CSA 2011: Week 21

It's been a busy week in the kitchen, though my lack of posts might look like I haven't cooked anything.  I have some new things to share when I get a minute to sit down and upload my pictures.  A few classics made an appearance as well.  When I bought corn last week at the market, the guy threw in an extra two ears, so I found I had five left instead of the three that I thought were there.  Ken immediately asked for the corn pesto, so we had that again, probably the last time for the season - not only because of corn but the basil on our porch is starting to look a bit sad, which I attribute to the cold.  While I canned some more fire-roasted plum tomatoes, the power went out.  Luckily it came back on right away, but it would have been interesting to finish that process in the dark!  Later in the week we split a turkey couscous meatloaf from the freezer and I made a side of green beans to go with it, drizzled with a mustardy dressing.  My mom has been freezing the tender new-crop beans we've been getting, labeling them specifically for Thanksgiving.  Over the weekend, we made a honey mustard salmon and a side salad of arugula and cherry tomatoes with a champagne vinaigrette (I'll have to write that one down... so good!).  The weekend project, besides apple picking, was Deborah Madison's Black Bean Chili, which used garlic and some slicing tomatoes, including a straggler heirloom, from our CSA.  I threw in some of the fire roasted plum tomatoes too, which were left over from canning, plus a yellow bell pepper to add a little color and a vegetable, and because I like peppers in my chili.  Ken had the last of the edamame as a snack when I was too tired to cook a proper dinner.  Today I roasted last week's cherry tomatoes down to tiny bits and popped them in a jar in the freezer to spice up soups and pastas and whatever later in the winter, when we need a bit of sunshine.  Then I made a roasted tomato soup and a stuffed eggplant dish, both of which I'll detail more in their own posts.  These two ventures used up slicing and plum tomatoes, eggplant, garlic, and yellow bell pepper and yielded plenty of proper food for the next few days.

Now on to this week...

This week we got some excellent string beans, almost a full quart of cherry tomatoes (sungold something, and the black cherry ones I like), a quart of tomatillos, 16 hot peppers (jalapenos and poblanos), 4 quarts of sauce tomatoes, and herbs (thyme, sage, and parsley).  We skipped anything else that is listed.

I took two of these tomatoes, plus one my mom still had from last week.  I like tomatoes, but since I end up taking a lot of other things, and she will actually eat tomatoes, I let her have them :)

Hot peppers - a good example of something my mom won't use!

Hmm... maybe these are ALL examples of something my mom won't use. :)
I love arugula's strong peppery flavor, though, so I'm happy to have it.  I just have to remember to use it earlier on in the week.

There were a bunch of red bell peppers today - tiny, but red!  Yay!  My mom kept one of the 4.

I got two of the most normal looking and biggest eggplants I could dig up (but they're still small).

My mom chose 2 bunches of turnips.  This reminds me, I need to send her some recipes for the greens.

Now for the most exciting event... big choice group!  Pick 4 of the 5 available items...

The choices were kale, collards, cilantro, radicchio, and boc choy.  The boc choy was tiny, and radicchio is not something we really want, so we ended up taking 3 bunches of kale and 1 of cilantro.  I took home the cilantro and 2 of the kale.  I am pretty excited about this - I feel like I have been waiting for kale for weeks now.  Of course, now I can't remember what I wanted to do with it...

That's all for now!  I'll do my best to get a few things posted this week before I forget about them entirely.