Happy weekend, everyone! You may recall that we picked up our share a day early last week using the “Sunday Opt-In”, as our usual pickup day is Monday. We were heading up north about an hour later, so I had to do some very quick meal planning after peeking in the share box! Let’s see what happened…
butter and sugar corn
- Eaten as soon as we got home from the farm, 5 minute boil, a snack before leaving on vacation!
- cauliflower (my first time getting cauliflower in the CSA, so excited!)
- General Tso’s Cauliflower with steamed rice and Community Garden veggies
- If I had more cauliflower, this would be the next one I’d try!
- salad turnips
- slow cooked with beef stew meat, onion, garlic and thyme
- summer squash
- cubed in lettuce wraps with peanut sauce and pea tendril mint pesto
- boiled with butter, but try this one, too!
- salad cukes & slicing cukes
- enjoyed sliced with just about every meal
- after returning home, made a batch of refrigerator pickles with the overstock of cukes from my the garden
- rainbow chard
- “Chardizo” rolls
- kale
- frozen and in breakfast smoothies
- collards
- More chorizo rolls
- radish
- Quick Pickled (brine of 1/2 sugar and 1/2 vinegar)
- lettuce
- On picnic sandwiches
- Dipped into leftover hummus from my recent BBQ
- corn shoots from Johnny Putt Farm
- Munched about 1/2 when we got home from the farm, then shared the rest with our community garden neighbor just before heading out of town
- salad mix
- Lettuce wraps with diced summer squash, homemade peanut sauce and pea tendril-mint pesto
- blueberries
- enjoyed as-is, along with the cukes (leave these in a bowl or plate on the table and watch them go)
- in blueberry pancakes
- eggs
- Scrambled, and “cheezy eggies”
- Egg and Cheese Sandwiches
- zinnias
- I left these home on the table for the house sitters to enjoy
- Broccoli leaves from the farm stand!
- Stuffed with rice and cheese
- Limited Edition Goat Chorizo from the farm stand
- Wrapped in swiss chard for “Chardizo” Rolls
Let’s take a trip through the kitchen this week!
Since we were on our way out the door for vacation up north, we were bringing most of our share with us. I scanned the share and decided to leave our abundance of radishes home, I whipped up a quick brine of half vinegar and half sugar and tossed them in the fridge like so. By the time we returned from vacation, they were perfect!
The corn was peeled and buttered while we finished packing. The flowers stayed on the table to greet our house sitters.
The first night we arrived up north the boys went with sandwiches. I opted for a mix of peanut sauce, pea tendril and mint pesto, and summer squash in lettuce wraps. Can you tell I was purging the fridge at home before heading north? It worked out quite well, it was a satisfying filling!
On vacation, much of the share could be enjoyed as-is, I just left a constant supply of blueberries, sliced cukes and snap peas (from our garden) on the table and watched them disappear.
Simple scrambled “cheezy eggies” were a breakfast staple for the kids this week.
Blueberry pancakes. ‘Nuff said.
We found some milk from a local farm while up here, which made our breakfasts a bit more enjoyable. Ben’s maple syrup also graced the table. I always bring some with me as a vacation staple, as you can use it in a variety of ways.
Some summer squash ready for a butter bath. If looking to jazz up your squash, please try this one, it is scrumptious.
One of our dinners was Springdell beef stew meat in the slow cooker with turnips and thyme. It turned out ok, the only thing was the turnips got a bit of a watery texture in the slow cooker. Slow cooking isn’t the best use for salad turnips, roasting would have been better, but it still made for a pretty good dinner.
As much as I love to cook, it is vacation, so I tried to keep meals simple and efficient. One morning, I mass produced rolls filled with different goodies using the collards, broccoli leaves and rainbow chard. I rinsed and boiled all of the leaves, carefully taking out a bunch at a time by their stems. The broccoli leaves came out of the water first, followed by the chard, and finally the collard greens. I stuffed them with various mixtures.
The young ones liked the stuffed broccoli leaves with rice and cheese.
The grown-ups enjoyed the chard ones the best, with the collards a close second. Both were stuffed with goat chorizo, garlic, onion, rice and cheese. I probably would have experimented more with it spice-wise if I had access to a full pantry, but it was great as-is, too. I mixed a bit of salsa and sour cream to eat with mine. My other half ate ten of these things in one sitting. TEN, and we still had enough left over for another entire dinner!
The kale ended up in morning breakfast smoothies. I apologize for the dark photo of the blender, I was up early making these and lighting was not great.
After returning home from vacation, the herbs in mason jars were still going strong! The mint has fully sprouted roots and seems quite content growing in the water, it’s grown huge! What a great way to take some of the PYO herb garden home with you for when you need it!
After getting home from up north, I made short work of the cauliflower with this recipe. It was pretty good! The little ones weren’t crazy about the sauce so I just served them the cauliflower before tossing it with the sauce with some peas and macaroni. I much preferred the grown-up version. The veggies on the side included purple carrots, sugar snap peas, wild spinach and carrot tops from the garden.
Let’s see what some of our fellow Springdellians have been up to this week:
- Beverly W. tested and approved this recipe from My Gourmet Connection for Shredded Turnip, Apple and Carrot Salad, adding an extra carrot and the juice of one lemon.
- Michele L. tested and approved this recipe from Cooking Light, substituting broccoli leaves for the spinach in these yummy looking Basil Ricotta Ravioli.
Photo By Kaitlynne V.
- Kaitlynne V. tested and approved this yummy recipe for a Rainbow Chard and Mushroom Quiche.
- Lots of you are also pickling things this week, it’s a great way to preserve these yummy treats!
- Lots of ideas floating around for Kohlrabi Fritters, Fries, Salads and Kohl-Slaws!
- Farmer Jamie shared some ideas for broccoli leaves, including a frittata and stir-fried leaves.
We’ll check back in on Monday for the 6th “show” of the summer season. Thank you for sharing your ideas, questions and comments. Keep them coming, I love to hear from you!