Week 1 - And we're off.

 

Turnips
Strawberries
Collard greens
Asparagus
Kale
Sweet potatoes
Green onions

I got caught completely by surprise Thursday by the email announcing that deliveries were starting. Luckily, the lovely Ms. Laura A. was on top of things and decided that we should stroll over to the pickup spot together. She has the brilliant strategy of bringing a big bag so that you never have to remember to return the boxes, which I'm stealing for this week.

This is Trader Joe's whole wheat pasta with the kale, sauteed in olive oil with garlic and pepper flakes, sweet potato, some mint and chives from the herb garden, and big dollop of ricotta. The idea is from something in Everyday Food a while back that I couldn't point you to if I tried. The pasta was much more successful than the turnip soup I based off of a March recipe from Twelve Months of Monastery Soups. Its color was bland; its texture, limp; its flavor, healthy. I will say no more about it.

So in case you couldn't tell, it's full on springtime here. I could not be more excited about my balcony garden, fresh strawberries on my cereal, and even nasty turnips. I've got a beach trip in the works for 10 days from now. Let's do this.

Howdy y'all

Happy holidays everyone!  Long time, no see.  I just got back from my longest break from work since I started, to Denver and New Orleans, and I am refreshed.  But after all the holiday decadence, I'm getting a head start on new year's restraint.  We all focus on Christmas as a celebration, "As if to say, 'Well done, everyone. . . we're halfway out of the dark.'"  But don't all the cookies and hams and treats get us ready for the other half, when the produce is hard and tasteless and imported, when the treadmill is a mental health necessity more than a piece of fitness equipment, and when the weather is miserable anyway so we might as well deserve some punishment? 

In that spirit of post-holiday frugality, I'm making an effort to grocery shop less and use the mountain of peppers in the freezer, the odd bits of cheese in the back of the fridge, and the random canned goods accumulated in the pantry, recipes be damned!  Things are about to get fancy* around here.  I might share some of the more spectacular failures or successes.  Also, I've just downloaded a pile of photos from my camera, so watch this space for updates on what's been going on the past couple of months. 

By the way, the farm I subscribed to last year isn't delivering to my area anymore.  So come spring, we will have a whole new adventure.

* Fancy - (adj).  the resulting mess when you just can't resist putting in one or two or five ingredients too many in a meal in an effort to use up whatever's in the fridge.

Week 20 - The end

Peppers
Melon
Greens
Eggplant
Turnips

Well, this is it, another sign that summer is ending.  With Leah visiting last weekend, I didn't have time to take a picture before digging in.  And what a decadent weekend it was!  Champagne pedicures, poolside picnics, naps.  We ate spring rolls, tuna, and spare ribs, or "meat-candy" as Leah likes to call them, at Buku in Raleigh, followed by the Trilogy of Creme Brulee. The trilogy part sounded overly dramatic - until we ate them.   My favorite was the chocolate, while Leah liked the ginger because "it tastes like Christmas."  We had the special at Bella Mia, which featured some kind of insanely creamy mozzarella flown in fresh from Italy.  This place is dangerously delicious - yesterday they tweeted an almond gelato and pumpkin beer float. 


As for this weeks produce, which came in a bag instead of a box, we pureed and froze the melon and enjoyed it in a slushy poolside cocktail.  The peppers are waiting patiently in the fridge for another round of chopping and freezing.  The turnips are still in there too, testing my end of summer resolve. 

And speaking of the end of summer, Katie sent along a reminder that we should all have a Hurricane (recipe from About.com) while they are still in season.  Hope everyone is enjoying that magical part of the year when we can both wear shorts and watch football.  I've got a few things to report on between now and spring, like how that freezer slaw turned out, or if I made it through the peppers, so this blog won't be completely silent.  I can't wait to do this all over again next year, but until then, enjoy the root vegetables and citrus and holiday meals that lie ahead.

Week 19

Whoops, this post is way overdue.  Somehow I forgot to hit publish...

Eggplant
Basil
Melon
Peppers
Greens
Radishes

+ the peppers Janice got last week and gave back

It's already the penultimate week!  I'm starting to realize how spoiled I've gotten on the farm fresh veg, and how challenging it will be to shop in the grocery produce section again for more than onions and bananas.  But let's focus on the present.  I breaded the eggplant for a kind of parmigiana, it got a little greasy but tasted ok.  As much as I would have liked to try something different, this is a busy week, so I used the radishes on sandwiches to bring to work for lunch. Most of the peppers have joined their brethren in the freezer.  I'm still planning on making a hot sauce out of a bunch of them.

And speaking of peppers, I had a yummy stuffed pepper with goat cheese at Tasca Brava in Raleigh over the weekend.  It's a Spanish restaurant, authentic down to the sloooow service.  It's hard to get upset though, when the animated server is giving out passionate dissertations on the wine list, the agricultural regions of spain, and the proper way to eat Padron peppers to everyone in earshot.  Yup, the diabolical peppers from a couple weeks ago.  We ordered some for the table, and he started explaining how they are "Spanish roulette" because you can't always tell the hot ones until it's too late.  I mentioned the one that set my ears ringing the other day.  "Oh, where did you have them?"  I replied that they were grown here - "No, these only grow in one place in the Universe."  I did not argue that they'll grow wherever they are planted, but I'll admit the imported Spanish peppers looked much smaller and darker than the NC version.  Curiosity won in the end and I ate several of them, all mercifully mild.

Mrs. Leah K. will be visiting this weekend (shoutout!) just in time to taste the last of the fresh veggies.  I'm pretty sure we're gonna "eat till we bust" so I'll let you know what was worth having.

Satan's freezer

Since I'm going out of town, I figured I'd deal with the refrigerator drawer full of peppers.  It started innocently enough, with a gallon ziploc full of grilled bell peppers and onions going into the freezer. 

But then there were the jalapenos, and the last few evil Padron peppers to deal with:

Originally, I was going to put the cayennes in with the jalapenos, but when I was finished chopping them my fingers were tingling. Definitely need to stay segregated.  I'll make them into hot sauce when I get back, but for now, into the freezer of pain.

Lastly, I roasted the banana peppers (don't let the innocuous name fool you, these are evil banana peppers) and the poblanos, about half a dozen each, and froze those too.

Weeks 16 and 17

Week 16:
Tomatoes
Eggplant
Red potatoes
Melon
Peppers

Week 17:
Melon
Peppers
Tomatoes
Basil
Green onions



These two weeks have been dominated by hot peppers.  I roasted some of the banana peppers last weekend to make a potato soup I saw a while back on Mexico: One Plate at a Time (recipe).  I made a perfectly mediocre salsa with some tomatoes and jalapenos.  And then I went for the Padrons.  These little peppers came with instructions.  Traditionally, they are sauteed in olive oil with a little salt, perhaps stuffed with cheese.

"Os pementos de Padrón, uns pican e outros non" (Galician for "Padrón peppers, some are hot and some are not") - Wikipedia

They ain't lying.  The description said that the bigger they are, the hotter, so I started out muching on a little one.  It was sweet and tasty, so I moved on to a bigger one.  The first bite tasted spicy immediately, and only got hotter in my mouth.  Fast forward a minute and I was swigging half-and-half, stuffing my mouth with crackers, my ears ringing.

I'll be down in Louisiana visiting family later this week, so no box.  Instead I'll be sweating in the August heat, enjoying some of the more land-based delights the area has to offer.  Fishing has resumed, and shrimp season is opening this week, but what's available is expensive and hard to come by.  So I'm planning on enjoying some Italian, a nice steak, and Doberge cake in honor of my December graduation.

P.S.  Check out this elephant man tomato:

Week 15

Corn
Peppers
Basil
Melon

I have been opinionated about food since a young age.  At some point before I can remember I decided that the dish composed of canned green beans tossed with Italian salad dressing should be known as "terrible recipe"  Some of you may agree that this is indeed a terrible recipe.  Others may wonder why that particular name was reserved for this innocuous side dish instead of this abomination that I was also served regularly.  Anyway, the name stuck in our family, even though I remember liking terrible recipe enough to eat it by the bowlful.

In honor of terrible recipe, here's a non-terrible recipe for corn salad.  It's almost just as easy as pouring Kraft Italian over green beans, but way better.

6 ears corn
1 small onion, diced
1 jalapeno, diced
1 banana pepper, diced
juice of 1 lime
handful of cilantro, and one of basil
pinch of salt

Remove kernels from the corn.  The trick comes from Rachael Ray (don't hate) - put a small bowl upside down in a big bowl, stand the corn on the small bowl, slide the knife down the cob, and voila, the kernels fall into the big bowl.  Toss the corn with the onion, peppers, herbs, salt, and squeeze the lime over.

Like I said, not much of a recipe, but it's versatile.  I've eaten it this week as a garnish for curry chicken, mixed with grape tomatoes as a salsa with corn chips, and piled over half avocados for a salad.