Week 11 Summary

As predicted, Week 11 was very scant in the way of blog posts. But this post will include a few extra pictures to help summarize what we were up to with our CSA last week. Here's how things shook out:

Red Potatoes: there are still some left, but we made good progress with them this week! About 2 pounds got used: one in the lemon rosemary chicken, and another to make this pretty tasty red potato salad on Friday night. Neither Steve nor I are big into potato salad, so I think it's a good sign that we both approved of this one. I think the red potatoes helped, along with the lack of gobs and gobs of mayonnaise (it only called for 1 tablespoon).

red potato salad on the side of some improvised vegetable gratin

Green Bell Peppers: Steve does not like green peppers, so it mostly fell to me this week to work my way through them. A small amount went into the potato salad above, but I picked up a tub of my very favorite yogurt veggie-dip from Trader Joe's, and mostly ate a lot of pepper with my lunches. We have one left.

Yellow Onions: used here and there this week. I think we have one left.

Indian Cucumbers: I mentioned before that I wasn't sure at first what to make of these. See below for a better picture of what they look like, inside and out. When I cut them open, they were less like a cucumber and more like a melon, so I scooped out all the seeds with a spoon before cutting them up. Together with some yellow onion, I used them to make ice box pickles. They are the easiest thing in the world! Here is how to make them:

- slice up a bunch of cucumber and onion, however much you want of each. Dump everything in a deep bowl.
- add equal parts of white vinegar, water, and sugar; enough to cover all of the veggies. 
- stir well, cover, and refrigerate. I like to let them sit for at least a few hours before eating, to let everything soak in. The finished product is so tasty!

The Indian cucumbers were a bit tougher (or crunchier? I'm not sure how to describe it...) than a standard cucumber, but not necessarily in a bad way, just different.

Orange Carrots: Steve & I both munched these throughout the week with veggie dip and hummus. There are a bunch left, though!

Fairytale Eggplants: oh, my beloved fairytale eggplants. Sadly, our plan was to throw them into a vegetable gratin on Friday night. When we pulled them out of the fridge, most of them were already shriveled and turning brown. So we pulled out the ones we could salvage for our dinner, but had to toss most of them! I've definitely noted their shorter lifespan for next time.

Rosemary: the bundle of rosemary we received is so huge that we are not possibly going to be able to use it all. A bunch did go into the skillet chicken dish, however, and we used bit more of it last night in a Week 12 dish. 

Green Zucchini: we have officially reached zucchini coming out of our ears status. At my last count I think we had 8 of them in the fridge (that includes the ones we got for Week 12)! One fun and different thing that we tried last week was this recipe for zucchini bread ice cream (yep, you read that right). I actually modified it quite a bit, because I don't have patience for custard and I didn't think all the straining was necessary. The end result is really interesting - we think it actually tastes like pumpkin pie more than anything (I think because of all the spices in it). We used zucchini in a few other ways as well last week, including a vegetable gratin.

churning up the zucchini bread ice cream

Heirloom Tomatoes: I am so grateful for heirloom tomatoes! One of them didn't survive the week, but we managed to use up the rest between BLTs, the gratin, and a mini-batch of bruschetta. (Side note: I could hug the person who invented BLTs.)

Mmm, BLTs. Why not throw in some sliced avocado for good measure? (Ice box pickles showing in the background.)

Blueberries: almost gone - we are still working through them.

Peaches: gone! They were great.

Chicken Breast: gone! Both went into making the rosemary chicken dish.

Chicken Legs: still frozen.


Week 11 Link
Skillet Rosemary Chicken


So guess what happened last weekend? We finally bought a cast iron skillet! I did a little bit of browsing online to get a sense of their cost and they were far less spendy than I was expecting. Then I remembered that we still had some value left on a Crate & Barrel gift card that we've been hoarding since our wedding. So we swung by the mall on Sunday afternoon and finally picked up a 12" skillet, all with gift card funds. (Note: they sell it at Target for about $8 less, but being able to use the gift card tilted us toward C&B.) Yipee! We've already used it once and it worked great. I'm just super stoked to have one piece of cookware that is both oven and broiler safe, and can be used on the stovetop.

Thanks for reading about our CSA adventures in Week 11. Week 12 info is on its way!