CSA 2014 week 9

week 9

I know what you are going to say about week 9. You’re thinking wow that looks like remarkably less than usual! Here’s the thing this really isn’t representative of what we actually got for the week. We had SO MUCH stuff in our fridge I actually ended up having my dad take a bunch of stuff rather than splitting everything in half like normal. This is just what I took. This week what we actually got was corn, lettuce, bok choy, summer squash, cucumbers, green beans, onions, green peppers, a red pepper, tomatoes, broccoli, peaches, summer squash, Italian eggplant (the stripey one), and Japanese eggplant (the long skinny one). My dad took the lettuce and I took the bok choy since I already know a recipe I can use for it. I gave my dad all the peppers since my mom was going to make stuffed peppers for him and I gave him all the tomatoes except one little one since I have a lot of tomatoes and cherry tomatoes from my own plants.

Bubbe’s Secret Pickle Recipe

 

I had been taking all the pickling cukes from the CSA for a few weeks. My mother in law had sent me an old family recipe for sweet pickles. I don’t really know much about pickling, and the dill pickles we made didn’t come out that great, but this recipe is crazy. It takes 7 days and both my husband and I are baffled by it. I think there is some sort of alchemy involved and at the end you say a voodoo prayer and they turn into pickles. Right now there is a lot of dumping of boiling water on cucumbers. We’re currently on day 2 so I will keep updating as I go. I hope they turn into pickles at the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

pasta primavera with vegan sausage

 

We had tons and tons of veggies in our fridge even after taking a smaller share of this week’s so I found a recipe in the book Vegan Table that used a large variety of veggies and a lot of them, quantitywise. (did i just make that word up?) It was called penne pasta with fresh veggies. As I was cooking it up my husband looked at it and said “so you’re basically making pasta primavera?” He was right and I didn’t even realize it. See most people reading this probably don’t even realize the significance of that but anyone who is or has ever been vegetarian will understand the utter and complete evil of pasta primavera. If you ever make the life decision of no longer eating meat you will be forever served limp, bland, over or undercooked veggies on top of pasta at every event or restaurant you ever go to for the rest of your life. Pasta primavera is PURE EVIL. And here I was making it. However it used a buttload of our CSA veggies and since I was making it myself I could actually make it taste good. I used up all our green peppers, all our summer squash, some onion, and broccoli from our CSA. I threw in some garlic scapes I found at Whole Foods and used some basil from the plant on my deck. It was good. If one has to eat pasta primavera this is the way to go.

I actually it was even better as leftovers. Must have soaked up more of the sauce flavor because I think I preferred it as a leftover.

 

 

citrus tahini bowl

 

 

With the bok choy I knew exactly what I was going to do. I made the citrus-tahini bowl from Isa Does It. It has the bok choy lightly steamed with tofu and rice and oranges and a yummy sauce.

We also got back into our salad groove after not having any for awhile. We still had a head of lettuce in our fridge from the previous week plus the one cucumber I didnt use for pickling and some tomatoes from my huge plants on my deck and some CSA onions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

miso glazed eggplant and maple glazed green beans

 

We had gotten some more nifty looking eggplant. I had one Japanese eggplant and one stripey looking eggplant that I think is called an Italian eggplant. I decided it was time to diversify my cookbook using and pulled out some other cookbooks. My second favorite vegan cookbook author is Chloe Coscarelli so with the eggplant I made miso glazed eggplant from her first cookbook Chloe’s Kitchen. It was SO good. I served it over jasmine rice. It was also super quick and easy to make.

 

I also had two weeks worth of green beans sitting in my fridge so I made one of my favorite green bean recipes with them. It’s the maple glazed green beans from the book the Vegan Table. It was another really quick and really simple recipe and super yummy.

 

 

 

sweet pickles day 6

 

 

My pickling adventure still continues. Im on day 6 of the recipe which means Im nearing the end of the process. Overall it’s been super simple it just has to sit for long periods of time. I hope they come out good!

 

In case you’re wondering what we did with the peaches the answer is nothing. My husband has just been eating them. We only get a couple after splitting it with my parents so I just let him eat them as is. I like the taste of peaches but I don’t like the furry skin feeling in my mouth.