CSA Wednesday, Week 10

If I do another blog series, I've learned I shouldn't use a day of the week in the title, LOL. Things just can't always get done on the day they're intended, which for me, seems like that's the case in life more often than not these days. But I digress. Here I am, on Thursday, doing CSA Wednesday, and doesn't the produce below look like it's been kissed by a rainbow?

In this week's share...
1 basket strawberries
1 basket Maglia Rosa or Black Cherry cherry tomatoes
1 (large) bunch basil
1 lb mixed cucumbers (I chose all Lemon cukes for canning)
1.75 lb heirloom tomatoes
1.5 lb eggplant
1 lb onions
3 heads Rose garlic
2 bran muffins

This week's CSA share is looking a little... skinny... but I have no problems with that, because I just know there's another big burst of produce coming!

The tomatoes that are next to the eggplant were originally in the Trade Box, and not liking eggplant the first time we had it, I traded one of them for the two tomatoes. All of the tomatoes except for the cherry tomatoes went straight to the freezer. I will. make. sauce.

Challenges: None for this week, wow! A day after pickup, and the tomatoes are in the freezer, muffins gone, strawberries half eaten, garlic pickled, the cucumbers are up for pickling tomorrow, and half the basil was given to a friend. Onions are an easy one to get rid of, so that really only leaves the (I say in a low, raspy, slightly disgruntled voice) eggplant.

Last Week's meal highlights...
Last week was a fun week of new foods, and I had the chance to do two non-CSA food related canning sessions. I'd hoped to put up a jam involving the white flesh nectarines and peaches with the strawberries I'd purchased, but couldn't find a small-batch recipe involving the stone fruits and strawberries. I'm not experienced enough (yet) to start making up my own canning recipes, so the stone fruits were consumed joyfully. I did, however use the strawberries to make Strawberry-Lemon Marmalade (from Ball). But that's not a CSA related post, so no more on the subject or else I'll get sidetracked with talking about how deliciously awesome that recipe is, and how I never want to have plain strawberry jam again.

The huge zucchini I picked was my favorite veggie from last week's share. I left the farm decidedly against another loaf of zucchini bread, and thought I'd make a savory side dish out of it. Well, I had a hankering for something baked, and I remembered ShawnAnn mentioning Granny's Chocolate Zucchini Cake. I'm a cookie gal myself, and oatmeal cookies are one of my tops, so I hunted down this Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Zucchini Cookie recipe. Heck yeah! They hit the spot, and just did again (wiping crumbs off the keyboard). Next time I make these--oh, there will be a next time--I think I'll replace the chocolate chips with rum-soaked raisins...

I used the rest of the zucchini in fritters. They were decent... DH really liked them, but I thought they were a little too fluffy/doughy. I thought they would be fantastic with Ranch dressing, but stopped buying store-bought dressing, and didn't have any. The whole meal I kept imagining dipping them in Ranch instead of ketchup. Today while grocery shopping, I had to pick up Ranch to try with the leftover fritters. It tasted downright awful! Not the fritters (they reheated great in the toaster oven), but the Ranch dressing! LOL

Remember how I said I wasn't a big fan of snow peas? Foiled again! I was humming and hawing all week about using them, and half expected them to be spoiled when I pulled them out of the crisper today. They were perfect, as if they'd just been picked! I found a non-Asain way of preparing them, and went for it. We all gobbled the Lemon-Butter Snow Peas up, and I wish I had enough for seconds and leftovers. Guess what I'll be growing this fall?

I also attempted to make a Caesar dressing to go with the Romaine lettuce, per DH's request, but failed. I didn't have anchovies (blegh) or sour cream, and refused to use a raw egg. I'm not a fan of mayo, so it was up to him to taste the recipe I made and tell me if it was up to his Caesar standards... He ended up enjoying the Basil Vinaigrette I made for myself, LOL.

CSA Wednesday, Week 9

Theeey're Heeere... There are many things that come to mind when thinking of summer produce, but the top two that pop into my head are always tomatoes and peppers. We've received peppers in two of our shares, but today we have our first tomatoes. Being a new tomato eater, I'm proud to say I'm quite excited!

In this week's share...
1.5 lbs white peaches
1.5 lbs nectarines
1.5 lbs heirloom tomatoes
1 bag snow peas (in July? Nice...)
1 (large) head Romaine lettuce
1 bunch savory
1 bunch chard or kale (I chose kale)
1.5 lbs summer squash (I chose zucchini)
1 lb cucumbers
Ratatouille focaccia bread

Occasionally there is a bonus box, and this week it was a very large cooler full of a few overripe/damaged tomatoes, and loads of sweet peppers and eggplant. We were encouraged to take what we wanted. Not wanting to be overly greedy, I took this small bowl of yum yums.

The tomato weighed in at 1 lb 5oz. It's pretty ripe, and slightly bruised on the under side, but I doubt that will hurt the sauce I plan on putting it in!

Today I picked up 8 lbs of super fresh Driscoll strawberries from Costco that I'm going to try hiding long enough to preserve (I already gave in to DH's demands of testing out our new blender by making strawberry smoothies). The strawberries are so beautiful, I couldn't help myself! Plus, after two years of living in CA, I still can't get over the fact that I've been eating Driscoll's berries for forever while living in VA, and now I live within driving distance of where they're grown! What was my point in telling you that? Oh, yes... I'm hoping to find a small batch canning recipe to use the nectarines and/or peaches in, and hopefully one that includes some strawberries. I need to warm up my newbie canning skills before taking on canning tomatoes (crossing fingers).

Hmm... Ratatouille focaccia bread... The bread was... different, but amazing, as has been the case from this particular bakery. I know, I say it every week we get their bread, but I love it. It's topped with the farm's peppers, eggplant and squash, and cheese.

Challenges: There was some spoilage the past two weeks, mostly due to my lack of stamina and non-willingness to get down and dirty with my pots and pans, but I'm feeling more "normal," (whatever that is) and with pretty standard fare this week, there shouldn't be any spoilage.

I'm not a big fan of snow peas, but hey. I said that about tomatoes and onions, and now I can't seem to get enough of them!

Last week's meal highlights...
As I said, there was some spoilage. I never got around to that bok choi from week 7. DH got burnt out on dinner salads really quick (I could eat them every day), and so last week's lettuce spoiled, along with some of week 7's lettuce. I'm certainly not blaming him, but there's a lot of prep work involved in dinner salads, and I wasn't going to go through the trouble if he wasn't going to enjoy participating in the consumption of my hard work! I let him know we received Romaine lettuce this week, and there will be salads, and he has requested Caesar dressing. Hmm... I'm more of a vinaigrette gal these days so I'll have to think about it. ;-)

Oh yes. Last week's food... Sidetrack central over here tonight!

We tried eggplant for the first time. I marinated it in a parsley and basil marinade (minus the oregano, and used white balsamic) along with onion and crookneck squash before removing and marinating chicken in the mix, then grilling it all...

The onion and squash tasted great, although crookneck squash isn't the best grilling squash, I've learned. The eggplant? DH and I took one bite of it and both agreed under our breaths that we wouldn't make the boys eat more than a taste of it. Blegh! None of us liked it. It was cooked well, but the flavor of it! Yuck!

Oh, the delicious, creamy fingerling potatoes... I quartered, coated in olive oil and kosher salt, roasted, then garnished with chopped parsley. So simple. So tasty. I love potatoes...

These were served with grilled Magda squash and tilapia that were both marinated in that Spicy-Lime-Cilantro Sauce I keep mentioning. Can you tell we love the stuff? I've used it on squash, steak, chicken, shrimp, tilapia, as a salad dressing, and veggie "dip."

It dawned on me yesterday that it's been a really long time since we've had tacos or ground beef for that matter, so I defrosted two pounds of ground beef I purchased through our CSA (I don't think I shared that with y'all, but our farm purchased two grass-fed cows from a client, and they were butchered to sell to CSA recipients), and cooked it up with onions and peppers, and divided in half. I made half of it into tacos, and the rest will be made into sloppy joes for Friday's dinner because there's celery floating around somewhere in my fridge that needs to be used.

Sorry the picture isn't very appealing. It's imperative that tacos be eaten while the meat is hot, cheese unmelted, and lettuce crisp (not that that ever happens with children around, lol).

Hey, if you have a good small batch canning recipe involving any combination of peaches, nectarines, and strawberries, please share it in the comment section. My peaches and nectarines are white-flesh, in case that matters.

I'm off to bed!

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!

CSA Wednesday, Week 7

Oh yes, my readers, I knew week seven would bring us some CSA luck! Strawberries, carrots, and Bibaine bread, oh my! But the two things I was clicking my heels together for were Bibaine's bread, and cilantro. We got both, yes!

This week's share includes...
2 baskets strawberries
1 basket baby plums
1 bunch basil, dill, or cilantro
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch kale, bok choi, or chard
1 head cheddar cauliflower
1 head red butter lettuce
1 lb summer squash (I sorta cheated and grabbed the biggest Magda they had. Came in at 1.4 lbs, teehee)
rosemary focaccia bread sprinkled with salt & pepper

I was really glad to see Bibaine Bakery's bread on the menu today. And still warm at pick up time, mmmm. This is the second time for this style of loaf, so I now it's going to melt in our mouths at dinner tonight. That's right. I've managed not to tear off a chunk by now. LOL I had the chance to talk with Mr. CSA Farmer about how we felt about the two bakeries we've been receiving the bread from, so that's officially off my chest.

When I was setting up the food for pictures, I realized I grabbed bok choi instead of chard, so I guess we'll be having an Asian dish this week. A good opportunity to try some of my Siam Queen basil!

Challenges: I don't anticipate any challenges this week, surprisingly... With the exception of the cauliflower, everything looks like pretty standard fare here.

I only say cauliflower because I've made it once before. That one time was waaay back "in the day" when I knew how to steam broccoli, and cook three kinds of chicken; Shake n' Bake, BBQ, or lemon pepper chicken (premixed seasoning). I've come a long way since then, so I'm sure the cauliflower will turn out a lot better than the nasty roasted cauli I attempted to make.

Now on to last week's CSA meal highlights...
I make a lot of dinner salads, so the arugula and speckled lettuce were at home in my kitchen this past week. The first salad I made included the beets, which I roasted.
Beets before roasting...

And after...

This roasted beet salad with raspberry vinaigrette also included CSA radishes and greens.

I made a steak fajita salad which used up the cilantro, gypsy peppers, squash, onion (from another week), and the salad greens. You can read more about this divine salad with cilantro dressing here.

Last night's dinner was one I've been wanting to make for a few months, but thought I'd have to wait until I grew my own arugula this fall to try it... White Pizza with Arugula, by Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa). I used my own pizza crust which has Italian seasoning, and also added mushrooms and caramelized onions. The original recipe would probably be bland, but with these changes, it was everything I'd hoped it would be...

Sometime last week I made a Stone Fruit and Loquat Crisp to use up last week's stone fruits, our plums and loquats. It was good, and the oatmeal crisp topping rocked, but DH and I both decided we just don't really like fruit in our desserts.

I made up for it with butterscotch blondies, LOL.

CSA Wednesday, Week 6

Six weeks down, sixteen more to go! I'm not really counting down, waiting for the end... I looked at the calendar... hehe...

This week's share includes...
1 (large) bag of arugula
1 bunch of radishes
1 bunch beets
1 bunch cilantro
1 head of speckled lettuce
1 lb summer squash
3 Gypsy peppers
1.25 lbs yellow peaches
1.25 lbs white nectarines
2 seeded cheese sticks

When I received the weekly email stating what will be in our share, I was really excited to see arugula on the list. I recently borrowed Barefoot Contessa's Back to Basics book where she features arugula in several delicious looking recipes, and can't wait to work with it.

What I wasn't very pleased about seeing were the breadsticks... We took my mom-in-law (MIL) to our farmer's market this past Saturday, and the bakery that shared the bread sticks with us was there... I actually commented on these bread sticks, saying they "Look like something Big Bird would eat." They weren't half bad, but I wouldn't put it past the bakery to give us the farmer's market leftovers because the bread was tough--like several days old, tough (I worked in restaurants long enough to know how leftovers work). So far this bakery has 3 out of 3 thumbs down from us. The first week they participated in our CSA was the single cookie and brownie, and last week was a Double Olive Bread that was too dense and too, well, olive-y for our tastes--and we like our olives. We all enjoyed the simplicity and larger quantity of bread the original bakery, Bibiane Bakery offered.

Challenges: As was the challenge for last week, it is once again to avoid spoilage! I've eaten canned beets, which were ok, but never cooked with them. I have no idea how they'll go over with the family.

Speaking of last week...
As Mrs. CSA Farmer suggested, I lightly coated the Magda squash in olive oil, salt and pepper, and grilled with some zucchini. Oh, Lordy, it was good! I par-boiled some new potatoes we picked up at the farmer's market, and threw them into a pan to saute with the rest of my homegrown onion and some garlic, and thickly sliced Zypher squash from last week's share. Mmmmm, nom!

Last week's CSA basil was made into another round of pesto. This time I replaced the pine nuts with toasted almonds. I also threw in a few of my own basil to bring the amount up to the correct quantity. I froze all of this in 1 Tbs portions for later use.

I finally used up the rest of the baby and sweet & sour plums with loquats in a Crumble (recipe on my food blog, here).

After feeling crummy, and having a very looong day yesterday, comfort food was in order. I made this quick and easy Broccoli Cheddar Soup, and served with fresh and crusty White-Whole Wheat French Bread.

CSA Wednesday, Week 5

Things are really starting to produce at the farm, and it feels like I'm bringing home more and more each week. I think I may need to freeze some things this weekend.

I could smell the basil as soon as I walked up to the farm stand, and my mouth started watering. I don't know what it is about me and basil. And onions! Happy about having more of them too. I can't seem to get enough of the two these days...

This week's share includes...
1 bunch broccoli
1 head red leafed lettuce
1 bunch greens (I took the chard, I did!)
2 lbs summer squash (the yellow squash with green ends are "Zephyr," the pale green squash is "Magda")
1.5 lbs mixed onions; Yellow Walla Walla, Super Sweet Stockton Reds, and Torpedo
2 zucchini or Gypsy peppers (heck yeah, I took the first peppers of the season!)
1 bunch basil
1.25 lbs plouts
1.25 lbs white peaches (nom!)
1 loaf Double Olive Bread

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the head of lettuce is huge (at least to me), and I had to weigh it. It came in at 12 ounces...

One of Boy Wonder's friends came over yesterday, and the first thing out of my mouth to the dad was, " Hi. Do you like plums?" He started to explain that he liked them but the rest of the--I cut him off, dragged him inside, and gave him a quart sized bag of 'em. LOL. I would've given him more, but didn't want to look overly desperate about trying to offload them. So, with about 8 lbs of plums in the fridge, more on the tree, and those silly loquats, I'm less than enthused to see the plouts in this week's share.

Challenges: The one challenge this week is to avoid spoilage. LOL I don't know where the time has gone, or why I have so much left from last week, but I have a fridge full of produce right now.

Speaking of last week...
My second go at making zucchini bread went a lot better. I shredded the zucchini, and put in cheese cloth and squeezed out a lot of the moisture...

I used the rest of the zucchini in in a farro Side dish, which I showed you on Monday. You can find the recipe on my cooking blog, here.

I used the kale in this recipe intended for Chard, and served with cheese tortellini to make a vegetarian meal. I loved the combination of Kalamata olives and caramelized onions, but didn't care for the capers. DH loved the capers, and didn't like the olives. LOL

I purchased some endive and raddichio to make the lettuce from last week's share go further, and combined three recipes to make one awesome salad. I had this Mixed Green, Pecan Chicken, and Goat Cheese Salad (with and without the chicken) three times last week, and for dinner tonight. My Mom-in-Law is here, so I'll have to share the recipe with you when I have a moment.

CSA Wednesday, Week 4

Oh, goodness, today couldn't come fast enough! I've been scrounging around for veggies in the fridge for meals for two days now, and that's after buying a bag of carrots and a couple cucumbers--but more on the cukes later.

This week's share includes...
1 (huge) head of green leaf lettuce
1 bunch broccoli
1 bunch kale or chard (I chose kale again)
1.5 pounds summer squash (I took all zucchini)
1 bunch mint or parsley (there wasn't mint when I was there)
1 head of garlic
2 baskets of strawberries
1 basket baby plums
1 brownie and 1 chocolate walnut cookie, courtesy of Feel Good Bakery

I'm going to start with my complaint to get it out of the way, and then onto the good stuff... One cookie and one brownie? What am I supposed to do with these? We're touchy about our chocolate here (sweets in general, really, since I don't make/buy them too often anymore), so how are we supposed to split this between three and a half people? I wonder how the mother of three boys who came in as I was leaving dealt with the chocolate rations... I don't like walnuts either, so there should be an interesting discussion happening at the dinner table tonight...

Alright. Got that off my chest... I'm happy to see more lettuce on the "menu," and have a yummy salad dressing from the How to Cook Everything Vegetarian book involving my new food fascination, caramelized onions. I wanted to try it last week but couldn't since we didn't get lettuce. I can't wait to make it. I'm also really happy to have broccoli for the first time through our CSA, and in over 5 weeks! It's a staple veggie here, and it's been missed. Those heads should supply us with two dinner sides. I also found a couple recipes for kale so I picked it up instead of chard. If there's chard next week I'll get that just to say I tried it, hehe.

There were several kinds of summer squash like smooth and bumpy crooknecks, scallop, and zucchini. I went with all zucchini to try remaking zucchini bread. See, I made zucchini bread with that very large zucchini I picked out last week which, shredded, gave me 2.5 cups worth. My recipe called for 2 cups, but I thought, "What the heck," and threw it all in. Ooops! I ended up with two dense loaves of bread with squishy bottoms. The top halves tasted great LOL. So, I'm trying the recipe again because I know I can make it work!

Challenges: There are a lot of greens this week, but I think I can manage to use it all. Garlic. Boy, the garlic is starting to add up. I need to either come up with a way to use a lot of it in a recipe, or a way to preserve it. Is there such a thing as garlic pie? Pies always use a lot of filling... We're still trying to finish up the sweet & sour plums from last week, so finishing the ones we picked up this week may take some time.


Speaking of last week...
What's left:
1/2 a basket of sweet & sour plums
1 Torpedo onion
2 apriums
a little thyme

What I made:
I had a lot of fun with food last week. As I noted above, I made zucchini bread, which I've never made before. It tastes a lot like banana bread, minus the banana flavor. Boy Wonder didn't like it, but I can't blame him this time since the bread was so extremely moist--it was fully cooked, just overly moist. I also used the huge onion along with the red onion I picked up the first week to make caramelized onions. I think I mentioned it before, but I'm in love with caramelized onions. I found this great tutorial on how to make them correctly.

Here's some on a pita chip with Boxer Cheddar. Forget the pita chip! I liked it better with only the cheese!

The basil I shared with you as a part of my Harvest Monday, along with a couple apriums went into an Apricot Basil Dressing that I found here. This was... different... Not a bad dressing, but I think it needed to be paired with a more bitter green than the lettuce I served it with. Adding Boxer Cheddar to the salad helped.

I used thyme throughout the week in meals, but my favorite was this roasted chicken dish.

I also used some thyme to make my first ever batch of chicken broth. I used the carcass from the above chicken, and another two from the freezer. This was so easy to make, and I hope I never have to buy store-bought broth again.

Now for the pride of my experiments... Refrigerator pickles. I used the little pickling cucumbers, and a torpedo onion in this recipe. I also bought extra cucumbers so I could use up all of the brine (Is that what it's called? Pickle juice?). There are a million and one pickle recipes out there, but I decided to go with this one mainly because I had all the spices on hand.

These taste really really good. I've only tasted the store-bought cucumbers because the cucumbers from the CSA are really wrinkly, and I don't know if they're ok to eat like this, or if the pickles were too old by the time I got to them...

Alright. I'm off to the store to pick up a few items for this week's meals. Cheers!

CSA Wednesday, Week 3

Week three of our CSA has me feeling a little less excited than I was last week... I'm finding that a "bunch of this," and a "pound of that" is a bit much for us to finish in a week. On the flip side of that statement, I'm still trying to get into the new habit of incorporating more of the veggies into our meals. I'm also trying to get better at meal planning, which I haven't been able to stick to in my 3 years of off-again, on-again trying... Factor in not knowing what I'll be picking up until half way through the week, and it makes things a little more complicated...

By the bye, I found another article on Edible Communities about our farm if you'd like to learn more about it where my CSA shares are coming from.

Without  further ado, this week's share:

This week's share includes...
1.25 pounds apriums
1.25 pounds white flesh nectarines
1 basket red or yellow sweet and sour plums
1 bag loose leaf lettuce
1 bunch collards or choi (I chose choi)
1 pound summer squash (equaled one zucchini that was 1.5 pounds--variety is "Raven"*)
2 pounds Torpedo onions* (I found a large white one in the crate, so I took that with the Torpedo variety)
1 bunch (6 small to medium heads) of white garlic
1 bunch parsley or thyme (I chose thyme)
French batard loaf
Bonus Box: pickling cucumbers
*Links to varieties are not where the farm gets their seeds. I don't know where they get their seeds.

Where to start... Let's start with the fruits. I wasn't very excited about having apriums again. We still have a few left from last week because they've been hit or miss for us. Some have been too tart, and others have gone bad (even though they're stored in the fridge). They're also, well, "BM inducing" like the plouts/plums, and the LO is sensitive to "inducing" foods, so I'm supplementing his fruit intake with store-bought grapes and some watermelon (left over from Boy Wonder's school party). I was really hoping I'd be able to pick the stone fruit types again this week... Oh well... The white nectarines rock, so I'm happy to have more. I've never heard of "sweet and sour" plums before. They're the fruits that look like cherries in the picture. They sort of taste like a mix between plums and under ripe cherries.

There were "extras" in the bonus box today. Most were bruised fruit, but then there was an overflowing bag of the pickling cucumbers. I grabbed a handful to try making refrigerator pickles. Oh, my mouth is watering...

The big challenge for me this week will be using up the fruit. I think I'll make a dessert with the apriums. I'm happy to report that the choi will not be a problem to consume. I chose the choi over the collards (ok DH came with us today and he chose it) because it was a success last week.


Speaking of last week...
What's left:
Choi - about half the amount I brought home, but plan on using tomorrow.
1 large onion scape
1 plout
2 apriums
garlic (I added to the garlic I grew, and what I received this week)
a little chives

What I made:
The strawberries and bread were gone the first day, and the white nectarines disappeared shortly thereafter.
I've been pleasantly surprised with my chive usage. I thought the herb would go bad from not being used, but I only have a little left. I've been using scissors to snip, adding it to as many dishes as I can think of. It's been more of a color adder than flavor enhancer.

"Mrs. Farm Owner" recommended the following recipe for using the onion scapes.

Scape Pesto with Artichokes
I added some chopped asparagus that almost got lost in the fridge's veggie bin, and used jarred marinated artichoke hearts. I didn't use all of the onion scape pesto out of fear of the onion overpowering everything, but I should've added more. The pesto didn't have as much flavor as I thought it would... I froze the remaining pesto, and still have one huge scape sitting in a cup of water that I need to use.

A huge "THANK YOU" goes out to Clare from Curbstone Valley Farm for the following Choi recipe.
DH and I are obviously going to eat the food I make, our 2yo still doesn't "know better" and has more of a... refined pallet than our 8yo, so our picky 8yo is the one we use to gauge whether a recipe is a hit or not. Let me just say the following recipe was devoured by him, and was one of the quickest meals we've had since I made fried chicken in February (fried chicken is a big deal here)!

Can you tell I'm left-handed?

I'll call this "Clare's Tofu Stir Fry"
1 package extra firm tofu, drained and cubed into 1/2" pieces
2 Tbs oil (I used part canola, part sesame)
2-4 cloves, finely chopped
1-2 Tbs freshly grated ginger
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
1 bunch chopped pak choi
1 chopped bell pepper**
Prepared rice

Fry the tofu in the oil until edges are nice and crispy. Remove the tofu, and add garlic and ginger, and cook until aromatic and lightly golden. Toss the tofu back in the pan, add teriyaki sauce and cook for 1-2 minutes until the sauce starts to thicken. Add the chopped greens and cover just long enough to wilt the greens, about 2-3 minutes. Remove the lid and stir together. Serve over rice.

**I added the pepper to help appeal to the 8yo, and because I normally use them in a lot of dishes, and I've been missing them.

For dessert I used the Meyer lemons from week 1 in sandwich cookies I adapted from the original recipe here. I'm the lemon fan in the house, so guess who ate most of the cookies? LOL