Week 13 Overview

I am going to try something new to share about CSA Week 13 (which I will repeat for Week 14). This is in part to help me get caught up with these two CSA weeks that I've fallen behind on. But also, as I mentioned in my last post, we've been repeating a lot of recipes recently, most of which I've already shared about in the past. So since I don't have much to say right now, this will hopefully be a good way to chronicle a couple of weeks and share what we've been up to with our produce. Here is what we received in our Week 13 box, and how we used it!

Heirloom Tomatoes: I am super sad to say that we did not make use of these particular heirlooms in time (and look how pretty they are! *sob*) We did use a few in Week 13, but they were carryover from the previous week. Together with our eggplant, we used them to make one of our very favorite standby summer dishes: a tomato eggplant bake. It's reminiscent of the vegetable gratin we've been coming back to all summer as well, but different enough that we can consider it to be its own thing. This is a dish I would definitely recommend, and it makes awesome leftovers too.

Italian Eggplant: gone! Also went into the tomato eggplant bake.

Tomato eggplant bake. How lovely are those yellow tomato slices in the middle?

Rainbow Carrots: we didn't use any of them in Week 13, but they were still in good shape heading into this week.

Green Zucchini: once again, we made some good progress on our zucchini stash, but we are nowhere close (yet) to using it all up! Repeating the ratatouille accounted for two of them. I also finally got around to making this Glazed Lemon Zucchini Bread that caught my eye several weeks ago on a friend's facebook wall. It is very tasty, and definitely a recipe I will hang on to. I'd love to make it again sometime as muffins. But it only used up one more of them. We'll see how it goes this week. So far this summer we have not had to throw away a single squash, even when it's taken some time to make use of them. Thank goodness for hardy vegetables.

Malabar Spinach: so here's what we learned about Malabar spinach: we don't like Malabar spinach. Okay, actually, we probably didn't really give it a fair shot. It never got incorporated in our meal plan but Steve did use some of it one night to whip up some quick omelettes for us (with tomato, feta, and some of the spinach leaves). But it turns out it's not really spinach - read a little more about it here. We felt like it was a little too fleshy (kind of slimy), both raw and cooked. Honestly, we'll have to give it another try sometime, and since it's supposed to hold up in soups better than regular spinach, that might be the way to go. But this time around, only a small portion of the leaves we had went to use.

Bicolor Sweet Corn: gone (kind of)! We had corn on the cob with dinner one night and cooked up all six ears. We obviously could not eat more than about three of them between the two of us, so the rest got sliced off the cob and frozen. We will have no trouble using it in the next few months. Like last time (Week 9) this batch corn was just okay, a little tough and not super sweet. Hrm. 

Green Beans: gone! We repeated the green bean salad from Week 10 (with actual green beans this time instead of the burgundy beans). Yum! That took care of them all.

San Marzano Roma Tomatoes: gone! And man, I did NOT think that would happen. It was a huge bag, and since I didn't have plans to do any canning or preserving (maybe someday), I was just sure that many of them would go to waste. Salsa to the rescue! I took what didn't get used in the 2nd batch of ratatouille we've made this summer up to my in-laws this past weekend and we were able to finish them off by making a double batch of this Chipotle-style pico de gallo. I even had to dip into my mother in-law's bowl of garden grown tomatoes, which made us all happy. We also got some cilantro in our Week 14 box, so that went to good use here too.

Peaches: gone! We are still loving these great summer peaches. Steve keeps saying that he wants to make a baked peach w/ custard recipe that he loves, but in the meantime I am not complaining about eating them as-is.

Red Seedless Watermelon: gone, but only as of today. It was pretty large and definitely took some time to get through, but it was tasty! We have a second one (from Week 14, in the background of the above picture) that we haven't even cut into yet. Yikes.

Chicken Breast & Whole Legs: We used the breast (and another bag that we'd already had), to make some of the crock pot pulled BBQ chicken (mentioned in my Week 8 Summary) that we love. Legs are still frozen. On a related note, we cleaned-out and inventoried our freezer last night. It is a chicken-parts party in there! We're working on it ... :)

I've been feeling like such a CSA failure lately, but really when I look back over this list, it is not too bad. I have similar thoughts about Week 14, so maybe when I write out that overview I'll be similarly encouraged. Also, last night we unpacked our Week 15 box, and are super excited about some of the new things that showed up in it. More to come, but let's just say that my wishes for fall fruits and veggies are starting to come true!

Zucchini Pasta with Creamy Lemon Chive Dressing

Our plans for dinner last night started out with this dish from Martha Stewart's website, but I quickly realized two crucial things: 1) there is no actual spaghetti in this zucchini spaghetti and 2) there is no way we are going to get our zucchini sliced that thin without a mandolin at our disposal. I love the idea of a dish comprised entirely of julienned zucchini, but it just was not going to happen without that important piece of equipment. Still, since I thought it looked so yummy, and was intrigued by the dressing, I decided to improvise.

True zucchini pasta will have to go into the someday file for us. For last night though, I stuck with the lemon-chive dressing and combined a half-pound of fettuccine with a half-pound of coarsely grated zucchini. Yum yum! More about the recipe modification below.

Creamy Lemon-Chive Dressing from Martha Stewart
 

Don't mind that over-toasted baguette in the picture - we had some build-your-own bruschetta with dinner last night too.

Used From Our CSA
zucchini

Steve mincing chives (and doing so quite precisely, I might add)

Thoughts on the Recipe
-We prepared the dressing recipe as it was written, and cooked up a 1/2 lb. of fettuccine.
- This step is modified from the original zucchini spaghetti recipe: I grated a zucchini, enough to get 1/2 lb., and tossed it in a strainer with some salt. I let that sit for about 15 minutes and then squeezed the zucchini against the sides of the strainer to try to get out as much water as I could. Since it was grated instead of julienned, I didn't have to be so gentle (I'm sure Martha would be disappointed).
- The pasta, zucchini and dressing (we used it all) were tossed together in a bowl. Done!
- In the end, I think this could have done with more zucchini - why not? Since we have no shortage of it right now, grating another one would not have been a bad idea, and would have stretched this dish farther.

This was a wonderfully simple dish to pull off on a weeknight. I love the lightness that the zucchini brings to it. And I've said before that Steve & I don't normally gravitate toward pasta, but I would definitely make this one again. Hooray for finding another way to work through that zucchini!

Stuffed Zucchini with Pesto Couscous

On Monday night we made these cute stuffed zucchini for dinner. Because we still had four of the little 8-ball zucchini in our fridge from Week 9, I didn't want to pass up the chance to try something like this. It was not a difficult recipe but involved several steps so it definitely took some time.

I ended up feeling like a lot of the work for this dish was just for the added "awww" factor of the little zucchini bowls to hold everything, because I only ate a little bit of my zucchini shell. I would just as soon have shredded the whole zucchini and made a variation of the couscous to eat on its own. Steve ate his whole zucchini, so he disagrees with me here. But then again, I think I may have under-roasted the bowls (partly because I was rushing to get it ready). If they had been softer, I might have been more on-board with the whole concept.  But you have to admit, they are pretty cute!

Stuffed Zucchini with Pesto Couscous on Dishing up the Dirt

Used From Our CSA
8-ball zucchini
sweet corn
cherry tomatoes

basil (not from our CSA, but Steve picked it from the garden at his work. Win!)

Thoughts on the Recipe
Since I only had 4 of these zucchini and the recipe calls for 6, I two-thirds-ed the recipe. It made for some clunky conversions so I approximated just about everything. We were also a little short on basil, so it could have used more pesto. But no harm done with the final product.

No side dish on these plates, because I ran out of time to make anything else!

What are your thoughts on stuffed zucchini? To eat or not to eat the roasted shell? Would you rather go to the trouble, or just make the filling as a dish on its own?

Zucchini Corn Pancakes

Before finding this recipe last week, I don't think it would have occurred to me to make a non-breakfast pancake. Don't confuse this with the concept of eating a breakfast pancake at a meal other than breakfast (aka: brunch or brinner), which is always a great idea. But now that I've had a savory pancake, I think it's a great idea! These were a great way for us to work through some of the 8-ball zucchini and sweet corn that came in our Week 9 box. Topped with sour cream and some fresh salsa, they were just right.

Zucchini Corn Pancakes on Girl Versus Dough 

Used From Our CSA
8-ball zucchini
bicolor sweet corn

Thoughts on the Recipe
This was really so easy and straightforward. The batter came together really quickly, but cooking it all up was more time-intensive. Steve tends to be the grill cook in our house, or at least the one who is usually standing at the stove when hot oil is involved. And he made several comments about how long the pancakes were taking: at 3-4 minutes per side, it took at least 40 minutes to get through all the batter. Still, we loved these and would certainly make them again, on a night when we know we'll have the time.

Has anyone else ever made a non-breakfast pancake? It was a new concept to me, but maybe I'm just out of the loop!

Zucchini Tomato Gratin

Like I explained the other day, my goal this week was to try and be a good kid while Steve was away (he'll be home tonight - yayyyy!) and cook at least a few dinners and lunches for myself. A noble endeavor, when my alternative may have been relying on Lean Cuisines and/or take-out for 5 days/10 meals - ick. Especially on a weeknight cooking a meal for myself, by myself, isn't high on the list of things I'd love to be doing, so that made this zucchini tomato gratin dish a great fit because it was super quick and easy.

My only problem with this recipe is that it wasn't really a recipe - more of a "throw in some of this, and this, and maybe this too, and then 'bake' it". Not that that's a bad thing at all, but it makes my poor little diligent-recipe-following, culinarily uncreative, Type-A head explode a little bit. How much zucchini? How much cheese? How long should I set my timer for!? Gaahhh, what if I MESS IT UP!!?

Intuition in the kitchen (ha, rhyming) is way more in Steve's realm, so if he had been around he could have reigned me in a bit. But in any case, the worst thing that ended up happening was that the ratio of vegetables to cheese & breadcrumbs was way low. Like, embarrassingly low, if you compare her gratin pictures to mine. But hey, thanks in part to all that cheese and breadcrumb action: IT TASTED GREAT.

Zucchini Tomato Gratin on Proud Italian Cook

Used From Our CSA8-ball zucchini

I also could have used the white onions that came in our Week 8 box, but I so love Vadalia onions, therefore I didn't want to sub those out. And of course we are getting cherry tomatoes next week (go figure), but this time around they had to come from the store.

Thoughts on the Recipe
- Since we don't have any oven-safe skillets at home, I used a medium-size Pyrex dish for this, which worked fine.
- I just used the various cheeses and breadcrumbs that we had on hand, which didn't match her recommendations, but thankfully for me this kind of meal is very forgiving, as I learned.
- I would definitely make this again, and next time I won't be so nervous about getting it wrong. I would also up the vegetable factor for sure, to stretch it a bit farther, because it makes great leftovers.