Delivery 18

Leeks - 1 bunch

Potatoes - 2 pounds

Broccoli - 2 bunches

Acorn Winter Squash - 1

Lettuce - 1 head Exchanged for another bunch of radishes

Bok Choy - 1 head

Radish - 1 bunch

Rosemary - 1 bunch

Purple Globe Turnips with Greens - 1 bunch

Hot Habanero Peppers - take them if you like

Red Cabbage - 1 head

Peppers - 2

Cauliflower - 1

Broccoli

Once again these were kind of ...floppy. I found the last batch pretty bitter, but at least there's a decent amount this time so I didn't swap them out. A few decent contenders for recipes, too: Pizza (with potatoes and rosemary), cooked forever, roasted with mustard.

Bok Choy

I'm on a salad kick lately (week long detoxes to make up for the crazy indulgence of the weekend wherein I eat all the bread, eggs, caramel sauce and butter), so a simple raw salad may be in order. Or cooked with broccoli.

Cauliflower

Crazy/amazing roundup from the Guardian, some of which will get made, but maybe not this week as I've found cauliflower and eggs with tomato sauce! Or there's roasted with ginger and mint.

Turnips

I'm not sure I've ever cooked turnips before. No wait, I did once, just roasted as a "Hey! These are cheap, let's add them to the weekly veggie roast" a few years ago. Looking to do something a little more exciting with them now. Here are options: with orange and hazlenuts, soup with leeks, mashed with potatoes and leeks, pickles, and Moroccan! Loving the looks of those greens, too.

Radish

I have four of these guys earmarked, as for what to do with the rest: easy with turnips, a pizza (pizzas are the new biscuits. also a bit of a cop out, but cacio e pepe is a great flavor profile), Indian flatbread (!), and then this weird weird bread I don't think I'll ever make, but wanted to share.

Potatoes 

Fritters with turnips, doing a more traditional potato pancake. Getting a lot of potatoesed out. Maybe I'll make bread and bring it to work to get rid of it: here are a bunch of recipes (and a German one).

Leeks

Going back to the archives a bit, but leek confit perhaps. Though a ton of recipes I've already listed use them, so I doubt I'll have trouble.

Red Cabbage

There were a few that I mentioned last time I would like to get back to: peanut/lime salad or sweet and sour. Galette with onions and feta.

Acorn Squash

Soup with Turnips, there's always a plain ol' roast as well. Or risotto.

Rosemary

I'm having trouble using all my herbs again. Still have a bunch of thyme from last week. I may whip up another batch of herb butter, just so I don't feel so bad about the sheet volume that exists in the crisper. Would also work well with potatoes and squash.

Peppers

I keep picking up tons of hot peppers without a plan in mind- though I used some in my chili verde. There are still some roasted from last week in my fridge. Let's pretend I'll make hot sauce, shall we?

Delivery 17

Red Leaf Lettuce-2 heads Still having nightmares about the lettuce from the beginning of the season, so I switched out for more tomatillos

Mizuna-1 bunch

Mustard Greens-1 bunch

Radish-1 bunch

Potatoes-2 pounds

Cabbage-1 head

Tomatillos-10

Thyme-1 bunch

Rainbow Carrots-1 bunch

Hot Peppers - Habanero - take if you like

Ancho Peppers- 2

Sweet Peppers-2

Mustard Greens

The salad I made last week was just what I needed, so I'd like to do another raw preparation. Here are a few options.

Potatoes

A mix of red and white potatoes...and I still have some potatoes from last week that haven't found a recipe home. My time has been crazy limited lately, so I have a feeling that most things will probably be roasted/boiled. One of the mustard green recipes uses them. Here are some leftover recipes from other weeks: potato cake (with parsley), pancake, roasted (with cabbage), smashed (with cabbage).

Peppers

Rainbow of peppers! Bell, what they say is ancho (ancho is a dried poblano), cubanelle and habenero. Here's a frittata (bonus for potato). I may just roast them all and mix them with some kind of dressing.

Rainbow Carrots

Rainbow of carrots, too! I'm interested to see if the different colors taste different. Simple raw and roasted preparations are in order.

Cabbage

So...I still have that cabbage from two weeks ago. It's looking not-so-great. Can we just agree that I'll get to this when I get to this? But my perennial salad suggestion will hopefully not be the new pepper jelly (i.e. a recipe that I keep mentioning but never actually do)- it sounds lovely, but the "salt then let it sit for a few hours" gives me pause. When am I home for a few hours and then not on my way to bed?

It's a natural pairing with potatoes- here are some options: Ethiopian, Bolivian, more fried cakes, a few Indian preparations.

Broccoli

Makeshift "head" of broccoli...not sure it's worth making something dedicated out of this. I'm always in need of something simple (and healthy) to eat after interning on weekend, may just snack on these raw.

Tomatillos

These were smelling a bit musty, so as soon as I got home I washed and pureed. Will pick up some cheesecloth on the way home to strain out the juice for a tart. Or if not a tart, at least the curd portion of that tart. Any leftovers & pulp will probably be frozen/used in some kind of meat braise.

Thyme

Roasting herbage. Or biscuits, or popovers.

Radishes

Cherrette and one breakfast. Simple toast, salad (bonus for carrots), sandwich with herb butter, slaw with broccoli and carrot (technically daikon but I'd try it with regular).

Mizuna

Oh heeyyy Mizuna, long time no see. This post mentions an easy prep with potatoes, here's an insanely easy salad (hot garlic dressing), and here's a post on serious eats about it.

144: Peperonata

I know, I know, this again? What can I say...it's good stuff and easy to boot. I used the two peppers from my share and a yellow from the gifted. One medium/large onion cut to resemble the pepper pieces (i.e. wedges), a few cloves of garlic and some borrowed basil. Tomatoes were a pint from canning last year- still good, though very lemony. Salt, pepper, olive oil, and red pepper flake for good measure.

Good batch, though I seriously burned the roof of my mouth on potatoes this weekend, so I had to let it cool down a decent degree. More liquid than I'm used to in this recipe- so this was a braise of the peppers in the tomatoes- not a saute as in earlier batches. I liked the texture of this batch more as a result. The yellow pepper added a little more sweetness, though it was greatly outmatched by the amount of green peppers so it wasn't significant.

The bowl above is very tiny, so I did a second serving with the best over easy egg I've ever done. It looked like a cartoon egg, it was so perfect. Tiny cast iron skillet ftw!

137: Tofu, Broccoli and Pepper Stir Fry

This would probably be more of a stir fry if I had a bigger pan- not even a wok, just something with a bit more room. When all the stuff was added to the pan it was crazy crowded, but still turned out well. I used a mix of these two recipes. I didn't want to use all of my broccoli up- I have plans for it!- so I added the peppers and onion to make up for the missing veg. Didn't have any cornstarch, so I used flour to thicken, which lead to more of a gravy-like sauce than the recipe probably intended. Also I need to invest in some low-sodium soy sauce. Still feel a little salty.

It took a bit of time, mostly waiting for the tofu to press, but overall an easy dinner. Oh yes, and despite the red pepper flake, felt like this needed a bit of heat so sriracha was liberally applied after this picture was taken. If I were to do this again (and I may, though probably not this veggie mix), I'd switch up the sauce a little- less soy, add some ginger, obviously a little more heat.

133+: Stuffing Vegetables Geek Out

So I decided to do something...geeky. I'm only calling this one dish even though there are like four, or five, if you count the stuffing which is delicious on its own.

I'd been thinking a little about stuffing veggies, how much the vessel imparts flavor, and what the difference in flavor would be using it as the vessel versus just having it in the stuffing. So I decided to try the same recipe (polenta & spinach- recipe at end) stuffed in a tomato and a pepper. I also made batches of the stuffing cooked with some tomato (innards) or pepper mixed in.

My theory was: using the food as the vessel imparts minimal flavor to the stuffing (ie only to the stuffing directly touching the walls). Roasting it in the oven allows the flavor of the vessel to develop more cleanly than it does cooked with the stuffing. Cooking with the stuffing will spread that flavor all around, but it won't be as sweet/roasted as if it had been the vessel.

I put a little pecorino on top of everything before they went in the oven. This is them about 40 minutes later. I'd say my theory was mostly correct. The veggies cooked faster in the polenta then as the vessel, but the flavor was definitely cleaner when it was the vessel.

What surprised me was how I would rank them.

My definite favorite was the pepper in polenta. The flavors worked the best for me- the savory, slightly bitter green pepper cut through the richness of the polenta. The flavor spread a bit, but it was a note that matched well with the rest of the flavors.

Second favorite was stuffed tomato. Liked the contrast of the uber roasted tomato, though roasting the tomato made it rich and sweet, which can get a little cloying.

Cooking the veggies inside the polenta definitely heated them faster (a little more on that on the next pic), so the tomatoes got even more sweet and roasty here. You can see how much more the softer tomato spread (as opposed to the pepper)- the polenta is getting orange in places. I didn't like the mix of those flavors as much. Raw tomatoes I love with polenta (as in this), but this all was a little too heavy for me. I may have liked it more had I removed it from the oven sooner.

And lasty was the stuffed pepper- though that was mostly due to how much longer it takes for a pepper to roast. In the polenta the pepper was perfectly delicious and soft- and with this the part towards the bottom that actually made contact with the pan was lovely- but it needed more time that I didn't have to cook. The more you know!

And if you can't tell, all that baked polenta was undercooked and a little gritty- you can still see that the little pearls of cornmeal haven't popped. I started the polenta by itself, and used about half of it for stuffing, the rest stayed on the stovetop to finish up. I was hoping the time in the oven would finish those off but no dice.

Even the stuff on the stovetop- seen here before putting it in the fridge- is still not quite there. It's 90%, I just ran out of cooking time. Undercooked polenta, like undercooked grits, makes me a little sad. They're still tasty, but when they're done well... it's just, you need to try it.

Onto that stuffing:

Polenta:
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1 cup milk (what I had)
- 3 cups water (plus an additional cup when I noticed it getting a little thick during the cooking process)
- 1 teaspoon of salt (may want a little less, this was a little salty)
- 2 tablespoons of butter

Heat everything but the polenta until it's basically boiling, then rain in the grain while whisking. Keep whisking until it gets thick, then turn down the heat and cook on low until it's no longer gritty.

Spinach Stuffing:
- 1.5 cups polenta
~ 2 cups chopped spinach
- 1/2 red onion, diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced or grated
~ oil

Heat the onions in oil until translucent, add the garlic, mix briefly until fragrant, then add the spinach. Cook until wilted, then mix with polenta.

132: Muhammara

I used this recipe for Muhammara from Bittman. I roasted the small green and red peppers from my delivery on a burner (something I will never get tired of), blended in the food processor with walnuts, garlic, olive oil and a little cumin. Added the red pepper flake and lemon later.

It ended up a little thin and lemony. My initial processing was too short, resulting in a weird texture, but when I threw it back in the food processor for another minute or so it greatly improved. Part of me wonders if he intended you to use those jarred roasted red peppers.

Looking up muhammara on google, I found a few recipes that were vastly different. So I added a few more walnuts to the food processor, the leftover leftovers, some bread crumbs, tomato paste, and as I had no harissa, some sriracha. The end result was much better, though still too lemony.

I'm not opposed to the concept of this dish- I'm a huge fan of most of these flavors. The big problem is a lesson I apparently will never learn: have at least some idea how the recipe you're going to make will turn out before you start it, otherwise it'll be harder to tell if something is going wrong.

Delivery 13

So it's come to this, then: I had a dream the other night about picking up my CSA share. The crates the veggies come in were stacked high on tables, so you had to climb up to reach anything. I couldn't find any good tomatoes. I think we were also getting kabocha squash and maybe corn. No zombies...yet.

Tomatoes - 8
Summer Spinach - 1 bunch

Peppers - 4

Eggplant - 2 orient

Cilantro - 1 bunch 

Broccoli - 3 heads

Tomatillos - 10

Garlic Chives - 1 bunch

Cabbage - 1 head

New Red Potatoes - 2 pounds

Hot Peppers - a couple

This week is going to be the death of me. Half of these things just beg for roasting, so it's gonna be soo hot in my kitchen.

Eggplant

These are small ones but: Baignan Bharta! I was worried I'd reached the last of the eggplants but I've got at least one more go. I'm probably going back to redo V4 as that was closest to what I'm looking for, flavor wise.

 
Tomato

My dream was fairly accurate about tomato quality. It was tough finding eight that were good (though I'm picky with produce). Beyond using some for Indian I want to do more remakes or varations. Salsa? More stuffing? Or shakshuka, which I've made for myself but not for ages.

Peppers

I'm giving up on that pepper jelly- if I haven't made it thus far I doubt it's happening. I have a blacklog of hot peppers from the past few weeks, may try making pickles. Not that I eat dips a ton but this Muhammara looks tempting (there are a few other cool dips on that page, too). Or I could stuff them and do a little test on how much flavor it imparts to the final product.

Tomatillos

Flooded with recipes for green salsas, mostly roasted. Some enchiladas if I get tired of dipping chips in it. Haven't used these at all before so I'm going simple.

Broccoli

I will probably just end up roasting this, with or without the accoutrements in that link (not that I really need a recipe to roast). There are a few other options though: stir fry, fritters, or slaw! 

New Potatoes

I'm psychic for share ingredients- in that I buy them a week or two before they come in the deliveries- first the beets now potatoes. Don't think I'll remake that gratin, though it was delicious. I found about a million recipes to roast. This one's a little more interesting (and uses a few things I have leftover from other recipes). Or, you know, fritters.

Cabbage

I'd like to remake the marmalade, even though I still have leftovers. It's delicious, no doubt I'll finish it, and I really want to go for that buttery texture and golden color. For the rest: salad with tuna, here's a roundup from Bittman (though it's mostly napa), pancakes, or hey a simple slaw.

Spinach

The bunches weren't looking so great this week, but I'm always happy to see spinach. Bulgur is a grain I've really wanted to try, so there's that. Here's some saag paneer (looking for an excuse to go back to Kalustyan's), and another roundup from Bittman.

Cilantro 

Between salsa and Baignan Bharta- this is a tiny tiny bunch that I have a feeling will be used up very quickly.

Garlic Chives

I was very close to just trading this in at the swap table- there were tons of cabbage and even a spinach bunch that would've been more useful to me. But I'm already unsure I'll have enough time to cook what I did get, so here we are. I'll most likely just try to incorporate it into dishes, but here's something simple with eggs from Serious Eats.

122: Cabbage and Sweet Pepper Tart

Yum. I once again turned to the NY Times for a cabbage dish. It's nice when they have roundups, and when they're recipes for health and I can feel ok about all that grated cheese.

I made this in two sections- the first the cabbage and pepper mixture, which I cooked up while the Cabbage Onion Marmalade was doing its thing on the stovetop. This cooked uncovered for about half the time of the marmalade. More browning, a little more texture, but still a nice sweetness to the end result. The peppers (from the past two weeks' shares- sorry, no jam again this week!) were sweet and savory, and the tomato paste, while subtle, helped round out the dish.

The tart was assembled the next day with the veggie mixture, some eggs, and gruyere leftover from a few gratins. The crust was not the one mentioned in the recipe- the last tart I made used that crust and it ended up way too bready, so I just used a pizza crust rolled out thin. It didn't cook enough but is thin enough to not be offensive.

The filling is nice, less runny than that last tart. The flavor and texture are lovely: a good sweet and savory mix.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with these crusts- look how pale that thing is! Maybe it's the pan. Once it gets a little cooler I'll try to devote more time to these kinds of recipes so I can figure out how to fix them.

Delivery 12

Tomatoes - 4 plum, 4 slicers

Sungold Cherry Tomatoes - 1 basket

Peppers - 1 large bell

Bright Lights Swiss Chard - 1 bunch

Thyme - 1 bunch

Cabbage - 1 head

Collards - 1 bunch

Celery - 1 head

Shallots - 4

Hot Peppers - Serrano - 4

This is a tough one. Not so much the ingredients, but the fact that I was booked solid Tuesday after work so I took a late late lunch and picked it up myself as soon as they opened. It lived (as well it could) in the work fridge until I could take it home Wednesday. Hence the lateness.

Tomatoes

Someone once fortold I'd get tired of tomatoes. Clearly this person didn't know what they were talking about. I'd be happy eating them like handfruit, but as I'd like to push myself, here are some new things: roasty cherry, frittata, stuffed.


The cherries have been going bad very quickly (I actually remade that candied cherry tomato dish for the party, but ended up having to use tomatoes from the store, so haven't posted), so those were eaten up before I got them back to my place for pics.

Peppers

Ok, so the leftover pepper from 2 weeks ago was just a snack. I still have a few serranos from last week and a bell. Promise promise I'll try to make the jam this week. The vinegar certainly has had enough time by now to infuse.

Chard

Yay for some leafy. I guess I'm on a smitten recipe kick: white bean stew (bonus for shallots and thyme). Or that gratin all the kids are talking about. Or a different one.

Thyme  

Useful with tomato, and a few other dishes I have linked here. A little miffed as I'd actually bought thyme last week and still have some in my fridge. Womp womp.

Cabbage

It's been a bit, cabbage. Should I retry that curry? Or hey, there's an onion marmalade, pepper tart, or onion tart.

Collards

While the standard southern collard is tempting, as I've never made it, I know from experience I don't like it. Here's a veggie one, and one with farro. I think I'd like to try the first, as well as something that cooks it less, to get that flavor variation.

Celery

These are skinny, leafy celery. Pan cooked with tomatoes, risotto, braised with tomato and pancetta, chunky soup (and pesto!), simple braise, crunchy topped braise (bonus for thyme, shallot).
 
 

Shallots

Left these at work, whoops! Most likely will just integrate into other dishes (like the celery and tomato above). Not enough to do something super special. Or! scrambled eggs. Of course.