Polenta and CSA

Today we got another share from our CSA and it included, lettuce, hot peppers, bell peppers, beets with tops, spring onions, basil, tomatoes, summer squash, turnips, kohlrabi, carrots and radishes. 

So for dinner tonight I decided on my starch (polenta) and went to work.  I ended up making a goat cheese polenta with sauteed veggies. 

I cooked the polenta (corn grits) as directed and then once it was cooked, stirred in some local garlic goat cheese.  It made the polenta very creamy and super tasty. 

For the veggies, I chopped up the summer squash, hot peppers, bell peppers, spring onions, garlic and tomatoes.  Added some salt, pepper, and Italian seasonings to taste and it was complete.  It was a very quick and simple meal but was filling and delicious.  And the great thing about it is you could use whatever vegetables/cheese you have on hand. 

I still need to do something with all this cabbage we have.  Any ideas?

CSA and Pesto

I have been behind on updating our CSA share every week and what we do with the vegetables we receive.  Really we have been receiving a lot of veggies and sometimes we don't know what to do with it all.  Like lettuce, how many salads can one person eat?  Or cabbage, we have two heads of cabbage in the fridge right now.  I need to make some sauerkraut before it gets old. 

We have also been receiving tons of peas, dill, cilantro, carrots, lettuce, spinach, garlic scapes, basil, green onions, turnips, fennel, peppers, squash, and it goes on and on.  I broke down and gave away a lot of dill and cilantro.  I can only do so much with dill and cilantro is repulsive to me anymore. 

With a lot of our veggies we have been making stir frys. 

This one had rice noodles, garlic scapes, green onions, peas and bok choy, along with our normal seasonings. 

The other night Jeff was nice enough to make a wonderful dinner, the best in a while.  He made pesto with all of our basil we have received, plus some pine nuts and jalapenos.  He also sauteed some peppers and zucchini to add to the pesto and pasta.  He also made a wonderful balsamic reduction and made bruschetta with it.  It was amazing.

Sorry I don't have recipes for these, we just kind of made these dishes from our heads and knowing the basics of these dishes. 

CSA: Week 2

In this weeks share we received beet greens, spinach, cilantro, dill, borage greens, lettuce, peas, green onion and a basil plant.  So of course we made another massive salad the first day.  We also made an awesome stir fry with the beet greens, green onion and peas.

We also added some carrot and sweet mini peppers.

The great thing about stir fry is you can add whatever you want.  It is us to you and what you like.  We mixed our veggies with some baked tofu and brown rice.  We used soy sauce, hoisin sauce, red chili sauce and hot sauce to spice it up.  And it was delicious.

Since it is summer I have been in the mood for some sangria, so I made some to enjoy with our stir fry.

You can see our basil plant in the window too.

So in this sangria there is:

750 ml of dry red wine
1 lime juiced
1 orange juiced
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 Brandy
1/4 cup orange flavored liquer
1 orange thinly sliced
2 apricots sliced
2 plums sliced
Then you let this chill for at least an hour, then you add in 750 ml of sparkling water and enjoy.

So it is officially summer with the sangria, it is great to enjoy when it is hot outside.

CSA

So this year we have a CSA (Community Sustained Agriculture) share.  This is when we pay a local farm a certain amount of money and then we get a share of their produce.  Our particular farm is a bio-dynamic farm.  We are doing a summer and winter share plus a fruit share.  Our shares started last week and with that share we received, snow peas, dill, cilantro, sauerkraut, turnip greens, lettuce, green garlic, amaranth greens, and borage greens.  With all the greens we made a massive salad with some local goat cheese and a homemade honey vinaigrette . 

And it was one of the best salads I have ever had!

With the sauerkraut we made some reubens, one with portabella mushrooms and one with tempeh. 

With the cilantro we made taco salad, and with the dill we made tzatziki. 

So far we have been very happy with the share and cannot wait to see what we get in the coming weeks.

Recently we also enjoyed some yellow watermelon, a nice heirloom that is not seen often.