Tuesday's take

Yes, I picked up my share on Tuesday. Yes, I forgot to blog.

Jean moved in yesterday (at 8pm!). So she and I plan to face the fridge full of veggies. I am trying to put away for the winter, but so far I've just frozen some fruit and herbs. But I know that, come January, I will really want to eat those fruits and herbs.

This week's take:

• 1 watermelon (not sure if it's red or yellow).
• 1 cantaloupe.
• Lots of tomatoes, 4 in the shed, a pint of cherry, 8 other small ones, 1 orchard peach, and 4 heirloom. Hooray for gazpacho!
• 1 bag of salad mix.
• 1 head of lettuce, that I didn't bother to take because I still have lettuce.
• 8 stems kale.
• 1 head of garlic.
• 3/4 of a bag of mix-n-match...we now have small onions! but were limited to 2, plus I got a ton of peppers, some fennel, and beets.
• Lots of herbs, all of which are now frozen: thyme, wintermint, parsley, and dill.

It's time to make some good roasted veggies in oil and garlic. I made a veggie sausage stew that came out terrible this week....can't win them all! My gazpacho was good though.

My sister Christine turns 25 today. Maybe she wants lettuce for her birthday?

Food food food!

Jean's not moving in until Saturday. I had friends over yesterday, so of course we ate farmshare food. The difference between this year's visit and last is that this year they have a baby! They are trying to teach the baby to like veggies, so she was eating tomatoes and lettuce. I guess the baby is a self-proclaimed vegetarian already...she'll eat broccoli but spits out meat. Or maybe it's that she only has four teeth!

We made (I very rarely just cook and have people eat...normally I invite/force my guests to help cooking...I think this is due to menu ambition and lack of skill) fried pork chops in a nice Worcestershire sauce with Butt Rub. I was watching the Butt Rub guys on The Food Network, and they won a major BBQ contest, so now I've been using the stuff, even though it had been sitting on the shelf unused for months. And it's yum stuff.

We (well Paul) made a lettuce, tomato, pepper salad with olive oil and salt. Then we had pat-a-pan and two-toned squash in garlic and olive oil. And now I'm out of olive oil, alas! We also had some spinach walnut tortellini from Whole Foods that Elena left behind. Then, of course, yellow watermelon.

Today I made some yellow watermelon popsicles and put a small chunk of peach in each one. Then I had all this watermelon puree left. I added chunks of cantaloupe, a few big spoonfuls of Greek yogurt, and some of my local honey. It's from the Boston Honey Company. Puree puree puree. The smoothie came out gentle and sweet.

Elena's made it to South Korea, and has figured out how to use her rice cooker and hot plate. Hopefully she survives without an oven or microwave! She also went and bought a spicy pork soup, so she had to drink lots of water, so she had to use a squatty potty the first time. Yay!

Saying goodbye

This morning I dropped off Elena at the airport for her South Korea trip. She'll be gone a year or two. Or who knows. It didn't hit me until she was hugging me goodbye, and then I started to cry and still well up every time I think about it.

We had an impromptu party with Papa John's pizza (a rare treat!). I had gone to the farm before I went home, and we all shared half a yellow watermelon. People were fascinated (and suspicious). A couple people sniffed it and said "It seems to smell like a watermelon" and then took several slices. It's just so...watery and sweet.

This week's share:

• 2 Yellow watermelons.
• 1 cantaloupe.
• 2 heavily bee-stung peaches, ugly but sweet.
• 2 heads of lettuce.
• 1 head of garlic.
• 10 collard greens.
• 4 field tomatoes.
• 1 bag of mix n' match, and I chose, peppers, an eggplant, corn, hot peppers, and scallions.
• Pick your own tomatoes, including cherry tomatoes, some small tomatoes, and a couple heirlooms.
• 1 pint of beans.
• Lots of herbs.
• 37 stems of flowers...it being Elena's last day, I hunted around the patch some more and came up with a pretty cool bouquet.

Jean moves in next week, so she'll have plenty to eat!

Not enough veggies

I spent the last week as a tourist. For me this means eating lots of food I never eat. I spent time with my college roommate's family, where they serve me yummy spicy curries that I can't stop eating. I ate a huge chickpea curry burrito at Bueno Y Sano in Northampton, MA and blueberry ice cream in Amherst. Then I went to New York City for the first time in my life, and had a yummy Reuben, unlimited breakfast buffets, Irish pub food, English tea house comfort food, ya know, all the good stuff. It was the last trip Elena and I will take together for a long time.

And so, I gained five pounds and can really feel the lack of good organic veggies and meat. Luckily, today was farm day! And a good one:

• 1 head of lettuce.
• 1 bag of salad mix.
• 1 head of garlic.
• 10 leaves of collard greens.
• 4 tomatoes.
• 3 ears of corn.
• 1 bag of mix n' match, included a zillion peppers, pat-a-pan squash, two-tone squash, pickling cukes, and potatoes.
• 1 cantaloupe!
• 1 cute watermelon!
• 1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes.
• 1 heirloom tomato.
• 1 pint of beans.
• Tons of herbs.
• Flowers.

I also signed up for the fruit share, which is normally apples, and sometimes pears n' plums. I guess that there was a lot of hail damage this year, so we'll see what the share brings.

Elena made a nice squash risotto today, and a stirfry full of green beans. Last week Elena made a beautiful carrot cake.

Next week Elena is moving to South Korea for two years. It's very sad, but exciting. We've shared a lot of veggies together! Now she moves on to kimchee and Korean barbeque.

In the US, when someone takes your picture, you say "Cheese!" to show your happy toothy smile. In Korea, you say, "Kimchee!"

My sister Jean will be moving in next week. And will learn to cook. Yay Jean!

Stuffed peppers, here we go!

I think it's a lot easier to cook veggies when they have meat to play with! Today I got my third meat share, and it was exciting as usual.

I asked Kim if there was ever any bacon, and she said there is. She's good about putting stuff you like into the share, and she told me to email her about it. You get bacon about one out of every three months.

It also sounds like there will be a lot of lamb in a couple months. Kim said lambs are born late winter and early spring in MA, so you have to wait until fall to slaughter them.

Also, if you're a CSA member, there's a cooler full of "extra parts" like pork liver and pork hearts, and so on, that you can take as part of your share. I took a pork heart for Elena and me to try. Time to look for recipes!

And on to the good stuff. My meat share this month included:

• 3 Greek lamb sausage (my absolute favorite!)
• 2 packages of ground beef
• 2 packages of 2 pork loin chops
• 1 Beef chuck shoulder steak for London broil
• 1 Pork shoulder country style ribs (yum!)
• 1 package of 4 beef patties
• 1 beef rib steak (this looks really good too)
• 3 breakfast sausage

What I really want to do is make some stuffed peppers with the ground beef and the multitudes of green peppers I picked up yesterday. Since the meat share meat tends to fill me up with smaller portions, the smaller peppers will be perfect.

I also bought some scallops from the fish stand at the Arlington Farmer's Market, and some orange cardamon goat cheese from the goat cheese stand. They were all out of lemon lavender goat cheese this time.

So much cooking to do!

rain rain, go away...

So as it turns out, with all the rain means less ripe tomatoes, and more wet-related plant diseases. So the tomatoes are late and not that plentiful, unlike last year when it was hot all the time and all we had were tomatoes. On the flip side, we're headed towards some really good melons, which will be great! Maybe the raspberries will be better too.

My farm also offers a fruit share each year, but this year there was a bunch of hail. I guess tree fruit, like apples, is in short supply, and everyone is raising their prices. So I'm still waiting to see how much the fruit share is...it was wonderful to get a bag of apples each week last summer. And the occassional plum and pear.

Today's take was pretty good:

• 1 head of lettuce
• 1/2 bag of salad mix
• 1 cabbage
• 1 bulb of garlic
• 3 tomatoes
• 3 ears of young corn
• 1 bag of mix n' match, so I chose: lots of green peppers, onions, bunching onions, beets, and a ton of baby pat-a-pan squash...so cute! They steam nicely.
• 1/2 a pint of cherry tomatoes from the field.
• 1 other tomato from the field.
• 1 quart of beans.
• Two bunches of herbs (I cheat and split my bunchs, so I took thyme, parsley, cilantro, and wintermint).

Elena made chicken and veggies last night, and I finally made another big batch of pesto. Tomorrow is meat share day, and I can't wait!