You know summer’s on its way out when the sweet corn stops coming… sigh. I do love autumn, but I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to wearing sundresses and not needing a jacket when I take my pup outside. Luckily for me, it’s still quite hot in Madison, so I can ignore the dearth of sweet corn and carry on in blissful ignorance, pretending that my favorite season will never end.

It doesn’t hurt that I’ve got lots of delicious produce, either. This week’s box contained two giant bags of tomatoes, and tomatoes are nothing if not summery! S and I received our CSA box last night and have already gobbled up three of those tomatoes, just sliced up and eaten in their juicy, naked goodness.

Friends, what on earth should I do with green tomatoes?! I know that fried green tomatoes are a thing (and a movie?) but I don’t really want to fry up my fresh little lovelies. How else should I enjoy them?

If it helps, here are some of the other pieces o’ produce I’m working with:

Not that broccoli, though – that went into the Broccoli Pesto from Everyday Happy Herbivore. The pesto was creamy and green and very, very pungent. Even after using a single clove of garlic in place of the recommended three, my breath was redolent of garlic for the rest of the night. Anyway, aside from the broccoli, all of those veggies are available for your cooking suggestions. As are these:

That’s perhaps not the best photograph, but in that bag are some big ol’ beets and a couple of peppers. And next to them is a big bunch of beans. And what beans they are!

Have you ever encountered dragon tongue beans before? I haven’t! Such a pretty, striking pattern – the purple streaks are so similar to those of the eggplant I talked about on Labor Day.

Not a bad selection for the end(ish) of summer, eh? All told, our box contained:

• Anaheim peppers
• Basil
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Carmen sweet peppers
• Cucumbers
• Dragon tongue beans
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Parsley
• Red bell pepper
• Red potatoes
• Tomatoes (assorted heirlooms, slicers, salad)
• Yellow bell peppers
• Yellow onions

I am going to be so sad when my CSA ends and I stop receiving giant boxes of veggies. The farm does offer a winter share, but it’s a bit pricy – $230 for four boxes or $125 for two. I’ll just stick with mostly local produce from my beloved co-op during the winter months.

But enough about the winter – blech! Back to summer. Tell me – what should I make with my veggies? How should I use those gorgeous beans?

Curious about what other folks are getting in their CSA boxes this time of year? Check out the What’s in the Box? link party for this week!

One of the most disheartening things about returning from a lengthy vacation (other than that whole “back to the daily grind” thing…) is the inevitably empty fridge that awaits you. And if it’s not empty, it most likely houses the rapidly decomposing remains of leftovers you forgot to finish before leaving. Upon our return, S and I were met with a couple of shrunken ears of corn, a bowl of leftover carrot slaw growing small bubbles (bubbles!) of mold, and a sad, shriveled cucumber half – not exactly the makings of gourmet fare. Our fridge does house a healthy amount of condiments, seeds, and nuts, but again, they’re nothing really meal-worthy on their own. So, tossing my guilt at wasting food down the garbage disposal along with the moldy remains of meals past, I hastened to the co-op not long after our return. I did not, however, purchase very much – I knew that we’d be getting our sixth CSA box this week, so I didn’t want to crowd the fridge before the veggies arrived.

And what veggies they are! My basket was filled with a rainbow of produce:

Thankfully, the glut of zucchini and cucumber has finally slowed down, and now we’re getting fewer long green things and more varied veggies. So… what’s in the box?

• Anaheim peppers
• Carmen sweet peppers
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Edamame
• Eggplant
• Green beans
• Kale
• Onions
• Sweet corn
• Tomatoes (assorted heirlooms, slicers, salad)
• Yellow bell pepper
• Zucchini

This might be my favorite box yet! Kale, three types of peppers, eggplant, sweet corn… and edamame! Just look how fuzzy it is:

I’ve never seen edamame this fresh! Should I eat it plain or do something fancy with it? I’ll also have to come up with lots of uses for  two whole bags of tomatoes:

Not a bad haul, eh? I always feel like I should do something exciting and creative with my veggies, but I often resort to simple meals. After bringing home this haul, for example, I cooked up a pot of lentils, sauteed a chopped tomato, a bit of diced onion, a diced small carrot, and the kernels from one ear of corn, and threw it all together with some salt, pepper, and a couple squeezes of lime juice. It was simple, flavorful, and perfectly satisfying… not to mention easy! Then I whipped up a raw salad of lots of diced veggies to bring to work tomorrow. Yet I barely made a dent in this stash – my fridge is now brimming with produce… and none of it rotten or moldy. ;)

What’re your suggestions for how to use my haul? Are you more successful than I am at finishing leftovers before going on vacation?

Curious about what other folks are getting in their CSA boxes this time of year? Check out the What’s in the Box? link party for this week!

When we received our last CSA box, Madison was drought central. Soon after that post, though, Mama Nature decided to relent a little and granted us with a few rainstorms. Although the much-appreciated rain can’t undo the damage already caused by lack of water, they’ll definitely help some crops in the area perk up and start producin’. In the meantime, our farm continues to provide us with lots of tasty treats.

This is one of our most bountiful boxes yet! We received:

• Basil
• Beets
• Bell peppers (green & purple)
• Cherry tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Muskmelon
• Summer squash
• Sweet corn
• Sweet onion
• Watermelon
• Zucchini

YES! It’s the first of the sweet corn! We found nine ears in our box and demolished four of them last night. ;) S and I don’t have a grill, so we roasted them in the oven – so, so good, especially when paired with sauteed tofu, summer squash, and bell pepper. I was also pretty excited for those melons.

I wasn’t familiar with muskmelon, but after devouring about half of it last night, S and I agree that it’s indistinguishable from a cantaloupe. And really, who cares about the nomenclature when you’ve got a sweet, juicy melon to enjoy?

If it seems like S and I are being a bit gluttonous, making a decent dent in our stash on the first night we welcomed it home, you’re right. But we have good reason – like I mentioned in my last post, we’re heading to Rhode Island tomorrow, and we’ll be there for five days. So we want to eat up some of our goodies before leaving them to languish in the fridge. I’m sure most of the veggies will last just fine, but we definitely want to use up that eggplant tonight!

In fact, I had grand plans last night to whip up some sort of cold pasta or grain salad for lunch today, something that would use up a ton of the veggies, and I wanted to make zucchini bread as well. Feel free to insert your favorite cliche about the best laid plans or good intentions or whatever, because Moria had other plans for us. She swallowed a good inch or two of a corn cob (totally my fault – I let her gnaw on it and then didn’t watch her closely), which is apparently Not Good because corn cobs are not digestible and can get stuck in a doggie’s innards. I ended up bringing her to the emergency vet when I couldn’t make her vomit on my own with a dose of hydrogen peroxide (per the vet’s instructions!). After the vet gave her a stronger emetic, she puked that corn cob right up. She’s fine now, and never will I ever again give her a corn cob. ;)

Anyway, that affair took up most of the evening, so I nixed my plans to make a salad. I did make a zucchini bread, though, and put together quick fruit salads with watermelon and muskmelon. So that’s something!

Anyway, this’ll probably be my only post until next week – I doubt I’ll have time to post when I’m in RI. We’re also taking a day trip to NYC to visit one of S’s friends, and I’m really excited about that – I haven’t been to the city for maybe five years, and never as a vegan. You can bet we’ll be hitting up Lula’s Sweet Apothecary for some vegan ice cream, but what other vegan-friendly joints should we try? Blossom seems like a must-visit…

What delicious dish should I make with my remaining veggies? Where should I go in NYC? And what else should I avoid giving my dog?! (I swear I’m usually a responsible pet owner!)

Curious about what other folks are getting in their CSA boxes this time of year? Check out the What’s in the Box? link party for this week!

It’s our third CSA box already! To be honest, S and I still have some veggies left over from our last box, which we received two weeks ago. I blame moving.

Before I show you what’s in the box this week, I want you to look at something else. This is what my backyard (by which I mean the “quad” outside my apartment building) looks like right now:

This is what happens when the Madison area undergoes a drought. It’s not pretty. You can see, in the distance, some green grass – that’s where the sprinklers are. But the grass that doesn’t get water is more like straw – it’s yellow, bone-dry, and crunchy. Not good. Unsurprisingly, many small farms in the area are not doing well. CSA farms without proper irrigation aren’t able to provide their share owners with many veggies… and it doesn’t help that we’ve had record heat this summer, upwards of 100 degrees. Luckily, though, my CSA farm has the infrastructure in place to keep its crops irrigated, so my box this week was not at all lacking:

So – what’s in the box?

• Basil
• Beets
• Bottle onions
• Broccoli
• Cucumbers
• Fennel
• Garlic
• Head lettuce
• Rainbow chard
• Summer squash
• Sungold tomatoes (!)
• Zucchini

Not a bad selection at all. If you can’t tell by that exclamation mark, I’m very excited for the tomatoes. :) Please excuse the shoddy photo, though. I had to take it indoors at 10:00 PM last night because I was out late doing a volunteer project (more about that later).

I’m glad that my CSA is continuing to produce lots and lots of yummy veggies, and I’m glad I invested in it and threw my lot in with my CSA farm. Because that’s really what the CSA model is all about – shared risk and, hopefully, shared rewards. Folks like me who shell out a couple hundred dollars before the growing season even begins in earnest make it possible for our CSA farms to do what they do. We share in their successes, but it also means that we have to share in their failures, too. If my CSA didn’t have the irrigation infrastructure it does, I might have received a very different box yesterday. But that’s just the way it goes – farming is not a guaranteed success (duh), and when we purchase a CSA share, we’re acknowledging that fact.

So what about you? Is there a drought in your area, too? Have you noticed its effects in your CSA share or at a farmers’ market? And, of course, what would you make with these veggies?

Curious about what other folks are getting in their CSA boxes this time of year? Check out the What’s in the Box? link party for this week!

Oh my – it’s already been two weeks since we received our first CSA share! This share is a little less bountiful than the previous one, but I’m not complaining – we’re moving tomorrow/Friday (!), and I’d rather not have to transport loads of produce to our new place. This week, everything fits in my basket:

So… what’s in the box?

• Arugula
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Cucumbers
• Head lettuce
• Kohlrabi
• Parsley
• Pearl onions
• Snow peas
• Zucchini

I’m very excited about that cabbage – you can’t really see it in the picture, but it’s huge! I’m very fond of this humble vegetable, and I’m looking forward to using it in a big batch of Mexican Cabbage from the Happy Herbivore Cookbook. And last week S used our first kohlrabi in this surprisingly tasty kale and kohlrabi dish, so we might have to recreate it with this week’s kohlrabi.

What would you make with this haul?

Curious about what other folks are getting in their CSA boxes this time of year? Check out the What’s in the Box? link party for this week!

CSA season has officially begun! Last night, S and I picked up the first of our boxes – we’ll get one every other week from now through mid October. We get our shares from Crossroads Community Farm; my ex-roommate and I bought the same option from them two summers ago, and it was fantastic. And the price is right. It’s $350 for an “everyother” share, but S and I both got a $100 refund from our health insurance company to put towards that purchase. So that brings it down to $150. Split between the two of us, that’s only $75 each for an entire summer’s worth of fresh, local, certified organic produce. Hellz to the yeah!

We were thrilled with the contents of our first box – check it out:

Yum yum yum. Let’s look a little closer at those gorgeous peas, shall we?

We didn’t get solely vegetables, though…

…we also received a whole lotta STRAWBERRIES! They’re small, sweet, and absolutely gorgeous. Two years ago when I did the CSA, it was a bad season for strawberries, so we only received one tiny bag of some sad berries throughout the whole summer. But this magnificent harvest bodes well for my fruit-loving self!

That’s a lot of produce! Here’s a list of everything the share contained:

• Bok choy (This wasn’t included in the list on the farm’s website, but we definitely got some!)
• Cilantro
• Garlic scapes
• Head lettuce
• Kohlrabi
• Radish
• Russian kale
• Salad mix
• Salad turnips
• Scallions
• Spinach
• Strawberries
• Sugar snap peas (The farm’s website listed them as “snow peas,” but I don’t think they are!)

So, what did we do with our score? S and I lightly pan-friend some marinated tofu along with the sugar snap peas, bok choy, and garlic scapes. We cooked up a bundle of thick rice noodles, tossed them with the veggies, smothered the whole mess in a modified version of the Cheater Pad Thai sauce from The Happy Herbivore Cookbook, and topped it with some scallions. Delicious! I snapped a quick pic, but it’s not really blog-worthy so y’all can use your imaginations.

I also prepared some giant chopped salads for our lunches today. They feature salad mix, head lettuce, salad turnips, radishes, and a couple other things from the fridges. And of course we brought strawberries for dessert today. ;)

Have you participated in a CSA? What would you make with this week’s share?

Curious about what other folks are getting in their CSA boxes this time of year? Check out the What’s in the Box? link party for this week!