Local Food 6/27/2009

This is the fifth week of the CSA and we received a bunch of produce we’ve seen in past weeks.  Sadly rabbits had gotten into the lettuce, so we didn’t get any salad greens this week.  I wonder how grocery store lettuces will compare to the amazing lettuces we’ve gotten these past weeks?  

Beautiful bright green swiss chard.  I’ve been enjoying just sautéing this up with garlic and bacon, but I might have to hunt down a new recipe since I’ve got two nice bunches of it this week.

Eggs!  I remembered to take a picture of them this week.  Maybe this will be a quiche week.  

Beets and green onions.  

Two medium sized zucchinis and a bunch of basil.  This might be the week I make pesto.  I think between the CSA basil and my own herb garden, I might have enough!

These cucumbers are destined to go into gazpacho.  

A head of cabbage.  

Five yellow squashes.  

Carrots!  This is a first for the CSA this year, I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with them, but I’m sure they’ll be tasty.  

Yukon gold potatoes.  It’s tempting to make the same potato and cabbage gratin that I made last week, but I’ll figure out something exciting and new to do with these.  

These zucchini weren’t in the CSA box but I have plans to make zucchini bread this week so I can take a loaf to give to my parents when I see them on Wednesday.  I’ve also learned that I can shred it and freeze it for later bread making endeavors, so I might have to stock up later in the season so I can have good zucchini bread during the winter!  

Moving on in the Farmer’s Market, I picked up a bunch of nice looking onions.  The farmer said that they’re pretty sweet on the onion scale, so I’ll need to take that into account when planning.  

And then it was on to tomatoes.  These are actually “seconds” which, in theory, are not quite as pretty but just as tasty and delicious.  And cheaper.  

And some pretty tomatoes from the farmer!  

We go through so many little tomatoes between salads and everything else, so I grabbed two pints from another farmer.

And yellow tomatoes from the same farmer.  

And, finally, peaches.  These are the first we’ve seen of the summer and they come from the farm that borders our backyard.  You can’t get more local than that!  Art loves peaches and he suggested that I get a bunch to make his favorite dessert – Peach Crisp.  I’d actually been thinking about Peach Crisp for many months now and I’m glad I’ll finally be able to make it.  

I now have lots and lots of tomatoes.  I’m so excited.  Some of them will go in gazpacho, some will go into a recipe for caprese pie that looks delicious, and I’ll see how many I have left after those two things.  I love tomatoes.  Oh yes.