Saturday, January 23, 2010

CSA week seven wrap-up, week eight start-up

I don't think I've got any other week seven cooking to report. The sapotes and avocado haven't ripened yet (beyond the one sapote I used in the sauce for the mousse) and I haven't touched the cabbage. I held off using the garlic chives too hoping for more this week or at least something compatible to fill out the vegetation contingent in the recipe I've got. I think the mizuna and cilantro should do nicely and maybe some scallion if I bother to go shopping this afternoon. I've still got half the kale too, but I think I'll freeze the remnants. It may be tender as kale goes, but it's plenty hardy enough to survive time in the freezer.



As for this week, I'm going to be out of town for the latter half (back for Saturday, but busy on Sunday) so I'm going to have to be careful about what I use and what I store. My mizuna is already a little yellow so I'm going to use that right away in the recipe I alluded to in the first paragraph. The oyster mushrooms I've already used; all the other CSA bloggers were so enthusiastic about having them with eggs so I just did that for lunch. I cooked them in the drippings I saved from last night's steak for a touch of extra flavor. It was a good idea; very tasty.

The tomatoes look good to go and my avocado nearly ripe so I ought to use those soon. A salad of some sort is obvious enough or slices on a sandwich or I could stuff one in the other.

If the sapotes ripen before I leave, I've been thinking of pairing them with banana, although just how I'm not sure. Mushing them both up and mixing them into something seems the obvious way to go. I don't want to do another custard, though. I thought about meringues, but I don't think I can successfully fold that much heavy wet flavorings into egg whites without deflating them. I suppose a quickbread is an easy choice. I know people have substituted black sapote into banana breads; have any of you made a bread using both?

The chard and celery I think will keep although neither will be at their best next week. Maybe it would be better to freeze them now before they've had a chance to degrade. When I do use the celery, I think I'll braise it. I like it a lot better than way than raw.

The canistel is probably going to ripen while I'm away but it's good to hold off an extra day or two with canistel anyway just to be safe. I'm still committed to using it in a savory dish, but I think I'll try meatballs instead of a full meatloaf. No point in wasting an enormous amount of other ingredients when it doesn't work. Shame I don't have any betel leaves, their smokiness would probably play well against the canistel's sweetness. Some other time for that idea, I suppose.

3 comments:

LaDivaCucina said...

I can't see why the sapote wouldn't be good in a bread with banana, just more concerned about how appealing it would be for the eye! That sapote is pretty black!

I wanted to let you know that I used the carambola in a lovely Israeli cous cous salad with preserved lemon, celery, almonds, parsley and roasted sweet potato. Worked really well. I think I'm going to use it in a salsa next time, perfect for that in a tomatilla sour kind of way.

How do you freeze the celery and chard? Do you blanch first?

billjac said...

That's a really interesting-sounding salad. I have a tough time imagining the flavor. I'll take your word that it worked.

My carambola was very juicy but had very little flavor either tart or sweet. I let it sit until it went from green to yellow (and then a little longer until it went a little brown around the edges). Wikipedia says that's perfectly ripe, but who knows.

I intended to blanch the chard, but I ended up using it yesterday. The celery I'm just going to slice up, lay out on the individual pieces of a baking sheet and freeze before storing them in a bag. That should give a good quick freeze.

sezzle said...

I use banana with black sapote and cocoa for an adapted pumpkin muffin recipe (ellie krieger's)-- my four-year old is a muffin fiend, and they're not half bad.