Week Five

Ok, I feel like I'm almost to real-time... today we're picking up week seven's vegetables. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I can be caught up.

So, for week five we got
chard
parsley
lettuce mix
cukes
a variety of zucchini/squashes

Week four- pickles

These easy, delicious pickles are a great way to use the millions of cucumbers that invade each summer. We've received a few from the CSA, and our backyard plants are going gangbusters. There are a lot of cucumbers around our house right now.

As a nice side benefit, if you have to cut an inch or so off the cuke for it to fit in the Ball jar, you can slice a couple cuke coins and place them on your tired, hot eyes.

This recipe came from Food and Wine magazine a couple summers ago.

Spicy Dill Quick Pickles

3 quart size Ball jars

veggies

3 T kosher salt

2 T sugar

1 1/4 c. distilled white vinegar (5% acidity)

2 T coriander seeds

6 cloves garlic, halved

4-6 long red or green hot chiles, halved lengthwise

16 dill sprigs

Pack veggies into 2 clean quart jars-- this takes 5-6 cucumbers. Combine the salt, sugar, vinegar, coriander and garlic in the 3rd jar. Shake to mix until salt and sugar are dissolved. Add 2 cups of water, then pour the brine over the veggies. Tuck the chiles and dill between the vegetables. Add enough water to keep the veggies submerged. Close the jars and refrigerate overnight or for up to a month.

helpful notes...

*After I shake up the brine jar, I use a spoon to scoop and evenly distribute the garlic and coriander seeds.

*I got canning jars at Meijer, and saw them at Marsh, too.

* Other veggies can be used. Zucchini perform well here, as do green beans. When using green beans, blanch them before canning. I would think broccoli and cauliflower could stand to be blanched, but carrots can be raw.

Week four- fried kohlrabi

This is a great, hearty dish that my mom told me to try. It's diced potato and kohlrabi fried with green onions in a bit of bacon grease. The bacon was added back into the dish before we ate it. It's basically just a little twist on fried potatoes-- the kohlrabi adds a unique flavor, and potatoes and onions fried in bacon grease is hard to resist.

Week four- salad dressing

I'm here to tell ya, this salad mix from the CSA is second to none. It is absolutely delicious and lasts forever in the fridge. We grilled a steak, steamed a couple red potatoes, and made this great vinaigrette to top our steakhouse salad. In addition to the salad greens we used some fresh parsley and sliced cucumber for the salad base.


Herby Vinaigrette

puree 1 hard boiled egg yolk with 3 T white balsamic vinegar, 1 T brown mustard, 1 T water, a crushed garlic clove, and a bit of salt and pepper. Using a immersion blender or magic bullet or something keep blending the vinegar mixture while slowing adding 5 T extra virgin olive oil. Stir in 2-3 T fresh herbs.

This vinaigrette was great on a big salad, but especially delicious over steamed red skin potatoes.

Week Four

Alright! Looks like week four brought us

green onions
kohlrabi
a big cuke
broccoli
cilantro
salad mix

It's been hard to use the cilantro because we don't have any tomatoes from the share or our backyard yet.

Week three- zucchini and squash

These are some dee-lish zucchini pancakes with a horseradish dill sour cream. I used a zucchini or two and that weird looking squash as well as a couple of green onions. Oh, and the cheese I used for these is from our local dairy place, Trader's Point Creamery. That's a really neat place and their cheeses are great.

Here's the recipe, because these are pretty easy and really yummy:

1 lb zucchini, shredded

1-2 green onions, chopped

1/2 c. shredded cheese

1/4 c. flour

2 eggs, beaten

salt and pepper

fresh herbs

butter and/or cooking oil

sour cream

dried dill

raw horseradish

Mix zucchini, green onions, cheese, and flour. Add the beaten eggs and salt and pepper. Add some fresh herbs if you want. Cook in a medium high skillet that has a couple tablespoons of butter and/or oil in it. Use a quarter cup measuring cup to spoon the batter into the skillet. Cook about 3 minutes a side, till browned and done.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream that you've mixed with a little bit of dried dill and raw horseradish.

Week three- cabbage and green onions

These veggies just look beautiful. We got a great head of cabbage and some wonderful green onions from the share, and since I had an extra kohlrabi I used that in my cole slaw, too. The carrots I got at (gasp) Meijer. So, I took all that stuff and.....

Pushed it all into my brand new food processor! I've been wanting one of these for a long time, and came across a great deal on one at Costco the other week. This is the best time of year to have one, of course, with all the fresh veggies that need to be sliced and grated. It made very quick work of prepping my cole slaw ingredients.

The finished product! Looks good! The only bad thing is that it gave me an overwhelming desire to eat KFC fried chicken. So one night I stopped by the KFC on my way home. The KFC was kinda gross, but the cole slaw was yummy. Maybe I need to work on a fried chicken recipe for my next batch of cole slaw. I used the America's Test Kitchen recipe for cole slaw, if you care.