CSA week five wrap-up, week six start-up

Now then where were we? Oh yes, last week's share; Did I cook anything interesting with it?

Well, there were the chile rellenos, but I have to admit I made them yesterday. They're actually quite simple, unless you go full-Bayless with them in which case they're extraordinarily complex and take all day. But if you just stuff the peppers with cheese and use enchilada sauce from a can, pretty simple. The one interesting thing is the batter which is made by whipping egg whites then mixing the yolks back in along with some flour. Whipping just two egg whites is difficult so I wasn't able to get quite the loft or stiffness I wanted, but you can see some light blobbiness in the results.

As for the rest, I picked away at the squash and herbs. The best thing I did was roast the squash down along with some onions and peppers and blended it into sandwich spread to use with slow-braised turkey. I probably should have taken a picture of that. I may well make some more and pack it in a jar as it wasn't bad at all. If I do, I'll take a picture.

On to this week, then.

Oh joy. These squash and eggplant are going directly into the freezer in the hope that I'll be happy to dig them out in six months time. Next week's squash and eggplant are going directly into the trash. Scallions are a nice change of pace. I think I'll make a scallion shrimp stir fry with them as that's been successful in the past and makes good use of the copious green bits I've got.

The best bit is the tomatoes, of course (although rumor has it I'll be cursing another batch of them soon enough). Slicing tomatoes plus basil (top right corner) means I'm breaking my mozzarella-making kit. I've used the kit once before and it makes cheese that's not quite as good as store-bought for only a slightly higher cost. I wonder if I can find a gallon of buffalo milk. That might improve it. I should probably hold back some eggplant to go with that too.

Once again, I'll let you know if the muse happens by. In the meantime, you should go back to last week's post to read Meow's comment on how she used last week's share. She wasn't any more inspired than I was, but it's good to get another take on things.

CSA week 4 wrap-up, week 5 start-up

I talked about the eggplant curry already; What else have I cooked?

There was the squash and chard quiche with ham and leftover herb chicken. Not bad, but nothing special.





There was the Thai basil beef where I reduced the beef to a quarter pound and added pak choi, peppers, onions and cilantro. I managed to stir fry the vegetables to just the right level of tenderness and the basil flavor came through surprisingly assertively given how mild it seemed uncooked.

And there was the chili that started out as a green chili with the jalapeños, tomatillos and more cilantro, but turned at least as much red with the tomato paste and red dried peppers I added. Tasty, but seriously hot. It'll mellow in the freezer over time, I think.

I've still got the cabbage and a little leftover eggplant and squash hanging around, plus plenty of herbs, of course.

Let's see what this week brought:


Pretty much the same as the last couple weeks and so buyer's remorse starts to set in. More squash and the six more packs of the same herbs I've already got (basil, mint, dill, lemongrass, chives and parsley) are the last things I need right now. I'm going to start drying and freezing so they don't go to waste. I had to clean out too many remnants of rotty herbs to make room for this new batch.

Greens are easy enough to find a use for, although I could live without the double dose of salad mix and a head of lettuce. The sugarcane is a useless novelty. But the tomatoes are good to see and those poblano peppers look stuffable which could be interesting.

If I come up with something worth writing about, I'll let you know.

CSA week three wrap-up, week four start-up

As I predicted last week, I cooked a lot of stuff, but nothing so complicated or interesting it was worth it's own post. Mostly, I focused on using the herbs in quantity and in combination.

First off, I had a few herb-heavy salad filled with basil, parsley, garlic chives and tarragon along with the salad greens, but that's boring to look at so I didn't take any photos.

I herb crusted a pork chop and cooked some pole beans with that. If I recall correctly, that was tarragon, thyme and basil.










I stuffed a bunch of herbs under the skin of a chicken and roasted it. I roasted the squash with it, but didn't get a picture. I used rosemary, bay and parsley for this. Too much really as the bird tastes as much of herbs as it does of chicken. The rosemary came out a too strong really, but it's not bad.










I topped pasta with sage, parsley and ham.














I used half the dill to pickle the okra. There are a couple jalapeños, a small eggplant and a small squash in that jar too.










The other half I used for gravlax. Along with the dill, salt and sugar, I seasoned the salmon with a smokey, peaty scotch that added a lot of really nice flavor to it.









And I made an agua fresca from a handful of mint, a cucumber, sugar and lime juice. With a sugar cane swizzle stick.




I left the cabbage alone. It'll keep until a really good application presents itself.

On to week four then:

Another herb-heavy week, but they're varieties easy to use in bulk so I don't mind.

That's a big bag of basil in the lower left hand corner. It's a mild sweet variety, but I'm probably going to go Thai with it anyway. I'm just not a big fan of pesto.

To the right is a bunch of cilantro. Along with the four tomatillos and the jalapeños center top, I could make a tiny batch of green chili. Or I could do some salsa.

Above the basil is mint. That agaua fresca was mighty refreshing with a jigger of rum added so I'm definitely making that again. That uses the cucumber too. Actually, that cucumbers pretty tiny. I'll have to buy some supplemental cukes to match the mint.

Above the mint is another squash and zucchini sampler. I want to pair that with the chard in the upper right corner as they both go so well with cheese and cream sauces. I could do a risotto, but it would be a big batch and it doesn't store so well. Maybe a bread pudding?

A couple eggplants in the center there. I haven't been happy with the texture I've been getting out of eggplant recently by doing the salting, purging and squeezing method. I'd rather roast them until they collapse this time around. Maybe I'll make baba ganoush.

And finally, in the bottom right are a small head of lettuce and a smaller head of pak choy. A salad and a ramen soup garnish respectively.

Of all that, the basil dish might be worth writing up and possibly the squash. That's about it. I'll probably just end up with another wrap-up post.

But, in the meantime, Friday UM's hosting a food truck night. They don't usually come this far south so I'm looking forward it. There's no info I can find on who will be there, but I've got my fingers crossed for Dim Ssam a Gogo and the GastroPOD. Even if I skip lunch I don't think I'll be able to try more than, say, four so I'd appreciate suggestions of which trucks to prioritize.

CSA week two wrap-up, week three start-up

Lots left unaccounted for from week two.

To start, all that eggplant. I decided to split it up; half went into an Italian pasta bake sort of thing along with a fair bit of the basil. The other half, I tried to incorporate into Vietnamese sugar cane shrimp. Unfortunately, the 50/50 shrimp/eggplant ratio made the resulting paste too soft to stick the sugar cane. Made quite respectable fritters, though.

I left the avocado too long, let it over-ripen and it got watery and bland. It took me a long time to realize that that was my fault and not just the natural state of Florida avocados. They can be good, but you've got a really short window of time you need to use them in. My mistake was putting the avocado in a paper bag with some bananas which accelerated the process rather more than I was counting on. I got to the bananas just in time, but the avocado went to waste.

I should mention the peppers, too. A couple went into the nachos the avocado was supposed to accompany and the others I'm saving to go with the okra. I don't think I've ever encountered jalepenos so fresh and crisp before. Very impressive.

As I just implied, I haven't used the okra yet. I'm sticking with the pickling plan, but held off in hopes of receiving some fresh dill this week. And, hey, some arrived just as I had hoped. I'll be setting them up today, I think.

And speaking of this week, let's take a look at what's newly arrived.


A rather better picture this week. Moving right under the florescent kitchen light and a tighter grouping on the square butcher block both helped quite a bit. You should be able to recognize most everything, I think.

The aforementioned dill is on the bottom mid-left. To the right is lemongrass, mostly stems I have no use for and very little of the actual good stuff. Maybe it's good for making a tea? To the left is a big bag of rosemary, sage, thyme and oregano. Along with all the leftover herbs from the last two weeks (which are keeping up surprisingly well), this is officially way too much. I hope the herb to everything-else ratio goes down soon as this does not serve my needs.

Above the herbs are some generic light greens, grape tomatoes and a cucumber. That's a salad right there to which I can add some of the herbs, I think. Basil, parsley, tarragon--those should all work. Maybe some mint, too. I can use a handful of sage with a brown butter pasta sauce. Rosemary and thyme I can use in bulk with a roast chicken. I'd throw in the tarragon, but I already did that and I've still got leftovers.

The squash sampler pack would be nice roasted along with that hypothetical chicken.

That leaves the cabbage, which I like with pork and/or yakisoba. And the pole beans which look so fabulous (although it's hard to tell through the plastic bag and, I just checked and their color's faded overnight in the refrigerator. I hope their flavor hasn't turned khaki too.) that I'm probably just going to steam them up and eat a big bowl full.

Nothing really blog-worthy in that list, is there? This may be a slow week.

It's alive!

I'm as surprised as you are, but I'm back. It's for the same reason as last year's return; It's CSA season again, I'm cooking interesting stuff and I don't know anyone who'll sit still to hear me talk about it. I swear, if I ever develop a proper social life, this thing's gone.

I ought to talk a bit about why I was gone so long before I talk about why I'm back. There's the too-hot-to-cook summer doldrums, of course, but I also moved to a new place with a kind of weird kitchen I had a hard time getting used to.

OK, now that I look at the photo, it's actually quite nice. It's just the propane stove and oven that have been problematic. The oven runs about 70 degrees hot and doesn't cool down readily when you turn down the heat. It'll sometimes just keep getting hotter, but I've learned to keep an oven thermometer in there and readjust every 10 minutes.

The burners have been harder to work around. They each have a very limited range. One goes from go from high to very high heat, one goes from very high to very very high and the last goes from too low to hold a simmer to off. I tried adjusting them but only managed to blow a fuse while looking for adjustment screws that aren't where they're supposed to be. Luckily I discovered that if you turn the knobs backwards, in the bit where the flame is just about turning off, if you're careful, you can get low and medium flames, so I can make it work.

Back to the CSA. This year I decided to switch from Bee Heaven to Teena's Pride. There are a couple reasons, but mostly it's because they have a one-person box so I won't have to deal with the weekly vegetable onslaught I got from Margie. I just about managed to use it all, but it was a struggle and I really don't feel like struggling any more. Also, Teena's drop-off point is within easy bicycling distance to my new place which is nice.

This is actually the second week of deliveries. Last weeks box was mostly greens and herbs. I made some chicken in a tarragon cream sauce, Thai lemongrass pork, a chard and sweet potato gratin, steamed some green beans and ate some salad. And I used the arugula in tacos.

Here's this week's box:

Hard to tell what's what with everything individually bagged like that. I'll try to do better next time, but I really don't want to take everything out. They'll be very hard to get back in.

On the right are bunches of mint, basil and parsley. Then a small pak choy and a bag of okra, a stick of sugar cane, a bag of mixed salad greens, several jalapeños, red and plain old sorrel and a variety pack of eggplants.

So, let's see, the basil is spicy, so, along with the mint, we've got Vietnamese condiments. Is sugarcane shrimp Vietnamese or Thai? Works either way since I've got some leftover nuoc cham from the lemongrass pork. I could do something Vietnamese with the eggplants; I think I'll want to use them together despite their differences. I wonder if I'll be able to tell them apart in the final dish. That'll likely use some of the hot peppers in that too.

The okra, I'd like to pickle; that's the best of all possible uses for okra to my mind. I've had some not-so-good pickled beets sitting in my pickle jars for quite some time. Past due to toss them out.

I have to admit I'm not familiar with sorrel. It looks like dandelion, but it's mild and lemony. The red sorrel is maybe a little tough to eat raw, but the plain sorrel is pretty tender. Might be good in a quiche. Maybe I'll just add it to the salad mix which seems a bit skimpy, although that may just be contrast to the lifetime supply of lettuce I'd get each week from Bee Heaven.

Really truly skimpy is the pak choy. There's really not enough there to work with unless I use it as part of a stir fry. The leftover green pepper from last week might go into that too. Both should play well with a black bean sauce.

Anything left? Just last week's avocado that just ripened. I don't see anything here that calls out to be used with avocado, though. Eh, I'll figure something out.

CSA year wrap-up

Once again I have failed you and brought shame to my family by not cooking anything interesting enough to blog about this week. I've roasted the carrots (yummy dipped in chipotle aoli), pickled the beets (using pre-existing brine. Not fabuluous one day after, but I'll need to give it a couple weeks to really tell how they'll turn out), used the sprouts and chives cold in sesame tofu and hot in duck soup, but none of it is worth more than a line or two to talk about.

The closest to a blogable dish I made was kinpira and that's just thin-sliced carrots stir fried in sesame oil and glazed in soy sauce and mirin. Lovely on a piece of miso-glazed fish, but too simple to post unless I had a huge rigmarole of a story to go with it like the person I stole the recipe from did.

Given all that, probably best to move on to the CSA season wrap-up. I'm not going to go back and review the last 20 weeks of posts so this is just going to be my subjective impression. And my subject impression is that the season went pretty well weather considered. I missed some of the variety we got previous years (beans other than green beans and corn particularly) and sometimes we got not quite enough of what we got, but overall I was happy with what showed up in my half-share.

Part of it, I think, was that I stopped pushing myself to find new uses for everything so I could post three times a week. Relaxing on the blog let me repeat some dishes that I enjoyed having before, although not nearly to the extent that I had planned to do at the season's start.

I cooked some interesting food along the way--the lucuma coconut custard pie was pretty good, the stuffed peppers a good experiment and chicken with grape tomatoes is the only dish whose recipe I routinely have to hand out at work when people smell me reheating it. Nothing as complicated or innovative as previous years, though. I guess that comes from the relaxing mostly, but maybe there was a lack of weird new produce this year. Or maybe not, it looks like I said pretty much the same thing last year.

And, just like last year, I want to clear out my freezer before moving on to Summer cooking plans. To complicate matters, I hope to move to a larger apartment soon which likely means a smaller kitchen (I have kind of an odd set-up here). Whether I sign up for next year's CSA may well depend on how large my new refrigerator is.

I don't think there were any other CSA bloggers this year. Were there any readers? I'd be interested to hear how you thought the season went.

CSA week 18 wrap-up, final week start-up

It's been a while both since my last post and since I've done any serious cooking. Actually, that's not entirely true. While I was visiting my sister, I cooked Thai peanut noodles one night. I don't know that the results were all that interesting, but given the requirements that it not include dairy, pork or shellfish and have adjustable levels of spice, salt and complexity, I think I did well. I've used a few different recipes for peanut noodles in the past and had settled on the trick of switching out half the peanut butter for tahini which keeps it from tasting too much like, well, peanut butter. This time, instead, I used David Lebovitz's recipe which starts with roasted peanuts and has the unusual inclusion of black tea. Leaving out both the chili oil and cilantro caused some problems, but I was fairly pleased with the result and it did go over well with everyone but the 3-year-old. She won't eat anything so I didn't take that critique to heart.

But that was in Ohio where it isn't 85 degrees. Here in Miami, I'm not so interested in spending a lot of time in the kitchen.



Still, this is the final week of the CSA so I should cook at least one blog-post-worthy dish. For that, my eye is on either the beets or the carrots, both of which we have in substantial amounts for the first time all season. Using them both in a cream soup might work, actually.

Beyond those two, the sprouts and chives seem like they ought to be used together too. I could see them both in a cold noodle dish. I never did get around to doing that with the last batch of sprouts.

I would like to plant the basil (in the plastic on the right) since it did come with roots still attached. I have another basil plant that sprouted up into shrubbery last autumn, but spent all its energy making flowers for me to pinch off over the winter and is wilting in the springtime sun and heat. I don't know if this new basil will do any better this season, but it's smaller so I can try keeping it indoors for a while.

Another point of interest this week is the local sea salt (in the packet on the lower left). I just tasted it against the Italian, French, Spanish, Hawaiian and Californian sea salts I've got in the cupboard already and, yeah, the French fleur de sel wins, but the Florida Keys salt came in second. It has a good texture, relatively small crystal size and pleasant complexity to the flavor that cuts the intensity. It's a nice accompaniment to the grape tomatoes. Does anyone see the fact that I have seven types of salt in my pantry as an indictment of my lifestyle? No? Just me then? OK.

In a week or so, after I've used the bulk of this share, I'll write a wrap-up of this CSA season and probably fade out as the summer progresses. If I decide to formally close up shop, I'll let you know.

CSA week 17 wrap-up, week 18 start-up

Another week of low posting, but I did do some cooking worth mentioning.

As I thought I might, I made a kale and turnip gratin. Unfortunately, there was rather more of both than I counted on, and rather less cream and swiss cheese about than I thought. The results weren't fabulous so I decided to try a fix. Digging around, I found some dried mozzarella, a bit of cheddar a fair amount of pecarino romano and, to substitute for the lack of cream, some cream cheese. I disassembled the gratin, mixed all that in and put it back in the oven for a half hour. An improvement, but still more gooey than creamy so less than entirely satisfactory. The next day I attempted to melt the cheese down and dissolve it into a cream sauce by adding a cup of chicken broth and simmering on the stovetop. Instead, the mozzerella seized up into curds the texture of ground beef. Not bad, really. The turnips had gone soft at this point so I mixed in some noodles for texture and a couple beaten eggs to thicken up the sauce and I ended up with an odd but fairly palatable concoction. Too much of a haphazard mess to be worth a post, though.

In contrast, the pork chops in fennel and caper sauce I made was not worth a post because it's already written up quite adequately on Food.com. It's a Giada de Laurentis recipe that I didn't modify in any notable way. Pretty darn good, though. I do recommend it if you've still got your fennel around.

I bailed on the dill curry I've been talking about, though. I figure that if I've got the ingredients in the house for two weeks and I still haven't made the recipe, then that's a recipe I don't really want to make. And I'm not going to cook something I'm not interested in just for a blog post. Not to please you lot anyway.

On to this week then...



That's callaloo on the right, traded in the extras box for the kale that was in the share. I don't need any more kale. I think I'd like to make mchicha with it again as it turned out quite well the first time.

The green beans I'm going to pickle as the last batch I made turned out great.

For the leeks, I want to do something with a cream sauce. I remember liking a chicken and leeks dish my mom used to make and I haven't done anything using cream with the CSA leeks I've gotten yet.

That squash is the first we've seen in quite some time, isn't it? I know saved some squash recipes for CSA season that I haven't used. I'll have to look one up. I might go with fritters. I could go for fritters.

Potatoes and parsley I'll save until I need them which just leaves the dandelion. Oh, I'll probably have them over pasta in something simple. We haven't had any turnip greens for me to do that with in a while and dandelion should work just as well after a quick blanch.

One final note: I'm going to be out of town next weekend so my half-share is up for grabs. Nobody at work ever wants it when I offer. Do any of you? I use the Coconut Grove pick-up if that makes a difference.

CSA week 16 wrap-up, week 17 start-up

Just one recipe post for last week? Sorry about that. There should have been a second, but ice cream is a multi-day process and I got a late start. It was Friday evening by the time I actually ate it in its final form and it seemed pointless to post then. I'll get it up tomorrow. Also, when I went to make the curry I found that half my dill had gone grotty. This week's new batch fills the gap so I'll probably make it tonight. Finally, with the weather heating up the kitchen and my refrigerator full of leftover fried chicken, cooking just didn't seem like a great idea.

On to this week then.

As I said, the dill is going into a curry, if not today, then soon. I was thinking of doing a gratin with the turnips as I've got lots of cheese and just a bit of cream lingering in the refrigreator. That would likely use some of the spring onion and maybe the kale? I did a quick search just now and kale gratin is a thing. Not with turnips generally, but why not?

The grapefruit, I might use for the unusual grapefruit and coconut milk shrip curry I made a couple years ago. I recall it turned out well. Or I might just juice them. I could go for some grapefruit juice.

And finally, the fennel. I have very little experience cooking with fennel and a search turned up many options. I'll have to sort through them to see what appeals.

CSA week 15 wrap-up, week 16 start-up

My cooking went mainly according to plan last week. I did do a stir fry using the tatsoi and mushrooms and I did bake a chicken with the grape tomatoes. I added some potatoes there too which wasn't a bad idea, although switching out the garlic for a shallot was.

I also made a leek pie as planned, sort of. I decided to use sliced potatoes for the crust but I sliced too many and put a layer in the middle too so it was sort of a gratin. Plus I added a couple eggs to the cream and cheese the recipe called for so it's sort of a quiche too. It's interesting enough for a post, but I didn't measure anything or take pictures while I was making it so I don't think it would work.

Finally, I used the mizuna as a pizza topping which worked surprisingly well. I still haven't gotten around to making the dill curry, but I've got all the ingredients in hand and even have some naan, so it's just a matter of feeling like doing it.

Well, there's also the matter of the full freezer and the lack of empty storage containers for the leftovers. I hopes of doing something about that, I left both the kale and the escarole behind this week. There's also the matter that, on Saturday morning, I hadn't used the mizuna yet, so I still had that plus half the collards so I really didn't feel the need to bring two close equivalents home with me.

For those remaining collards, I ought to use them as I've already got a big bag of them in the freezer. I don't want to make a traditional mess of greens but it's hard to find other recipes when search results are flooded with variations on the Southern standard. I'll have to put some more effort into it.

As for this week, nothing remaining really needs a dish built around it. Maybe the green beans or beets, but there's not a whole lot of either. Those are side-dish amounts and that's easy.

I do have a lot of cilantro already, but it doesn't look like it's holding up well, so this might just replace it instead of adding to it. There is a Bancock fried chicken that calls for cilantro stems and roots that I might make, though. Also, I'm considering a roasted beet and strawberry ice cream.

If I don't go that route (probably because I didn't resist eating the beets immediately after roasting them), I might take another shot at a strawberry banana sorbet. My post on my first try two years ago is still getting Google hits, but I wasn't really happy with how it turned out. I'd like to give the searchers something more successful.

The only thing I haven't got any ideas for is the sprouts. I've used them before with cold noodles and on sandwiches but I want to do something different. I'll have to give that one a bit more thought too.

CSA week 14 wrap-up, week 15 start-up

The only thing out last week's box that I've posted about is the hoja santa so I've got a fair bit unaccounted for. For the most part I did what I said I would last week. I made chips from the kale, which turned out a bit disappointingly as I overloaded the pans so they cooked unevenly. And I did do something interesting with the spring onions and dandelions as I had hoped--it's interesting enough for its own post which I'll probably have up tomorrow. I found a curry for the dill too, but I had it slated to make on Friday and I wasn't feeling it. I'll try to get to that soon. The tatsoi, on the other hand, I completely forgot about and only rediscovered as I was putting this week's share away. I intend to do a stir fry using it, this week's oyster mushrooms and the lobster tail I picked up at the market this morning. Probably with black bean sauce; that should go nicely with those ingredients.

What else have we got this week? I left the lettuce behind as I've already got a head sitting untouched in my refrigerator from two weeks back. No sense wasting another.

I want to do a French leek pie or possibly use the leeks in a beef barley soup. I haven't settled on that.

Mizuna's always tricky to deal with. Maybe a pesto? Probably with noodles one way or another.

Parsley will find itself used, so no worries there.

I want to make the baked chicken with cherry tomatoes recipe again as it was so very easy and so very good last time. If I can stop snacking on the tomatoes, I'll do that.

I've already mentioned my plans for the mushrooms so that just leaves the collards. They're so large I'm thinking they'd be really good to stuff. Just what with, I'm not sure yet, though. I could also see making hopping john as it's been some years since I've had that. We'll have to wait and see.

CSA week 13 wrap-up, week 14 start-up

I have to say I appreciated not having too much produce to deal with this last week. I usual need a break around this time of the season. The only thing I made worth mentioning beyond the beet chili and radish chips is a radish-top pizza--
before:



after:


Pretty good if you don't mind a little bitterness. The radish-tops were just hearty enough to wilt but not crisp during the 7 minutes in the oven so I was pretty happy with the resulting texture.



Lots to deal with this week and I don't think I'm going to be able to take the easy way out and make chips. Well, maybe with the kale.

If I don't make kale chips, I'll probably save the kale for later. It freezes quite well and is pretty versatile if you slice it thin.

I'm thinking of cooking the dandelion greens with the spring onions which should caramelize up nicely if I can get my stove to cooperate. I know I've gone to that flavor combination several times previously, but it is really good. I will try to do something a little different with it this time around, though.

I've got a shrimp and tomatillo recipe picked out for the hoja santa and a curry for the dill. That leaves the tatsoi which should make a nice addition to noodle soup or maybe fried rice. It seems sturdy enough to handle a stir fry without collapsing.

CSA week 12 wrap-up, week 13 start-up

No surprises in the wrap up this week. I had the arugula with pasta like I said I would and pickled the green beans as per plan too. I did throw some of the cherry tomatoes into the pickle jar so that's something.

This week should be less predictable simply because I have no idea what to do with this stuff.


One turnip, one beet, one pepper. Not enough of anything to base a dish on and they don't really add up to anything. A gratin, maybe. Wrong sort of potatoes for a gratin though and it seems odd to go out and buy more when I've got this pile plus leftovers from Thursday's yukina soup.

I do have a perverse impulse to add the beet to an espresso/cinammon/chipotle chili I'm making. Probably best if I resist that urge as the recipe is odd enough as is.

I don't really know what to do with the head of lettuce either other than, I suppose, just eat it. You can probably sense my lack of enthusiasm from how I nearly cropped it out of the picture. The beet and turnip tops might work in a salad. I usually prefer to cook them a little, though.

This week's strawberries have less flavor than last weeks, so I think I'll have to cook with them instead of eating them out of hand. Maybe I can use the beet here instead.

I took a spare canistel from the extras bin and when they ripen, I should have enough pulp accumulated to work with. That won't be for a week or two, so I'm not going to commit to anything yet, but if I'm going sweet with the beet, I'll want to do something savory with the canistel.

That leaves the potatoes. Good size for chowder or roasting. Or juggling. If I decide on juggling, I'll let you know.

CSA week 11 wrap-up, week 12 start-up

Despite the lack of posts about it, I did actually cook with the Week 11 share--the kale, the curry leaves and the honey specifically. I cooked fairly interesting stuff too, so you'll have to wait until I've gotten around to writing them up instead of hearing about them here.

Moving swiftly along to week twelve, the two big items to deal with are the arugula on the left and the yukina savoy on the right. The arugula I'm thinking of using in risotto instead of my usual pasta application. Or maybe not. There's a lot and risotto doesn't store well. Maybe soup? The yukina savoy I want to use in a stir fry. The spring onion could go into either of those.

The strawberries and grape tomatoes are both nice eaten out of hand so that just leaves the green beans. Have I done pickled green beans before? Not successfully, I don't think. That will probably use the dill which is still in the refrigerator somewhere.

CSA week ten wrap-up, week 11 start-up

I made a couple dishes last week not worth a full blog post but worth a mention here: spinach pasta dough and Italian wedding soup.

The spinach pasta dough was a real pain to work with. I kept adding more flour to compensate for the moisture in the spinach, but it stayed sticky and delicate and refused to roll out well in my pasta machine. I ended up using half the dough to make some really tough gnocchi and some noodles that stuck together into a lump and putting the rest in the freezer. It'll probably roll out better half-defrosted, I figure. If it had good spinach flavor, maybe it'd be worth all this trouble, but I could barely taste any. Big waste of some quality spinach.

The Italian wedding soup, on the other hand, was quite good, but it's just adding meatballs and coarsely chopped escarole (or curly endive) to chicken soup and finishing off with egg-drop-soup-style egg threads made out of alfredo sauce. I did make my own meatballs, but not much there to write about.

What's left then? Half a head of escarole, half a head of celery, half a container of grape tomatoes, most of the parsley, the honey and a still-not-ripe canistel. Huh, I thought I had made more of a dent in the share than that. I'll make a frittata or a stew or suchlike to use that up.


If this week's share looks sparse, that's because I left the lettuce behind, as usual, as well as the mizuna. I've got nothing against mizuna, but I'm getting tired of greens at this point, plus I need to limit how many new ingredients I bring in this week. my freezer is completely full and I need to clear out some space so I can make ice cream.

So, the only real non-seasoning ingredient I need to deal with here is the kale. There's a German beer-braised kale recipe that caught my I, but kale has been trendy recently so there are interesting recipes floating around out there. Or maybe I'll just make chips; That's always an option.

For the curry leaves, the trick is using a reasonable amount of them at once. Jamie Oliver has a few recipes that ask for a handful; his fish soup looks pretty good.

I might go Indian again with the dill (as mentioned in the newsletter). I wasn't too impressed with the curry I made with them last April, not while it was fresh, but it improved over time in the freezer and was very tasty when defrosted.

The carrot I've already snacked upon and, as carrots go, it was a good one.

I'll save the pulp from the black sapote when it's ripe and wait for more. It's easier to use in bulk, I've found. I'll probably do the same with the canistel, now that I think about it.

Finally, the green onions are no problem. I use plenty of onions and scallions in my cooking so these should substitute in nicely.

That's still three or four dishes all of which will probably have leftovers. Even if I can pull most of the non-share ingredients out of the freezer, I don't know if I'll be making much progress towards emptying it out. Maybe I'll save the dill and curry leaves. They both freeze well.

CSA week nine wrap-up, week ten start-up

There was supposed to be a second post this week; I made a slow-cooked kale and beans dish that look promising, but the transition from the oven to the slow cooker didn't go smoothly and, in retrospect, I don't think simmering greens for hours was ever a good idea.

Beyond that fiasco, I made a warm green bean and grape tomato salad that turned out nicely. I simmered the tomatoes in a little red wine until they collapsed and got some really intense flavor out of them. I also made a pasta topping with the dandelion greens and the turnips chopped into tiny dice. I was hoping to get some color on the turnips, but they were fine just cooked through. And I ate the canistel with a little honey. There's a brief window between under-ripe and poisonous and over-ripe and mushy where they're nice to eat without any processing.

That's just the mushrooms left. Usually I use those right away but I never got around to it this week. Maybe today then if they survived all right.

For this week, I should start with the emerald explosion in the middle of the picture. If that's escarole, then the curly endive from last week wasn't. Looks like I fell prey to the same sort of nomenclatural confusion I sorted through with the betel leaves. I'm not going to make Utica greens again to compare and contrast, though. Maybe I'll go the Italian wedding soup route instead.

Just about hidden under the escarole is a small bag of sunflower sprouts. They've got more bulk and more character than your average sprout. I could see using them in sandwiches like watercress or in a soup.

To the left is a big head of celery. I want to do a stir fry. A quick search turns up lots of options, but I'm having a hard time picking out what's most likely to work. Also, what's most likely to use more than just a stalk or two.

On the right is some spinach. Not quite baby spinach, but still too tender to treat too roughly. Maybe creamed?

Above the spinach is a canistel I'll worry about later and some parsley and grape tomatoes I'll worry about not at all.

The honey, on the other hand, I need to deal with. Added to the big bottles of avocado and coffee honey I've got (The first a bit nasty and probably only suited to savory applications; the second really really good and a bit surprising to find local to South Florida.) I now officially have too much honey. It doesn't go bad, of course, but I want to put it to use. An ice cream seems a good choice, but I need to find my own twist on it. Any suggestions?

CSA week eight wrap-up, week nine start-up plus an important note about the betel leaves

I should follow-up yesterday's post right off the start. I added the mustard-based hot sauce and tried the collard/potato salad cold and it's still mediocre. I still think there's a good idea in there somewhere, though. I'll have to work on it.

Still a lot of greens unaccounted for. I was in a noodly mood this week so I went that way for two out of three. I mixed the peashoots into cold sesame-vinegar noodles after giving them a quick blanch so they had something of a noodle texture too. That was pretty good.

The yukina savoy I cooked way down and mixed into mac and cheese. That worked pretty well, too.

And for the chard, I tried the taco recipe from the newsletter, but I don't think it was nearly as good as the Rick Bayless recipe I made a couple years ago. I had some trouble with it, anyway.

I also made an extra-dilly gravlax so, unless I'm forgetting something, that just leaves the canistel which just got ripe enough to use today. I'll have to see how much flesh I get out of it before figuring out what to do with it.

This week brings plenty more greens even after leaving the lettuce behind. Some other interesting stuff, too, though.

In the upper left corner is curly endive. That's the traditional green used in Italian wedding soup which doesn't sound bad. I thought I might try that.

Below that is kale. Drlindak (Dr. Lindak? D.R. Lindak? Dr. Linda K.?) and have been discussing pairing kale with beans in the comments of last week's start-up post and I'm intrigued enough to give it a try. This isn't actually the proper sort of kale, though, so maybe not this time around.

I'm thinking a green bean/tomato salad for those two, and pairing the mushrooms with the piper betel too.

As for the betel recipe in the newsletter, I came across this quite interesting webpage that strongly warns that betel is the wrong leaf to use. Comparing the photos on that page with what I've seen elsewhere, I'm pretty sure that every time I've had a Thai dish wrapped in a leaf, it's been bai cha plu, not the bai plu we've got. This other page also compares, contrasts and makes the distinction clear, too. Both authors say that bai plu doesn't have any culinary applications; it's used for chewing betel nut and that's about it.

Having tasted it, that sounds about right to me. I'm going to not use mine, and recommend that you don't use yours either. I'm not saying that they're poisonous or anything, just that they taste lousy and you shouldn't ruin a dish by including them. I've made a couple fairly successful dishes using them in previous years, but I'm tired of struggling to make them palatable, particularly starting from the disadvantage of them not actually being food.

Margie, if you're reading this, could you talk to Robert about this? If he's growing and you guys are selling the wrong stuff, that's a problem.

Back from that tangent, there's still the turnips and dandelion greens. Eh, I'll blanch to remove the bitterness and then cook them both up with some fresh pasta and plenty of garlic. Done.

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

Margie gave the blog a very nice mention in the newsletter this week. That usually brings in a handful of new readers so I'm feeling a little pressure to be interesting. I'll see what I can manage.

Yesterday, I was going to make the potato/collard salad I mentioned in last week's start-up post, when I went to get the collards out of the refrigerator there were the braising greens I had completely forgotten about. So, instead, I wilted them a little Chinese bacon and a whole lot of garlic and ginger and added them the pot to simmer while I made ramen.

That leaves the collards and potatoes unused, but they'll both keep a little longer. I've also still got the black sapotes. I've harvested the pulp from two and the third is about ready to go. I've got a couple ideas for flavor combinations to go with them, but I'm not sure if the final result will be in cake or ice cream form.

On to this week...

It's another greens-centric week, but they're all different enough that there's still some interest here.

For the chard, I can't argue with the taco recipe from the newsletter. I've made variations on it a few times and have been pretty happy with the results.

For the dill, I'm in the mood to make another batch of gravlax which should use up this small bunch plus the extra stems I've got stashed in the freezer.

The canistel won't be ripe for a while so I won't bother worrying about it too much now, but I since just one isn't quite enough for more recipes I'll probably do another round of my savory canistel recipe experiments.

The mizuna, next over, I think I've found the trick for. That's to remove the stem ends and treat it like baby spinach: salads, last second additions to soups or such or a quick saute to use with pasta or eggs or as a base for a chunk of meat. Not a lot of promise for anything particularly exciting, though.

Peashoots (in the bag above the mizuna), I like in tea sandwiches or on crackers with a bit of, for instance, gravlax. Delicate applications like that. Put them in a salad and they'd get lost and I can't see cooking them giving great results. On the other hand, that is quite a lot. Maybe they'd work in a cold noodle salad.

And finally, the yukina savoy. That's the only one of this lot hearty enough to survive a stir fry but that's kind of an obvious way to go. Maybe a slaw?

If any of you have better ideas, (for the yukina or otherwise) please share them in the comments.

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

I only had three cooking nights this week, but I managed to use the majority of my half share. The green beans, bok choy and curry leaves were in the curry I wrote about last time, of course. I also made a wilted komatsuna salad dressed in sesame oil that was pretty tasty.

For the collards and turnips, I thought I'd try a new cooking method. I put them in a pot with a cup of chicken stock, steamed with the lid on for 10 minutes, took the lid off, simmered the liquid entirely away, added a little oil and finished by getting a little color on them. Other than some timing issues (I'd add the turnips after five minutes next time), it turned out pretty well, I think. I threw in some garlic sausage too but I don't think it added too much. If I do it again, I want to find some way to incorporate bacon.

That leaves the peppers--which I still intend to stuff once I go shopping to buy some meat to stuff in them--the parsley and the leftover grapefruit. I've found a pretty interesting recipe to use the latter two in. I suspect it'll be revolting, but I'm curious enough to give it a try.

If I had known that this week's share would be so skimpy, I wouldn't have made such a concerted effort to use last weeks. Partially my fault as I left my lettuce behind as usual, but I got shorted turnips and cilantro. I intended to check my box carefully after missing out on mustard greens two weeks ago, but I was distracted by a woman picking all the good stuff out of the extras box. I suppose there's no actual rule against it, but it seems really inconsiderate to me, particularly if you're there early.

Still, I've got a bit to work with.


The braising mix, on the left, is actually more versatile than the name suggests. I'm thinking of a cream of greens soup, but I've got some other recipes that call for miscelaneous mid-weight greens that I might go with.

On right is collards again. I found a collard & potato salad recipe that I might try. Or I might do chips. Collards should work just as well as kale does. If I don't do the salad, I'll just keep the potatoes around as they're always handy.

The sapotes won't be ready for a couple weeks. The one I've already got on hand is approaching ripeness now, but I think I'll freeze the pulp until these two are ready and use them all at once.

That leaves the cherry tomatoes which I can rarely resist eating out of hand, but if I can resist, I want to roast them. Maybe with a chicken.

CSA week five wrap-up, week six start-up

Not a lot of wrapping up to do, really. I had the broccoli with ziti, froze the cilantro (which worked quite well. It's the defrosting that's a problem.), and I'm still waiting for the grapefruit and black sapote to ripen.

In contrast to last week's scanty box, there's lots to deal with this week. Too much considering I'll be traveling for most of it, but I think everything here can hold a little while.


Starting with the greens, there's collards on the left and komatsuna on the right. I've got a ham hock in the freezer so I might cook the collards up Southern-style, but I might shred them and add them to a soup, substituting for kale, instead. Komatsuna is a mid-weight Japanese green that takes well to braising. I haven't cooked Japanese recently so that's a possibility. Add a little miso and sesame, top with a piece of soy-glazed fish and I'm done. I could probably find a way to use the turnips in there too, I think.

The green peppers this week don't have the weak spot on the bottom that kept me from stuffing last week's pepper so I have another chance to cross that off my agenda. I could use to parsley in that dish, I think. There's really not a lot of it there once I've got rid of all those stems.

The baby bok choy you can't really see in the back will make a nice stir fry. There isn't enough to use just them so I'll probably incorporate the green beans too. Oyster sauce complements both vegetables so it should work.

That leaves the curry leaves. All those plans above might change depending on what curry recipes I find to use the leaves in. There's enough here for way too many servings so I'll freeze some too.

That's a whole lot of cooking for not many days, plus last week's fruit and some lúcuma I've got. I may end up, if not skipping next week's share, only taking a few selected items from my box.