Ravings of a Textual Deviant

In this week’s CSA box:

• 1/2 dozen eggs
• Green and Red lettuce
• Shiitake mushrooms
• Tomatoes
• Green beans
• Eggplants
• Zucchini
• Round yellow squashlike object
• Tomitilloes
• Adorable little pears

We were also gifted a largish eggplant from one of Spouse’s coworkers. That, and its smaller relatives from the CSA box have been cubed, blanched, and frozen, along with all the summer squashes. The tomatilloes are cooked down and pureed (yay, stick blender!), waiting for me to turn them into salsa verde. The pears are currently cooking down into pear butter (swap out ginger and cardamom for the other spices in the apple butter recipe). The tomatoes are still awaiting disposition, although some have already gone into a Caprese salad, and others got dropped into grilled cheese sandwiches…but not just any grilled cheese sandwiches.

Open-faced Grilled Goat Cheese Sandwiches

Slice a tomato. On top of some good bread, layer fresh basil leaves, tomato slices, and crumbles of chevre. Slide the lot under the broiler until the goat cheese is lightly browned.

Also, I have to say that for all that it’s been a bad year for tomatoes (cold weather, blight, rain of toads, etc.) the tomatoes we have gotten have been amazing–aromatic, luscious, and sweet enough to remind you that botanically speaking, they really are fruit.

Homestead Growers wasn’t kidding when this week’s email referred to the delivery as the “Crazy Salsa Box”.

We have:

• 1/2 dozen eggs
• red, gold and roma tomatoes
• jalapenos
• cubanello peppers
• banana pepper
• cherry bomb peppers (looks like the chili pepper version of a strawberry; gorgeous red color)
• tomatillos
• green beans
• round, stripey green squash
• zucchini
• lettuce

Peppers have been roasted and frozen. Green beans will get blanched & frozen over the weekend, as will squash, most likely. Some tomatoes will go into Caprese salad for our contribution to a group dinner on Sunday. Lettuce will go into dinner salads. The fate of the tomatillos is yet to be decided, but I might go crazy and make a small batch of salsa verde (I only have 3 of the lovely little green things.)

This week brings us:

• eggs
• banana peppers
• cubenella peppers
• lettuce
• summer squash
• sage
• cherry tomatoes
• red tomatoes
• gold tomatoes
• sweet corn

The sweet corn has already been roasted under the broiler. Half of it was eaten forthwith with sage butter; the other half will probably end up either getting frozen or put into the salsa that will be the eventual fate of at least some of the peppers and tomatoes. Some of the squash went into last night’s marinara sauce, and a green salad has used some of the lettuce. I still have a godsawful amount of cabbage to do something with; can’t blanch and freeze, as I did with the squash and eggplants; can’t cook down and freeze as I did with the tomatoes; don’t like sauerkraut.

• eggs
• mushrooms
• tomatoes (at last!)
• yellow beans
• eggplant
• zucchini
• yellow squash
• cabbage
• more cabbage
• chile peppers
• Some other things I’m probably forgetting

Eggplant, yellow beans, and yellow squash have all been blanched & frozen. Most of the tomatoes have been pureed and likewise frozen. Some of the cabbage has been sauteed with pancetta, fennel, and caraway. Some of it is still in my fridge. Chile peppers were given away, as I rarely use them.

This week’s CSA box brought us:

• Cabbage
• Red-leaf lettuce
• yellow beans (they are actually a pale chartreuse)
• cucumbers
• zucchini
• summer squash
• shiitake mushrooms

Some of the squash and zucchini went into a dish I came up with last night, which I’m calling Squashed Pasta.

Start off by boiling your pasta water. I like to use whole-grain pasta, which takes a little longer to cook.

I diced and sauteed half a large onion in some olive oil (and that alone will usually elicit a “that smells good” from Spouse). As soon as the onion started to pick up a little golden color, I added the diced squash. It’ll take a while for everything to cook down, and you’ll get a lot of water in the pan once it does. (I had enough time to empty and reload my dishwasher while stirring occasionally.)

When the squash had softened up a bit, and I had room in the pan, I added some chunks of raw chicken, and let everything cook together, stirring occasionally. when the liquid had reduced and everything was cooked, I poured a little white wine into the pan, just enough to deglaze. Then, I stirred in what I would guesstimate to be 3-4 tablespoons of pesto.

When the past was almost done, I drained it, turned down the heat on the squash, and added the noodles to the pan. They finished up cooking in the sauce, which was a nice touch.

I highly recommend eating your squashed pasta outside on the patio on a lovely summer evening, with a glass of Prosecco and some good company.

The yellow beans will get provencaled, as I once again need to bring a side dish and don’t have any containers for freezing.

1/2 dozen eggs
lots of shiitake mushrooms
3 jalapeno peppers
2 skinny, dark-purple eggplants
2 heads lettuce
chives
2 cucumbers
beets

One eggplant and some of the mushrooms went into a veggie marinara already, along with all of last week’s basil and some of the oregano. Some chives went into scrambled eggs with chevre, and one head of lettuce went into a taco salad. Combined with last week’s beets, I now have enough roots to do something with all on their own. The fate of the cucumbers is yet to be determined, but I have a notion.

In this week’s CSA box:

• 1/2 dozen eggs
• shiitake mushrooms
• oregano
• summer squash of various kinds (one round yellow, one elongated yellow, one zucchini)
• 2 cucumbers
• small bunch of tiny beets
• small bunch of tiny turnips (it’s been a bad year for turnips, we’re told)
• green onions
• lovely head of ruffly green lettuce

One cucumber and some of the green onions have already gone into a version of last night’s pseudo-Vietnamese noodle salad that let me use up some peapods, and didn’t have any pea shoots or peppers, because I was just too tired and it was too late to go to the store.

The summer squash is almost certain to end up in vegetable marinara sauce, unless somebody has a better idea. The root portion of the beets and turnips together comprise about a handful, so I’ll have to combine them with something (probably carrots) and I have given up on using the greens. They just look a little too buggy, and will therefore go to compost.

As for the rest…well, I’ll figure something out.