garlic with the top cut off, tossed with some olive oil and some salt then put them, covered, in the oven at 400*.  Cook for 40 minutes. Remove the bulb of garlic and allow to get cool enough that you can squeeze the cloves out and into the tomatoes. Throw in some basil, red wine, a little bit of brown sugar, a dash of cayenne, some salt and pepper. Use your immersion blender (or you could throw it into food processor/blender) to smooth it into a sauce and let simmer for 10 or 15 minutes more. Steve and I decided it would be perfect with a little pancetta thrown in but it made a really nice sauce.  I didn’t take an after photo. Oops. This is before it went into the oven.

That is all of my CSA news. I forgot to take a photo of today’s box. It was more of the same with some grapes as the surprise. I will say it takes more time in the kitchen to cook with so many fresh ingredients (a lot of washing and chopping and roasting and stirring) but I’m enjoying it for the most part.

posted under csa, food
3 Comments to

“Another CSA update”

  1. On July 5th, 2012 at 8:19 pm heather Says:

    I have become the queen of roasting veggies. Seriously though, I got all the veggie haters in our house to try so much more just by roasting them. I’m not brave enough to try CSA with all our picky eaters (and non-meat eaters), but I love seeing how you are using everything.

  2. On July 8th, 2012 at 5:49 am Heather Says:

    Yum! Roasting veggies always make them taste good!

  3. On July 10th, 2012 at 4:28 pm Ami Says:

    Lately, I’ve been experimenting with zucchini. So. Much. Zucchini. Our favorite is on pizza. Spread goat cheese mixed with a little lemon juice (or if your kids are picky like one of mine just use ranch dressing) on the pizza dough, then place sliced zucchini and yellow squash around the top of the pizza, slightly overlapping. Top with parmesan cheese. I love it.