Buying club fortnight one wrap-up, fortnight two start-up

You wouldn't know it because I'm a bit behind in writing up my posts, but I did a fair job of using my my first half-share despite going out of town for a few days. I've mentioned how I used the corn, potatoes and spinach. The bananas and broccoli are going to be in upcoming posts. The mango turned out to be rather fibrous so I decided to cook it down along with the blueberries. The original idea was to make a syrup, but, on a whim, I decided to throw in a banana which stayed kind of solid. It seemed a better idea to blend it all together and make more of a goop out of it. I can think of a few uses for that sort of thing, but it turns out that blueberries, mangoes and bananas aren't the best possible combination of flavors so I haven't done much with it. The rest I've used in bits and pieces, but I've got most of the garlic, one under-ripe tomato, and half each of the cucumber, squash and lettuce head left.

Since I've got more cucumber and lettuce in the new share, I'll probably consolidate. The new cucumbers--there are two hidden in that picture--seem the pickling sort so I'm leaning in that direction. [Which reminds me, the pickled beets from a few weeks back have been a bit disappointing, mainly texturally. I really should have boiled them instead of roasting. Also, since I added the onions to the pickling liquid when I boiled it, the onion flavor overpowered the beets a bit. On the other hand, the eggs I pickled with them were really great. The extra onion flavor really worked there.] I'm also thinking about a lettuce soup. I'm all out of chicken stock and don't have the accumulated bones and scraps to make more yet, but I do have the makings of shrimp stock which would make an interesting base for the soup. I just have to figure out what other elements work with those flavors.

The onions this week are plain old yellow onions so no need for any plans there. The potatoes, on the other hand, are a new variety called Klamath Pearl. The packaging says they're well suited to salads, roasting and grilling. I've had my share of potato salad recently and don't grill so I guess it's roasting. Or maybe, along with the squash and corn and maybe the spinach, some sort of Southwestern gratin.

The broccoli-esque item on the left is labeled "broccolette" which I think is the same thing as broccolini and a different thing than broccoli raab. I think that's destined for a simple side dish sauté.

The snap peas (in shadow in the center bottom of the picture), I think I'd like to stir fry. I wonder if there are any proper snap pea stir fry recipes where they aren't just substituting for snow peas. I"ll have to do a little research.

That leaves the fruit. There are a couple lemons which is good as I'm out of lemons. Another big box of strawberries which are still too pretty to cut up. The first grapes I've had in years. (I haven't had an apple since moving to Miami either.) Maybe it's from not having them in so long, but the grapes are really tasty. And finally, way too many bananas. I've got another idea for a banana ice cream (beyond the one I made yesterday and will post about in a day or two), but that will only use half. Maybe I'll do a banana bread, too.

To tell the truth, I don't know how much of these plans I'm actually going to follow through on. My kitchen is just so very hot and I have so little desire to get in there and cook. I'm also finding a lack of desire to cook bringing a lack of desire to eat a full dinner and the idea of cutting back and maybe losing a few pounds is tempting. My buying club experiment may be short-lived this summer.