Summer a la carte CSA number one

Actually this is the third time the Bee Heaven Farm ~ Redland Organics CSA has offered a la carte produce this summer, but it's the first time they've shipped up to Coral Gables and I'm still unwilling to drive all the way down to the farm for a pick-up. I really must either start coming to terms with Miami driving or move out of here.

But enough about me, now that I finally can get CSA produce, what did I get?


In the upper right corner is a pile of mangoes in various states of ripeness. There's enough there for me to make another attempt at mango ice cream. I want to try to concentrate the flavor this time around, maybe by roasting or just by cooking down mango pulp into a syrup.

Next to them is twice as many white sapotes as I was expecting. They're fairly small so that's probably a good thing. From my research, I was expecting cherimoyas, but these appear to be casimiroas. Both are called white sapotes and custard apples but they seem to be two closely related but distinct fruits. And custardapple.com.au is all about atemeoyas. They all look different on the outside, but the descriptions of the insides' textures and flavors all match pretty well so the distinction may be entirely botanical and not culinary. I'll probably try one of the recipes from custardapple.com.au and find out for myself.

Next over are four smoked eggs which I guess you eat straight or on top of a salad use to make particularly interesting egg salad for sandwiches. I've made pickled smoked eggs before and I've tried the Chinese-style tea-smoked eggs, but these aren't those so I'll have to try one to see what it's like and give some thought to the disposition of the rest.

Below the eggs is a much-easier-to-deal-with bag of arugula. A bit of salad, a bit of sandwich topping, a bit of pasta topping and that should do it.

To the right are curry leaves and plenty of them. Most recipes only call for one sprig so I've got a lot of south Indian and Malaysian cooking ahead of me to use this packet up. I've never made a dish with mangoes and curry leaves in it despite both being common in south India. I'm going to look for one of those.

And that leaves a bunch of garlic chives. They'll probably end up over pasta or in a quiche or somesuch.

That's a fair bit and I've got to admit I haven't much felt like cooking recently. I'm glad I don't have to try to use all this up in a week.