CSA Box #13

CSA box #13 includes:  various round shaped summer squash, Zestar and edmond russet apples, green beans, cantaloupe, beefsteak tomatoes, bibb lettuce, red beets, bi-color sweet corn, mixed cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, pickling cucumbers, 2 large cucumbers, shallots, Dutch kale, leeks, blue potatoes, and carrots.

First I'm going to wash and freeze the kale for use in breakfast smoothies, as usual.  The beet greens are not in good enough condition to consume this time.  The melons, carrots, and large cucumbers will be cut up and refrigerated for snacking.  I'll wash the cherry tomatoes and just snack on them too.  I'll boil the beets and (I assume?) pickle the pickles for snacking.  I'm going to taste the peppers and apples before deciding for sure what to do with them because if they happen to taste really good plain, I don't want to waste them by cooking them.  An email from the farm said the peppers might be sweet or spicier and we wouldn't know in advance.  If they're spicy, I feel like I have more options.  I used the last sweet peppers in place of red bell peppers in recipes and that worked fine too. 

I'm planning to make an apple crisp this weekend in honor of the start of September and also having apples.  I already made vanilla ice cream base yesterday to go with it; I just have to run it through the ice cream maker while the apple crisp bakes.

 

Zucchini Lasagna

I think I'll make this to use up at least some of the new summer squash because I don't know what else to do with it and I can make this from things I have on hand.  I don't have red lentils at the moment, but I do have cooked crowder peas in the fridge that I've been slowly consuming for the last week and would like to use up.

Carrot Zucchini Fritters

Another way to use up summer squash.  I might want to try making these in the air fryer rather than oven or pan.  I could also try using the crowder peas in place of cooking some chickpeas for these.  They have a similar enough texture I think.

(Clockwise from top: cucumber slices, carrot zucchini fritter, brown basmati rice, barbati aloo subzi, cashew yogurt)

Barbati Aloo Subzi

To go alongside the fritters (tomorrow night?) and use up the green beans and some potatoes.

Vegan Breakfast Burritos

This sounds really good, and I haven't had a breakfast burrito in years.  An idea for using up some of our tiny potatoes.  I also have some Ezekiel whole grain wraps in the freezer that need to be used.  I think I'd want to make some vegan breakfast sausages to include too (linked recipe is really good and pretty quick and easy).  

 

Summer Corn with Green Chile Cream (Vedge)

Because there's a bunch of corn, plus onions and some poblanos remaining from last week's box.  I'm going to try just dicing and lighting sauteeing the entire thing in a pan this time because I don't want to use the whole oven and the pan should give it all a nice sear.

The CSA box unexpectedly came about 12 hours later than usual last night, so I had to make dinner from what we already had on hand.  I ended up making a vegetarian version of these Disney cheeseburger pods (because I've wanted to try this for awhile) alongside some garlic bok choy.  The drink is a strawberry Jarritos I split with Simran.  The bok choy was a bit bitter, though that is likely due to the bok choy sitting in my fridge for the last week and not being at its freshest.  The cheeseburger filling was fantastic.  I used a package of Beyond Beef in place of the ground beef.  I don't buy Pillsbury biscuits, so I used my usual recipe for buttermilk biscuits (substituting unsweetened cashew yogurt thinned with water for the buttermilk because I didn't have buttermilk on hand), which is great but not ideal for this.  They tasted good, but there was so much bread material that the pods gave me and Simran stomach aches.  Also I don't know how I feel about steamed bread, let alone steamed biscuit.  It seemed fully cooked, but the lack of browning was weird.  If I wanted to make a weird cheeseburger-flavored meal again, I'd try it with wonton wrappers and make them into potstickers or something to reduce the ratio of bread material to filling.  But it would probably taste better to just cook some Beyond Meat burgers and eat them on a normal bun.  Those things aren't particularly healthy, but they're as tasty as any meat burger I can remember.

CSA Box #12

CSA box #12 has arrived!  It contains:  Roma tomatoes, shishito peppers, green beans, sweet corn, bell peppers, edamame soybeans, Italian garlic, eggplant, sweet onions, poblano peppers, melons, Russian banana potatoes, crowder peas, broccoli, brussels sprouts, red beets, joi choi, and tomatilloes.  

First I'll wash and freeze the beet greens for use in breakfast smoothies.  I'll boil the beets and cut them up and put them in the fridge for eating alongside random meals.  I'll cut up and refrigerate the melon for snacking.  I'll steam the edamame and chill it for snacking later.  I'll boil the crowder peas in either water or vegetable stock for eating plain whenever.  One thing I've learned this summer is that I enjoy fresh beans that have been minimally cooked.

I'm also going to pre-measure and chop up some tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and bell peppers and freeze them for making sambar later.  It takes very little time to make when you've already got the vegetables chopped and portioned out and can just dump the entire container into the soup pot.  I can even use up the poblanos this way if I don't have enough jalapenos on hand.  It's a forgiving soup.

My neighbors have already agreed to take the shishito peppers, which I haven't enjoyed and they've never tried.  I'm going to ask if they want the tomatilloes and maybe the sweet onions and some corn too. 

 

Korean Eggplant Tacos with Kimchi Mayo (Vedge, pg. 171)

This is my constant plan for any eggplant.  It is my current favorite dish to eat.

Garlic Bok Choy

 Planning to make this with the joi choi to go alongside the eggplant tacos.

Shaved Brussels Sprouts

 

Seared French beans with caper bagna cauda (Vedge, pg. 97)

Assuming I still have capers.  I have to check.

 

Pasta Salad

To use up the broccoli but also the salad dressing in my pantry that's slated to expire next month.  

Vegan Hashbrown Waffles

I bought a waffle maker this week.  I want to try turning some of our farm potatoes into this.

 

Fresh Marinara

Because I have so many fresh tomatoes I don't know what to do with them all.  It's a good problem to have, but it's also a race against time. 

I saw this recipe for green bean fries and dip so I made it too.  I had fresh green beans though, so I fried them the same way I do squash blossoms.  It's not hard, but it's incredibly time consuming pan frying this many individual green beans because you can only put so many in the pan at one time.

I also made bananas foster and more vanilla ice cream (the base recipe linked here, minus eggs because I had none, and plus 1 tbs good vanilla extract).

CSA Box #11

CSA box #11 has arrived.  It includes:  sweet corn, carrots, summer squash x3, German Butterball potatoes, tomatoes, Jersey Mac and early gold apples, green beans, green bell peppers x2, melons, ground cherries, Tuscan kale, squash blossoms, lima beans, Jimmy Nardello sweet peppers, garlic x2, a small head of green cabbage, cherry tomatoes, and onions.

The kale will get washed and tossed into the freezer for breakfast smoothies.  I'll dice up the melon and cut the carrots into sticks and de-paper the ground cherries for general snacking purposes.

Tonight's dinner will be fried squash blossoms and as much other random stuff as I can make.  Lima beans (plain?) for protein.  Some manner of stuffed sweet peppers.

Lima Beans

I want these as plain as possible.  I've only ever had lima beans from a can before and want to see how these taste on their own.  My goal here is really just to consume enough protein that I don't feel insanely hungry after dinner, and beans are great for that. 

Italian Fried Zucchini Blossoms

Because I love them and see no point in finding another zucchini blossom recipe ever. 

Mini Stuffed Sweet Peppers 

I don't have any goat cheese, but I bet I could blend up the neufchafel in my fridge with some fresh garlic and dried herbs and make this work.  

No Bake Vegan Stuffed Mini Peppers 

I may or may not try this depending on what else I end up doing with the sweet peppers and how many are leftover.

Air Fried Bloomin' Onion  

I don't have egg on hand, so I would make a vegan batter akin to the gram flour-based one in the popcorn okra recipe I've been enjoying.  No idea how this would play out, but it seems worth a shot (because bloomin' onion is delicious) and it wouldn't create too much waste if it goes badly. 

Kadai Tofu  

To use up some of the peppers from the farm box and because I don't love bell peppers in general but I do love kadai paneer.

Patta Gobi Aloo Subzi 

To use up the cabbage and some of the potatoes from the farm box.  Whenever I don't know what to do with a piece of produce from the farm box, one of the things I do now is just type it into the search bar on VeganRicha.com.  That's how I found this and several other good recipes I've made lately.

Vegan Elote Salad 

Because I love elote and keep having so much corn.  I'll set aside one of the red sweet peppers for this.

Back-to-School Pizza Night 

 

CSA Box #10

CSA box #10 has arrived!  It includes:  2 sugar cube melons, sweet corn x6, green beans, red thumb fingerling potatoes, assorted tomatoes, 2 white onions, 2 small crowns of broccoli, 3 tequila bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, okra, Italian basil, a bag of summer apples, eggplant x3, ground cherries, purslane, cipolinni onions, and purple carrots.

 

I'm going to dice up the melons first.  The apples and ground cherries will be for snacking plain, though I'm not sure if these apples are the sort people eat plain.  If not, I'll make a new plan (applesauce?).  The carrots I'll cut into sticks for snacking and wash and freeze the greens for breakfast smoothies because I haven't tried that yet but literally every green I've done that with has turned out fine.  I'm going to cut the broccoli into florets for Sameer and I to eat raw.  I made a fresh batch of vegan ranch dressing yesterday, so I can eat the broccoli with that.  I don't have fresh basil plans as I'm a little sick of summer rolls, and I already have vegan pesto in the fridge, so I'm going to get out the food dehydrator and dry the basil to use at my leisure later.

 

Baked Popcorn Okra 

I don't think I've made a recipe from VeganRicha yet that I haven't liked.  She's very reliable and currently my favorite source of recipes.  I made this one a couple weeks ago when we got okra in the farm box and it was great so I'm making it again.

 

Korean Eggplant Tacos with Kimchi Mayo (Vedge, pg. 170)

I've made these twice now and love them.  I have kimchi mayo leftover in the fridge from making them again this past week.  It's a bit of a time investment, especially scaled up to three eggplants this week, but it isn't hard and we always eat all of it.

 

Summer Corn with Green Chile Cream (Vedge, pg. 101)

This came out a little spicy last week.  The poblanos didn't seem fully cooked and nothing charred the way it was supposed to despite cooking longer than the recipe indicated.  It was fine and we ate it, but I feel sure this recipe can be better than I've made it.  I blame the oil for everything not charring so I'm doing it dry this time and I'm putting the poblanos in whole separately to make sure the skin gets nicely blackened. 

 

Boiled Corn on the Cob 

Because there is just so much corn.

Barbati Aloo Subzi

I'm not sure if I'll end up making this because Sameer and Simran didn't like it as much as I did but it is my favorite way to eat green beans so far, and we have quite a few potatoes to use too.

Steamed Purslane

I've never had purslane before (though I did eat a piece today and it has a nice flavor) and this recipe sounds like an easy, tasty way to use it up.

Cucumber with Sambal and Peanuts (Vedge, pg. 31)

 

[Edited 8/9/2020:  It's Sunday.  Tomorrow I will make the okra and barbati aloo subzi and some moong dal tadka and zucchini flatbread.  None of these recipes are new to me, so I think it'll be fine even though it's a lot.  I'll eat leftovers for meals the next day while Sameer fasts.  Wednesday dinner will be Korean eggplant tacos, cucumber sambal, and summer corn with green chile cream.  I'm writing this out so I don't have to remember later how I plotted this out.]

The bowl contains moong dal tadka.  The plate contains (clockwise from top) Forager brand unsweetened plain cashew yogurt, barbati aloo subzi, popcorn okra, brown basmati rice.  Second photo is the zucchini flatbread (all whole wheat flour, no oil).