thoughtful consumption

Clearly, we’re still in transition to fall. I want some fresh lettuce so badly! Hopefully it will show up soon.

This week in my standard bag…

• 4 apples
• 2 tomatoes
• 3 Asian eggplant (plus one teeny little one!)
• beaucoup hot peppers
• good-looking mess of green beans
• pretty flower bouquet
• 1 missing container of muscadines (Muscadines were listed on the slip attached to my bag, but there weren’t any in the bag. This happens sometimes, and an email to the CSA manager straightens it out.)

Bell peppers are one of the few things my husband won’t eat. So we’ve requested not to get any. That’s why I’m getting all these hot peppers. I bet other people are getting beautiful sweet and bell peppers this time of year.

Instead of using the apples fresh for afternoon snacks, I made applesauce. I peeled and cored the apples, added maybe 1/2 cup of water, 1 tsp of brown sugar, and a cinnamon stick. Brought it to boil and then cooked it on medium low for maybe half an hour. Boy, did it smell good! We ate some of it on oatmeal last night. The rest is in the fridge for lunch.

For green beans, I’ll divide them up into the smaller beans and the larger beans. The larger beans will get cooked to death southern-style. That’s how my husband likes them. For me, I either steam the smaller ones or blanch and then saute them.

Not sure what will happen to the tomatoes. I’m thinking they may end up eaten fresh because they’ll be some of the last tomatoes we’ll see this season. If not, they’ll turn into bruschetta-like sauce with onions and garlic. Always tasty on pasta or good bread.

I’ve been making fried (but not breaded) eggplant recently. I’ll either try that again or go all out and make eggplant parmesan. Depends on whether we need an extra main dish or a couple of side dishes this week.

There’s a string of hot peppers drying in my kitchen window. But considering it’s Georgia and the window’s not too sunny, they aren’t drying very quickly. My plan was to dry and then roast the hot peppers. With this week’s batch I’m just going to try to roast them fresh in the toaster oven. Then I’ll skin and seed them and turn them into yummy sauce or paste. At least, that’s the plan.