Category Archives for csa

CSA week 10/11

Lagging behind! Here’s what we got the last two weeks…

Week 11:
  • 1 zucchini
  • 2 lbs of tomatoes
  • 1 lb of onions
  • carrots
  • 2 cucumbers
  • 4 oz. of basil
  • 2 bulbs of fennel (small)
  • 1 head of lettuce
  • 2 eggplants
  • 6 ears of corn
  • edamame
Week 10:
  • 3lbs (!) of summer squash
  • carrots
  • curly parsley
  • potatoes
  • tomatillos
  • yellow grape tomatoes
  • cucumbers
  • eggplant

CSA week 8

The bounty for the week includes…
  • 1 bunch of kale
  • 1lb green beans
  • 4 oz basil
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 2 zucchini
  • 1lb beets (3)
  • 1 eggplant (an heirloom Italian variety – big, round, and light purple)
  • 1 bunch of sage
  • 3 onions
  • 1 head of lettuce
  • 2 green bell peppers
  • 2 cucumbers
Apologies for the blurry photo…

Black Bean Burgers & Sick Tomatoes

Yesterday I randomly clicked on a link for Low Calorie Budget Meals (oh-so-exciting, I know) and the only thing that piqued my interest was mention of black bean burgers.  I’ve never had one but I knew I had a couple cans of black beans in my pantry as well as some toppings in the fridge.  Dinner plan, check.  

I looked up a couple of recipes to get an idea of how these would come together and then decided to loosely follow their guidelines.
Very simply all I had to do was drain a can of black beans, mashed ’em up with a fork, and combine with minced onion, salt, pepper, a bit of Goya Sazón (because I didn’t have cumin), and some homemade whole wheat bread crumbs.  
Formed two patties, put them on the stovetop grill pan on medium-high heat and cooked for about 7 minutes.  Then I went to turn them and….  fail.  The patties didn’t hold up at all.  Time for improvisation #2: transfer to a skillet.  I actually let them cook about 10 minutes a side so that they formed a hard crust on the outside (yum).  
In the meantime I made a carrot slaw from this week’s CSA veggies.  It was super easy.  All I did was combine some shredded carrots with a quick lemon vinaigrette.  The carrots were really sweet so the slight tartness of the lemon vinaigrette was nice.  
As for the sick tomatoes, we just got an email from our CSA farm, Red Fire Farm, alerting us that about 2 acres of their 8 total acres of tomatoes have been struck by late blight.  They’ve removed all of the infected plants and are hoping that the rest of their crop will not be affected.  Keep your fingers crossed!  
Just in case, I’ll be monitoring Boris (and Natasha) very closely.  They both already have a tomato or two growing.  Let’s hope they don’t get sick as well.  

Boris with his first tomato fruit (to the left of the flowers)

CSA week 7

I’m not doing a very good job of keep this blog up to date with stuff that I make from our CSA. We’re already up to week 7 of the CSA and here’s what we got:

  • head of lettuce
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 1 stalk/bulb of garlic
  • wax and green beans
  • yellow/orange/purple carrots
  • cucumbers
  • zucchini
  • a sprig of basil
  • 2 lbs. potatoes
  • bunch of kale
  • 1 head green cabbage
  • 1 bunch of cilantro

I’m wondering what going to happen the rest of the season especially with the potatoes and tomatoes. Because it’s been such a wet season, there’s an epidemic of blight going around. There’s been a lot of discussion on Chow about how the CSA farms are going to fare. We’ll see what happens!

Oh and on that note, I haven’t mentioned Boris and Natasha yet. They’re our two tomato plants. Boris lives in Somerville with me and Natasha lives in Nashua with Dave. Dave made those hanging planters for them out of green recyclable bags and they’re doing great! Natasha already has two little tomato buds and Boris isn’t all that far behind. Here’s hoping that they don’t get sick…

Edit: Here’s dinner from that night… roasted corn with scallion-garlic butter, stuffed zucchini, tomato salad, roasted green/wax beans with shallots.

CSA week 6

Week 6 CSA veggies included…  (drum roll please):

  • Red leaf lettuce
  • Green garlic
  • Zucchini
  • Radicchio
  • Red cabbage
  • Beets
  • Cucumbers
  • 1 tomato
  • Curly parsley
  • Large onions (like scallions on steroids, seriously.  I think they were Ailsa Craig variety onions)

(New) Potato salad

New: in all senses of the word.

Usually when I crave potato salad I’ll make my mom’s version: potatoes, mayo, vinegar, green peppers, salt & pepper.  I grew up with it and it’s my favorite.  With the 2 lbs. of new potatoes from this week, though, I decided to try something new (*Lizarazo-humor warning*).  
I wanted to try the horseradish potato salad that Deb from Smitten Kitchen made but I was too hungry to go to the store for horseradish.  Instead I made Red Fire Farm’s new potato salad (ha!):
  • new potatoes
  • mayo / plain yogurt
  • dill
  • (fresh) garlic
  • (dijon) mustard
  • s & p
I ended up undercooking the potatoes slightly but better than overcooking them.  And I’m starting to like dill a lot more than I used to!

Lettuce

As much as I wish I could love ’em, I’ve never been a huge fan of lettuce-based salads.  I think it comes down to laziness.  Lettuce is something that needs to be washed, dried… loved.  So when we get heads of lettuce in the CSA it’s hard for me to finish them up.  

This week I picked out a small head of red leaf lettuce and threw it in the bag.  Unbeknownst to me, it was sitting right next to the dill.  When we had a small side salad with a simple balsamic vinaigrette it had a slight hint of dill… and it was delicious!  Aside from the flavor of dill, the lettuce itself was much, much tastier than any lettuce you’ll ever get at the grocery store.  CSA: 1, grocery store: 0. 

CSA week 5

After being out of the country for 2 weeks (London and Tokyo for work) and then on City Island for the 4th of July, I came back home to pick up week 5 of our CSA: 
  • Red leaf lettuce
  • 1 lb, 12 oz. of summer squash
  • 1 lb, 12 oz. of pickles
  • bunch of carrots
  • 2 lbs new potatoes
  • 4 oz. basil
  • bunch of flat leaf kale
  • 1 bulb of fresh garlic
Edit: I forgot to include the dill.