Week Thirteen...

Week thirteen comes with a head of lettuce, some more blackberries, a bag of green beans, two ears of corn, a green pepper, some tomatoes, a head of garlic, and a little "salsa kit" of tomatoes, garlic, a tomatillo or two, and a poblano pepper...

Return of the Garbonzo...

I was looking to use up the potatoes, onions, and garlic that have been accumulating from the recent CSA shares... I also had a bag of dried garbonzo beans, so garbonzo stew it was.

After soaking the beans overnight, I diced up some chorizo, and sauteed two small to medium yellow onions, and then added some cubed baby yellow potatoes and a bit of garlic. The chorizo had a ton of paprika in it, but I added some additional paprika, thyme, salt and pepper. After letting the potatoes saute a little bit, I added some tomato paste, a splash of vermouth, and about a cup and a half or so of water along with a vegetarian bouillon cube.

After it cooked through and thickened, I added some diced green onion and some parsley, a bit of lemon juice, and some extra virgin olive oil...

Pasta Caprese

In the July/August 2007 issue of Cook's Illustrated, they had a recipe for "Pasta Caprese" - which, in essence was looking at a way of translating the traditional Caprese salad into a pasta dish. The problem that they looked to solve for was how to keep the fresh mozzarella from "gumming up" when heated up in the mix of pasta and fresh tomatoes. Their solution - dice the mozzarella and freeze it first.

Well, what I decided to do below was a little different - I had a variety of fresh/heirloom tomatoes from the CSA and some farmer's markets, and in order to "even out" the quality of those tomatoes, I rough-chopped them, tossed them with some olive oil and some salt, and broiled them briefly. I hesitate to link the recipe because the site archives are pay-for (worth it, btw), but you basically toss a pound of linguini with tomatoes (call it a pound and a half to two pounds), diced mozzarella, and a dressing of sorts that is heavy on the basil, a bit of garlic, a dash of sugar, and some lemon juice...

I still froze the mozzarella, but seeing as how I was taking it to work for a lot of lunches, I found that as long as you only warmed up the pasta and did not heat it through on full-blast, the cheese did not get too gummy. I also added the parsley from the CSA, some green onions, and the onions (diced) from the CSA. When broiled, the tomatoes let off a lot of juice - this basically becomes the sauce (picture of the concoction in the metal mixing bowl).

Definitely a winner - most likely will look to do this again shortly.

Week Twelve...

Week twelve contained: one red pepper, several tomatoes, two ears of corn, some small new potatoes, two onions, a head of lettuce, basil, parsley, and one package of blackberries. Those sure didn't last long...

White Bean Gazpacho

I'd been thinking gazpacho, and wound up going with it - I used up the tomatoes I'd received in week 11's CSA as well as the onions, peppers, and herbs, not to mention several containers of golden cherry and beautiful red heirloom tomatoes from our local farmer's market at Courthouse (Saturday mornings). I picked up some cucumbers from GrandMart, and followed a pretty traditional recipe, just adding in some cans of (rinsed) white beans, and some minced serrano peppers... I also found that the soup kept particularly well, and I think the tomatoes and acid in the lemon juice/sherry vinegar really helped keep the herbs (basil and parsley) fresh and bright green. The lettuce, I used in lunch salads, and the corn I ate boiled with some butter... Pretty plain, but the corn was incredibly fresh.

Week Eleven...

This week's share includes a LOT of tomatoes - some yellow (not all of them survived the ride home), 4-5 red tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, two peppers, some onions, a head of garlic, three ears of corn, a bunch of basil, and a head of leaf lettuce...

I'm thinking a huge honking batch of gazpacho (or something like it) to use as much of this as I can...

Screen on the Green Goodies...

Tomorrow night is the final "Screen on the Green" down on the mall - and they're showing the original Superman... A lot more people are interested in going to this than most of the other movies, so there's a lot of food and drink coming along with tomorrow.

With that in mind, I wanted to whip up some goodies, and even though these aren't really CSA-related, I still wanted to take some pictures. I made two things - a skillet cornbread concoction and a fava-bean puree (think hummus) with mint and salty cheese...

More Noodles...

I want to give a bit of a shout out to Grandmart (VII?) out in Seven Corners - after my volunteer work with Lost Dog (http://www.lostdogrescue.org/) at the PetSmart out there, I went out for some supplemental grocery shopping. The place is great - amazing range of produce with an Asian bent (half the stuff I have to google when I get home), and for the most part, quite affordable.

I was looking for some supplemental produce and some ideas as to how to use up the bunch of chard... So, looking at an Asian market, I suppose it's not much surprise that I decided to go with noodles again. They have (among other things) refrigerated udon noodles - under $2 for a one-pound bag... So, it was pretty much same technique as before - heat the h*ll out of a cast iron pan, and sautee up onion, red peppper, squash and mushrooms in some vegetable and sesame oil. Eventually, add some ginger, garlic, hot peppers and the greens (second picture), and stir-fry until the greens wilt. Add the cooked off noodles (drained), and toss in a sauce (picture #3). Heat through and garnish with some bean sprouts, green onions, and some herbs (basil, mint)...

In this case, the sauce is a spicy peanut sauce (vegetarian). Peanut butter (chunky), soy sauce, sesame oil, lime juice, sriracha, garlic, shallots, and brown sugar - whisked smooth, and folded in. This sauce would also be good as a dressing, over kababs, even perhaps over fruit...

Curry It Is...

I made curry - red curry... And used up a great deal of the CSA share to boot. I used up all the small new potatoes, the two ears of corn (cut into rounds), an onion, diced tomatoes, and the basil. I also added some chicken thighs, green onions, some thin sliced jalapenos for heat, some carrot strips, and garbonzo beans...

Super easy to prepare - layer the onions, chicken thighs (skin removed) and new potatoes in a dutch oven, add a can of coconut milk and a scoop or two of red curry paste, and cook on medium/medium-low heat until the chicken is almost cooked through and the potatoes are approaching tender. At this time, I added in the sliced green onion, carrots, and a can of garbonzo beans, adjusting for liquid and salt. I sliced in some basil and green onions at the end and containered it up with some brown rice for lunches...

Week Ten...

This week's vegetables include: two sweet onions (red), two ears of sweet corn, a handful of baby new potatoes, one green pepper, some tomatoes, basil, chives, and some leafy green - perhaps a chard of some kind?

Again, due to the long hours at work, I'm likely going to be leaning towards the conservative
"one-pot" fits all ideas - thinking maybe a curry?

Marinara...

Here are some pictures of the marinara sauce I threw together to use up all or most of the vegetables I mentioned in the week nine CSA share. I cubed, salted, and drained the eggplant, and sliced thin the carrots and the squash (a pattypan left over from the prior CSA). I cheated a little bit on the carrots - they went bad much sooner than I expected, so I had to replace the carrots. I also bought a package of roma tomatoes from our local farmer's market to augment the tomatoes I'd received on Tuesday.

Since they weren't incredibly ripe, I decided to roast the tomatoes in an attempt to boost the flavor somewhat. You can see the pictures of this. While the tomatoes roasted in the oven at 450 degrees, I bbasically did a slow sautee on everything else. I started with the carrots, then the squash, eggplant, garlic, shallots, some hot eppers, diced green peppers, and the green beans cut into one-inch slices... I added some vermouth, a shot of tomato paste, the roasted tomatoes after they were run through a food processor, some lemon juice and some thin-sliced basil at the very end. When this was done, I tossed it with some fresh linguini (purchased at the Italian Market in Philadelphia) and packed it up for some lunches...