CSA Week 13

My husband picked up this week’s share…there will be processing and good eating when I return home (the day before the CSA week 14 share will be distributed. The 5 pounds of red tomatoes will go into the freezer and maybe some of the 2 pounds of cherry tomatoes will too. My husband kept the poblano peppers rather than trading so I am planning something he will help be eat!

The ‘new’ foods this week are marjoram and acorn squash. I’ll have to search my recipes for one that requires marjoram. I already know I want to back the acorn squash and eat it with butter and cinnamon; I remember eating it cooked that way at a Yosemite lodge more than 25 years ago and it has always been my favorite way to enjoy the squash.

My husband chose watermelon from the overage table and is saving it for when I return. Good choice.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - August 2015

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. Here are my top 10 for August 2015.

Eggplant balls - I finally found a recipe made with eggplant that I really like. The balls are good as appetizers or with spaghetti sauce (i.e. like meat balls) or cut in quarters and used in a stir fry. The recipe I started with is here; I substituted flaxseed meal and ground oatmeal for the bread crumbs.

Great cantaloupe and watermelon from the CSA this year - I always associate the best cantaloupe and watermelon with August….and this year was true to my memories. The watermelons were big, heavy things and very sweet; not the seedless and less flavorful varieties that seem the most popular in many grocery stores.

A visit from my daughter - My daughter had an opportunity to travel to our area for work….and she stayed on for a visit over the weekend. Wonderful serendipity.

New tablet (provided under warranty) - I got a notice about a month ago that my tablet was being recalled and that vendor would provide a replacement. The process worked! My new tablet arrived in the mail and was configured the way I wanted very quickly. I was braced for a glitch that never occurred.

Windows 10 - I was running Windows 7 and decided to upgrade to Windows 10 to be on a more current operating system. Again I anticipated a glitch of some kind. There was a minor one that cost me a few hours but otherwise it was easier. Most of the configuration I had previous was maintained during the install….that’s the part I celebrated.

Anticipating a road trip - I always enjoy the time just before a road trip....finding information for along our route, packing….celebrating that we are getting away for a little while.

Letchworth State Park - We had been to the park in New York once before during a spring time and wanted to go when it was warmer. Arriving first thing in the morning meant that we didn’t have lots of people in our photographs.

Taughannock State Park - Initially we had not planned to visit the park but I’m glad we had the time. We only went to the overlook of the falls but it brought back lots of memories of visits there with my daughter when she lived in the area several years ago.

Stony Brook State Park - This was a new park for use and was initially a disappointment because we were there on a hot afternoon and there were huge numbers of people. We came back on our way home and had the park to ourselves…and that the day I celebrated this particular park.

Nature Photography with summer campers - Celebrating a volunteer gig that was a joy - for me and the elementary are summer campers....sharing the wonder of nature.

CSA Week 12

Wow - do we have tomatoes! The four pounds of red tomatoes we got in this week’s share have already been processed (minimally - the top of the core and blemishes cut out, otherwise whole) and are in the freezer. I plan to slice and eat the heirloom tomato as soon as possible since it is very ripe. Then I have a little over 3 pounds accumulation of the small multi-colored cherry tomatoes (I traded my poblano peppers for another 1.5 pounds!); they’ll be my snacks for the whole week; they taste good and I like the variety of their colors.

There are a lot of peppers too (even without the poplanos) - 5 snack peppers and a red bell pepper. They’ll be additions to salads and stir fries

I haven’t decided what I will do with the eggplant…maybe include it in a stir fry or cut it in wedges and roast it.  It was a different shape that the traditional eggplant - still the same deep purple color.

The spaghetti squash can be quite a treat….as a veggie ‘spaghetti’…as another ingredient in a stir fry…as a component of quiche or custard. I won’t have any trouble eat it up.

Fortunately the onions, garlic, and potatoes will keep just fine not in the refrigerator...because I have a watermelon taking up a lot of space right now!

CSA Week 10

About all I have left from the week 9 share is chives, onions and leeks…a few purple skinned potatoes. But I think the week 10 share is a bit overwhelming.

The variety and amount of tomatoes skyrocketed this week: 2 big heirloom tomatoes, 1 pint cherry tomatoes, and 2 pounds red tomatoes. There was some fresh oregano which encourages me to make homemade tomato ‘something’ - soup or sauce.

We also got potatoes - this time with red skins. Fortunately potatoes last long enough that they won’t go to waste even if we don’t eat them this week.

The assortment of peppers went up: snack peppers of all colors (I got red/green ones), bell peppers, and jalepenos (which I promptly exchanged for another bell pepper).

We had a choice between cucumbers and summer squash; I picked the squash to I can make squash hummus again.

We had our choice of cantaloupe, red watermelon or yellow watermelon this week. I got a red one - just to be different from last week’s yellow one (which we enjoyed).

One of the items available on the overage table was lettuce….it will go well with the tomatoes and peppers for summer salads.

Once again - the next week is going to have a lot of good eating --- enjoying the bounty of summer foods!

CSA Week 9

Hurray! The share this week included a small watermelon! I had a choice between yellow and red….and chose a yellow.

There were also two kinds of peppers (bell and snack), two kinds of tomatoes (cherry and heirloom), two ‘onions’: chives and purple, purple skinned small potatoes that were still wet from a rain a few hours before our pickup time. I had a choice between lettuce, eggplant or okra and I chose lettuce. And I chose leeks from the overage table.

I envision all kinds of good meals this week…the ones I am thinking of right away are:

Large salads with lettuce, tomato, pepper, chives (edamame or peanuts for protein to make it a meal)

Hash browns made with shredded potatoes (leaving on the purple skins), onion, and bell pepper

Eggs with chives or leek

Stir fry with leek, pepper  and mushrooms (the last ingredient from the grocery store)