Adventures in CSA (2012): Week 8 Wrap-Up

At the start of Week 8 we still had these CSA items in our kitchen:
most of a bunch of green onion
1.2 cucumbers
1 head cabbage
some lettuce 

And then, our CSA provided us with an EXPLOSION of new summer produce!

CSA Bounty - Week Eight (veggies and fruit):

3 Sweet corn 

1.5  Lb mixed zucchini (we got all yellow)

1.5 lb cucumbers (we chose green)

2 stalks dill

1 bunch swiss chard

1 bunch beets

1 bunch carrots

1 bulb fennel

1 onion

bonus: half-pint of cherry tomatoes

1 plant basil (which we planted and are TRYING to keep alive, I promise)

1 half-pint Garden of Eve-grown organic blackberries

donut peaches

I kind of wish we'd signed up for fruit every week. This has been some good fruit. I miss it when we don't get to take it home.

Anywhoo, with this lot, we arranged to devour the following dishes:

1. More scrambled eggs with scallions (CSA scallion) and cheddar cheese (not pictured).



2. "I Actually CAN Believe They're Not Crab Cakes" (CSA scallion and cucumbers). I don't mean to be picky with the fine folks at Picky Kitchen, but this recipe didn't taste much like crab cakes. The texture was also clearly canned tuna. Luckily, I like canned tuna. Pickled cucumber was good on these, too, as it has been on most things the past few weeks.



3. Sausage and greens (CSA chard and tomatoes). Pine nuts and cheese were added to this dish. 



4. Cucumber salad (CSA cucumbers and dill). Dan didn't follow any one recipe exactly, but he says he more or less used this one, with slightly different proportions of ingredients. The baby devoured them. He loves vinegar!



5. "King Ranch" squash (CSA onion and yellow squash and scallion garnish). Okay! This is another contender for "Best Dishes of CSA 2012." It is also the recipe I plan to make again immediately when we (if we) get more squash. Our gluten-free neighbor enjoyed it, too, once I substituted cornstarch for the small amount of flour. Oh, also we didn't have a jalapeno, so I left that out. Layer of tortilla chips on the bottom, y'all.  Make it!



6. Fresh, raw: CSA blackberries and doughnut peaches and melon -- not pictured except for the melon. Guess what? Our kid can now say (nay, demand), "Bewwies!" I don't like cooking fruit that tastes this good. We left the peaches in a brown paper bag over night, FYI, to get them perfectly ripe.


 
7. Corn salad (CSA corn and spring onion). Avocado entered the picture (again; we love avocados), along with tomatoes and a dressing of mayonnaise, lemon, and cumin. Another standout.



8. Beet and Fennel Slaw (CSA beets, carrots, and fennel). This was based on a Martha Stewart recipe. The beets are served raw and shredded, which (if you have a food processor) is so much less messy and time-consuming than roasting or boiling them first. It was very good -- sour in a pleasing way.

Note: You won't find any Week 9 (a "veggies only" week) posts this year, as we were on vacation last week and gave our share to a friend.  Week 10 begins today. Onward!

Joining us over in Week 10:
1 head cabbage