We pack a lunch for our 2 1/2 year old four times a week. Inspired by sites like Wendolonia, I've been challenging myself to build interesting, healthy lunch menus that will keep him interested in trying new things and please him with familiar favorites.
I share photos and details of his lunches regularly (though not every day) over on the Snackreligious Tumblr feed. Check it out!
If I only posted the contents of our CSA share each week, you'd get an idea of what we receive from our farm. When I also post about most of what we make and eat each week, you start to get the bigger picture of what sort of value this represents in our lives. Because I'm willing to admit to you there are items that go to waste, we can further evaluate the pros and cons of getting an unknown quantity of mystery produce every week.
This week, almost halfway through our season, I wanted to mention another factor in our CSA consumption -- we don't always use everything in a share during the week it is received. I have tried to address this in past years' CSA coverage, and accounting for "carryover" produce becomes a bit of an issue (as I try to keep straight what's in the fridge from which week). I promised myself I wouldn't stress out over that detail this year, as I'd rather provide you with some coverage, rather than get overwhelmed and stop posting altogether because I can't do it with perfect accuracy.
But I did think that this point in the season might be a good time to fill you in on what we actually have in the house at the start of Week 11. Things start to get lost and go to waste at a faster rate around now, as the share size peaks, so this is also a good exercise for me -- so that I see what I still have to use up.
I'm not just listing the items from this week's pickup below, but all of the CSA produce currently in the house. This will include "pantry staples" that last well (onions, garlic), as well as some items that I discover need to be tossed.
CSA Produce in our House as of Week 11
1 yellow plum
5 doughnut peaches
5 round peaches -- one of these needs to be eaten immediately, as it has a large brown spot. I'll get right on that.
3 onions
3 heads of garlic (raw)
half a head of garlic (roasted)
1/2 pint blackberries
3 lbs tomatoes
1 bunch arugula
2 lbs zucchini and yellow squash
1 jar tomato puree (from our winter CSA), newly opened
9 carrots (5 small ones are old and jiggly, so I tossed them in the trash)
1 bunch basil
1 bunch kale
about a cup of butternut squash puree (from our winter CSA), thawed yesterday
1 floppy cucumber (tossed it)
6 ears of corn
two 12-oz bags of collard greens (from our winter CSA, frozen)
12-oz bag green beans (from our winter CSA, frozen)
12-oz bag kale (from our winter CSA, frozen)
12-oz bag sweet peppers (from our winter CSA, frozen)
About 8 oz. corn kernels (from our winter CSA, frozen but open) -- I often include this in toddler lunches. I put it in the lunchbox frozen, the lunchbox is stored in the fridge at school, and it's thawed by lunchtime.
See? I totally didn't realize there were more carrots and a lone cucumber in there. If I'd done this last week, they might not have gone to waste. I'll have to remember to take inventory more often. Also, I should use some of the greens in the freezer before our frozen salmon share shows up! I'm going to need some of that freezer space.
How is your CSA experience going this year? Are you overwhelmed? Underwhelmed? Do you wish you'd gotten a bigger or smaller share? Do you regret not getting fruit? What item do you hope you're getting more of soon? Personally, I'm pulling for more zucchini and eggplant.
I was very near quitting this "blogging about vegetables" folly altogether when I realized I was a month behind in CSA posts. Looking back, I can't quite distinguish one week from the next. Around mid-summer, the vegetables start to blur together a bit, and my phone gets overrun with photos that all look like salads or sauteed vegetables covered in cheese. "Is that eggplant?" I found myself asking Dan about one picture from his phone. "No, I think it's mushroom," he replied. Exhausting!
But I'm soldiering on in the interest of at least suggesting what we might have eaten, and I'm nearly caught up. Let's take a fuzzy look back at last week, and then never speak of this debacle ever again.
Week 10 Veggies
Sugar baby watermelon - they said to eat it "immediately," as it was overripe, and I thought they were kidding. I waited two days, and it was already mushy and tasting "off" when we sliced into it. Rats.
Cantaloupe
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Garlic
Purple Basil
Sweet peppers
Sweet corn
Fruit share:
Peaches (2 kinds)
Plums
Cucumber salad - with champagne vinegar, tomato and week nine's basil (?)
Raw stuff - I include this photo as an example of how we've been using the raw fruits and veggies in our 2+ year old's playschool lunchbox. He will usually eat carrots with hummus. Cucumbers are a bit iffier a proposition. Halved (and pitted) plums are generally a good bet. Corn is a favorite, too.
Yogurt, granola, coconut flakes, and peaches - Breakfast.
Sweet pepper and mushroom quesadillas - Also featuring: onions, tomatoes, and green basil.
Speaking of basil, isn't the purple basil gorgeous?
This brings us mostly up to date, except I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting several somethings. I'll go through Dan's phone, and if I find any rogue photos of CSA dishes, I'll be sure to add them to (my best guess of) the appropriate week. Here's to more recipe information in week 11!
I'm still playing catch-up, in terms of logging my CSA share usage. Week nine was two weeks ago. I may be missing some details as I report on this week's dishes, but I'll do my best.
Week 9 Produce Lettuce Carrots Cantaloupe Cucumber Tomatoes Sweet corn Kale Garlic Thai Basil
In the fruit share: White plums Blackberries Orchard blossom honey - we haven't tried this yet. I'm too into my raw honey to switch. I'll get to it eventually.
Omelet with tomatoes and other stuff - I am not very enthusiastic about omelets. I like eggs, yes, and the egg share from the CSA (we get a dozen every other week) has absolutely been worth the money. Give me a scramble any time, as long as it's fluffy. I just don't think I've ever craved my eggs cooked all flat and folded-over. That said, this was a perfectly respectable omelet (looks like turkey burger and feta made an appearance) and I hate that I seem to have damned it with faint praise. Poor omelet. Turkey Burger - We did not make the turkey burger patties this time. "But we always make the turkey burgers ourselves," my inner critic cries! What is UP with us? The toppings (onion, pickled cucumber, lettuce) were all CSA produce. The cheese, meat, and bun came from the store. Still so nice (as was the evening in our neighbors' backyard), we had to photograph it twice.
It pleased our shortest patron: p.s. He also likes blueberries.
Thai basil chicken and rice - lettuce wrap optional - This was an idea we got from Cooking Light, but Dan refused to follow the recipe. He just struck out on his own, like some kind of renegade. It was delicious.
Corn and tomato salad - This was modeled on Elote, so it contained mayonnaise, queso blanco, and cumin.
Kale Salad - yes.
Tomato with basil and some fancy salt we had lying around - naturally.
Things are getting hazy! I am 4 weeks behind in these CSA wrap-ups. Please assume I have a very good excuse. I am going to have to rely heavily on photo evidence for a few updates, until I get caught up.
Week 8 Vegetables 1 head lettuce 1 bunch beets -- Okay, I remember these beets. I forgot to use them, they shriveled up, and I had to throw them away. 4 onions 1 bunch arugula 2 heads garlic 1 cantaloupe 7 ears corn 3 tomatoes
Fruit apricots blueberries plumpricots/pluots.
Cucumber and Tomato Sandwich - I'm pretty sure these are Week 7 cucumbers, added to Week 8 tomatoes. As previously hypothesized, I think we sort of accidentally combined Week 7 and Week 8 into one mega-share.
Almost Certainly a Salad - lettuce, arugula, queso blanco, avocado, onion...
Pizza Party pizzas - We invited a few toddler-and-older friends over for a homemade pizza dinner one evening. CSA roasted garlic and onions (caramelized) were among the toppings available. I am perfectly capable of making pizza dough, but I like to save time by purchasing it at the local pizza parlor. Their dough makes for a really tasty crust that puffs up perfectly in a 400F oven -- and it's inexpensive. Not shown: The 5-year old could not get enough of the CSA cantaloupe.
Eggplant Salad? - I really can't see beneath the cheese, and this was a month ago now. I THINK this is week 7's eggplant with some basil and other stuff. It was probably good.
Update: Dan thinks this is mushrooms and peppers, which we clearly ate with sausages.
Did we not use the corn? I do not recall throwing away any corn. Let's see if it appears in Week 9, and thank you for your patience.
Week 7 Produce
Carrots
Eggplant
Lettuce
Basil
Cucumber
Fresh sweet onions
Green cabbage
Blueberries
Yellow Plumpricots
Oh, look. A salad.
This is the week that time forgot...or something. I cannot find any photos dated from this week, and none of these vegetables are particularly memorable. What did we do with that eggplant? Did all of these veggies just sit in the fridge until week 8?
I think we also ate some carrot sticks. And the onions keep practically forever, so there's no rush on them.
We definitely ate the fruit as-is. Is that cabbage still in there somewhere? Dear, dear.
This is what happens when I fall behind a week.*
Note: we never make it through all the basil. I suppose we should be making and freezing pesto. I like pesto. I'm just not all that into it.
...And with this post, I'm all caught up on produce distribution through today. That's the easy part, though. I've still got a bunch of photos and a few recipe ideas to share with you, as chronologically as can be arranged. Be with you shortly...
Week 11 Vegetables
1 lb. carrots
3 onions
1 bunch arugula
1 head garlic
1 cantaloupe
1 small bunch kale
2 lbs summer squash
2 lbs tomatoes
Fruit
6 round peaches
8 doughnut peaches
1 pint blackberries
Fruit share:
Peaches
Plums Notes from the farm:The hot weather a few weeks back sped up plantings of corn and melons which makes for a great abundance right now!
Apparently I wasn't the only person who let things slide in week 8... Not only am I a few weeks behind in posting this update, but the CSA I belong to didn't post the share contents for week 8 on their blog or Facebook page, so I'm going off the photo I took at pickup that week.
Fruit that week was apricots, blueberries, and plumpricots/pluots. I remember that the apricots were excellent, and approved by all ages (as pictured above), but the plum-apricot hybrids were kind of mealy and low on flavor.
Week 6, how you flew! Last Saturday, we received the following in our allotted CSA share:
Week 6 Vegetables and Fruit (and eggs)
Arugula (I think we got lettuce, too, though it's not listed on the CSA website)
Cucumbers
Green cabbage
Fresh onions (note from farm: sweet white onions, with tops that you can use as green onions)
Basil
Carrots
Summer squash
Blueberries
Cherries
Black raspberries
This was an especially big share, and it took us the entire week to get through it. In fact, we still had a few items left this morning, but I think it's all been cooked up as of lunch today.
Big Salad - I think this one was loosely modeled on a cobb salad, with arugula, lettuce, corn, avocado, bacon, and a blue cheese dressing. Another winning salad with CSA greens! Next time, let's grill the corn.
Creamy Coleslaw - Though we live on opposite coasts, through the magic of the Internet, my friend Angela and I both spotted this recipe on Serious Eats on the same day. She sent the link to me shortly after I'd texted it to Dan suggesting it for some of the cabbage in the refrigerator. You might remember from my Week 5 wrap-up that we still had that week's cabbage hanging around, too. Being faced with twice the cabbage tested the resolve of my coleslaw boycott, and reading the long article describing how to make this cabbage both (a) convinced me we should give it a shot, and (b) told me we wouldn't be following the instructions precisely. All respect to the Serious Eats blogger, but that's too much work for coleslaw if you're (I'm) not really sure you (I) even like coleslaw.
All that said, Dan's less precise approximation of this recipe turned out great! It actually was what I consider the perfect blend of tangy, creamy, and chewy. We ate it as a condiment on some sausage-and-English-muffin sandwiches the next night, and I still liked it as leftovers in my lunchbox a couple of days later.
p.s. I accidentally took a 15-second video of this coleslaw. It's over on the Snack Jail Tumblr.
Warm Salad of Grilled Swordfish, Summer Squash, and Feta - Standout of the week! Best of 2013! Here's another Cooking Light recipe that translated beautifully to our amateur hour dinner. I have been, historically, a bit intimidated by the process of cooking fish (yeah, I know it's silly), but Dan and I are both working to improve our seafood-searing skills. So when I saw this featured in what I think is the current issue of the magazine, I added it to my recipe file for consideration. I'm so glad it made the cut.
Speaking of cuts, the wild-caught swordfish steaks I bought were way too thick to cook through in the time allotted, so we had to cut them up midway through the process.
Otherwise, this dish was really easy to put together, the flavors were intensely pleasing, and it was also easy to disassemble into component parts our toddler was willing to eat (pasta, fish, feta).
Black Raspberry Ice Cream - That video looks a little NSFW at first, right? Dan and Sebastian did the work, but I had the good idea. I think this one may have been inspired by another Cooking Light article, but the recipe was in the pamphlet that came with our ice cream maker. Yum.
Braised Cabbage - I can't possibly imagine eating two heads of cabbage in one week, if they were both made into coleslaw, so I needed an alternative for our second head of cabbage. I was thinking it should be less labor-intensive than stuffed cabbage rolls, and braising occurred to me, so I Googled off in that direction. That led me to this Chow.com recipe, which seemed well-received by commenters on the page. I liked that it included some Dijon mustard (I like Maille) along with the brown sugar. I used 3 CSA onions in the recipe, along with a head and a quarter of cabbage (one quarter left over from the slaw).
The end result made me pretty happy. The apple cider vinegar left it sauerkraut-esque, which is a compliment, if you ask me. It was also smoky and bacon-flavored, creamy with onion, and had a good sauce beneath it for crusty bread-sopping.
Gazpacho - Mark Bittman's gazpacho recipe is very simple. Here's a version of his formula online. This is a great summer dish not just because it's served chilled, or because the tomatoes are seasonal, but also because you don't have to turn on the stove or oven to prepare it. Dan combined Bittman's recommendations with those of the gorgeous Spanish cookbook 1080 Recipes. Basil and cilantro, garlic and green onions all play important roles. Gazpacho is sort of "our dish," as Dan and I made 5 gallons of it the night before our wedding -- just over 12 years ago -- to serve at the reception. Romantic, right?!
Regular Basil and Chicken Salad -Cooking Light strikes again, but this time it was just the inspiration. I think Dan glanced at the recipe, then struck out on his own. This was supposed to be made with Thai basil, but we didn't have Thai basil. The regular basil was pretty strong, so Dan added a small head of lettuce (maybe left over from Week 5? Or a bonus we weren't aware of in Week 6?). I'm not sure what his chicken marinade was, but I do believe it included lime and fish sauce. I don't think I really want to eat a lot of raw basil salads without other greens in there, but I appreciated the change.
Cherry, Watermelon, and Limeaid Popsicles - This is too simple to need a recipe. It was fun licking through the frozen limeaid and watermelon juice to get to the CSA cherry prizes inside. I managed to do a semi-fancy, slanty thing with one of them, by tipping the ice-pop maker up and resting one end on a wooden cutting board so that it sat on a diagonal, then letting the limeaid harden a while before pouring in the watermelon juice.
Pickled Cucumbers - Some dill just barely hanging on from Week 5 made it into this jar, along with the cucumbers from Week 6. Our friend August shared the recipe we used:
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup vinegar
peppercorns
cardamon seeds
dried hot pepper
dill
garlic
Stuff jar.
Boil vinegar and sugar.
Pour boiling shit into jar.
Perfect in a few hours when it cools.
Go for it! These were pretty sour (and we skipped the hot pepper), but everybody loved them. They're good on a sandwich (really improving a slightly dull one) or on their own.
Summer Squash, Carrot, and Blueberry Muffins - These were made on Saturday afternoon, after we picked up Week Seven's share, so I included some Week 7 carrots in the mix. The squash was past its prime, but still shredded well in the food processor. I threw CSA blueberries in on a whim, adding them as I finished stirring the dry ingredients into the wet.
Here's the recipe (we subbed yellow squash for green, and doubled everything; no nuts). Lighter than carrot cake, they're moist like a good zucchini bread, and the blueberries pop pleasantly in the mouth. They may not be technically "healthy," but I am happy to pretend eating them is somewhat virtuous.
While we were making them, Sebastian told me he wasn't going to like them, but he was wrong.
And there we are! We ate the rest of the blackberries and cherries as they came, and I don't think we have any stragglers left in the refrigerator. It's on to Week Seven for me. What did you make with your CSA vegetables this week? Any recipes you'd recommend?
