CSA Bounty – Week Eight

week eight collage

So far this season, this week has been my favorite week with the CSA.  The share was quite varied, as you can see.  From the top left, clockwise:

Basil, cherry tomatoes, blackberries, peaches, yellow plums, radicchio, fennel, cucumbers, apples, and summer squash. Not pictured: lettuce.

Last night I made a salad of the tomatoes, cucumbers (from the CSA and the monster lemon cucumber from my garden), basil, scallions, all dressed with olive oil, salt & pepper.  I added sherry vinegar to my serving, as T does not like vinegar.  It was a fantastic salad.  I ate it with eggs and goat cheese for protein.  Such a lovely summer meal.

csa salad

The weather has calmed down some, and for the past couple of days it’s felt like a normal NYC July.  People seemed in a better mood, in general.

distribution week eight-2

I mentioned above including my lemon cucumber in the salad, and I just have to say, what a delicious cucumber!  It actually tasted a little lemony and not at all bitter.  The flesh is really tender, too.  These cucumbers are a winner in my book.  No wonder my grandfather grew them every year.

Garden Update – Waiting for Red-o

Well, my garden is still pretty green – foliage is thriving, though no red tomatoes are to be seen.  I did spy my neighbor’s garden from the back deck Sunday afternoon, and saw only one red tomato amongst the urban-vast stretches of green, so perhaps our little microclimate is just sluggish in getting our tomatoes to turn red.

The tomatoes that are on the vine are green, firm and healthy… except for another small tomato found with blossom end rot (BER).  This tomato was on the same plant, in the same part of the plant as the other tomato with BER.  Both tomatoes were sharing a branch that created “big bertha”, as I endearingly call her – a gigantic tomato, probably 5 inches across.  I wonder if that tomato is just sucking up all the nutrients, denying the other two tomatoes any chance of thriving.   This question will be answered perhaps if this gigantomato turns red without any rot.

I also picked this beast of a  lemon cucumber last weekend:

lemon cucumbinator

It’s about 3 inches across, by far the largest lemon cucumber I’ve ever seen.  It was hiding under the leaves in the corner, so I’m glad I found it when I did.

Remember this?

mystery plants

This is a mystery plant that appeared under my ground cherries and in the middle of my tomato plants.  I thought it was summer squash but now believe it to be more cucumber plants; the flowers are quite similar to the cucumber flower on my lemon cucumber plants.  I’ll know for sure once it starts fruiting.

I’ve also started harvesting ground cherries.

lemon cucumbers and ground cherries

These ones beat the pants off of the ones I grew last year – they are sweeter, tastier, and bigger.  I believe the quality of soil I’m using is just much better than the soil I had access to at the community garden.  The weather – hot, hot, hot – probably has something to do with that, too.

I really can’t wait until the tomatoes ripen!

Fagioli Con Limone – Amazing Green Beans

green beans in egg lemon sauce

We got summer’s first green beans in our CSA share last week; we tend to get a lot of green beans (and purple beans and yellow beans) in our share each season.  Sadly, wasting them – meaning, letting them rot in the fridge – inevitably happens because we get so, so many each summer.  This year, I’m determined to not waste any.

There are some simple and delicious ways out there to cook green beans: sautéing them with garlic, ginger, and a little naturally fermented soy sauce, topped with Sriracha; incorporating them into omelet; and simply eating them raw in salads.

But I have one way to cook them that makes them really special; it elevates the simple green bean to something truly amazing.

boiling beans

I discovered this method several years ago, and rediscovered it while perusing my cookbooks last week.  After making it mid-week, I was reminded why I love this dish – it holds a wonderful combination of summery, earthy green flavors lent by the beans in a silky lemony egg sauce, almost like they are in a warm lemony aioli.  The green beans also take on my favorite texture – fork tender. It’s really easy to make, too.  And it’s full of good fat and protein from the pastured eggs and butter.

beans and lemon egg mixture

I find it’s easy to down a half pound of beans when cooked like this.  In fact, I had to restrain myself from eating them all the other night, so that I could save some for lunch the next day. They were terrific as leftovers.

I’ll be making this all summer, I believe.  I doubt there will be any wasted green beans, too!

Fagioli Con Limone
from The Vegetarian Table: Italy

1/2 pound string beans, ends trimmed, preferably organic
2 tsp kosher salt or coarse sea salt, plus more to taste
1 tbs unsalted butter (I used raw butter)
2 small eggs, preferably pastured
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (not from a bottle)
grated zest of 1/2 small lemon
freshly milled black pepper

In a saucepan bring enough water to cover the beans generously to a rolling boil. Add the beans and 2 tsp salt. Cook until tender, 6-7 minutes, then drain well.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the drained beans to the butter, toss to coat, and cover the pan to keep them hot. In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs, and then beat in the lemon juice, lemon zest, and pepper to taste. Add the egg mixture to the hot beans and stir quickly with a wooden spoon. To prevent the eggs from curdling, keep the pot over the lowest possible heat, or place a flame tamer over the burner. As soon as the sauce thickens, remove the pot from the flame.

Serve hot.

CSA Bounty – Week Seven

CSA Week 7 Collage

This week the share seemed quite large to me.  From top to bottom row, left to right:

Beets, tarragon, scallions, lettuce, green beans, zucchini, red and yellow plums, mutsu apple, nectarines.  Not pictured: cucumber.

So much deliciousness!  This is my favorite time of the year for fruits and vegetables.  Summer makes for such beautiful produce.

Not much else to say, but…. YUM!

CSA Bounty – Week Six

CSA Bounty Week Six

This week we got a wonderful variety of vegetables in our veggie share, and some delicious stone fruit in the fruit share.  I decided to display them in a grid this time.  From top to bottom row, left to right:

lettuce, green beans, spring onions, carrots, cucumbers, plums, nectarines, peaches, mint.

I forgot to take a picture of the zucchini!  This week I got a large one, which I’ll use to put in zucchini muffins most likely.  The zucchini from last week went into zucchini fritters.  I’ll post about them at some point, after I tweak a few things.

distribution on a humid cool day

The weather was better than last week – not great, but better.  It was much cooler, thanks to thunderstorms that passed through this afternoon.  It’s still humid, though, and a heat wave is expected this weekend.  I have hopes that it won’t be as intense as last time.

I have plans to make a sorbet out of some of the stone fruit.  Perfect for hot weather!

Additionally, I got a chunk of chevre and some ground pastured beef.  Looking forward to having hamburgers tomorrow!

And finally, our dry bean and grain share was this week and the most striking thing was the oats.  I don’t think I’ve actually seen whole oats before.  They look perfect to sprout – I’ll have to look into a grain mill attachment for my Kitchen Aid.  Or, perhaps I will eat them as hot cereal.  I also came across a recipe for a sprouted oat milk, which is intriguing.

CSA Bounty – Week Five

hot distribution

Well, this week brought searing heat, wilted CSA members, and serious summer vegetables and fruit!  Peaches, apricots, and plums scream “summer” to me.

peaches

plums and apricots

All the fruit has been fantastic eaten out of hand.  It would make good sorbet, too.

The vegetable I was most excited about was the fava beans.  I look forward to them every year.

fava beans

I think they are gorgeous pods, but the beans inside are even more fantastic. I shell them and then remove each bean’s outer covering, throw them into a pan containing a little hot olive oil, and cook them till they start to brown a bit.  Sometimes I cook them with onions.   Then I eat them with fleur de sel on top.  Perfection!

We got more greens – butter lettuce and curly cress.  Not much to do with them except make a salad, which I did.

butter lettuce

cress

We also got fennel – I’ll probably braise it.

fennel

Oh, and spring onions!

spring onions

And peas! Shelling peas – I made a tasty salad with them that involved mint and dates (recipe to come).

shelling peas

Lastly, we got zucchini, which was a surprise! I chose 5 perfect medium sized squash, which I will make zucchini fritters out of this weekend. I’ll probably grate whatever is left and freeze it for zucchini bread.

zucchini

So much great produce!  I just love my CSA.

CSA Bounty – Week Three

Wow, this week is like Christmas!  Everything is green and red.  Well, except for the lavender.

lavender

As gorgeous as it is, I have lavender growing on the back deck. So, I traded mine with a woman who loves lavender, for more chard!

chard

We got a couple of spicy greens – cress and green mustard greens.

cress

green mustard greens

I’ll need to find a recipe for these greens – on an initial search I came across a recipe for balsamic-glazed chickpeas and mustard greens, but I’d need to make a number of adjustments, as fat-free is not my kind of thing.  I could add some of my pastured chicken broth, naturally fermented tamari, and use coconut sugar.  I’ll definitely post about it if it turns out well!

We also got a bag of sugar snap peas.

bags of snap peas

I ate a bunch tonight, all raw and some dipped in homemade mayonnaise – so good!  It’s a nice lemony mayo, which tastes great with these peas.

This was the first week of the fruit share!  We got cherries and apples.  Haven’t tried the apples, but the cherries are divine.

cherries

apple

We weren’t sure we’d get cherries, as at this growing season has accelerated a lot of the traditional spring fruit. I’m so grateful there were cherries for us!

Can you tell that I like cherries? Heee!

I look forward to good eating this week.