Love and Veggies

Today we received a lovely assortment of green and red leaf lettuce, tomatoes including some heirlooms, purple peppers, more cukes!, cantaloupe, yellow watermelon and yellow squash, a new one for us!

Tonight I set about making sauce of our extra tomatoes ( my husband worked the CSA site today) and I have some pots bubbling away on the stove. I used tomatoes, onions (thanks Debbi for that swap last week!) garlic left over from last week, purple, red and green peppers, yellow squash (I don’t like squash very much but it makes good sauce) and some mushrooms we had kicking around the fridge that were getting old and dry. I put in a couple of bay leaves, sugar, salt and red wine and are ready to put in our freezer some lovely sauce for later.

My son came downstairs as I was starting the sauce to ask his dad how to turn off his new alarm/radio clock and stopped mid-sentence to ask him, “What smells so good?”

Seriously, does anything smell better than onions, peppers and garlic simmering on the stove?

Well, maybe cookies but it is right up there.

Happy eating!

Delightfully today we had fresh garlic, cantaloupe, watermelon, cukes, zuchs, tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, red peppers and purple/white peppers. And via a swap from a friend who picks up at Zeke’s I got some onions for a swap of garlic. Yay!

We still had tomatoes left over and so tonight I am making sauce with peppers, onions, garlic and tomatoes from One Straw. It smells really yummy.

I am also drying some tomatoes in the oven to put them in the freezer. They are quiet like sun dried tomatoes but I have eaten them at a restaurant that served them instead of english muffin underneath creamy eggs and sauce. Very decadent.

We are still loving that Zuch pancake with the cheese thing that D made from our bountiful zuchs. Seriously, try them! They were even good frozen, defrosted in our cooler while camping and then warmed on top of our 2 burner. The cheese kind of clumped up but not in a yucky way. I also brought sauce I made from other weeks and meatballs made with free range organic beef from the Sunday market and tons of chard, arugula and onions while we were camping.

That is the key people….frozen dinners you can just heat and serve. We camped for 5 nights and ate all but 3 meals at camp that we cooked. Our kids had a blast. We had tons of fun and the weather really sucked so we think next year might really be awesome if the sun comes out!

Seriously, I think I want to marry Joan and Drew because the watermelon we have been getting is like heaven. Really. I am not even bummed any longer that we never got strawberries this season. The watermelon is the BOMB. The best. The juiciest. The….um, I think I have to go and eat some.

now.

I would like to wax on about how delish our watermelon was. It was juicy, sweet, lite and crunchy. So juicy it ran down your chin and I think I ate about 1/5 of the melon the first day. I did vary it though…I ate it plain. I ate it with lime juice squeezed on top. I ate it with a bit of salt. Really, really, really good. I dare say, the best watermelon I have ever had.

So lets talk about tomatoes? Salted, peppered and tossed with a little peeled cucumber and  a dash of EVOO and the tomato water mixes with it and makes a light vinaigrette. I had an extra share from my friend who was on vacation this week and made sauce with the tomatoes, peppers, chard and onion. It will be nice to taste a small ray of summer sun in the fall while we heat hot bowls of pasta or slabs of cheesy lasagna made with our CSA sauce. I reccomend a dash of red wine if you have it or some Balsamic vinaigrette works well also. Don’t forget the sugar and the bay leaves. If you sauce is thin, I like to add a can of either tomato paste or a can of tomato soup (weird?). If you have little ones who might say things like, “ICK, what is the green stuff? What is the chunky thing?” Use a hand blender or regular one to puree your sauce.

You can use it for pizza sauce too and I like buying the premade dough from Trader Joes to make quick pizza’s with whatever is left over in the fridge or freezer. The sauce is also good for Eggplant Parm …..and we all know how MANY eggplants we have. I am finding those are harder to use up than the beets were! While I adore Eggplant Parm..I can only eat it so often and I have to lie to my children and tell them its chicken. I know I am horrible.

Have a great CSA week…if someone wants to take pictures and send them to me I will post them when we get back from our camping trip. I hope I don’t miss more raspberries because they were SO good!

xx

The late lamented Nile Cafe in Fell's Point used to serve a salad of
fresh and grilled vegetables.  I think it had lettuce, tomatoes,
cucumbers, olives, and feta cheese, and grilled eggplant, zucchini, red
bell peppers, and mushrooms.

Grilling, roasting, or broiling veggies is an easy and delicious way to
use them.  You can do up a lot at a time and refrigerate them for
antipasti, salads, sandwiches, or pasta (reheat and either put in a
 sauce
or just dump on top of the pasta).

If the veggies are large, slice horizontally; if medium-sized,
diagonally; if small, vertically.  Not too thick.

If you're going to grill them, you may first marinate them in a
vinaigrette or in an Asian-style marinade with soy sauce, sherry,
 garlic,
ginger, and a touch of sweetening (I use frozen apple juice
 concentrate).
 Put the whole thing in the fridge for an hour or more.

Or you can roast them at 425 degrees F.  The simplest way is to just
spread the veggies on a baking sheet, spray them with an olive oil
 spray,
and shake on salt, pepper, and herbs.  Last night I put EVOO in the
blender with garlic, a little fresh parsley and basil, dried rosemary,
salt, and pepper; then I spread that over the veggies.  Check the
 veggies
frequently and turn them when they're just beginning to get soft, after
about 5 to 7 minutes.  Then give them just a few more minutes (maybe 3)
on the other side before checking them.  Don't let them burn!

To roast bell peppers, leave them whole, and turn them on another side
(they're more or less square) every 3 minutes or so.  When they're
 soft,
take them out, put them in a stainless steel or ceramic bowl, cover it
with a lid, and leave them to steam 20 minutes.  Then peel off the
 skins
and take out the innards. Green peppers will often turn red if you
 leave
them at room temperature.  But you can also roast them green.

You can also roast onions, Florence fennel, carrots, sweet potatoes,
whole or thickly sliced mushrooms (beware; they get done very fast),
 and
tomatoes (they will dry out somewhat and have an intense flavor, like
sun-dried tomatoes).

Jodean

Our haul today was an actual haul by way of a GIANT watermelon. So juicy and messy and crunchy and good. Also raspberries. Pink, light and delicious. Tomatoes, cukes, peppers, onions, lettuce, eggplant and chard. A great week. No, a fabulous week. FRUIT. Actual fruit.

I have heard rumors that some others have gotten potatoes….where are the potatoes? And the garlic? The garlic was very tasty. And who would have thought that I would miss the beets. The yellow ones were the best.

Did everyone have watermelon for dessert tonight? So good. I am looking forward to raspberry pancakes tomorrow morning or maybe muffins.

Does anyone know a way to freeze watermelon? And canning. I feel like I need to can some stuff because we are running out of ways to eat certain things like the cukes and tomatoes and feel like we should be saving some stuff for when the winter comes and there is no more delicious organic good stuff. Any ideas?

and FYI, actually we had 6 fruits because anything with seeds inside is technically a fruit so that includes peppers, cukes, eggplants, tomatoes, raspberries and the watermelon.

Well, my husband just made a HUGE batch of these to freeze and they are soooooooo good I could eat 12 but I have learned my lesson from too much yummy coleslaw in one day–as in too much of a good thing can make your stomach hurt a lot!

We also used some of our eggplant and zuch’s to mix in with some local, free range ground beef to make meatballs to keep in the freezer to serve with sauce from other organic stuff from Joan!

Get cookin!

Our CSA Site …the crates of goodness

This is your tongue on Arugula

Bounty of veggies week 4? I think?

Bounty week 6?

So today we got zuch’s, green/purple peppers, globe eggplant, zebra eggplant, tomatoes as big as your juicy delicious head, corn and green beans. We got shorted last week and my friend Debbi who picks up at Zekes got yummy potatoes today but otherwise a pretty darn good share of yummy organic food. Thanks to Karyn and Jeff who worked the food crates today and thanks to all of you who picked up your food.

Tonight I ate a big bowl of tomato with just a tad bit of salt, a ton of fresh cracked pepper and it reminded me that while I hate this hot and fetid weather some of my favorite fruits and veggies really adore it so I can suffer when my rewards are so darn tasty!

So what will you be cooking this week? What do you think so far? What has been the best week ever?

And seriously, is there anything better than a warm MD tomato?

Okay. I know I should know better but my tasty slaw was just so darn, tasty. I had 3 large helpings in one evening and I think I may never eat cabbage again. Warning….One Straw Slaw may cause severe stomach pains upon ingesting 1 whole head of raw cabbage.

Summer Salad:

1 large organic cuke sliced in half moons

1 small red organic onion finely chopped

2-3 tomatoes chopped chunky (don’t forget to dump in the juice left on the cutting board!)

1-2 organic green peppers diced in about 1″ pieces

3-4 tbsp red wine vinegar, sherry vinegar, cider vinegar…whatever?

2-3 tbsp EVOO

1 tsp salt

2 tsp fresh black pepper

big pinch sugar

Marinate for about 1 hour in fridge to chill and marry flavors. Add cubes of your favorite feta or fresh mozzarella or tofu. Serve with a nice whole grain bread and unsalted sweet butter. Also good as a side dish to grilled fish, grilled tofu and marinated flank steak.

Summer Slaw 

One head organic green cabbage shredded

One head organic red cabbage shredded

1 small can OR 1 cup fresh minced pineapple

1/2 -1 cup mayo (*preference thing)

1/4 cup cider vinegar, sherry or white wine

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp fresh pepper (to taste?)

Toss and EAT~!

serves about 4-8 people

Serving suggestion: Fresh turkey, rye bread, grainy mustard, cole slaw and devour. Add swiss and melt over top in oven/toaster oven.  You can use a tofu product called Tempeh (?) and grill it for a non-meat ruben type sandwich. Also yummy! Good on a fried fishwich sandwich too! Or top with some kind of grilled protein like chicken or tofu. Add some toasted sunflower seeds or slivered almonds for some crunch.