CSA Week 3 [Catch Up]

Tags

broccoflower, carrots, chard, collards, kohlrabi, lettuce, meal planning, mustard greens, peas, pizza, radicchio, spinach, what's in the box

Last week was crazy busy with a weekend trip to Milwaukee followed by a visit by my parents and another couple. Some friends picked up our CSA goodies, and we did pretty well to plow through them (with the help of our guests).

 

peas, broccoflower, radicchio, spinach, red lettuce, mustard greens, collards/chard, carrots, kohlrabi 

• Sunday: Travel day
• Monday: Penne with roasted chicken and radicchio
• Tuesday: Mustard greens caramelized onion ricotta pizza, bacon asparagus pizza, BBQ chicken pizza (we used this dough recipe)
• Wednesday: Beach day!
• Thursday: Scrambled eggs with bacon, spinach, and feta; blueberry scones with lemon glaze; curry chicken and peas with basmati rice and naan (recipe we got from a friend and LOVE)
• Friday: Greens, carrots, and feta cheese over brown rice (used collards, chard, broccoflower greens, kohlrabi greens)
• Saturday: Kohlrabi carrot fritters with avocado cream sauce and roasted broccoflower
• Lettuce for lunch salads
• Carrot greens and spinach for smoothies

 

What’s in the Box? [CSA Week 11]

Tags

CSA, meal planning, pizza, sandwiches, Trader Joe's

Brief and late post this week. We got back from our short vacation on Tuesday night and have been playing catch up ever since (you know how it is). This includes meal planning and produce consumption. We’re lucky to have friends around here willing to pick up our share when we’re out of town.

Without further ado, this week’s haul: cantaloupe, beets, wax beans, green bell peppers, garlic, tomatoes (including some funky heirlooms), corn, eggplant (three types). Please excuse the crappy photo taken inside at night.

Our meals this week are on two themes: stuffed items and sandwiches. We’ll add sides of roasted potatoes (previous CSA weeks) and wax beans. And the Mister has to eat that entire melon himself, since I’m not a fan.

• Stuffed green peppers
  I chopped up some onion, garlic, a tomato, an ear of corn, added some brown rice we had in the freezer, some ground beef, and a bunch of spices. All in all, a simple and filling meal that used all stuff we had on hand. (I loosely followed recipes online … there are about a million and they’re all very similar.)
• Stuffed pattypan squash
  I used last week’s pattypan and leftover filling from last night’s green peppers for today’s lunch. I’ve decided I much prefer winter squashes to summer varieties, I’m realizing. Not a huge fan of the watery mush.
• Eggplant, tomato, and goat cheese sandwiches
  These were tonight’s dinner and were super quick to throw together, as well as tasty. Used one of our heirloom tomatoes and the medium-sized eggplants (which had tougher skin than the larger ones we’ve had the last few weeks).
• Beet, arugula, and goat cheese sandwiches
  So far, we haven’t been huge fans of beets. I’m taking this recommendation from a fellow blogger and we’ll see how it goes.
• Bacon, avocado, and tomato sandwiches
  No need for a recipe here. Slap ’em all together (with some cheese of course) and toast those sammies to perfection.
• Beet poppyseed muffins
  I made muffins with beets earlier this summer and it was a good use for them, so I’m trying a different version. We’ll see how beet-y these taste.
• Fig jam, arugula, proscuitto, and blue cheese pizza
  This is still our favorite homemade pizza. It doesn’t use any of our CSA stuff, but we’ve been craving it lately. Plus, we did a big Trader Joe’s stock up this week (we only go once a month or less), where we get most of the ingredients for this puppy.

Halfway There: 10 Weeks of CSA

Tags

CSA, local, pizza

We’re halfway into our CSA season, so I thought it would be fun to compile a quick list of everything we’ve eaten thus far. I’m including our preview week, so this is a total of 11 weeks of farm-fresh goodness. I’ll split the list up by types (as generally accepted, not by scientific definition … because come on, I don’t know those).

Vegetables:

1. Spinach
2. Asparagus
3. Mustard greens (multiple types)
4. Onions (many types of spring, yellow, white, red)
5. Radishes
6. Dandelion greens
7. Kale (multiple types)
8. Radicchio
9. Kohlrabi
10. Snow peas
11. Fennel
12. Red leaf lettuce
13. Beans (green, yellow, purple, and flat)
14. Carrots (orange and purple)
15. Beets (red and striped)
16. Broccoli
17. Cabbage
18. Peppers (green bell, Hungarian wax, others)
19. Tomatoes
20. Eggplant
21. Pattypan squash (two types)
22. Sweet corn (white, yellow, bi-colored)
23. Okra
24. Potatoes (red and white)
25. Cucumber (multiple types)
26. Zucchini (green and yellow)
27. Swiss chard

Fruit:

1. Rhubarb
2. Blueberries
3. Plums
4. Cantaloupe

Herbs:

1. Parsley
2. Sweet basil

Other:

1. Blackberry jam
2. Eggs
3. Mushrooms (fungus ≠ vegetable)

I look at this and am so grateful for this experience. What a blessing to have access to fresh, local food every week. Looking forward to the next 10 weeks and the arrival of fall produce.

And a few photos to celebrate one of our favorite veggie applications:

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What’s in the Box? [CSA Week 9] + Meal Plan [July 29-August 4]

Tags

CSA, meal planning, pizza, what's in the box

I started this post on Sunday, I swear. And then a little thing called the Olympics and also a returning Mister distracted me. 48 hours later, here’s your weekly CSA update.

PS, I’m getting pretty sick of string beans. I just blanched and froze a bunch to make room for the latest batch we got Sunday. Anyone want some? Anyone have any unique preparations that will excite my palate?

Beyond that, we’ve got: corn (never sick of that), eggplant, green pepper, little red potatoes, yellow onion, plums (I don’t remember what type — anyone?), cucumber, tomatoes, yellow (aka wax) beans.

This week, we’re eating the following, but I haven’t really decided what days I’ll make what. We’ll be incorporating some leftovers from the last couple weeks too, including red onions, zucchini, eggs.

• Buffalo chicken breasts with corn on the cob
• Corn and black bean enchiladas with homemade corn tortillas
  (Our house recipe will be spiced up with fresh corn and green pepper from the CSA, as well as my first go at tortillas!)
• Tabouli with white bean and roasted eggplant hummus and pita bread
  (Maybe if the tortillas go well, I’ll take on making pita bread next.)
• Caprese burgers with roasted red potatoes
• Butternut squash ravioli with wax beans in browned butter
  (Frozen pasta for a quick dinner. We don’t have many of those these days.)
• Zucchini banana chocolate chip muffins
• Barbeque chicken pizza
  (Homemade dough in the freezer from a couple weeks ago will be dressed with a from-scratch sauce and some CSA red onion.)

This post is linked up over at In Her Chucks weekly CSA link party.

What’s in the Box? [CSA Week 5] + Meal Plan [July 1-7]

Tags

CSA, fruit, meal planning, pizza, salads, what's in the box

I had a revelation today: I should shift my CSA approach. I should make it my mission to make pizza with every produce item I get. It would be a great challenge … and totally awesome. We love some homemade pizza around here. A girl can dream…

Last week we realized we really don’t really like double broccoli quinoa (too boring). We also ended up giving half of our half cabbage away; it was just sooo much cabbage. This week, our produce seems much more manageable. Some people might think of it as if we got short-changed. But for us, it’s a bit of a relief. I didn’t feel overwhelmed when planning meals. It can be a lot of pressure to use all of this food in a cohesive way, and time it so it doesn’t go to waste. But I swear I’m not complaining. I’m loving all the fresh food.

This week: green and yellow beans, yellow onion, beets, sweet basil, potatoes, zucchini, blueberries, cucumbers.

I also picked up two other goodies for an all-American 4th of July.

Sunday:

• Broccoli mac and cheese
  We have some broccoli left over from last week that needs to get used up, so that’s mission numero uno. I’ll take this recipe and tweak it (skip the chicken, add a breadcrumb topping). Bonus: it will make leftovers for lunches this week.

Monday:

• Buffalo chicken tenders with zucchini fries
  I am a big fan of making “fries” out of any veggies possible. And this recipe has a yummy looking dip to boot! Buffalo chicken is always a good choice.

Tuesday:

• Sweet corn with beets and basil
  Some of the planned dishes this week are pretty light, which is okay considering we’re expecting temps to hang out in the 90s. This salad calls for baby beets, but I’m going to wing it with what I’ve got. So far, I don’t hate beets (shhh, don’t tell my mom), but I’m not in love yet either.

Wednesday:

• Potato and green bean salad and corn on the cob
  We don’t have big plans for the Fourth, and come Wednesday, I’ll be missing all my dear friends and family back home. We always have so much fun on this holiday; in fact, the Mister and I met on July 4, 2009. The Mister and I have decided to make a couple token picnic food items, but we’ll probably grab a hot dog or burger, ice cream, etc. when we go out for the town for evening festivities.

Thursday:

• Margherita pizza and caramelized onion and goat cheese pizza
  Like I said, CSA + pizza = awesome. We’re making two pizzas on Thursday so we can have some leftovers. The basil we got is beautiful, and I can’t wait to use it. I really liked this dough we used a couple weeks ago, so I think I’ll be going back to that one.

Friday:

• Blueberry pancakes with bacon
  Breakfast for dinner a.k.a. brinner. We have lots of delicious blueberries and some killer bacon from our CSA farm that will make for an easy, low-pressure Friday night dinner.

Saturday:

• Yoyo
  I leave for a 10-day trip home to Minnesota. The Mister will be picking up the next two weeks worth of CSA goodies. I’ll have to ask him if he’s willing to guest blog!

Extras:

• Beet green smoothies (with blueberries, bananas, orange juice, flaxseed, raspberries … who knows!)
• Pickled cucumber salad

What’s in the Box? [CSA Week 2] + Meal Plan [June 10-16]

Tags

CSA, greens, meal planning, pizza, spring produce, what's in the box

We made it through week one and ate almost all our veggies. I’m pretty proud of what we conquered last week, and overall, we enjoyed most of our recipes. But there’s no rest for a CSA member … only more veggies.

We’ve got (clockwise from bottom left): fennel, mustard greens (two varieties), red leaf lettuce, kohlrabi, kale (two varieties), spring onions, green beans. (We gave a bit of kale and some onions to a friend who helped us out by picking up our basket when we were out of town this weekend.)

I feel much better about being able to use all of this week’s produce. Here’s what we’re doing with it.

Sunday:

• Salad and roasted kohlrabi “fries”
  When we got back from our weekend in DC, we didn’t have any plan for dinner. So we quickly improvised based on what we had left from last week and what was new this week. A simple salad with red leaf lettuce, tomato, spring onion, and croutons, and a side of roasted kohlrabi. Not impressive, but it was quick and easy for our tired selves.

Monday:

• Pasta with kale, bacon, and sun-dried tomato with ricotta crostinis
  We subbed whole wheat penne, since that’s what we had on hand. I concocted some crostinis using ricotta we had in the fridge: just added some olive oil, minced garlic, and Italian spices, spread on baguette and broiled. Really yummy dinner.

Tuesday:

• Steak with fried onions, mustard greens, and roasted red potatoes
  This will be our big traditional dinner for the week. This is the kind of thing I don’t really use recipes for, but I tried find ones that are close to what I’m planning in my head (it helps the Mister get dinner started while I’m at yoga).

Wednesday:

• Fontina, fennel, and onion pizza
  We really enjoy making homemade pizza around here. We started this winter and have really gotten good at it. But it’s about time we branch out and try something different for toppings. This fits the bill. My go-to crust is usually whole wheat (subbing bread flour for the AP). I may try Martha’s crust recipe in this link to mix things up.

Thursday:

• Kohlrabi and spinach au gratin and berry turnovers
  I really wasn’t too keen on kohlrabi last week. The Mister was a bit more accepting of this sister to cabbage. I’m thinking cheese will help. I’ll use this recipe and add in some spinach, maybe even some bacon (twice in one week?! gasp!). I figure I have to give it a little heft if it’s going to stand alone as dinner. Some puff pastry in the freezer has been screaming my name. I’ll answer with some summer berries.

Friday:

• Orange chicken with rice and sesame green beens
  The orange chicken is frozen Trader Joe’s. It’s actually really tasty and big chunks of white meat, as opposed to the usual mystery chicken in takeout. Brown rice and some Asian-inspired green beans will make for an easy Friday night.

Saturday: 

• Banana crumb muffins
  We’ve got too many brown bananas in the freezer again. That means it’s time for muffins. I don’t really like banana baked goods, but these, for some reason, agree with me.
• Yoyo (you’re on your own)
  Technically, this meal plan should use almost all of our CSA bounty for the week. So come Saturday, we’ll either have leftovers, eat out, or wing it at home. Whatever it is, I don’t care to plan it.