I’m stressed. Last week was hopeful excitement of new routines. This week is the exhausted anxiety of disruption.
Admittedly, hormones probably don’t help. And national politics definitely don’t help. The implications of those politics on personal and local affairs don’t help. The news covering the implications of those politics on the global scale is even more horrifying. It’s hard to stop the spiraling.
The disrupted routine makes it feel like there’s no time to plan. Less time to cook when I expected more. Less time to rest and reset.
I think we need to lean into the super-quick meals. Or meal prepping the night before. Or over the weekend. I also have no idea what that looks like with our actual dietary needs and produce usage.
I don’t know. Please share your ideas.
Today’s Box
Bartlett Pears
Moon & Stars Watermelon
Little Sweetie Cantaloupe
Fennel
Green Kale Shishito Peppers
Red Carmen Italian Peppers
Yellow Onions
Cilantro
Things in the fridge
Sunchokes
Muscadines
Pepper
Beets
Cabbage: Red Cabbage, Green Cabbage
Peaches
Pears
In the Garden
Handful of basil
Parsley that turns out to have swallowtails growing on it
Roast the shishito peppers. Serve as a side with, uh, stirfry? Cabbage salad?
It’s an assortment of other peppers. Maybe we make pepperonata? But also, the Six Seasons recipe calls for four pounds and it’s not nearly that much. Nor do we have the tomatoes for it.
You picked several green tomatoes. Do we want to see how long it takes to ripen? Make green tomato chutney?
I don’t know when we make more curdito with the cabbage. Maybe it should be used in stirfry? Or maybe it’s make a big fridge salad and eat on it all week long?
Beebalm blooming in our yard. Because I just needed the vegetables put away.
Dear John,
The cabinet is fixed! The kitchen is still in chaos!
I have been coughing far too much since I last wrote (and sleeping far too little).
The weather is hot. The pool is a delight.
I finally made it to the garden and watered. Hours later a thunderstorm actually arrived. I’m sure it did a better job watering the plants than I did. If I’d trusted it was coming, maybe I would have spent the time staking the tomatoes or deadheading the dahlia. On the other hand, I needed the water splashes and bet the plants still benefit from the extra hydration.
The past week had minimal cooking, as expected. Hopefully, we keep getting things back towards order and health. And maybe don’t get too overwhelmed by the produce coming in?
Today’s Box
Blueberries
Yellow Peaches
Celery
Collards Swapped for Lettuce
Garlic Scapes
Red Beets
Sweet Fresh Onions
Green Zucchini
Things in the fridge
Sunchokes
Cucumbers
Fennel
Green Garlic
Greens: Lettuce, Napa Cabbage, Green Cabbage
Broccoli
Radishes
In the Garden
Three radish
Peas dried on the vine. Ready to be planted in the fall?
Garlic from a neighbor
Handful of blackberries that made me cough
Flowers if I had stopped to pick them. Dahlias and calendula both. And carrot.
Basil if we need it but I didn’t pick more than a few flowers that got pinched
Open Preserves
Still to be done.
Pantry Beans
Jumbo Peruvian Lima Bean
Mayocoba Bean
Split Red Lentil
Good Mother Stallard
Rio Zape
And more tucked on other shelves…
Don’t get too overwhelmed! Just get fed.
We made the taco filling with last week’s squash (on the one night when it was cool enough to brave turning on the oven). And the tuna melt with some of the zucchini was dinner tonight. I think the zucchini spaghetti might be next?
When I saw we were getting celery, I mentally set aside some of the cucumber for the celery, cucumber, apricot salad. Our cookbook notes remind me we had it for the Fourth years ago. I think we might have it this Friday. Not sure if that’s our contribution to a lunch after the parade or a party later in the day. Maybe let’s plan on another slaw for whichever celebration doesn’t get this one.
And continuing the Six Seasons theme, I’m eyeing the beet slaw on pistachio butter. We should probably put pistachios on the grocery list.
I’m tending toward beet and radish greens in the coconut turmeric rice as a meal that will make leftovers. Requires cooking, but not too much time laboring over the heat.
Should probably pesto the garlic scapes. Just to make sure we use them!
It is late in the day. I am sleepy. No notes. Just noodling.
Today’s Box
Apricot
Red Seedless Watermelon
Blackberries
Collards
Purple Cauliflower
Red Butterhead Lettuce
Sweet Fresh Onions
Yellow Wax Beans
Things in the fridge
Celery
Sunchokes
Greens: Lettuce, Cabbage, Kale
Roots: Carrots, Fingerling Sweet Potatoes
Alliums: Garlic scapes, Green garlic, Onions
In the Garden
Collards
Carrots
Turnips
Herbs: Dill, Basil (as pinched), Zatar, Rosemary, Oregano, Mint
Calendula and Cosmos
Open Preserves
Ha! We need to do a fridge check. I’m just going to leave this as a placeholder.
Summertime sustenance
Wax beans are like green beans. And I’ve subbed blanched green beans for the pan cooked asparagus in this recipe with miso butter and a poached egg. Good for a light dinner.
Let’s see if the plum tree at the garden still has fruit. If so, try the roasted cauliflower + plum + sesame seed salad from Six Seasons. If not, more of the cauliflower steaks from Six Seasons. Both call for parsley which is so sad for us this year. I mean, last year’s parsley looks great for butterflies. But a flowering parsley that’s going to seed is for the bugs, not for me.
Smashed sunchokes + butter lettuce for a salad. Gonna have to debate what dressing to make for it though. Maybe a homemade ranch?
Is this the week to try the citrus collards? Perhaps as an dish we can take to a Fourth of July block party?
Time to finish off the celery. Maybe with the celery salad + dates + almond salad from Six Seasons. It’s like the salad version of ants on a log!
I know blueberry + peach is my family’s classic combination, but am very tempted to make an apricot + blackberry cobbler.
Love,
Sarah
PS Next time leave the collards in the swap box. We have enough!
Two years ago, the Stir-Fry Greens mix was successful, especially the kale. Last year, we grew rainbow chard. This year, the greens of choice are collards.
I grew up in collards country. They’re a frequent side in the meat and three menu, where macaroni and cheese counts as a vegetable. But I didn’t grow up with them at home. New Year’s! Not everyday.
I do love the Lee Brother’s Four Pepper Collard Greens. Especially on a grilled cheese sandwich. And a simple sauteed side is always good, especially with a pot of beans and rice like we had for dinner tonight. Or as a topping on a greens and grits bowl. Here’s some preemptive brainstorming for other ways to use them:
The collard and kohlrabi salad the past few weeks has been good.
Herbs: Dill, Basil (as pinched), Zatar, Rosemary, Oregano, Mint
Calendula and Cosmos
Open Preserves
Ha! We need to do a fridge check. I’m just going to leave this as a placeholder.
Forever trying to keep the cooking cool during this heat. But cooler this week so maybe we can do a roasting night?
The beet greens ended up with some collards for dinner tonight. (Last minute plans having friends come to dinner is the life I want to live. It was not a fancy meal. But it was delicious. And, hey, rice and beans is their toddler’s favorite food!)
When I picked up the box, another woman was getting her veggies. She commented on the carrots and I said I’m excited for the greens. Time to pull out Scraps, Wilts, and Weeds and make carrot top pesto! I don’t have any specific plans for the little knobs of carrots though.
That roasted beets with avocado and sunflower seeds from Six Seasons was yummy AND made a dent in our pickled peppers. Maybe let’s do that again! Else the beet slaw with pistachio butter on the previous page.
We’re sneaking back to this routine. I’ll write more later. For now, let’s brainstorm some meals for the week ahead so we know what to shop for at the grocery store tomorrow.
Lasagna is a lot to put together, I know. I’m so glad you made it last week because it was delicious. (And also, I’m glad that I told you to stop that one evening because actually eating dinner was good.) The combination of crunchy and soft noodles. The layers of flavor. The using up a lot of veggies and having leftovers.
All that said, the time commitment is substantial. And while I would like more crispy pasta soon, I have had the realization that maybe we could do baked pasta instead of full on lasagna? I’m definitely partial to Smitten Kitchen for these–I think I imprinted on Deb’s mushroom marsala pasta bake our first winter with this CSA. Perhaps using that gluten free ravioli you found for a skillet chard-ravioli (with broil time). I bet the broccoli rabe could be switched for any number of heavy duty greens. If you’d rather make it a mostly pantry meal, tomato sauce + pasta +cheese sounds pretty good; though, I bet you could reference this recipe too and add roasted veggies to use up whatever we have on hand.
So polish up your bechamel skills and figure out a favorite tomato sauce. It’s cool enough to turn on the oven and bake that pasta.
Quick note. Last year our ginger went moldy before we used most of it. We can mince it, freeze it, and have ginger handy for smoothies/stirfries/soups.
The roasted apple salad from Pulp was delicious. More of that please.
And try to remember to add radish and turnip to salads when appropriate.
Stuff those peppers! Rice and beans and tomatoes and spices.
The beets have been hanging around for a while. Maybe time to roast, puree, freeze. And use for all the beet yogurt dips and beet hummus dips I want a whim.
Speaking of beet yogurt. I’ve been making an open faced sandwich recently with almond butter, beet yogurt, and thinly sliced apple. It’s good. Feel free to mix in chevre and celery. Maybe some craisins.
Time to cycle through the peppers on the dehydrator. It’s amazing how much they shrink between getting halved and getting their water removed. The fridge full of peppers no longer feels obviously sufficient to make enough chili powder for everyone’s presents. We’ll just have to stretch things with one more batch of hot sauce.
It’s counterintuitive that after having all the guests over the past week we have more lingering produce than usual. But between buying extra veggies for lunch nibbles and pre-preparing dinners, there wasn’t as much focus on using up the CSA and garden food. Some chard stems and green tomatoes made a chutney that was offered on the potato bar. Cooked chard leaves were offered with the pasta sauce. Tomatillos were chopped with lime juice and a pepper to top tacos. That was about it for three days?
Now I’m having the post-visit energy collapse. It feels entirely possible that we’ll order takeout an extra day this week. Possibly pull out a freezer meal without freezing a new one. All to say, watch out. Next week may get to overwhelming amounts of produce needing to be used if we’re not intentional.
Today’s Box
Donut Peaches
Nectarines
Centercut Squash
Green Beans
Green Bell Peppers
Mixed Heirloom Tomatoes
Sweet Onions
Cinnamon Basil
Things in the fridge
Plums
Watermelon
Sweet corn
Banana peppers
Celery
Cucumber and lemon cucumber
Red Spring Onions
Fennel bulb
Greens: Cabbage
Turnips?
Red Potatoes
Green plums
Green tomatoes (starting to pink)
In the Garden
The first cucumber!
Early peppers. Think Cochiti but maybe Fish.
A couple tomatillos
More tomatoes. Both ours and from the neighbors.
A few ground cherries
Rainbow chard (but gave half to the neighbors)
All the Genovese basil
Flowering dill if inspired
Rosemary
Oregano
Calendula and cosmos and gomphrena if we want another bouquet
Sad news this week. Our basil looks not great. I’m not sure if the browning is due to stress from heat and lack of hydration or a fungus.
I fear the fungus.
One plant was totally dead. I pulled it and another two that were browning. One last batch of pesto for us. And not planting basil in the same section next year out of an abundance of caution.
Team Empty The Fridge
Chop tomatillos + tomatos + pepper + salt + lime for the tacos that were dinner.
Need to pickle the banana peppers. (Just as we finished off last year’s batch.)
These bell peppers look good for making stuffed bell peppers. I’ve had this tab open for long enough that I forgot it existed. Calls for lamb, so we might not go that direction though!
I want panzanella and the spot that I picked up lunch from today didn’t have any. So expect to make that one of these days while you’re at the office.
I want pizza. Can we pizza? It’s hot, but not as hot as it’s been. (These are the weeks I miss apartment complexes gas grills.) Squash and red sauce and cheese and garlic. Corn and tomatoes and pesto and feta.
So many onions. Such an easy staple to use, that I’m not even going to pretend to look for recipes for them.
Dear John,
Easter dinner is upon us. Macaroni and cheese. Biscuits. Triple threat galette. Simple salad. Some sort of lemon cake, or cake with lemon curd, or lemon cream tart. Friends. Family. Seemingly straightforward. With luck, we’ll have leftovers to carry through a busy week of work. (Time to raid the freezer if we don’t!)
Simple salads. Greens + carrots + radish. Add quinoa and a miso-tofu dressing. Add beans and the leftover oregano-lemon dressing. Switch it up for greens + beets + grapefruit + blue cheese.
Really the broccoli rabe is the thing that isn’t essentially a salad or soup staple these days. I vote pizza.
And we should see if that squash is still good…. It’s been a minute. Stuffing it would be a solid dinner.
Lettuce and spinach and dandelion greens and parsley.
Dear John,
The equinox has come. Easter is quick on it’s way. Garden scheming time is here. This weekend we pulled out our box of seeds to start scheming. I’m surrounded by slips of paper scribbled with notes. Trying to decide what goes where. This year we’re going to try planting the tall plants on the north end of the garden and the shorter on the southern end.
Currently in the north end of the plot, it turns out the plants that we thought were the garlic that we sowed but then never figured out when to harvest are actually garlic chives. Which can take over as much space as we give them. So maybe let’s give them less space? And harvest a bunch? Which means cooking a bunch. Make some compound butter. Dehydrate some and make into a salt. Try some egg noodles where the chives are the noodles. Or just some eggs. If we ever make it to the Asian grocery, pick up some dried shrimp and try these or see if the spiced tofu is gluten free and we can make this stirfry.
It feels like a stir-fry week. Mix up some sauce, put some rice in the pressure cooker, chop some veggies, and play.
We have beans in the freezer that are waiting to be cooked with dandelion greens. Let’s pick up some sausage and see if we feel comfortable pinching sage leaves from the herb plot in the garden. We have some dried if not.
Salads! We’ve been talking about adding more fish into our diet, perhaps we try a variation on a salmon salad? The ladolemono dressing sounds yummy! Or in for a vegetarian, but add oil, approach time to top with smashed sunchoke. I’m wondering if there’s a way to use the sunchokes instead of artichokes in a quinoa salad dish like this. Maybe easier to try adapting a pasta salad that’s halfway there first? (Use last summer’s pesto from the freezer!) Or just a straightforward green salad.
We haven’t been eating risotto as much recently, probably because we ate it so much for required diets previously. This sunchoke risotto intrigues me.
I feel like we missed an opportunity here. If only it’d been red onions and red cabbage (aka the purple kinds). Maybe even the standard beets. Purple basil! Ah. The purple CSA box will just have to reside in my dreams.
Dear John,
The oven died and took too long to fix. I kept delaying posting until we got an appliance repair person here. Hindsight, not the most helpful way to plan.
But it is fixed and we have the next box now. So I will hit publish on this one. Thank you to the repair person and to the neighbors who passed along the phone number to text.
Chioggia Beets are the pretty striped ones. They begged to be mandolined into paper thin slices for salads. Probably pair with some citrus and some of the cheese that we need for topping the sweet potatoes. Toasted hazelnuts, warm from the oven. Top with some parsley if you’re feeling fancy farm-to-table restaurant style.
That said, when we grow tired of raw storage beets (because, that is what these are, right?), maybe we try a beet tartare. (Totally inspired by me doing cntrl+f for beet on the menu at an old favorite farm-to-table restaurant. Their description is “avocado / radish / capers / egg.”)
I do tend to use the cabbage for salads. Crispy and crunchy and feeling fresh.
Twice as many cranberries as last week. We’re totally making cranberry curd soon.
Happy Thanksgiving John,
We took our Covid tests this morning, in anticipation of out of state visitors arriving this afternoon. Not quite as many as we planned for. Guess that means more leftovers.
We’re skipping the turkey in favor of a pumpkin, erm, squash stuffed with delciousness. Cranberry sauce. Cranberry relish. Cranberry relish variation two. Maybe just one pie tomorrow and another on Friday or Saturday?
I can eat fat now! Which includes coconut. We can make a pumpkin curry. Use red curry paste! Toss in tofu? Or mushrooms? Or cabbage? Peanuts? Cashews? The mystery peppers we gleaned from the compost pile???
The onions are huge. I’m tempted to make french onion soup. Need to remember what the vegetarian version that I liked was. Mushroom broth?
Avgolemono soup sounds good and meets the various dietary preferences we’re hosting this week. Might be worth buying greens to be able to make it. (So weird to be planning to buy produce!)
Something potatoes. Roasted potatoes as side dish? Potato salad? Mashed potatoes for the Thanksgiving table?
Need to use the fennel. Maybe roasted with apples? And beet. *seareches* Oh! Roasted with potatoes! That’ll do. Perhaps even do for tomorrow.
The leaves have (mostly) fallen. The hard frost has arrived. And the single bronze dahlia bloom from the plant outside has been cut and brought inside.
Today’s Box
Cranberries
Goldrush Apples
Granny Smith Apples
Carnival Squash
Celery
Fennel
Green Cabbage
Onions
Things in the fridge and counter
Pears
Apples
Carrot (but not their greens)
Celery
Radicchio
Lettuce
Green beefsteak tomatoes, but baby-sized
Roma tomatoes, mix of green and reddening
Sweet Dumpling Squash
Stripetti Squash
Potatoes (purple and gold)
Garden Finale
Green tomatoes! Ours and ones other people had put in the compost *gasp*
Basil
Dahlias and marigolds and cosmos (gather seeds as we go!)
The cabbage is gorgeous. It will also keep. Let’s use the few outermost leaves that are falling off for a salad now. Stir fry?
Time to make some apple date chutney, adapted for the freezer bags of apple and pear cores and cranberries that had been in the fridge for far, far too long. And apple scrap jelly.
More of the Six Seasons celery salads. With apples! And dates! And nuts!
Stuff the stripetti squash this week. Top with the leftovers from the cauliflower steaks last week. (That topping was so good. I can’t wait to make it again.)
Offcamera, frustration at the squash that had been on display and is now rotting. Oooops.
Dear John,
It has been a whirlwind of a week. Right now I am tired and hungry-ish and don’t really know what’s in the fridge except that the only leftovers are a half-cup of macaroni noodles. Which does not a meal make. But may be enhanced into a snack? I will skip further preamble in order to peruse ingredients from the comfort of the couch.
In This Week’s Box
Asian Pears
Honeycrisp Apples
Celery
Cubanelle Peppers
Delicata Squash
Ginger
Red Beets
Spinach
Sweet Onions
White Kohlrabi
Garden Potential
Starfish pepper
Deciding how long to wait on the final jalapenos
Lombok peppers
Last of the tomatillos, for real
Volunbeans for drying
Tomato, possibly to ripen on counter
Still in the Fridge
Apples: Gala, Empire, Jonagold, U-pick, Granny Smith
Bartlett Pears, Asian Pears, Bosc Pears
Greens: 1/2 a cabbage, 1/2 bunch collards, Savoy Cabbage, Romain lettuce, Dandelion, Red leaf lettuce
Herbs: Fennel tops
Leeks
Cherry tomatoes
Tomatillos
Broccoli
Edamame
Baby Hakurei Turnips
Peppers: Yummy, Lombok, Starfish, Banana, Jalapeno, Carmen
Carrots
Squash: Delicata, Red Kabocha, Spaghetti, Robins Koginut
Garlic
Potatoes: Blue, Sweet
Sunchokes
Open Preserves
Preserved eggplant
Dill pickle juice
Lacto-fermented green cherry tomatoes
Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
Lacto-fermented habanda jalapeno hot sauce
Pickled red onion
Pickled banana peppers with oregano, basil, and black pepper
Tacos! Braised collard stems with scrambled eggs and tomatilla salsa. Sweet potatoes and black beans with the fermented habanada jalapeno hot sauce. Take-out from the place near the canoe launch.
Tomato sauce (butter and garlic and sage and one red pepper) with macaroni noodles
Soup of the week: Smokey beetroot and pistachio soup from Midnight Chicken.
Or mix roasted beets with yogurt. Maybe adding some fresh ginger at the end?
Squash pizza. With the pickled peppers? With goat cheese and lemon slices? With blackberries (from the freezer)?
Remember a couple of weeks back when I was thinking of apple slaw. The recipe I was remembering then is kohlrabi and apple and ginger and we have all of those right now. Perhaps I will go prepare some for lunch.
One watermelon. Two cucumbers. Three peaches. Three eggplant. Three peppers. Three onions. Three kohlrabi. And many, many beans.
Happy Saturday John!
I started planning for this week on Wednesday, after we received the predicted contents email. Thursday I was focused on doing the things in the kitchen. Yesterday, as you just reminded me, I was too busy looking up bike parts for you.*
So here we are, easing into the weekend. Me planning meals and you debating which dessert we should make for tonight. Later we’ll go kayaking and bike to an open house. Sometimes, having three bikes actually feels reasonable.
In This Week’s Box
Apricot
Little Baby Flower Watermelon
Yellow Peaches
Fresh Sweet Onions
Green Beans
Malabar Spinach
Mixed Cherry Tomatoes
Mixed Specialty Eggplant
Purple Bell Peppers
Purple Kohlrabi
Slicing Cucumbers
Garden Potential
Ground cherries, sometime soon I expect them to be coming in for real. Not just one at a time.
Volunbeans–let’s keep picking as they come. Except for the ones closer to the rosemary. Those I still want to see how they cook up as shellies and how they dry.
Cherry tomatoes
Cucumber surprised me last Sunday. Two appeared seemingly overnight. I didn’t notice any yesterday, but five days from now? Who knows
Tomatillos, maybe before next week. Probably not. But maybe.
Basil! Thai or lime or purple or Italian
Cilantro/Green coriander
Blackberries from the communal briar patch
Still in the Fridge
Blackberries
Peaches
Blueberries
Herbs: Fennel, Dill
Greens: Savoy Cabbage, Lacinato Kale
Onions: white, red, sweet
Carmen Peppers
Asian Cucumbers
Zucchini (only half a zuke left. But half a zucchini left)
Centercut Squash
Celery
New Red Potatoes
Beet
Sunchokes
And now for some bean sprouts
Last week we stopped by the garden store and picked up a packet of dried soup beans. Our first intentionally planted beans in this plot! The packet said 7-10 days to germinate, and here they are.
The carrots, planted on the same day, have not yet appeared. But we’ll keep trying to plant those every few weeks until frost is nigh.
Meals for now…and for later
You just said that the apricot pistachio squares look interesting. Though we may still do a peach tart from Flavor Flours or Baking. That is, if I can remember what I baked when Kathy stayed with us two years ago.
The smashed cucumber salad was a hit last week. We did not try the other cucumber salad recipes. And I do believe we are going to be eating it again.
Slicing cucumbers are the ones we’ll use to actually go back for the celery and cucumber salad in Six Seasons
Purple bell peppers, huh? I think the idea of stuffing them is the right idea. I’m not as big a fan of bell peppers, so I don’t know what to do with them beyond top salads or pizza or stirfy. Especially when we don’t yet have tomatoes. There is the roasted pepper panzanella in Six Seasons that would use some pepper and red onion and some oregano. Which may make it enough of a winner right there.
My memory of the malabar spinach is I didn’t love it raw. Let’s cook it with some rice and beans and use it to stuff the bell peppers. Maybe with some roasted centercut squash.
Oh! I bet we can dehydrate zucchini for backpacking. For a pasta recipe. Maybe something like this or a peanut noodle dish? Actually, maybe we toss the rest of the cabbage in the dehydrator while we’re at it. I’m sure we could use it in a stirfry this week, but maybe let it be a backcountry experiment. [Edit: dehydration complete!]
Especially since we can slice the kohlrabi for another salad this week. Saute the last of the kale and you’ve got my old favorite.
Speaking of the kohlrabi, see all those leaves in the picture? I cooked them up with some lentils, garlic, onions, and spices. Squeeze of lemon, handful of raisins. Served on rice for dinner on Thursday. Leftovers are already dehydrated for us to use as a cold soak salad for a backpacking lunch.
Our other dehydrator experiment this week was a smoothie. Yogurt + peach + a little bit of banana + frozen mango + some fresh ginger = My delicious breakfast this week. Poured into the dehydrator the fruit leather it turned into was yummy. Crumbled into the spice grinder and turned into a powder that smells divine. We’ll see next month how rehydrating on the trail actually fares.
The eggplant is beautiful. Dining In has a recipe for fried eggplant with harissa and dill and honestly, that sounds like it could be amazing. And we have dill that needs to be used.
If we buy an avocado, we could probably make a green gazpacho pretty easily
Watermelon by itself. Watermelon with feta and pickled red onions and basil. Mmmmmm watermelon.
I have no plans for the cherry tomatoes. They are already half eaten. They are summer’s gift and my belly is happy.
~s
Baby cuke do dooo do do do doot
* It is a sign of how much Covid messed up supply chains that the bike shop told you that they don’t expect to get the part for you bike for a year. My internet sleuthing suggests they might be overly optimistic–the supplier’s website says the inventory system is wrong and that they expect more of this $30 part in 2023.
I’m hoping that the maintenance team is successful with today’s dishwasher repair. I was hoping to be baking a pie right now (unless I was collapsed taking a nap), but with a team of three in the kitchen, I think we’re going to wait another day.
I know today is a minor inconvenience. But it does convince me more that I don’t want to buy a house where we anticipate a kitchen renovation. I’m happy to live with dated cabinets, and changing out hardware is no big deal. Appliances that are halfway through their lifecycle, well, I’d rather get five years out of the dishwasher than have it disposed prematurely. To the extent that we can avoid a remodel though, that’s not a project I’d like to take on.
In This Week’s Box
Blackberries
Yellow Peaches
Asian Cucumbers
Bicolor Sweet Corn
Carmen Peppers
Centercut Squash
Green Kale
New Red Potatoes
Sweet Fresh Onions
Sweet Thai Basil
Garden Potential
Occasional ground cherry
Volunbeans–I thought they were green beans when I picked six on Monday. I went back today and they looked like they might be a shelling bean. At least the ones I picked had more like beans inside and I wouldn’t have thought that it’d been long enough for them to be overgrown.
Tomato? You picked three cherry tomatoes from the volunteer yesterday!
Basil! Thai or lime or purple or Italian
Cilantro
Still in the Fridge
Cherries
Peaches
Blueberries
Herbs: Fennel, Dill
Greens: Dandelion, Savoy Cabbage, Lacinato Kale
Onions: white and red
Zucchini
Celery
Beet
Sunchokes
A different type of baby pepper. Think this is the paprika.
Considering the options
If we get enough green beans, then I want to make the green bean potato salad (I even bought potatoes before we heard we were getting them in the box in anticipation of this). But if we decide not to treat them as green beans then maybe not.
The corn and blueberry salad from Halfbaked Harvest. Need to buy an avocado for this! Soon! Before too many of the corn sugars have converted to starch.
Maybe we roast the peppers with a corn and rice stuffing. Or maybe we roast them and freeze.
We have the long cucumber and the pickled radish and the seaweed and rice to make gimbap. Especially if we use matchsticks of zucchini instead of carrots. Flavor substitute, not at all. But veggie switcharoo that might really work. Perhaps served with another Korean cucumberside?
Or the cucumber and celery salad from Six Seasons that we ate at the picnic on the 4th of July
More kale in my morning smoothies, I think. I don’t love the flavor, but it does help us get through the greens. I bought some extra bananas for me to consider while doing this.
Kale and chickpeas. What doesn’t get eaten to be dehydrated.
Squash and basil and parm. My dad made a side dish back in the day. Panfry/steam the squash. Add the basil near the end. Sprinkle with parm from a jar when serving. I wonder if actual cheese will replicate the taste of memory.
There are several cucumbers, so we can probably do two or three of those cucumber options. Once we can get in the kitchen again, I’m going to cook up the kale and beans in the hopes of clearing out some space. Otherwise, we probably want to focus on dishes that will help us consume the CSA basil early on. All the more reason to grab an avocado from the store to make that corn salad ASAP.
Pink celery doing the classic lie in front of the group pose
Hi John,
So…I’m still learning this platform. And was not feeling the best. And some weeks, apparently, I use the draft version to reference for meal planning all week instead of actually pressing publish. Here it is, belatedly. Who knows what edits came in when.
We could still roast beets to make beet yogurt. And we can keep shredding them to go on salads.
I was looking in Six Seasons for the celery salads that I like, but then saw this one for cucumber and celery and apricots. We are totally making that ASAP.
Cherry pie! We have tart cherries and I want to see how they work in the amazing cherry pie of goodness.
Greensjam! [Edit to add, I ended up dehydrating instead of cooking all the way to jam so we’ll have them for our backpacking trip)
Planning Inside The Box 