thoughtful consumption

I’m ending the week a relatively happy camper (at least in terms of food and my CSA bag). And tomorrow should bring the season’s first lettuce. It doesn’t quite make up for the Dow, but it’s something to look forward to.

Here’s the dish…

The sweet potatoes were gone first. We just baked them in the microwave, and they were delicious!

French onion soup was good, and we made enough for leftovers this week. But I forgot to use the savory!

Lettuce leaf basil doesn’t last even as long as regular basil. I cooked it up with the tomatoes and some garlic Friday when I saw some of it already spoiling. Basil’s just one of those things you have to move fast on, I guess. Once the tomato stuff was cooked, I put it in the fridge for the weekend’s big tomato-zucchini pasta dish.

We were really pleased with tomato-zucchini-sausage pasta. I browned some Italian sausage and then scooped it out and cooked some sliced zucchini in the sausage fat. Then I added back the sausage, the tomato-basil concoction, a big can of crushed tomatoes and some Italian seasoning. This type of Italian cooking seems very forgiving. As long as everything gets cooked and ends up in a big, simmering pot and is served over pasta, it seems to be okay.

The apple butter adventure turned out pretty well, too. Next time I’m going to cut the sugar by at least a quarter. Using the food mill was not as tedious as I had feared.

The green beans are still in the produce drawer. Thankfully, they’re not as delicate as basil. I’m going to blanch and freeze them any minute now…. At some point this winter, I’ll be excited about green beans again.

Lemon verbena, savory, and the Mexican tarragon all dried very nicely. I like loose tea, so it’s easy for me to just add a lemon verbena leaf to my tea whenever I make a pot. It’s really nice in the afternoon. I tried adding  leaves to cold sparkling water, but they didn’t add much flavor. At some point I want to try making lemon verbena syrup which could then be added to tea or sparkling water or pretty much anything. Here’s a cool page with bunches of lemon verbena uses.

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I keep meaning to take a picture of my CSA bag before I unload it. But I’m always too excited and start pulling stuff out immediately.

The bag of apples on the left is my half of a #10 lb bag of apples I bought and split with my neighbor Lucy. (Check out Lucy’s blog!) I want to make apple butter. I think Lucy’s going to make pies.

Herb close-up. At the top of my bag was a beautiful bunch of lettuce leaf basil. When I first saw it in the bag, I wasn’t sure what it was because the leaves are curly, but the fragrance was unmistakable. I also got chives, winter savory, Mexican tarragon, and lemon verbena.

So here’s this week’s plan…

Tomatoes, zucchini, and basil = end of summer pasta dish

The green beans will probably get blanched and frozen for sometime later this year. I’m kind of green beaned out for now.

I’m craving French onion soup, so the onions may end up in that this weekend. Possibly some of the savory, too. I hope this weekend is a little nippy – I want it to be onion soup weather!

The sweet potatoes will just get baked and served whole. Maybe with the onion soup.

I like to steep lemon verbena leaves in tea. I’m not sure what will happen yet to the Mexican tarragon. Hmm.

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Here’s what happened with my CSA bag this week.

1. Apples became applesauce. Used as oatmeal topping.

2. Green beans. These were especially good heirloom rattlesnake beans. Split into two parts. The bigger beans were cooked southern style. The smaller beans were blanched and the sauteed with some garlic.

3. Flowers. Sat on my kitchen table for most of the week. 🙂

4. Peppers became pepper hot sauce. These peppers are pretty mild, so the sauce is more tangy than hot. Still it should keep for a while in the fridge. I’ll use it to spice up eggs and other dishes. I think I’ll make more next week but leave some of the seeds in to make it hotter.

5. Tomatoes became bruschetta: chopped and cooked them down a little with onions, garlic, and Italian seasoning. Scooped onto french bread and topped with parmesan cheese. Made a lovely light lunch/afternoon snack.

5. Eggplants became eggplant parmesan. This was the real winner of the week. It was soo good. It takes a while to make from start to finish, but the steps don’t overlap so it’s not stressful. My husband now insists that all eggplant that enters the house must be used to make eggplant parmesan. My stepson said, “Tastes like Scalini’s.” That’s high praise, indeed.

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When you sign up with Farmers’ Fresh Food, you can list items that you’d rather not ever get in your weekly bag.

Here’s what’s on my family’s “hate list:”

• Bell peppers
• Collard greens
• Cucumbers

So you won’t see those in my weekly reports. But, rest assured, these items are available. I know this because last year (pre-hate list), I would get my bag some weeks and pull out a bunch of stuff I’d end up giving away. That was kind of depressing; this year’s much better.

Also, I try to be specific on my list to give the baggers some wiggle room. I can deal with hot peppers, for instance. And kale and broccoli rabe I ‘m okay with – we turn them into creamy “spinach” dip. Cream cheese has a way of fixing everything. I’ll post the dip recipe next.

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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.

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We were warned that this week is a transition between summer and fall. But I’m pretty happy with what I got. Check out the picture.

5 apples – always tasty

A pint of muscadines

2 good-looking slicer tomatoes

2 zephyr squash

1 zucchini

half dozen eggs – including one green one!

BIG head of garlic

Goat’s milk soap – nice citrus-y scent

So I’m thinking stir-fried squash, cheese eggs, pancakes or pumpkin pie, zucchini tomato pasta with garlic bread, apples for snacking.

I’ll report back later this week!

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