thoughtful consumption

Late summer suppers are so much fun – minimal cooking and molto fresh ingredients.

I have two pints of fresh figs from today’s CSA delivery. While I had planned for baked figs and goat cheese, feta was what was in the fridge. The other half of supper was pasta tossed in olive oil, lemon juice, toasted walnuts, chopped basil, and minced garlic.

the stars of this evening’s entertainment

I baked the figs topped with feta at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. For the pasta, I heated 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil on the stove over low heat while the figs baked.  I had leftover spaghetti, so I heated that in the microwave and then mixed the pasta, warmed oil, and the rest of the ingredients in a bowl.

The fresh minced garlic was a little strong for me, so Chris loved it. Next time, I’ll warm the garlic in the oil in the hopes that it will be a little milder. Overall, though, we were very pleased with our light, late summer supper and the bottle of Prosecco that went with it.

I think I’ll bake the second pint of figs with cream cheese instead of feta, go overboard on the honey, and call it dessert.

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This week’s produce was a nice combination of stuff. The basil, blueberries, and okra are summer favorites, and the butternut squash and figs are treats that make me think of fall.

• basil
• butternut squash
• okra

• grits
• coffee
• blueberries
• figs

• mustard greens

• eggs
• green cabbage
• sweet onions

I also bought a few things from the online store.

• ciabatta
• honey
• onions
• garlic
• figs

Aren’t the figs beautiful? They have this wonderful old-world oil painting look. I plan to bake mine with goat cheese, like this. Here’s another option – fig, sweet potato, and wild rice stuffing. If I didn’t already have fig plans, I might try this with the butternut squash in place of sweet potatoes. If you’re looking for more of a dessert, consider Cajun Fig Cake.

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Here’s what I got last Wednesday from Farmers’ Fresh.

cucumber, corn, and okra

peento peaches, peaches, ambrosia melon, blueberries, and a plum

tomatoes, oyster mushrooms, and garlic

granola and eggs

I also bought several things from the online store.

one gallon of blueberries!

sweet onions

whole-wheat sourdough bread and Shiitake mushrooms

sorrel and crème fraiche

Snacking as an aid to meal planning

I tried out the crème fraiche with a piece of bread and a sorrel leaf.

The top two snacks didn’t work so well. (But the bottom snack of bread and creamed honey was delightful.) The crème fraiche is too tart to go with the sorrel, but immediately made me think of the mushrooms tucked away in the fridge. So, even if the snacks didn’t work as such, they inspired supper….

Mushroom madness!

First I minced a quarter of one of the sweet onions and a clove of garlic. Then I chopped the oyster and Shiitake mushrooms and reserved the stems for later stock or stir-fries. Then I melted some butter and threw everything in to saute along with some salt and pepper.

After about 15 minutes, I added some white wine and herbes de provence, let it cook for a minute, and then turned the heat to low. When the heat was down, I added half a cup of the crème fraiche.

Sorry about the blur. The aroma was so tempting that the camera got excited and wouldn't sit still.

The results were incredible. It was almost too rich. Almost.

Also on the plate was pesto-crème fraiche toast and grape tomatoes. (I started off slicing the tomatoes to go on top of the toast, but they were explosively juicy, and it seemed better to serve them whole.) The pesto-crème fraiche combination was interesting and tasty – just not in the same league as the mushrooms. Next time, I’ll serve the mushrooms over rice with a little salad. And there will definitely be a next time.

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Zucchini that looks like watermelon. Cut into an “apple” and find a pit.

Here’s the gorgeous and occasionally curious produce I got this week.

Asian eggplant and a variety of tomatoes

funky, striped zucchini (Anybody else miss Tone Loc?)

plums (not apples), blueberries, and peento peaches

(more…)

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Sorry about the delayed post this week. Especially because there’s so much cool stuff to talk about.

ambrosia melon, watermelon, sprite melon, and lychees

Lychees

Lychees are cool! The peel is papery and very different from the soft insides.

We couldn’t agree on what lychees taste like. Chris thought they were very sweet. James said they reminded him of sugary grapefruit. I thought they tasted a little like honey and rose, but then I’d been primed from reading a bunch of descriptions.

Here’s a site with tons of lychee recipes. I’m torn between making a syrup and mixing it with seltzer for afternoon sodas. Or baking them with brown sugar, butter and cinnamon as suggested here. The good news is lychees will keep well in the crisper for a couple of weeks, so I don’t have to decide today.

Melons

The ambrosia melon is a muskmelon and kind of like cantaloupe. You can tell it’s an ambrosia melon from the netted skin. I’m pretty sure the smaller melon is a sprite melon. It sounds like my kind of melon – sweet and crisp. Here’s more about sprite melons at Wikipedia.

Yesterday we made our watermelon into Watermelon Salad with Mint Leaves. It’s a great recipe, and this is the second week in a row we’ve made it. Basically it’s watermelon, sliced Vidalias, feta cheese, and mint tossed in a vinaigrette.

It really works and makes a perfect summertime side dish.

blueberries, mint, and lettuce

The lettuce and blueberries are delicious as usual. The mint was great to have for the watermelon salad. Plus, last night, when I pulled the mint bouquet out to make a pot of tea, I found a few stems twisty-tied together. Turns out they were Fran’s patented stevia and chocolate mint combination. They made a wonderful pot of tea.

Asian eggplant, sweet corn, and potatoes

Asian eggplant is nice because you don’t have to peel or purge it like globe eggplant. If you need some eggplant ideas, check out these winners from the Salon.com Kitchen Challenge (especially Lucy’s “Eggplant two ways…” )

And here are some ideas for eggplant from last year.

sausage and eggs

This sausage from Nancy and Jacque at Red Hott Tomatoes is delicious! It’s got great flavor and texture. It’s almost a delicate sausage, if that makes any sense.

I also ordered a few things from the online store…

cheddar cheese, shrimp, onions, and garlic

I’m lucky in the sense that foods don’t usually call my name from inside the refrigerator – except for Flat Creek Lodge cheese. The cheddar is incredibly complex with hints of bleu at the end. I love it! I could sit down on the kitchen floor and very happily eat the entire package.

For lunch yesterday, we had sausage and grits with watermelon salad and peas.

The grits were from Riverview Farms and leftover from a CSA delivery earlier this year. The peas were from the frozen vegetable aisle at Kroger.

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One of the fun things about sticking with a CSA is that every year is different. My first year was the Year of the Eggplant. This year has been all about the fruit.

Here’s what I got this week.

peaches, blueberries, and plums

watermelon and cantaloupe

rattlesnake green beans and heirloom tomatoes

butterhead lettuce, dilly beans, and eggs

And here are the items I ordered from the online store.

duck eggs, onion, and garlic

feta cheese and whole wheat sourdough bread

bulk sausage

New directions for some things

When we’re getting this much fruit, it can’t all become baked goods. So this week I’m trying to find recipes that use fruit in other ways. For instance, I’m planning stir-fried shrimp and Chinese cabbage with plum sauce. I don’t have all the recipes pulled together yet, but here’s one plum sauce recipe that looks interesting. The Chinese cabbage is from a few weeks ago, but it’s still holding up. I’m determined to finish it this week.

This recipe for raspberry spoonbread from delish.com sounded yummy. I’m thinking about trying a half recipe with the blueberries. Another option is this blueberry-bourbon barbecue sauce.

The peaches need to ripen a few more days, so I have time to decide what to do with them. The default plan is to chop and freeze them for muffins or cobbler later.

The melons we will slice up and eat. I may try Paula Deen’s watermelon salad with the Vidalia onions and feta cheese. Melon chunks can also be frozen for later.

Same old directions for others

I bought the feta cheese from Cole’s Lake Dairy to make Chris’ favorite pasta salad – tri-color rotini and feta mixed with Good Seasons Italian dressing.  I’ll have to divide the feta between pasta salad and watermelon salad somehow. I tried a tiny piece of the feta , and it’s so good I bounced up and down. (Which is what I do when I eat something special. It’s a habit I picked up from my younger niece, Grace. I wonder if she’s outgrown it yet. Wonder if I ever will.)

I’d like to cook down the tomatoes like I’ve been doing the past couple of weeks, but I may encounter objections from family members who like fresh tomatoes. Chris said one of the little reddish tomatoes was so sweet that it tasted like a grape.

The rattlesnake green beans are tasty. I can’t remember if I like them better than the Romano beans, but I’m looking forward to jogging my memory. I’ll simmer these slowly with a little olive oil or sausage drippings.

Meal ideas

Here are some of the combinations I’m thinking about for this week.

Pasta salad, dilly beans, and melon slices

Sausage, grits, green beans, and tomatoes

Shrimp-cabbage-plum sauce stir-fry

Watermelon salad and green beans

Scrambled eggs and sautéed cabbage

Linguini with pine nuts, lettuce, and tomatoes

Blueberry pancakes and melon slices

Duck egg custard!

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Here’s a way to use tomatoes and other summer vegetables like squash, zucchini, and eggplant: create a chunky tomato concoction and then use it in a variety of ways.

Materials

This week, I chopped up tomatoes, patty pan squash, and garlic.

Last week, it was tomatoes, onion, zucchini, and a quarter pound of ground beef. Both times, I’ve thrown in a can of tomatoes to stretch the sauce because tomatoes cook down so much. I also visited Lucy’s herb garden for some thyme, oregano, rosemary, and basil.

Methods

The first step is heating some olive oil over medium. I’ve been using about a quarter of a cup. Then add the squash, onion, and garlic. (If you’re using globe eggplants, you’ll want to purge them first. Asian eggplant won’t need it, though.)

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Now that it’s July, we’ll be getting corn regularly for a while. Here are two fast ideas for using sweet corn.

Microwave corn-on-the cob

1. Put two ears of corn, husk and all, in the microwave for 2 x2 minutes, turning half-way through.
2. Chop off the ends, get rid of the silk, and serve with butter and pepper.

Quick-cooked sweet corn

This one’s my favorite. It tastes better than popcorn. You have to go to the trouble of stripping the kernels, but it’s totally worth it. This year, I bought a kernel stripper.

(more…)

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Most mornings, Chris and I stumble into the kitchen and have some cereal, but recently we’ve had more interesting breakfasts based on products from our CSA box.

First up…

Ezekiel toaster cakes and scrambled eggs

The Ezekiel part of the toaster cakes refers to Ezekiel 4:9:

Take also unto thee Wheat, and Barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and Spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it…

These ingredients combine to make a bread (or toaster cake) that’s far more nutritious than any one grain. So Ezekiel toaster cakes are healthy and yummy and fast. If Chris and I still had morning commutes, we’d eat these for breakfast with yogurt or jam. (more…)

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