CSA Wednesday, Week 8

Boy, I knew I lived a sheltered vegetable life, but it's not until I bring new items home in my CSA share, and wonder, "How the heck am I suposed to cook this," that I realize how limited my vegetable consuming experience really is.

In this week's share... Please forgive the lack of quantity. I've forgotten what half of them are, and don't have *any* desire to re-weigh them...
Yellow peaches and white nectarines
French fingerling potatoes
Speckled lettuce
Summer squash
Mixed "specialty" eggplant
Sweet and mild peppers
Parsley
Mixed cucumbers
Honey wheat bread

Not in the group photo above is the honey wheat bread. I stopped by the farm after picking Boy Wonder up from chess camp, and he was drooling-at-the-mouth-hungry for lunch. I took a quick picture before he shoved me out of the way to devour his favorite; warm open-faced PB & honey...

The sweet onions in the picture weren't a part of the share. I needed some onions, and bought them from the farm since they had them available, and for only $1.50/lb. I believe the grocery store sells non-organic sweet onions for $1.69/lb.

When DH got home from work, he took a look at the table, and said, "It's amazing how the variety of vegetables is changing as the season goes on." Why yes, dear (slightly sarcastic), I noticed that too... The peppers are beginning to come in, as are the cucumbers, and we have our first eggplants!

Challenges: Playing catch-up from last week is this week's challenge, lol... The cucumbers will be hard to consume, simply because I have several more that are almost ready to harvest. I may need to make more refrigerator pickles to keep up. Oh, and eggplants are another first for me. I've eaten eggplant parmesan once or twice, but that's it. Never cooked with it!

Now onto last week's meal highlights...
Well, I have to admit, I don't really have any "highlights" per se, but I do have food to share. It was a rough week for me, you know, one of those weeks where new foods just seems impossible, and leftovers and "easy" are the name of the meal game?

The cilantro was turned into a double batch of the Spicy-Lime-Cilantro Sauce I mentioned last week (and I am in love with). I froze half the batch, marinated chicken in some, and coated the Magda squash in a little, and grilled. I actually finished the leftover chicken and squash with dinner tonight. Sometimes cooked veggies don't really work well as leftovers, but these squash are wonderful. And so, I've picked another one for the third week in a row, and plan on grilling it too!

Today's Magda

When I was putting this week's share in the fridge, I noticed last week's carrots, and decided to try a Quick-Glazed Carrot recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. One variation was to cook the carrots in balsamic vinegar instead of water with lots of garlic. We didn't like it.

The one new food from last week was the cheddar cauliflower.

I was torn between using it in a gratin and making mashed cauliflower "potatoes." At the last minute I went from the gratin to the mashed cauliflower (Literally. I pulled it out after steaming for the gratin, then put it back in to cook it to "mushy").  Less steps to make? Fiine...

The problem I ran into with making the mashed cauliflower came when I misread the ingredients, and put an extra cup of milk in... It didn't even dawn on my over-tired brain until after I'd mashed the cauliflower, and it was still runny. It tasted amazing, and DH said it'd make a great alfredo, so I threw it in the fridge and put some cold veggies on the dinner plates instead.

So, when is mashed cauliflower "potatoes" not mashed cauliflower "potatoes?" When you turn it into macaroni and cheese! Say wha-huh?

It was an alright dish. A little heavy on the Parmesan cheese, but definitely a doable dish with the cauliflower.  We didn't save the leftovers.

Most of the lettuce is still in the fridge. If it's good or not is to be seen. I haven't touched the bok choi either. It's looking a little limp, but will have to wait until Friday to be used. I have kickboxing tomorrow, and have learned the hard way not to do Asian, spicy, or heavy meals before working out, hehehe.

Oye! It's 11pm, and I'm way tired. Goodnight!