Here’s what we are expecting to receive:

• 1 dozen eggs
• 3# sweet potatoes
• 1 head cauliflower (some will be cheddar, purple, or green varieties)
• 1 head leaf lettuce
• 1 head baby Bok Choy
• 1 pint grape tomatoes
• 1 lb. chorizo sausage links
• 2# cornmeal
• 2 ct. red peppers
• Red onion (s)
• 2 ct. zucchini
• Approx. 1.5 lbs. tomatoes
• 2 ct. eggplant (or 1 if they are enormous)
• 1 lb. pumpkin sage linguini
• 1 quarter peck Cortland apples

They were out of slicing tomatoes.  I was happy since I was offered spinach as a replacement.  I have too many tomatoes in the freezer already.  Everything else on the list was dead on!

I’m behind on egg use a bit.  I see some hardboiled ones in our future.  Maybe I’ll make a small batch of deviled eggs for Sunday’s pig roast.  We’ll use the peppers in eggs and salads this week.

Last year, we found that either Andouille or Chorizo could be used in this recipe.  So, it’s definitely on the agenda for this week.  I remember it being extremely delicious.

I tossed the pumpkin sage linguini in the freezer since we have a busy few days ahead.  I’m sure it will be tasty.  I’ve never met an Ohio City pasta that I didn’t like.

I’m going to make a veggie lasagna this week.  I’ll use the squash and eggplant in that dish.

We haven’t picked any tomatoes from our garden lately.  I’m sure these will be welcome snacks.

I’ll sauté the Bok Choy for Stephen one day.  He likes the Asian flavors.  The apples will be great for our oatmeal.  We made all of our other apples into sauce.

The lettuce will go for salads.  The cauliflower will make a great side dish with some chicken we have ready to eat in the fridge.

To make make room for our 1/2 lamb, I’m making a pot of chili.  Some cornbread will make a nice side to go with it.

I’m glad it’s cooler out and love cooking this time of year.

Here’s what we received today:

Eggplant, green beans

Leaf lettuce, tomato

Bell peppers, PIE PUMPKIN!!!

Apples, basil

I’m going to roast the eggplant as a side dish.  I’ll do it when I cook the pie pumpkin.  We ate the green beans for dinner tonight.  I’ll be using the bell peppers in fajitas tomorrow night.  Some of the basil will go into salad dressing and the rest I’m going to puree with olive oil and freeze.

The lettuce will make great salads.  We were almost out.  I picked tomatoes at the garden today and this one will get combined with those for the freezer.

Between the apples and pie pumpkin – I’m in heaven this week.

Don’t get me wrong, I love most of the items on the list.  But, many of them are either things we’ve been getting all summer or items that are just starting to appear.  The only item that would have been new and fun would have been the mini Mira sweet corn.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and still be able to obtain some of it.

I hope everyone enjoys their share this week.  I’m hoping for lots of winter squash in the upcoming weeks.

Here’s what the large share is scheduled to receive this week:

• 1 whole pasture raised chicken
• 3 lbs. Yukon gold potatoes
• 1 bunch kale or 1 pint mixed color baby sweet peppers
• 2 ct. eggplant (1 if they are really large)
• 2 ct. red bell peppers
• 1 head green leaf lettuce
• 1-2 onions, depending on size
• 1 lb. dragon-tongue beans
• 2 ct. zucchini
• 6 ears mini Mira sweet corn
• 3 lbs. sweet potatoes
• 1-2 leeks
• A handful Poblano peppers

Enjoy the change from summer to winter this weekend.

Here’s an overview of what we received (minus the watermelon):

Here’s what we were expecting:

• 1 large watermelon
• 1 head green leaf lettuce
• Approx. 2 eggplant
• 1 bunch carrots with tops
• 1 pint grape tomatoes or Approx. 1.5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes
• 1 quart concord grapes
• Approx. 1 lb. red slicing tomatoes
• 1-2 onions depending on size
• 1 bulb garlic
• 1 lb. beans
• 1 lb. roasted red pepper linguini
• Red peppers
• 1 lb. bacon breakfast patties
• 1 bunch leeks
• 3 lb. bag potatoes

The green beans are dark and rich in color.  I think I’ll pull a roast out of the freezer for Sunday and serve them as a side dish.  I’m tired of tomato season.  It’s nice that farmers are figuring out ways to grow them longer during the growing season using hoop houses and such, but I don’t really care for tomatoes and I’ve been spending my energy elsewhere, so I have tons of frozen tomatoes in the freezer for chili, soup and other dishes and I’m looking forward to the end of adding to it.

I froze the grapes from last week in hopes that we would get them again.  I’m going to make grape sorbet or jam with them.

Onion and garlic is status quo at this point.  They’ll end up in soup or fajitas this week.

I’ll probably use the carrot and leek in our tomato soup.  Nick had fun making it last time, so I thought I’d let him cut up veggies for it again.

I’m going to roast the peppers and add them into a white sauce to serve over the pasta.  It’s red pepper linguini, so that should mesh nicely.

I’ll be cooking the breakfast patties soon since we let them thaw when we were out this evening.  I’m always at a loss for egg plant.  I’ll probably roast it with onions, beets and other veggies tomorrow and see if something else inspires me.

The potatoes will go great with our roast.  The lettuce will make a couple of good salads.

I’m glad to see that melon season isn’t quite over.  This will be great to have around this weekend.  It’s on the larger size, but I suspect it will be gone by Monday.

I’m hoping to cook at home a lot this weekend.  We have lots of great looking stuff to use this week.

Here’s what we received:

sweet snacking peppers, lettuce

corn, green beans

zucchini, bell peppers

cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes

eggplant

So, we ended up having the corn and green beans with dinner.  They were easy to fix and are bulky in the fridge.

I’ll be making chili this week.  The peppers and slicing tomatoes will go into it.  The lettuce and snacking peppers will make a nice salad.  My husband and son will eat the cherry tomatoes. I have a recipe for pancakes that uses zucchini, so I’m going try it out with the squash.

It really comes down to the eggplant.  Last time I had eggplant, I cooked it with onion, olive oil and some garlic until it was mushy and made a dip.  I intend to use it as a layer in lasagna, but that hasn’t happened yet.  It’s currently frozen in my freezer.

I’m ready for tomato season to end and I’m missing fruit.  I’m happy with our share, but I am excited for winter squash and apple seasons to begin.

Since I was in Utah earlier in the week, I opted to take a vacation week this week.  Occasionally, I take a vacation week when we are having busy week or if I feel behind on veggies even if I am actually in town on pick up day..  Then, I usually hold my breath and hope that Trevor doesn’t send out the “best bag of the season” list two days later since vacation requests are due on Saturday and the list usually comes out on Monday.

Here’s what folks received in their bags this week:

• 3# bag red Norland potatoes
• 1/2 dozen sweet corn
• 1 bunch leeks (may be 1 leek depending on size)
• 1 bulb fennel
• Approx. 1.5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes
• 2 oz basil
• Approx. 2 lbs. slicing tomatoes
• 1 lb. grass-fed ground beef
• Approx. 2 lbs. peaches
• 1-2 eggplant, depending on size
• 2 zucchini or squash
• 1-2 onions
• 2-3 “Italian frier” peppers (red sweet stuffing peppers)
• 1 melon – choice of cantaloupe or watermelon
• 1/2 lb. Swiss chard
• 1 bulb garlic
• 1 piece Havarti cheese

I’ve been hearing from other people who do CSAs that they have too much food or are too busy to get it all used.  I can’t say that we are perfect in our house, but we are pretty good at blanching, chopping and freezing items to make sure we don’t waste food when we are particular busy or have an over abundance.

Almost all of the above items could be froze with little effort.  I love pulling items out of the freezer in the middle of winter and getting a taste of fresh local food.

I think every bag is outstanding, but this is a bag that has lots of items that we get on a fairly regular basis.  I am happy with my decision to be on vacation.  With a little luck, I’ll get a photo of a large share tomorrow and add a photo to my post.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

• 1 whole cantaloupe
• Either 1 pint mixed color cherry tomatoes or approx. 1.5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes
• 2 ct. zucchini/squash
• 2 ct. eggplant
• 1 bulb garlic
• 1 large candy onion
• 2 oz. basil
• 1 bunch curly kale
• Approx. 1.5 lbs. slicing tomatoes
• 1 lb. bulk Italian sausage (ground)
• 1 pint blackberries or approx. 1.5 lbs. peaches
• 1 small yellow watermelon
• 1 lb. yellow wax beans or green filet beans
• 1 lb. grass-fed ground beef
• 1 head lettuce
• 1 bunch radishes
• 1-2 cucumbers depending on size

These melons are really small.  I think I’ll call them personal size.  We’ll eat them quickly.

The guys of the house will snack on the cherry tomatoes.  The rest are going into some salsa (hopefully tonight).

We’ll eat the lettuce in salad and use the basil for some dressing.   I need to pick up some more balsamic vinegar, but we’ll make due until then.

I haven’t decided on a dish for the kale yet.  It may just get sautéed.  The cucumbers will be great for salads and snacking.

I have lots of garlic frozen from last year.  I’ll have to remember to use it more often.  We had the onion with our dinner tonight.

I’m not a huge fan of ratatouille, so we’ll probably make a veggie lasagna this week and use the eggplant.  I’m hoping to try a bread and butter zucchini pickle recipe with the zucchini (and a few others we have).

We’ll have the blackberries for breakfast tomorrow.  Our fridge is too full to keep them around.  We’ll either roast or pickle the radishes.

The beans will be a side dish for Sunday.  I put the Italian sausage and ground beef in the freezer.

I really need to get some preserving done, my fridge is over flowing.  A little canning and freezing and we’ll be all set.  It’s easy for us to use our items when we eat at home, but we’ve had a strange schedule lately and we’re a bit behind on consumption.

Here’s what we were expecting to receive this week (times two):

Small CSA:

• 1 lb. ground veal
• 1 lb. ground pork
• 1 pint grape tomatoes
• 1 large head of cabbage
• 1 bunch collard greens
• 1 head cauliflower
• 2 ct. bell peppers
• 2 ct. eggplant

Here’s a group shot (of one set, you can imagine it double):

Since we have 4 eggplant, I am planning a vegetable lasagna with mostly eggplant and whole wheat noodles.  We haven’t had much cauliflower this year.  We’ll be making a cauliflower au gratin dish that uses parmesan cheese and bread crumbs for a crumbly topping over the steamed cauliflower.

Both heads of cabbage are huge!  We’ll be making stuffed cabbage of some sort.  Usually, I end up making unstuffed cabbage since I’m not that great of actually making the rolls.  We’ll also probably make some cabbage soup and some coleslaw.  Last week, I made collard wraps with our collards.  They turned out pretty good so maybe I’ll make them again and change up the filling.  These collards and cabbage look especially good and fresh.

We put some bell pepper in our cabbage dish and freeze the rest.  We also have 2 packages of ground pork and veal.  I think Stephen is going to make meatloaf and the rest of the meat will go in our cabbage dish.

We also purchased 2 of the yogurts.  We still had $1.50 to use from our week 17 vacation and we were out of yogurt, so I picked up two and paid the $8.50 balance.

I was disappointed that we didn’t get grape tomatoes in either share.  I thought I saw some at the truck, but the weeks are starting to run together.  I’ve emailed Fresh Fork about them.

We did sign up for the winter CSA and also for a Thanksgiving share.  We’ll have plenty of good eats on the horizon after the summer season ends in two weeks.

First off, here is the group shot. I’ll bet we could measure how big the week’s harvest is by how high we have to hold the camera to take this picture. The camera was pretty close to the ceiling today.

“I’m ready for my closeup,” cried the kale, and I was happy to oblige.

Red Russian kale, bok choy

Garlic, sweet potatoes

Apples (mixed varieties), carrots

Parsley (mix of flat leaf and curly), green beans

Red leaf lettuce, onions

Bell peppers, little peppers (I don’t know yet if they are hot)

Eggplant, yellow squash

Tomatoes

Using this up with Lyn away is going to be a challenge. My cooking skills have rusted a bit in recent years, with the grill more my specialty than the stove is. The parsley says “tabouli”, which could use some tomato and onion as well. The kale and bok choy I will saute, with some balsamic vinegar for the kale and some sesame oil for the bok choy. We will surely have some delicious salads as well.

Thanks for visiting! Lyn will be back tomorrow.

Here’s what we received today:

Let’s take a closer look.  I couldn’t really fit everything in the photo.

Green beans, sweet corn

Potatoes, apples (Honeygold variety)

Bell peppers, dill

Poblano peppers, zucchini

Onions, hot peppers

Leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce

Eggplant, basil

Tomatoes

I’m leaving for Hawaii on Monday, so this week is all about food preservation.  I’m cooking some meals for my family to enjoy while I am gone, but most of that work is done or planned.  In addition to my trip, my husband is out of town tomorrow through Friday.

I’m going to blanch and freeze the green beans.  I have others to freeze as well, so it’s worth the effort.

I plan to have some corn with the kids tomorrow and freeze the rest.  There’s only 6 ears so that should be simple.

Unless I get ambitious, I’m going to store the potatoes.  A few of the apples are already mixed in with the sauce that I was making tonight.  The rest will be going into apple-plum sauce tomorrow.  We picked plums yesterday, so I need to make something with them.

I’ll going to make fajitas and use some peppers and onions this week.  I’ll freeze the rest.

I’m going to make some basil/olive oil cubes for the freezer with the basil.  It will be handy for winter soup and tomato sauce dishes.

I already froze the tomatoes.  I just washed them, cored, and quartered them.  I’ll make a saucy dish with them in a couple of week.

The lettuce will get eaten in salads.  I’ll either blanch and freezer the eggplant or make mini eggplant pizzas.  It all depends on the rest of the items are going.

I’ll need to research the dill.  Usually, I use it in pickles, but I don’t have any cucumbers.

It’s going to be a busy week here.  I have a to do list that’s a mile long before my trip.