CSA Joy and Summer Cooking Adventures

We joined a farm this year and bought a share of the produce grown there (a Community Supported Agriculture or CSA share). I was a little dissatisfied in late Spring when we received about a pound of lettuce over a 5 week period. We paid a fee upfront that worked out to about $10 a week so when I realized I'd paid about $50 for a pound of lettuce, I was pretty upset.

But, the rest of the summer and fall more than made up for the slow start. I know -  I should have anticipated a slow start; only so many things grow in the Spring. I was just worried it would never pick up and we'd continue to get nothing for what we'd paid. Boy was I wrong!

We had vegetables coming out of our ears! It was all I could do to keep up with all the cucumbers, Swiss chard (the bane of my vegetable eating existence - I really hate it), green beans, tomatoes, and squash. The picture below is an average weekly share. We had a basketful like this every week from June through October. My fridge was completely packed to the brim with beautiful vegetables and I hardly bought any groceries all summer. Today, in fact, was the first day I had to buy a normal grocery load of veggies and I found that it had been so long, I couldn't remember what I usually bought. After a summer of eating every kind of veggie imaginable, I can't remember what I used to cook before we had the farm.

Sam loved going to the farm, especially because he got to see horseys and cows. He also loved eating fresh green beans, cucumbers, and peas. 

He would usually shove about five green beans in his mouth and would chew and chew and chew. Finally, after about a half hour, he'd spit out all the roughage he couldn't chew enough to swallow. Eating veggies is tough with only one set of tiny molars. I figure he was getting a lot of vitamins even if he couldn't mulch very efficiently. 

 

We got creative with the wide variety and large amount of veggies, especially with the chard and kale. We stir fried the stuff for the first couple weeks but I literally gagged one night trying to eat the bitter, slimy chard and we decided there was no way we could eat it unless we hid it in everything we ate. We made green pancakes at least once a week (our usual blender wheat, oatmeal, cranberry pancakes with several chard and kale leaves blended in). I also started making chardy cheese, which was our usual homemade mac and cheese baked with chopped up chard and kale in it. Sam actually ate that stuff; it was pretty gross. We also started making smoothies with chard and kale pretty regularly and once, I made a wickedly chardy quiche that we barely managed to gag down. We did a decent job hiding *ahem* I mean, eating, the chard and kale and wasted very little of it.

On top of our farm share, Don and I planted a little 10x10' garden plot in our family housing community garden. We've done this every year but haven't really succeeded until this year. We had a wildly successful bumper crop of pretty much everything we planted. We had beautiful lettuce and spinach all through May and early June, then we had green beans and peas, and once the tomatoes started coming, they just wouldn't stop! We planted 6 plants anticipating they wouldn't grow well. It's amazing how actually watering your garden results in thriving plants - who knew!? In previous years, we'd forget to water our garden or would leave it for a week while we went out of town and it would go unwatered and wither and shrivel... This year, though, we were vigilant and many friends helped us water while we were out and about and the garden blossomed! 

This is two days worth of tomatoes. The tomatoes were a little spotted but they were so juicy and delicious.

Sam loved these funny lemon cucumbers that we'd get from the farm. They looked like lemons on the outside and even a little bit on the inside. Sam ate one or two of these like an apple every day for several days running. I was thrilled. His love for them didn't last but I was happy he liked them for a little while.

This is a random picture of the pesto pasta I made. We got tons of basil each week from the farm so I made several batches of pesto, most of which I froze. I also made homemade mozzarella cheese for this pesto dish, which was delicious. It was a very domestic day for me. 

This is a picture of the homemade mozzarella cheese, which admittedly looks a little weird. It tasted wonderful!

One day's worth of tomatoes and zucchini from the garden. I made a ton of zucchini bread and my friend at the farm gave me the most amazing zesty zucchini quesadilla recipe that I love! 

That huge tomato is called a brandywine. They were great for marinara sauce but always looked a little funky. 

When I had 19 cucumbers sitting in my fridge, I decided it was time to figure out how to make dill pickles. My friend Katie in Family Housing had made refrigerator dill pickles last summer so I got her recipe and she gave me a bunch of dill from her garden and Don and I had a pickling party! We pickled all kinds of cucumbers - marketmore, lemon, pickling... They all turned out so well! Some of them were even on the verge of going bad before I peeled and pared away at them and they still tasted great. We packed the dill, garlic, and black peppercorns in the bottom of the jar, added the cucumber spears, and then poured the hot brine made of salt water and vinegar over the cucumbers. Then, we screwed on the lids and within about 20 minutes, all the jars had self sealed. The next day, we had delicious, crisp, and flavorful pickles! I don't think I'll ever buy pickles again!

 

Filling the jars, prepping the cucs.

Pouring in the brine...

This is what the cucs looked right after we put the brine in...

About an hour later, this is what the cucs looked like. They were already pickles! Amazing! We took some to the farm potluck and people loved them. I think we started a wave of pickling through the CSA members because the pickles were so tasty!

Because of our prolific tomato plants and wild amounts of veggies in the fridge, each week for about a month and half, I'd spent about 2 1/2 hours making a huge batch of fresh tomato marinara. It actually usually ended up as more of a vegetable ghoulash but it was delicious. 

I would chop the tomatoes and set them to simmer. Then, I'd food process onions, tons of garlic, carrots, eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, and chard and saute all of that until tender. Then, I'd combine it all together with some fresh basil, parsley, and a couple bay leafs and then let the whole thing cook down for a couple hours. We'd cook up some mild Italian pork sausage medallions and some pasta and have ourselves a feast. We'd eat half and freeze half. It was a great way to use our tomatoes and get all our veggies out of the fridge and into our happy bellies. 

I also used our tomatoes to make a huge pot of homemade tomato soup. I had never made tomato soup before and was really pleased with how well it turned out. I added a bunch of pesto for a nice basil flavor and it was delicious! 

I've still got tomato ghoulash and soup in my freezer. It has made for lots of much needed quick, easy meals lately.

One domestic thing that I'm good at is making homemade whole wheat bread. I finally have a good recipe that makes a light, fluffy loaf. Previously, I made a bunch of recipe that were very brick-like and crumbly so I'm in love with this bread and have made it every week for over 3 years now. One week, the loafs looked so pretty, I had to take a picture.

My friend Cami and I were in charge of a YW activity where I taught the girls to make bread and she taught the girls to make freezer jam. We had tons of strawberries left over so I made a bunch of freezer jam (which is so easy and delicious!) and have been enjoying it and giving it away for months and months now. Yum! Who knew jam could be so easy and inexpensive!

Hurray for learning new skills! I really love cooking. Now to learn to love cleaning up after...