More CSA Yumminess

Two CSA's in a row now (I only get them every other weekend) I have gotten eggplants. I had never really eaten eggplants so I was a little shy on what to do with them. The first time I tried my hand at baba ghanoush but the eggplants were so tiny that I didn't really get much flesh. What I did get was pretty decent but I did not fall in love with it.

Baba ghanoush, the aforementioned red pepper hummus (not Sabra), my attempt at meatless meatballs (kind of a flop), carrots, broccoli and the best freakin pita bread on the face of the planet. Seriously, when I first became contious of what I was eating and started liking pita bread, I had to drive really far to get good pita bread with the right texture but without a list of ingredients 10 miles long. I'm going to have to do a whole post dedicated to this pita bread one day. It has, I think, no more than 5 ingredients and is the most fluffy, pocketed yummy pita bread ever. I'm gushing. Over pita bread. You know you're a foodie when....

Meanwhile, back to the point. So the next time I got eggplants I wanted to go a different route. They ended up sitting in my fridge for days and days until they were some of the last vegetables in there. Then I ended up making pizza using dough I had bought at Trader Joe's (I love this dough!). I was going to make bbq seitan pizza for my boyfriend and was debating what type of pizza to do for myself. I was down to limited options in the veggie department so here is what I went with. I sliced and roasted with a little oil and salt, the two eggplants, a yellow bell pepper and some red onion. This got done roasting well before I was ready to make my pizza and so I decided to just try a bit of the eggplant and it was love! It was the most flavorful, delicious thing ever! Ok, so I say that a lot. But it was good. I snacked on it while my boyfriend's pizza cooked and my dough came to room temperature.

I then topped my dough with some jarred spaghetti sauce (it was a really thick one too, but that made it kind of extra yummy) and piled on the vegetables. When searching for vegan eggplant pizza online I had seen someone make a pine nut cheeze so I decided to add that as well. I blended together some soaked pine nuts, nutritional yeast, lime juice (didn't have any lemons...this is a recurring theme) and I think just some salt...now I can't remember. I should really try to find that recipe again... Let me tell you, I was a little worried. It was really chunky and didn't taste like very much raw, but it was so good on the pizza.

Yum! And even though it's not vegan, here is my boyfriend's pizza. Vegetarian at least with seitan strips from Trader Joe's.

I am so excited that my CSA will have eggplant again this week!

Vegetable Soup

While I'm on the subject of CSA vegetables, I would be saddened not to share with you the delicious soup I made this weekend. Whenever my CSA gives me celery, the first thing I think to make is soup. This week my soup included:

Celery
Chard
Carrots
Green Beans
Butter Beans
Red Onion
Dill
Fire Roasted Tomatoes (Muir Glen, these are the best!)

This soup was so easy it is kind of ridiculous. Chop veggies (or use food processor). Heat onion, celery and carrots in a little oil until flavorful and/or a little soft. Add the green beans, tomatoes and water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer until carrots and green beans are almost done. Add in precooked beans, chopped chard and chopped dill and cook until the greens are just wilted. I added a little salt at this point. Some days I ate it and it didn't taste like enough salt, but today when I was starving it tasted just fine!

Soooo good! And so good for you! This pot ended up huge and my boyfriend doesn't like soup. I shared a bit with my mom and froze one portion, but I have been working my way through this for days now.

And I'm not even close to sick of it!

Refigerator Cucumbers

My CSA gave me pickling cucumbers and I have never canned anything before.  I do not have the equipment to properly can so I set about on the interwebs to locate a method for making pickles without actually going through the canning process.  The process I found was relatively simple.  Of course, since this was a couple of weeks ago I have since lost the actual link, but it went something like this.

Take 7 or 8 pickling cucumbers, 3 or 4 sprigs of dill, 2 cloves of garlic, vinegar, salt and water.

Slice cucumbers to about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick and slice garlic.

Add to jar with dill and about a teaspoon (I think) of salt and fill half way with vinegar.

Fill to the top with water.

Place lid on jar and put in refrigerator for at least 8 hours.  I am told these should last at least a month.  I don't think they are as good as if I would have made proper pickles, but they do the job.

Fruits & Vegetables

I may have gone a little overboard this weekend.  This is the supplement to my CSA.  I probably should have read what I was getting before I went through the rest of the market picking things up.  Things I got in duplicate: Cucumbers, cherries, carrots and green beans.  In addition I got: Avocados, a red pepper, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, broccoli and chard.

And in my CSA I got: Blood oranges, squash, strawberries, beets, lettuce, grapefruits and basil in addition to the aforementioned: Cucumbers, green beans, carrots and cherries.

Good thing this gives me the opportunity to have meals like this:

Sushi with brown rice, cucumber, chard, and teryaki marinated yellow squash topped with avocado and teryaki sauce.  Nomnomnom.

And this one that I just enjoyed:

 
Proof that a girl can live on fruit alone....

Well, fruit and water.

CSA Farm Tour

I get my CSA at the Hillcrest Farmer's Market every other Sunday from JR Organics.  Every week on Monday or Tuesday I get an email telling me the contents of this weeks box.  A few weeks ago a second email was also sent telling us about a chance to visit the farm.  I jumped at the opportunity, and on June 12th I visited JR Organics.  It was a wonderful experience!  We got to see how the seeds are started &  transplanted, how they rotate crops, keep pests at bay, compost, harvest and package the vegetables and fruits I simply pick up from them.  They also provided us with a delicious lunch!  There were many offerings for everyone including vegans!  It is so rare to get to eat food that I don't have to prepare or ask a million questions about that this was such an added treat.  And as an added bonus, we got to eat strawberries that we picked ourselves.

Rice & veggies, roasted veggies, pico de gallo, guacamole, cucumber salad, tortilla chips and a salad with nopales.  Everything except the chips was made that morning by the women who work/live on the farm.

Pinto Beans.

Lentil Soup.  Yum!








And I think I will throw in some lingering random CSA pictures.

And finally, proof that my cats like CSAs too!

Precious (the black one) loves greens.

I hope I haven't spoiled you with three postings in a row.  That was most all of the pictures I had to share and since the cinnamon rolls I made this weekend failed, I am afraid I might not be back for a bit....we'll see.

CSA Box #2

What could be inside?  Precious wants to know too!

Omnomnomnom.  Farm fresh organic fruits and veggies!

This weeks box features:
Swiss Chard
3 Avocados
5 Navel Oranges
Carrots
Strawberries
Rosemary
Radishes
Red Leaf Lettuce
Butter Lettuce (I think)
Broccoli Leeks
3 Apples (I think Pink Lady)

So far I have used the broccoli and the rosemary to make this:

Baked tofu, marinated in lemon juice and mustard, rosemary garlic potatoes and steamed broccoli.  The tofu texture was awesome but the whole meal was a wee bit bland and the potatoes just did not come out right.  Whenever that happens I am so happy to have a fridge full of condiments.

Ketchup and mustard to the rescue! 


We also enjoyed some of the carrots and the rest of the broccoli steamed for dinner last night (my tummy was a wee bit upset and I overcompensated by eating almost a whole sleeve of saltines so I wasn't very hungry come dinner time).

The oranges are delicious and have a texture that reminds me a lot of a grapefruit but they are very sweet.

The avocados were a bit under ripe but luckily I had a couple left over from visiting my love's grammy's house (she has an avocado tree, grapefruit tree, a couple lemon trees, tangerine and orange trees.  <3)

The strawberries I sliced up and ate a few of and then used the rest to make this out of some failed biscotti and the chocolate I used to dip them.

I have a mountain of failed biscotti.  I made two recipes for my boyfriend's mom for her birthday.  The first one from the People's Co-op cookbook turned out great, the second one from the interwebs, not so great.  Of course the failed one made twice as much as the non failure.  And it just occurred to me that I took no pictures of the finished biscottis.  Next time I suppose!

CSA Box #1

Today I picked up my first CSA box from JR Organics at the Hillcrest Farmers Market.  Every other Sunday I will return one of these:

And get one of these:

Beets
Lettuce
Curly Kale
Purple Carrots
Peas
Blood Oranges
Mineola Tangerines
Pink Lady Apples
Sorrel
Leeks
Broccoli

I already had some kale, carrots and cauliflower from last weekend so I had to get busy.

I decided to make a vegetable soup.

 

I started out by slicing the leeks, some onion, carrots, garlic and a little bit of ginger and sauteing them in some oil.

  

Then I added some red cabbage and pequito beans I already had, the peas shelled, some more carrots, the beet greens, sorrel and the broccoli in large chunks.  I added a little dried parsley, paprika and salt and pepper.  Surprisingly, it turned out incredibly gingery.  It is still good but I didn't think I used that much ginger but it really took over.  Also the broth turned purple from the red cabbage which was totally cool.

Yesterday morning I went garage saling and found an estate sale with many kitchen gadgets.  I was lucky enough to find something I have wanted for a long time.

A citrus press!

With two full bunches of kale I thought it was a perfect opportunity to press some citrus and try out massaging kale.  Unfortunately the press is a little on the small side and so I had to quarter the lemon and lime instead of halve, but it worked incredibly well.

 

No juice left!

See this lime?  Looks innocent enough, right?  Wrong!  This lime has a peel that is tough as can be imagined and when I tried to cut it in half what happened?

The knife slipped and tried to cut off my fingertip!  Luckily, though I was panicking at the fact that I could have cut off my finger, my boyfriend was kind enough to wrap my wound (which thankfully was not that deep) in a Spidey bandaid and I was able to return to conquer that lime.

 

 Here is the kale earlier in the massaging process.  It is now quite a bit smaller and all dark green and tender.  I am still not sure what I am going to do with it all but I am thinking some sort of simple kale salad.  I guess I will figure that out tomorrow.  

Stay tuned for some home made chocolate peanut butter cups and pizza made with my home made vegeroni!