Tuesday, September 20, 2011

CSA 2011: Week 19

It's been a busy week (who's surprised?) but I managed to use quite a bit of produce in my Oven Roasted Ratatouille.  I used up eggplant, zucchini, red pepper, tomato, onion, and garlic.  I've made a few other things, but I'm having a pretty rough time remembering things lately!  This coming week I'll have to be sure to write more down as I go along.

Today was a pretty productive day at the farm.  It's an interesting time right now - summer is wrapping up and fall is just beginning to creep up on us.  Late-summer staples like eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes are still pretty abundant, but we also got quite a bit of winter squash.  It's a nice transition but I'm sure summer will be far behind us before we even realize it.

The PYO was good evidence of late summer starting to slip away... the green beans were impossible to pick.  We picked not even a full quart.  But- there are four more rows that still have flowers.  More are certainly coming!  I've frozen so many of them this year that I'm not even sure what to do with them anymore.  The eggplants- same situation.  It took us several minutes to find any that were ready to be picked, and the one we chose isn't even a type I really like.  We didn't even bother to look for a second one.  The edamame is, sadly, on its way out.  Tomatillos are going strong.  Sauce tomatoes- for every pink one, there's got to be at least 25 green ones.  I'm looking forward to the "unlimited" sauce tomato time!  We also got a variety of hot peppers, a few cherry tomatoes, and herbs- lemongrass, thyme, oregano, mint, parsley.  I've been freezing the lemongrass each week, peeling off the outer stalks and cutting it to fit one small container.  I've got more than enough to use all winter.  I'm looking forward to trying a few soups with it.


Our choice group this week consisted of celeriac and scallions.  Celeriac is very much like celery, with a big bulb attached to the bottom.  You can slice it up and do a bunch of different things with it.  Since we got two bunches of scallions last week and still haven't used them, we opted for the celeriac.



I grabbed three serrano peppers from the bin before I discovered a big pepper buried underneath.  It looks quite like a poblano.  I snagged three of those as well.

We got 4 yellow or turning-yellow bell peppers.  Mom kept them since I have some from last week.

I got two bright purple eggplants.  I'm hoping to have a chance to stuff them...



In addition to the above, we got a pumpkin and four winter squash - I chose a butternut, 2 acorn, and a carnival squash.  We also got a few heirloom tomatoes - I think it was 2 or 3 pounds.  If I can get a hold of pictures, I'll update with them later.

I can't believe the season is almost over!  This is the best time though - fall produce is so abundant.  I'm looking forward to squeezing a few more things into my tiny overworked freezer.  For now my focus is trying to get out all of the really old things to make some room!  I'm looking forward to eating well this winter.

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