22 August 2009

Week 13 Pickup - Better Late Than Never

It has been an entire week since our last CSA pickup, but I haven't written a word about it. Strange. Well, in my defense, we did head into NYC for a green market run on the same day as the pickup - which we've never done before - so I claim discombobulation. Better late than never, though, to talk about what we got and what we've done with it.


The veggie share is the bulk of the pickup, as usual, and there were some great finds this week. The basil and the arugula both found their way into pesto. The basil pesto was spread onto tomato and fresh mozzarella sandwiches - yum. We froze most of the arugula pesto but saved a bit to eat with our oven fried eggplant and squash I wrote about earlier this week. That was a tasty combo and, obviously, how we used up our one large eggplant from the share.

The bell peppers will find their way into the batch of red beans and rice I'm making today. I will confess that I usually pop open a can or two of Blue Runner red beans when I'm craving a taste of New Orleans, but I've been wanting to try making my own red beans and rice for some time now. Since neither J nor I really like green bell peppers for any other recipe, this is the time for my experiment.

The tomatoes and jalapenos joined forces with more tomatoes and chiles from my garden and the green market to make a tasty salsa (and accompanying tomato margaritas). The salsa was particularly good on some crusty panini I made with cheddar cheese and some roasted hot peppers.

The sungold cherry tomatoes sat on the counter for a couple of days while we ate the grape and cherry tomatoes spilling out of our garden. I decided to take pity on the beautiful orange-hued sungolds and froze them into big cheery cherry tomato marbles. They're in a baggie in the freezer awaiting a winter's evening when they'll be popped into a saute pan with some olive oil and garlic for a fabulous quick pasta sauce. They'll taste of summer in the dark of winter.

Lettuce = salad and sandwich ingredient - as usual.

I haven't been using the broccoli to my best advantage all season. I'll have to get on that soon. Time for some research.

The fruit share was slightly modified. J got a melon that looked like a canteloupe and was called a canteloupe but had some honeydew coloring on the inside. He also got some white peaches that he said were wonderful and some tiny little donut peaches that I thought were the cutest thing ever. Notice that J got all of the fruit this week. Did you know that I'm ambivalent about melons other than watermelon (of which I simply cannot get enough)? Since J loves all melon, this one was entirely for him. Anyone who really knows me knows that I cannot stand peaches or anything peach flavored. Thank goodness J loves the fuzzy little buggers, or I don't know what I would have done with them. I can't even touch them - the fuzz gives me the creeps.

Some of the egg share was cooked up with some greens and grilled slices of bread for a fabulous breakfast. Some of the egg share is still in my refrigerator, awaiting its destiny.

The flower share was a bouquet of six sunflowers, evenly divided between two different varieties. They are so happy and cheerful. I set them up in my kitchen to make me smile and even J comments on them every once in a while.

Sorry I had to make this one so quick. We're getting suited up to head out for our week 14 pickup today. We're also hoping to make a stop or two at some local farms for a bushel of tomatoes to can. So far, all of our tomatoes have hit the freezer and we're running out of space. It's time I bite the bullet and learn how to can these buggers up. Wish me luck. I'll take pictures - I promise.

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