I forgot a picture of my cheddar squash bread, which collapsed in the center like a cheese soufflé but was excellent warm!
What I Made – Week 13
Bicolor Sweet Corn
What I’ve Planned – Week 13
A true summer basket this week! I couldn’t be more excited about corn (all 8 ears!), but won’t say the same for all this squash! Let’s see how many recipes I can hide it in this week.
- Roast chicken with carrots
- Cheddar zucchini bread
- Thai style tofu fried rice
- Squash crust pizza
- Corn salad
- Orzo and squash
We’ll eat all our fruit as snacks. I may have to make some additional squash breads to use up everything we got this week!
What I Got – Week 13
What I’ve Planned – Week 18
This Labor Day weekend involved a lot of chores for us: staining the deck, doing yard work, and drying or canning our bounty of fruits and veggies (including the peaches, tomatoes, and jalapeños we got this week!).
I also shredded and froze the last of our summer squash, and made a curried corn soup to freeze so we can enjoy its bright flavors in the depths of winter!
In addition to a few recipes I didn’t get around to last week, here’s what I’ve planned for the week ahead.
- Flank steak with red peppers and twice baked blue potatoes
Elk barbacoa and grilled peppers and onions
Chicken, bok choy and cabbage stir fry (with my go to stir fry sauce)
- Smoked ribs and roasted potatoes
What I Made – Week 16 and What I’ve Planned – Week 17
- Pasta with sausage and dandelion greens (adds a bit more bite than the chard this recipe calls for, and I use whatever pasta I have on hand)
- Grilled eggplant risotto, not what you’d think of as a traditional beach meal, but great on a stormy evening with some fresh scallops
- Grilled corn, either slathered with mayo, feta, and a squeeze of lime to echo Mexican flavors, or with good old fashioned butter
I’m planning to cut the rest of the corn off the cobs and freeze it for use in soup or chicken chili later this fall or winter.
I also let those cayenne peppers turn red on the counter, then I finally dehydrated them and pulsed them in the food processor to make red pepper flakes. I didn’t use the good appliance, so the size of the flakes is a bit inconsistent, but they are definitely potent!
To make this week, I’ve planned ways to use peppers, peppers, and more peppers
What I Got – Weeks 16 and 17
I spent Week 16 at the beach and didn’t take pictures of what we made, so it’s a combo list this time around!
Week 16
- Canary Melon
- Little Sweetie Cantaloupe
- Orange Seedless Watermelon
- Bicolor Sweet Corn
- Green Dandelion
- Italian Eggplant
- Mixed Sweet Peppers
- Red Grape Tomatoes
- Yellow Tomatoes
- Red Okra
Week 17
Clockwise from left: Red Leaf Lettuce, Yukon Gold Potatoes, Yellow Seedless Watermelon, Green Cabbage, Canary Melon, Bicolor Sweet Corn, Green Bell Peppers, Red Radishes, Bartlett Pears, Red Grape Tomatoes, Orange Carrots
What I Made – Week 15
This post is more than a bit overdue, and I had quite a few repeat recipes this week around, so I’ve only posted pictures of the new things I made with my Week 15 ingredients.
This chicken stew with farro, tomatoes, olives, and feta kinda tasted like a savory oatmeal. I followed the cookbook’s instructions but wished I had cooked it just a little less time so the farro wasn’t quite so mushy. I also pulled out the chicken when the cooking time was up and re-crisped the skin under the broiler.
I tried this recipe for zucchini blondies, swapping the zucchini for yellow squash and the butterscotch chips for chocolate, naturally. It tasted like a combination between zucchini bread and zucchini cookies. Although they were much chewier the second day, to get more of the brownie/blondie texture out of the oven, I think next time I’d bake it a bit longer and up the butter to a half cup. Also, I find whenever I add cinnamon, I taste more of the zucchini bread than a zucchini cookie, but I suppose that’s mostly personal preference!
Then I tried some zucchini brownies. The chocolate flavor was really prominent, but I think I would have preferred it with a more finely shredded zucchini texture.
These pita pockets are stuffed with cherry tomatoes from my garden and kabobs (made with ground elk, of course), all topped with creamy baba ghanoush eggplant spread. I always add more lemon juice and salt than the recipe calls for, and added a bit too much yogurt this time, resulting in the looser texture.
This dish is cheating, because it’s not using CSA ingredients at all, but instead features cherry tomatoes and basil from our garden. It was very easy to make and too good not to share here.
These are delicious garlic miso green beans with pan-fried teriyaki tempeh.
I topped a corn, tomato, and avocado salad (tossed with salt, pepper, olive oil, and lime juice) with a pre-marinated fish filet for a quick and easy no-recipe dinner.
I also made tuna poke, zucchini chicken enchiladas, and zucchini bread.
What I’ve Planned – Week 15
I’ve got an ambitious plan to make up for lost time with my menu this week, including trying to use veggies that have been languishing in the crisper for several weeks now. (Looking at you, cabbage!)
Some old favorites:
- Zucchini bread and cheddar squash biscuits (I actually used yellow squash in both)
And some new ideas:
- Kabobs with baba ghanoush eggplant spread
- Chicken stew with farro and tomatoes (recipe from The Chef and the Slow Cooker)
- Plum cake (I’ll probably freeze this for later)
I’m also going to see if the cayennes ripen to red on the counter, then dehydrate and crush them to make homemade red pepper flakes!
What I Got – Week 15 2019
Clockwise from left: Bicolor Sweet Corn, Heirloom Cantaloupe, Green Cayenne Peppers, Plums, Green Beans, Canary Melon, Italian Eggplant, Mixed Heirloom Tomatoes, Yellow Straightneck Squash, Green Zucchini
What I Made – Week 13
This wasn’t a super impressive cooking week since I’m still playing catch up with most of my ingredients, but the variety of different flavors in these dishes was definitely one aspect I appreciated.
Sweet corn brightens up this very brown plate. The potatoes are from the grocery store but the no-recipe recipe is probably my favorite way to make them: toss with olive oil and any seasoning (I like garlic, salt, and pepper), spread on a baking sheet and roast at 425 for 45 minutes or until browned, flipping every 15 minutes to make sure each side gets its turn in contact with the baking sheet.
This Asian noodle bowl with cabbage and carrots is infinitely customizable. I used konjac noodles for the first time ever. They smelled terrible coming out of the package but cooked up very much like rice noodles. I liked the instructions to drain the noodles over the cabbage and carrots, just softening them slightly. Of course the spicy scallion sauce from this recipe would taste good on a brick, but I wish I had let the noodles and veggies cool a little so they didn’t add quite so much water to the sauce. I topped the bowl with some of my go to pan fried tofu.
The award for prettiest meal of the week goes to these crab cakes with German bean salad. The beans are blanched, then tossed with a mustard shallot sauce and topped with basil, hard boiled eggs, and cherry tomatoes. Even though I got cherry tomatoes in my basket this week, the ones in this picture actually came from my very own garden! Meanwhile, the crab cakes came from the freezer section…
I bulked up this recipe for carrot and beet salad with curry dressing by putting it on a bed of mixed greens and adding some goat cheese. The recipe didn’t call for cooking the beets, but I did anyway since I prefer that texture. The curry flavor of the dressing was pretty subtle when mixed with the salad greens. I think I would have preferred feta instead of the goat cheese, though.
If the crab cakes and bean salad were this week’s eyecatching Miss America of dinners, the rosemary peach chicken in a white wine pan sauce is Miss Congeniality. The salty bacon! The melt cheese! The creamy wine sauce! All wrapped around tender chicken and sweet peaches. I even left out the lemon zest and honey, and this one pan(!) dish still became a new favorite.
CSA in the Suburbs 