thoughtful consumption

Fried Green Tomatoes!

We fried the tomatoes, and it worked really well. I dipped them in buttermilk and then cornmeal with some salt, pepper and paprika.

The sweet potatoes were so delicious that they got eaten all the way down to the skin. Here’s the proof.

I stir-fried the Komatsuna greens with onions, ginger, garlic and chicken. It was pretty good. You couldn’t taste the greens in all the sauce. That’s good and bad, I suppose.

The green beans were frozen, and the potatoes were baked. The eggs went into a magically delicious pound cake that my husband made this week. (I love my husband.)

The acorn squash is still adding charm to the kitchen for now.

We’ve been eating the Asian turnips sliced in salad as suggested. It’s pretty tasty. They are very mild.

I’m feeling braver about greens. This coming week, I may even try a recipe that isn’t designed to hide the taste of the greens!

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So I caved and bought a 10# bag of ugly sweet potatoes. I’ve been so pleased with the CSA sweet potatoes; they’re like what grocery store sweet potatoes wish they could be. Here are my uglies.

Here’s my regular subscription stuff…

• Green tomatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Chard
• Apples
• Komatsuma greens
• Acorn squash

Here’s what I think was the premium stuff. I’m not sure, though; the eggs could have been regular.

• potatoes
• green beans
• eggs
• basil

This week’s plan

The basil’s already pesto and safely ensconced in the freezer.

I’m going to take the plunge and fry the green tomatoes. My husband said something about buttermilk wash being important, so I’ll look around and see what recipes I can find.

One of the apples has already been cut up and eaten, the second soon to follow.

The two sweet potatoes will probably be lunch today along with a salad. The little ugly sweet potatoes will get roasted and eaten this weekend. The bigger ones we’ll just store and eat later.

I’ll probably roast the turnips, too. My neighbor Lucy has suggested this briami recipe. Maybe I’ll try it with the turnips and little sweet potatoes. I want to save the white potatoes for eating baked because we just love them that way.

Then again, our weekly CSA flyer suggests slicing these milder turnips into salads. So I’ll try that. Maybe we’ll come to enjoy the turnips as much as the radishes.

The smaller chard and komatsuma greens will be added to last week’s lettuce to stretch the salads.

I’m not sure what to do yet with the rest of the greens. As I’ve said before, we not a big greens family. But, when looking at the Komatsuma, even I can tell them’s some purty greens. So I’m a little hesitant to condemn them to obscurity in creamy alfredo or dip. They taste kind of like cabbage to me – maybe I’ll try a little stir-fry.  Hmm.

And the little acorn squash – too cute to cook? Probably not, in the end. But it should last for a while. So we’ll enjoy its outsides now and its insides later.

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Here’s what I have to report from this week.

Charlie is no more. But he had a good long life (for a squash-o-lantern) and will be missed.

Radish greens work in “spinach” dip.

My step-son said the other night, “You know, I think I kind of like radishes.” I agree. Our salads will seem sad without radishes this week.

Oven drying peppers works! You have to keep the oven on low for a long time, so it’s better for fall.

Sweet potatoes are near the top of my list of reasons to keep subscribing. I’ve always liked sweet potatoes, but sometimes you buy them in the store, and you take a couple of bites, and then you get a stringy bite. I hate that bite. Somehow that stringy texture makes me gag and not want any more sweet potato. That never happens with these sweet potatoes. I eat them all the way to the skin, and the texture’s perfect to the last bite. It’s like everything you’ve always imagined a sweet potato could be.

The sugar cane was interesting. I think it would be fun to take on a hiking trip.

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Charlie says, “Happy Halloween!”

Charlie made it to Halloween! His teeth are shrinking a little, but otherwise he’s fine. The coolest part is when the smoke wafts out of his eyes after you blow out the candle. Spooky!

This week I bought a couple of items from the online store: honey and butterhead lettuce.

The butterhead is our favorite so I wanted to make sure we had some this week. (As Murphy would have it, we also got a head in our bag. But the hyrdoponic lettuce lasts a long time, so I’m not worried. I know we’ll get around to it!)

Regular subscription bag

• Frilly lettuce and butterhead lettuce
• 2 sweet potatoes
• bunch of radishes
• 2 broccoli crowns
• 6 hot peppers
• sugar cane!
• 3 apples
• Not pictured: turnip greens (We gave them to our neighbors.)

Premium subscription additions

• cilantro
• spinach
• eggs
• 3 tomatoes
• Not pictured: dill (I didn’t find the bag until I was done taking pictures.)

This week’s plan

So the lettuce, spinach, and radishes all go to salads. Some of this spinach has purple stems and a definite pecan taste. It’s really good.

I can never use enough fresh cilantro so I found this recipe for cilantro-jalapeno paste. It seemed to work really well, although stemming cilantro and seeding jalapenos is tedious work.

I’ll pop out the cubes, bag them, and then defrost them as needed for chicken soup or tacos or chips and salsa.

The other hot peppers are drying in the window. This weekend I’m going to try to oven dry them, though, because last time they got moldy before they could dry.

I wanted to find out if you can eat radish greens. (You can!) Here are some more good ideas for radishes. I blanched and chopped our greens for creamy “spinach” dip.

The sweet potatoes will be baked and eaten happily with a nice salad. Mmmm.

I think I’ll steam one head of broccoli and eat the other one raw. I like raw broccoli florets with dip or in salads.

I’m excited about the sugar cane but haven’t had time to mess with it yet. Our weekly flyer had some instructions for what to do.

Don’t need any instructions for the apples – just eat and enjoy!

I think I’ll make one more tomato pasta dish with these tomatoes. I’ve still got some garlic. If I have enough  time (and energy) this weekend, I might try to do something more Mexican than Italian to use the cilantro paste.

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We’ve had some great salads this week with chopped tomatoes, radishes, and mushrooms. We added tuna one time and another time we cut up some lunch meat to make a chef salad.

We had the potatoes baked and the broccoli steamed one day for lunch along with a box of fried chicken. (Sometimes, you just get a craving, you know?) Another day we had cold fried chicken and salad.

Sliced parmesan cheese does wonderful things to arugula. I wouldn’t have guessed it because they are both such strong tastes. But I remembered some restaurant salads that combined them – and it really works. I still have some arugula, so I may try this arugula pesto recipe.

Another thing I learned is that the hydroponic lettuce stays fresher than the loose lettuce. So make sure to use up the loose lettuce first.

I used the greens and mushrooms to make an alfredo-like pasta recipe. My mother gave me this recipe; I’m not sure where she got it. It’s pretty rich with all the cream cheese and butter. I use Neufchatel cheese to keep it lighter. You could probably also use less butter especially if you use a nonstick pan.

It’s been a strange week, and I haven’t cooked as much as normal. I’m determined to use the spaghetti squash insides by this weekend, though. Depending on what I get today, I may freeze the green beans and the squash. At the end of the season, I’m going to post a freezer inventory to see what I’ve been able to put away and how it might get used. Then I can post about frozen CSA stuff as I use it over the winter.

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Here’s what the regular bag contained this week…

• green beans
• 2 heads of red leaf lettuce
• spaghetti squash
• 3 apples
• big bag of mixed loose leaf lettuce
• mustard greens
• 3 potatoes
• bag of baby arugula

And here are the premium additions…

• broccoli
• 3 tomatoes
• half dozen eggs
• 5 pretty little yellow squash
• Shitake mushrooms

I didn’t order anything extra from the online store this week.

This week’s plan

The little yellow squash will be cooked up in our regular stir-fry fashion. This squash looks very tasty, and I’m looking forward to it.

The green beans will either get steamed and eaten with lemon, butter, parsley, and pepper. Or steamed and frozen. Ditto for the broccoli.

Salad! The arugula looks wonderful. It’s so tiny. Plus we got more lettuce this week than last. So we won’t end up with arugula-only salads. Tomatoes and radishes from last week will go on top.

Apples! I already ate one. Something about eating a fresh apple makes me feel content. Ahhh.

These potatoes are awesome baked. We’ll bake them and load them up with cheese and other stuff. Mmmm.

I’m going to blanch and chop the mustard greens and then make a fake alfredo pasta dish with Neufchatel cream cheese and parmesan. The mushrooms will go in there, too. At least most of them. I’ll save a couple for salads.

I haven’t found the perfect answer for what to do with spaghetti squash yet. I’ve tried making hashbrowns (squashbrowns?) and that’s pretty good. I think I’ll find some sort of casserole recipe with cheese, eggs, and onions.

A couple of eggs may go towards spaghetti squash casserole. But a couple of them are definitely headed for chocolate chip cookies. Man, do I have a craving. The other day I tried to make little custards with a couple of eggs and a couple of cups of milk. I may try that again, too. If I hit on a good recipe, I’ll post it here.

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The butterhead lettuce was delicious. My 18-year-old stepson wanted to make sure I posted that it’s the best lettuce ever. That’s a pretty nice endorsement, huh?

We also had arugula and a mystery green that was pretty tasty in salads. We ran out of butterhead first, so our salads became stronger as the week went on. The fix is to use sweeter dressings. We added some raspberry jam to our vinaigrette to even out the stronger taste of the greens.

We didn’t get through all the greens, so I blanched and chopped the remainder. Not much but enough for some spinach-artichoke dip.

The radishes are still yummy, but it’s hard to get through them all when you’re slicing them thin for salads. I’m going to have to up the radish ratio on our salads next week.

The pretty apples were delicious this week. I love them as afternoon snacks.

We made omelets with the eggs and some of the tomatoes and parsley. Classier and faster than scrambled eggs but a little more nerve-wracking, too, because the timing’s so quick. Me, I’m just as happy with scrambled.

We made eggplant parmesan again. I think I’ve created a monster. I don’t want to have to do this every time we get eggplant! I’m thinking about insisting on trying to broil the eggplant rather than fry it. Healthier, easier, and less mess. But there is sort of a rush to making the real thing. I feel like such a chef when it goes in the oven.

The broccoli was fresh and delicious steamed. On the second batch I put the stem pieces at the bottom of the steamer and the crowns on top. I took the crowns out after about three minutes and left the stems in a little longer. That way everything’s cooked right.

The basil became pesto as predicted. I’m a big pesto fan.

I blanched and froze the pretty green beans.

Persimmons… hmm. Well, I learned some things about persimmons. One is there is a world of difference between unripe and ripe persimmons. By chance, the first persimmon I cut into wasn’t ripe. I think it was the only unripe one in the bunch. Not knowing persimmons, I tried a bite and it was awful – chalky with a lasting unpleasant aftertaste. I guess that’s the plant’s way of telling creatures, “Not yet.” Anyway, ripe persimmons are squishy and have a pleasant mild taste. I wanted to make persimmon pulp or puree to bake with, but I had a hard time figuring out what was pulp. The seeds made up a big part of the persimmon. I tried to gather the pulp with a knife, but next time I’m going to try a food mill. I didn’t get a lot of pulp…

Verdict’s still out on persimmons. I hope I get another chance at some point. Let me know if you have any advice.

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We got a cute bouquet in our bag today as a thank you from the farmers.  I’m sure enjoying them in my kitchen.

Here’s the week’s standard order…

Or if you prefer your veggies with more drama…

The green beans are so pretty that I may break my current moratorium on green beans and serve these this week instead of freezing them for later. There’s also

• radishes,
• lettuce,
• arugula,
• some mystery green that’s not really bitter even raw
• apples,
• eggs, and
• Asian eggplant.

This week’s premium additions are

• basil,
• cherry and grape tomatoes,
• broccoli, and
• wild persimmons.

I also bought two additional bags of basil fro the online store to make pesto for freezing.

This week’s plan

Steam the broccoli lightly and then toss with butter, lemon juice, and pepper.

Make salad with the lettuce and some of the arugula and mystery greens. Add in cherry tomatoes and sliced radishes.

I have no idea what to do with wild persimmons – but they sure sound cool. Every week the CSA manager sends around a flyer about the week’s bags. I’m waiting for mine and hoping for some guidance.

I found a recipe for arugula pesto. If we don’t eat it all up fresh or wilted in some recipe this week, that’s what I’ll do.

The green beans look like they’d be great steamed like the broccoli. I’ll have to convince my husband that all green beans don’t need to be cooked to death to be edible.

Eggplant parmesan was such a huge hit, I may have to try again with this batch.

Check back later for an update!

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This week’s highlights

Here’s our first salad of the season. Two types of wonderful lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and thinly sliced radishes from my bag plus pepper, oil, and vinegar.

One trick I like is making the salad then adding canned tuna. (I like tuna in oil, so I hold the oil in the salad dressing.) Toss it all up and put it on plates and then put the plates in the fridge for 10 minutes or so. Chilling it all together makes it really nice.

Unfortunately, I forgot to allow time to chill it for this meal. But the sweet potatoes were delicious. Not a bit tough or stringy like they sometimes are from the grocery store.

I tried sliced radishes in salads and then roasted marinated radishes. Everyone liked the radishes in the salad better. You have to slice them really thin, though. Then they add just the right amount of crunch and peppery zing.

My stepson pronounced our baked white potatoes as the best baked potato he’s ever had. And loaded baked potatoes are on our regular meal rotation, so he’s had some experience in the area. These potatoes were really creamy and delicious. I’m glad we let them stand on their own instead of adding them to soup or something. (By “on their own” I mean underneath layers of butter, sour cream, cheese, bacon, and chives.)

Those pretty little apples were a kind of disappointing. They were very fresh and crisp but not as flavorful as I’d hoped. Still, they made a nice, crunchy afternoon snack.

I made syrup from the lemon verbena as threatened. It turned out pretty well. It’s a nice change of pace from honey in my tea.

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Check out the goods! I was really excited to see the lettuce.

• 3 heads of lettuce, beautiful lettuce
• 4 sweet potatoes
• 3 white potatoes
• 5 apples
• a bunch of radishes
• cherry tomatoes
• mess of greens

This season I upgraded to a premium bag. So I’ll try to separate it out for reference. The above stuff is pretty much the standard bag according to our weekly CSA flyer, and below is the premium extras.

• 3 tomatoes
• 3 heads of garlic
• half dozen eggs
• 1 zucchini
• herbs: parsley, chives, and lemon verbena

This week’s plan

Potatoes (both sweet and white) will be baked in the microwave and eaten up. We’ll put some of the parsley and chives on the white potatoes.

These apples are made for snacking. That is what they’ll do….

Radishes will get 1) sliced thinly and added to salads, and 2) chopped into little chunks tossed in Italian dressing and parmesan cheese and roasted in the oven or toaster oven. This makes a good, easy side dish.

Cherry tomatoes will join the radishes in salads. They also might get sliced and put on pita crisps along with the parsley and chives.

Big tomatoes. Hmmm. I might get a Vidalia at the store and make sliced tomato sandwiches. Or they could get cooked up with garlic for some Italianesque recipe to be named later.

Greens will get cooked, chopped, and frozen to await their chance to become “spinach”-artichoke dip. I just made some dip last week and it’s one of those things you can’t eat all the time. Or they may wind up with my mom. She and my dad like greens a lot.

Parsley and chives: baked potatoes, pita crisps, and salad add-ons

Lemon verbena: I guess there is a Santa Claus! This week I got enough lemon verbena to try the lemon verbena syrup recipe I mentioned last week. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I don’t have any big plans for the eggs yet. A lot of times we just make scrambled cheese eggs. Maybe we’ll try omelets with tomatoes and herbs.

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