Hi everyone, Jess here to review the 15th share box of the season. Are we having fun yet? Of course we are!!!
What an abundance! Everything is so delicious. This week has been a non-stop adventure, with a few old standby recipes, some new ones, and some super winging it ideas! Let’s take a look:
- spaghetti squash
- Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai
- Spaghetti Squash Crab Cakes
- Some roasted and served as-is with butter and Parmesan
- acorn squash
- Stored for the moment, I plan to bake one with apple and sausage
- heirloom cabbage
- Macoun apples
- Snacked on at random
- zucchini squash
- bell peppers
- Grilled Veggie Dish
- Some Pickled– I love this snack!
- classic eggplant
- wax beans
- Steamed and served with butter
- speckled roman heirloom tomatoes
- Tomato and Cabbage Tabbouleh
- Barbecue Seitan Sandwich
- heirloom tomatoes
- celery
- Chopped, blanched and frozen
- Some just chopped and frozen for Thanksgiving use
- carrots
- parsley
- Crab Cakes
- Italian roasting peppers
- Vegetable Moussaka
- Micro greens (I had micro arugula)
- On Crab Cakes
- In Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai (in lieu of sprouts and red pepper flakes)
- Loose leaf lettuce
- Under Crab Cakes
- In Iceberg and Cabbage Slaw
- Barbecue Seitan Sandwich
- Eggs
- In Crab Cakes
- In Spaghetti Squash Crab Cakes
- An egg white was used to spike my son’s hair for Crazy Hair Day
Zinnias
My kitchen was busy this week. I didn’t spend hardly any solid time in it, but just chipped away at recipes here and there in between the day-to-day goings on.
What do you do when you have a counter full of apples? Go back to the farm stand and get more apples! The season is here and it’s time to grab some, especially if you have apple lovers in the house. I’ve put up about 12 jars, but that won’t last around these parts, and finding time to can is a tricky proposition. The solution? Slow cooker unsweetened applesauce, it really couldn’t be simpler. The most time consuming part is the peeling of the apples. Once you’re through that, the rest is tossing some cinnamon sticks in your slow cooker with the apples. The processing time for unsweetened applesauce in my canner is 20 minutes, so something I’m able to crank through while reading to the boys at bedtime. The beautiful thing is if I can’t find the time to even process the jars, I can freeze them as-is or toss the contents into a freezer bag. When winter comes and you say “who wants Mama’s applesauce?” the kids don’t care which technique I resorted to.
While jarring up a second batch of applesauce, I had my first casualty with a mason jar. The bottom kind of fell off the jar while processing them, letting a jar’s worth of applesauce roam free in the boiling water. The good news is, the other applesauce jars smelled great inside and out when they came out of the canner!
Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai has got to be one of my favorite squash recipes, there is just nothing like it. I left the sprouts and crushed red pepper out of this version and went with the micro arugula, which provided the crunchy and spicy notes. 
The Tomato and Cabbage Tabbouleh (from Bon Apetít) was a simple and great use for some of the cabbage and tomatoes. I subbed bulgur with quinoa, and have no regrets. I thought 3 cups of mint seemed excessive until I tried the final dish. Thankfully, the PYO herb garden is full of mint at the moment, so you can try this lovely dish today!
A BBQ Seitan sandwich made an appearance, the speckled roman heirlooms went perfectly with the fresh lettuce and tangy seitan. This is a sandwich that I fell in love with at the vegetarian restaurant Clover located in the Westford Whole Foods, and have been trying to reverse engineer for a while. This is the closest I’ve come! Now if only I could bake their delicious in-house pita pockets…
On Wednesday I made a dash to the stand to see Danny from Jordan Brothers, and grabbed some Jonah crabmeat. Crab cakes went well with steamed and buttered beans, a nod to the end of summer. Iceberg and Cabbage Slaw (another Bon Apetít recipe) provided another refreshing side and new use for the second third of my conehead cabbage.
I subbed the iceberg for the leaf lettuce from the Supergrens share in the Iceberg and Cabbage Slaw, and all was right in the world.
On Thursday, I took the rest of my crabmeat and some of the other half of the spaghetti squash and mixed them with some parsley, chives, egg, panko and homemade old bay.
I fried the patties in Amish Roll Butter for about 5 minutes per side.
A sriracha mayo made a great accompaniment. Yummy!
Some of the spaghetti squash not used in the pad Thai or crab cakes ended up enjoyed as-is with a bit of Amish Roll Butter.
The boys enjoyed a Springdell tomato meat sauce with pasta on the nights when dinner went a little over their heads.
A simple Pear Sorbet (from Butter with a Side of Bread) provided a delicious home for my remaining pears. It was a great way to capture the season’s taste without waiting letting any pears get mushy on the counter. I reduced the sugar as the pears were plenty sweet.
My eggplants have been sliced and salted and are draining. This helps to remove some of the bitterness that you might find in older eggplants. I’m either going to grill them up with some balsamic or give in to my craving for Baba Ganoush. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
After today’s raw and wet weather, I was grateful that we were postponing our Canning Swap for a few more weeks. When the new date is ready, I’ll be sure to let you know!
I can’t believe the winter CSA is right around the corner! If you are signed up to get the Winter CSA, the schedule was released today, so be sure you received your email! As always, feel free to check in with questions, and I’ll see you back here on Monday! Thank you for reading and until Monday, sweet and savory dreams!