Yesterday

I did not make soup. But I did peel a cucumber in stripes, cut it into slices, dip it into hummus, and eat it all.

Salad

I made a salad for lunch today. I used the lettuce from this week (I think) and the carrots from a couple of weeks back, along with non-CSA tomatoes and red pepper, and some “fresh” mozzarella. And I turned a roll into croutons, to go on top.

The carrots were amazingly sweet, but then again none of them was any bigger around than my pinkie so I’d hope they were sweet. And I still have some left!

The lettuce was on the bitter side. Although the lists we’ve been getting have said that our shares have various colors of leaf lettuce, this reminded me more of escarole, both in texture and flavor. I suppose it’s possible that the bitterness came from the hot weather we’ve been having?

We were hungry, and I forgot to take a photograph. Oops.

Week 08

…or Greens Relief Week.

This week’s comparison:

• Blueberries: a pint.
• Green or yellow beans: yellow, a smallish bag.
• Rainbow chard: a bunch.
• Cucumbers: two ordinary.
• Garlic: a few heads.
• Dino kale: a bunch
• Green leaf lettuce: a head
• Bunching onions: a bunch, of course.
• Zucchini: Three. They’re getting bigger over the weeks, but nowhere even close to baseball bats. Thank heavens. I might be able to make a zucchini cake this week.
• Sungold cherry tomatoes: Nope. We bought tomatoes this week at the market, both yellow pears and full-size red ones.

We actually didn’t bring the chard or kale home with us. When we picked up the share this week, we chatted a little bit with the woman who works at the armory, and who brings our box out. She loves greens, and commented that these looked nice. They did look nice. They looked so nice that we asked her, “Want ’em?” So everyone went home happy!

Is the corn over for the season already? No peaches, which are in proliferation at the market?

While I was at a band rehearsal last night, Casey blanched, chopped, and froze last week’s kale and chicory greens. We’ll use them in soup when it’s actually soup weather. Casey also washed the lettuce, as it was particularly obvious that this week’s head grew in the ground. We’re having salad tomorrow, with the lettuce and tomatoes and the basil from last week, along with maybe some onion, and some red and yellow peppers and mozzarella. I’ll probably dress mine with boiled-down cheapo “balsamic” vinegar. And then we won’t have any more leafy green stuff in the refrigerator until next Thursday. We welcome the respite.

Week 07: List and suggestions

This week, the newsletter says we’re supposed to get:

• Blueberries
• Green Basil
• Rainbow Chard
• Chicory Greens
• Sweet Corn
• Cucumbers
• Red Kale
• Green Leaf Lettuce
• Bunching Onions
• Zucchini Squash

I’m beginning to wonder just how giant the fields of greens are, and if they’ll ever quit giving us kale. And I think that if they’re going to keep giving us kale and/or chard every friggin’ week, they need to give us more suggestions about ways to use them. I’m about kaled out by now, and we aren’t even halfway through our season share yet.

On the bright side, the blueberries we got last week have been wonderful. (Yeah, I know, I didn’t say anything about last week, or the week before. It’s coming.)

We got onions last week also. They looked nice and fresh, and had more bite than I was expecting. Bite is generally a good thing in onions, as far as I’m concerned.

One of this week’s suggestions was for a roasted lemon-basil chicken. This is exactly the sort of recipe I don’t really need, as I never have any trouble figuring out things to do with fresh basil. I’m also a little puzzled by the fact that the recipe calls for putting basil, garlic, and lemon slices between the skin and meat of the chicken, before the chicken goes into an oven for 45 to 50 minutes. I can’t imagine that the basil would have much impact on the flavor of anything, after that long in the oven.

The other recipe suggestion is for a zucchini pizza, where the zuke gets sliced into thick rounds, grilled, and used as the base for pizza sauce and mozzarella. I like this idea better. However, the next time I have zucchini to use up, I’m more likely to want to try a recipe I found in David Lebovitz’s blog for a zucchini cake with crunchy lemon glaze. (That’s assuming it’s cooled down enough to contemplate turning the oven on again!) One of the things that particularly appeals to me about this recipe is that all the dry ingredient measurements are given by mass. I wish the liquid ingredients were also given by mass. Oh well.