That's A Lot Of Food - Week 9 Pickup

I can't believe it's August already. Where is the summer going? Last summer was filled with leisurely days of lounging in my back yard on a comfy chair with my pups tethered nearby and a cocktail and a good book on a tray next to me. I was well-rested, brown-skinned, and all smiles (the cocktails might have had quite a bit to do with the smiling) last summer.

This summer has a completely different vibe. Yes, there are still good books and cocktails in the picture this year, but I've only spent one afternoon in my comfy back yard chair and I am certainly not well-rested or brown-skinned.

This has been a busy summer. J and I have been busy working on our house, running errands, processing and cooking our CSA shares, and hitting green markets for fresh and in-season produce to put up for the winter. We're working hard this summer to make ourselves happy and comfortable this winter. It's hard to keep our eyes on the prize, though, when we seem to be work-work-working our summer away.

J has been getting frustrated with the amount of time we've been spending in the kitchen, so I know it's time to reflect on finding some balance. I know, though, that the more cooking and preserving I can do now, the more free time I'll have during the hectic school year. This is a tough call, because free time now is so warm and fun and pleasant and the promise of free time later is simply too abstract to grasp. During the summer I forget how sleep-deprived, overworked, and stressed I get during the school year. I need to find some time for warm summer fun and I need to make time to squirrel away all of the amazing produce coming into season this month so that we can eat well and conveniently during the school year.

Saturdays are always about running out to the farm for our weekly pickup of farm fresh fruit, veggies, eggs, and flowers. These runs are a fun weekly ritual. We're forced to get out of the house and we treat the pups with an always-appreciated ride in the car. Riley especially loves to stick his head out of the window and snurfle when we're winding through the rural roads of the North Fork.

Don't my boys look like they're having fun?

Just as much fun as the ride out to the farm is the moment our haul for the week is finally revealed to us. Yes, the farm often posts a list of items for the weekly shares earlier in the week, but the list is often wrong. So, when we get to see the CSA board for the first time, it's like waking up on our birthdays. Here's this week's goody list:

This pickup had our bag bulging with the bounty of mid-summer. There was a lot of food to bring home this week and all of it was fresh and beautiful. I've got big plans for all of this produce.

The lettuce, baby bok choi, turnips, broccoli, and bunching onions will join forces with some green market carrots, sweet onions, garlic, and celery and some of my home grown jalapeno peppers to make tasty lettuce wraps. I love the contrast of hot (veggie stir fry) and cold (lettuce cups) and sweet (carrots and turnips) and spicy (jalapenos). When the lettuce runs out, this stuff is tasty served over some brown rice.

The arugula will make a tasty green salad, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.

Cucumbers find their way into everything in my kitchen. Sometimes they're just a tasty snack with some kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Sometimes they find their way into a salad or onto a sandwich when I want something crunchy. Sometimes they're a great cracker-or-chip-substitute when I make hummus or some other kind of dip. Sometimes they are an essential side dish, especially when I make curry. One of this week's cucumbers has already been a salad ingredient and a snack. The other two will probably join the tomatoes turning red and yellow in my garden and some green market red onions for J's favorite summer salad. He'll eat this straight out of the fridge as is or stuff it into whole wheat pitas with some baked falafel balls (we did this last week) or toss it on top of a bowl of lettuce.

I've completely overdosed on corn this summer. I've just hit that wall where I can't eat any more corn. J, on the other hand, can't get enough of the stuff. So, some of the corn will be grilled up for J's dining pleasure and the rest will be trimmed off the cobs and dispatched to the freezer. I'll boil down the cobs to make corn stock again because I'll be making tons of corn chowder for J after the first frost. He loves the silky, velvety, earthy combination of corn and potatoes and cream. I love making soup and bread when the weather is cold. I can see it now - homemade bread bowls filled with steaming hot corn chowder (with my home grown potatoes bobbing in the creamy broth) waiting for us after shoveling down the sidewalk and driveway after the first big snow. You know, I hate winter and I despise snow, but I'm actually looking forward to both just to get a bread bowl full of corn chowder. Bring it on! (Give me a couple more warm months first, okay?)

I haven't used marjoram until now. I know it's part of the mint family and it bears some resemblance to both thyme and oregano. I'm thinking of drying some for later use and experimenting with some now. It will probably find its way into the big vat of tomato sauce I'm making this week and maybe sprinkled over a salad or pasta dish. I need to play with it to learn more about it.

J says he loves apricots, but I've never seen him eat one. If he doesn't eat these apricots I'll probably turn them into jam. I've read several recipes for apricot jam and I'm fascinated with all of the techniques for using the apricot kernels in the cooking process.

I loved loved loved the yellow plum sorbet I made with our last batch of plums. I might whip up another batch because it was just that good. On the other hand, a jar of plum jam or plum compote would make for a happy Sunday morning breakfast with some freshly baked biscuits or scones or waffles.

I love blackberries. As much as I'd love some homemade blackberry compote for pancakes and waffles (when I have pancakes, I want them smothered in blackberry compote), half a pint of blackberries just isn't enough. These little black-purple-bumpy jeweled beauties will be eaten straight up in one sitting, popping in my mouth like caviar and turning my lips a funky shade of violet. I hope we get some more in next week's share. I'll be searching for them at the green market this week for sure.

I got some new dishes at Fishs Eddy for making baked eggs. Some of our organic free-range beauties will find their way into these dishes atop some of homemade tomato sauce. I'll serve them piping hot from the oven with slices of homemade crusty bread.

The flowers this week were colorful and cheerful.


See how heavy the bag was this week?

Okay, enough writing. I'm off to the kitchen to prep some produce so that I can sit in the yard later with the pups and a good book.

Produce Overload: Week 9 CSA Pickup and Green Market Shopping

We can hardly get the refrigerator door shut this week. J and I have been very busy in the kitchen after a green market shopping spree earlier this week and yesterday's CSA pickup. I can't believe we've been picking our our shares for nine weeks now. Looking back, I realize that (not counting cherries and citrus products) I've purchased less than a shopping bag full of produce from the supermarket since late May - almost everything has come from the farm share or a local green market.

What were we up to this week? J and I headed into Manhattan on Wednesday to shop at the Union Square green market, grab some goodies from Chinatown, and meet some friends from work for good company and libations. We stocked the car with a cooler, a cooler bag, and several canvas shopping bags and headed out to take advantage of all of the amazing produce in season this time of year.

I was determined to find a real, honest-to-goodness, locally grown tomato. Yeah, I've gotten some small ones from my own plants, but some local farm had to have an early tomato or two for sale this week, right? Most of the tomatoes we found were hot house tomatoes. J and I were being obnoxious (well, it was mostly me being obnoxious) and stuck to our guns, holding out for the real deal. They were hard to find, but I came home with three funky lumpy but deliciously ripe tomatoes. Mmm...tomatoes...it's difficult to believe I'll be sick of them by this time next month. Until then, I am going to savor every bite.

The first of the three lumpy beauties found its way into a delicious tomato, mozzarella, and pesto sandwich on a fabulous baguette. Tomato sandwiches will become my daily lunch within the next couple of weeks, when I'm pulling the tomato right off the vine and slicing it, still warm from the sun, before wedging it into one of my homemade rolls. Oh my, I'm getting excited just thinking about it.

At the green market we also scooped up some fresh onions (both sweet yellow and red), leeks, dandelion greens (regular and red), escarole, cilantro, baby bok choi, some amazing scallions (two feet long), two more giant bunches of basil (can't resist its scent), a couple of kinds of bread, and some zucchini blossoms.



Aren't they pretty? They're incredibly delicate and were already getting soft by the time we got home. I battered them (I stuffed a few with some fresh mozzarella first) and lightly fried them for a crispy breakfast. I'm going to have to harvest some of my garden's blossoms to practice and perfect my recipe. They are tasty.


We ran down to Chinatown to get some noodles and a couple of cooking tools (including a new tortilla press - don't ask) and some produce one cannot get at the green market or farm stands on the North Fork. We needed some Chinese broccoli and other greens. We found even smaller baby bok choi - perfect for cooking (and eating) whole.

Fast forward to our Saturday CSA pickup and our goodies for this week:

Within seconds of snapping this photo, my wheels were spinning and I had plans for a lot of this produce.

The romaine would make lovely little lettuce cups for a spicy veggie meat stir fry during the week. The kohlrabi would add a tasty crunch to said stir fry.

The corn would be (part of - okay most of) dinner that very night (the ears were quite small - look!)
To give you a sense of perspective, the little ears in the front row were about 4 inches long. Note that there are only eight ears pictured here because we found some caterpillar friends in two of the ears (ah, the joys of organic produce!).

The kale would probably find its way into some quesadillas after being cooked down with garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes.

The basil was a beautiful purple basil, which I processed into a tasty basil-parsley pesto (right after I processed the two big bunches of basil from the green market into a couple of pints of pesto). This was the pesto on our tomato-mozzarella sandwiches. The rest of the pesto found its way into our freezer.

The cucumbers will find their way into a salad with the remaining tomatoes and some of the fresh red onion. Maybe I'll toss in some of the cilantro. Most of the cilantro and fresh onions were blitzed up into a big batch of salsa this morning. I can't wait to make salsa with fresh tomatoes.

Zucchini...zucchini...zucchini...so much zucchini and my plants have just started producing fruit. The big zucchini we picked up this week will probably find itself either pickled with lots of sweet onion and jalapeno pepper or on top of a pizza with some caramelized onion and roasted garlic and fresh parsley. Said pizza might even have a couple gorgeous free-range eggs perched on top amidst freshly shaven shards of Parmesan cheese. Okay, I'm feeling it. Pizza sounds good!

The cherries and blueberries from the fruit share will find their way into my food dehydrator. I'm preparing for those winter Sunday mornings when J wakes up craving something sweet and I'm craving some extra heat from the oven. Scones and muffins will warm his belly and the oven will warm my toes.

I forgot to mention that J scooped up twelve pounds of cherries this week. (J has a cherry problem.) A couple of pounds found their way into a big bottle of Cherry Bounce and I need to thank Merideth for this fun recipe. In a gallon container (I used an old growler that once held some stout) combine a couple of quarts of cherries with three cups of sugar (yeah, that's a lot) and a fifth of whiskey (not the expensive stuff - not necessary with all of that sugar). Every day for ten days, give the container a bounce to incorporate some of the sugar. Store the bottle away for four months and try not to obsess about it. I can't wait for this sweet cherry and whiskey liquor to be ready to mix cocktails. J loves Whiskey Sours, so how can we go wrong with a Bouncy Sour? I'm dreaming of a Bouncy boozy cherry cola. How about a blend of Bounce with some chocolate soda for a Black Forest Bounce? Oh yeah, this is going to be some good stuff in a few months.

The yellow plums were tiny and deliciously sweet-tart. I cooked them down with some simple syrup until they were soft then stirred in a generous glug of Triple Sec before chilling it down to make sorbet. This will hit the ice cream maker tomorrow morning. I know it's going to be fabulous because J and I attacked the bowl of the food processor after I poured out the sorbet mix. It's sweet and tart and orangy (from the Triple Sec) and wonderfully sunshiny.

We took the pups for an extended ride after our CSA pickup (check out Holdy in his Doggles).


Our destination? Harbe's Family Farm for another bag of their sweet corn. We ate six ears last week and they were amazingly sweet. Since we had ten ears of organic corn from our CSA already, the bag of a dozen ears from Harbe's was destined to be cut off the cob and frozen for all sorts of dreamy winter recipes - corn chowder, a lovely maque choux to serve along side my favorite Malaysian-style potato curry, corn and black bean quesadillas with black bean soup. I don't want to rush away my summer, but these winter dishes sound good. At least I have something to look forward to during the dark, cold months of winter. Maybe we'll get another big storm and a snow day (or two) to give me some quality cooking time! Before any of that can happen, though, the corn had to be de-cobbed.

Twelve ears of de-cobbing later, I had three lovely zip top bags of sweet corn nestled in my freezer, dreaming of blizzards and snow days and chowder.

Speaking of chowder, my corn cobs did not go to waste. I boiled them up with some water and salt and pepper and made a couple of quarts of homemade corn stock for a big pot of corn chowder. The stock is nestled into my freezer, next to the corn. I'm planning on using my own home grown potatoes in that recipe. But that's another blog entry for a much much later date. I've got a refrigerator full of summer goodness to cook through before the door pops off!