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).

CSA Box #9

CSA box #9 is here.  It includes: bi-color sweetcorn x4, new yellow potatoes, a sizable bag of tomatillos, jalapenos, tropical melons x2, cucumbers x2, eggplant (1 white, 1 long dark purple), red beets, tequila sweet peppers x2, one green bell pepper, green beans, cherry tomatoes, Japanese green onions, 1 small head yellow cauliflower, Korean melons x2, cranberry beans, 3 bulbs of music garlic, several poblano peppers, basil, and mix tomatoes.

First I'll wash and freeze any beet greens that seem in decent condition to use in breakfast smoothies.  I'll dice up the four melons and put them in the fridge for snacking and post-meal fruit.  I will boil the beets, slice them, and put them in the fridge to eat later.  I will probably have to roast the poblanos because every poblano recipe I know involves that.  I don't really have to try to use up the garlic or jalapenos (I don't know how to make the tilde on here) because they go into so many things.

Veggie Summer Rolls
I'm planning to make these tonight while the basil and green onions are still fresh.  It'll also use one of the tequila peppers (in place of the red), a cucumber, and some of the tofu and carrots currently in my fridge.

Shakshuka
I was looking up how to use cranberry beans when this recipe came up.  So I'm going to make the other linked shakshuka recipe from AllRecipes but replace the mushrooms with fresh cranberry beans.  I will probably shell and cook the beans today.  This recipe will use up some or all of the eggs leftover from baking my birthday cake.

Vegan Nashville Hot Cauliflower Bites
The cauliflower will become this.  It's pretty easy and will definitely get eaten.  Sameer likes it as much as I do.

Barbati Aloo Subzi and Beetroot Paratha
This will use up some of the potatoes and all the green beans, and the paratha will use some of the cooked beets (I figure I'll eat the remaining beets plain straight from the fridge).

Korean Eggplant Tacos with Kimchi Mayo (Vedge, pg. 171)
The eggplants can go into this.  It's a little time consuming, but it was fantastic last time (Sameer liked the eggplant, but not the kimchi mayo; I like both) and ensures there will be no leftover eggplant.  I don't have any cabbage this week, but I will probably shred some carrots and buy extra cilantro to fill the tacos.  The whites of the new green onions can go into them too.

Summer Corn with Green Chile Cream (Vedge)
I can't remember if that's the exact name of the corn.  It's basically a vegan elote cup.

Kohlrabi Salad with White Beans & Horseradish (Vedge, pg. 38)

Cucumber Salad
I'll use one or two of the cucumbers I have in this and replace the white onion with green onion whites because I have those.  I also have extra dill I dried last time some came in the farm box, so I can use that here too.  My plan is the eat this with some of the cherry tomatoes and consider it a light lunch.  I should probably go ahead and make this today.

Enchiladas Verdes
Sameer said he'll make the tomatillos into a salsa verde again (which will also use up a good portion of the garlic and at least one jalapeno), so I can make the salsa into enchiladas verdes stuffed with spinach and topped with monterey jack.  I thought I'd written this recipe up at some point -- it's just something I make based on the enchiladas at a place I can't remember the name of in uptown Hoboken -- but I can't find it.

I haven't made plans for all the bell peppers, and there are still two leftover from last week, so I think I need to start chopping them up and storing them in the freezer for use in stirfry and soups at a later date.

[Edited 8/4/2020] Ice Cream Sandwich
Sim and I made oatmeal butterscotch cookies last week (they've been in the freezer to maintain freshness and also so I don't keep eating six of them a day) and then made vanilla ice cream later in the week, and tonight they became Simran's ice cream sandwich dessert.

CSA Box #8

CSA box #8 has arrived!  It includes:  bi-color sweetcorn x4, tropea onions, carrots, yellow cauliflower, yellow summer squash, green beans (actually green this time), 2 green bell peppers, one small head of red cabbage, tropical melon, 2 Italian eggplant, Tuscan kale, 2 small cucumbers, 2 Korean melons, kohlrabi x3, bag of tomatillos, bag of melrose peppers (look like shishito peppers but allegedly are sweet and have no heat; one is red), okra, and 1 head romaine. 

I already tore up, washed, and bagged the kale and put it in the freezer for use in breakfast smoothies.  I peeled and cut the carrots into sticks for eating plain or with hummus.  I diced up the melons, which are delightful, especially the tropical one.  I'd never had Korean melons before, and they are white and sweet inside, but the tropical one looks (and sort of tastes) like a hybrid of honeydew and cantaloupe (yellow outsides, green insides, but with a tinge of cantaloupe color inside too), but it's more tender and flavorful than any melon I've ever had before.

My goal this week is to eat more of the produce plain without a lot of added work or added calories.  I don't know how else we can eat this much food in one week.  So we plan to snack on some of the carrots, cucumbers, peppers, and tomatillos as crudites.  Aside from that, here are the recipes:

Baked Popcorn Okra

Lemony Steamed Green Beans
Because it looks easy and healthy and I can do this with the steamer basket while my corn boils in the water below.  

Boiled corn on the cob
Three for eating on the cob tonight, one for cutting the corn off and putting it into stuffed peppers another day.

Kohlrabi Salad with White Beans & Horseradish (Vedge, pg. 38)
I've made this before.  It basically tastes like my favorite sort of creamy potato salad, minus the potatoes.  I'm going to go easy on the dressing this time because it was a bit overpowering before.  I'm planning to make these first four recipes for dinner tonight. 


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

Red cabbage slaw

Roasted Cauliflower with Black Vinegar and Kimchi Cream (Vedge, pg. 90)

Baby Cucumber Sambal (Vedge)

 


Avocado Tomatillo Salsa Verde 
or Tomatillo Salsa Verde

Cucumber Tomatillo Gazpacho 

Ratatouille
If I only end up using one of the Italian eggplants in the Korean tacos, I can use the other one here.  I also have a bunch of yellow squash, sweet peppers, and tomatoes that could be used in this.

Stuffed Mini Peppers
I'm going to try cutting the melrose peppers lengthwise and stuffing them with different things, including but not limited to the black beans and quinoa in the link above, and in some others maybe using some vegan cheese that's in my fridge mixed with I'm not sure what yet (not sure how well vegan cheese would roast under high heat...).  I also have some mozzarella and pizza sauce and black olives and an open package of veg pepperoni in the fridge that could be used to attempt pizza flavored ones.  Stuffed peppers are reasonably forgiving and I can just put them all on a pan and roast them together.


 

Summer Cookout-Style Dinner

These are foods I think of as summertime cookout flavors, even though I'm making everything inside my kitchen and there are no burgers, hotdogs, or BBQ.  I'm really just posting this because I'm making so many side dishes tonight that I need easy access to links to all the recipes in one place or I will inevitably close a window and lose my place while making dinner.  The goal for tonight is to prepare as many of my farm box vegetables as possible.  I'm banking on having plenty of leftovers to eat tomorrow when Sameer is fasting.

Vegan Fried Chicken
It's really air-fried soy curls, but it's quick and easy and it tastes good, especially with ranch dip, which I'm going to make out of the cashew yogurt in my fridge that needs to be eaten this week.

Spicy Cauliflower Wings
Because it'll be easier than the Vedge cauliflower recipe I had planned on doing (I'll do that one next week -- the email from the farm said we're getting cauliflower again on Friday).  Plus I've made this before when I had a cold or the flu or something and needed spiciness and it was really good.  Again, served with ranch.  It's entirely possible I'll be the only one eating these on account of spiciness.

Roasted Potatoes
Because I don't want to make potato salad and I'll be using the oven anyway for the cauliflower.

Corn on the Cob
Simran insists on butter, but I like it with just a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice.

Sauteed Fennel with Garlic 
This isn't a summer cookout food.  I'm not even sure I'll end up making it as it calls for 400% more fennel than I have, and I would need to make my own tomato juice (not sure how that would go).  I just don't know what to do with the single bulb of fennel that keeps showing up in farm boxes.

Zucchini Fritters
Summer squash is infinite.  I used to think I could never have too much because you can sneak it into so many things, but recipes never call for you to sneak multiple large squash into anything.  Fried food tastes good though, so this seems like a way to eat it.

[Edited after dinner:  This is WAY too much food to try to make in one day.  Do not attempt.  I ended up just throwing the fennel in with the potatoes (it burned, but it didn't adversely affect the potatoes) and skipped making the vegan fried chicken altogether.  I'll probably make it tomorrow to eat with the leftovers.]