Harder than I thought

For those (very few) of you that are following along, let me just apologize for my lack of timely postings. I am finding it way harder than I expected to actually come up with something to do with all of the vegetables before they are past their prime, primarily b/c my creative time and my cooking time are SEVERELY curtailed by the toddler. In some ways having the veggies around makes my life easier... for example, she'll help trim the green beans while I am cooking. But this has made me realize how much of a struggle it is just to get dinner on the table some nights. However, having the vegetables silently making me feel guilty(and frankly, MOCKING me) from the crisper HAS made us skip the take-out route on more than one occasion, like tonight for example.

Tuesdays, I try and use up whatever is left over from the week before, as we get our new box of yummy on Wednesdays. I DID not feel like cooking today, but on top of the C.S.A. vegetables, I had a bunch of stuff from my parent's garden that needed eatin'.

SO... here's what we had.

Zucchini soup: I sauteed diced zucchini with onions and garlic until soft, added broth and then pureed it. Then I stirred in a buttload of chopped fresh herbs, some red pepper flakes and topped with grated Parmesan cheese. Verdict: NOT bad, although when my mom makes it, it gets all velvety. Mine was NOT velvety in the least. Tasted ok though.

Green beans and corn on the cob: The picture above is from a week or two ago, it is NOT a picture of our most recent bounty. So it does not picture the two most successful veggies (at least in the eyes of the toddler) we have recieved yet. Apparently Sydney LOVES corn on the cob. She ate a WHOLE ear herself and was asking for more. She also helped trim the greenbeans and break them in half for cooking.

Officially on haitus from pork

OK, So I have been quite lax in posting about our adventures with vegetables thus far this summer. We were on vacation in the beginning of July so that is my excuse... we were in Tennessee and ate pork at least twice a day for a week or so. See that picture up there? We ate a lot of meals that looked just like that. Do you see any vegetables on that plate? There might be a crazy tomato kind of thing on there but I think it was just for show. We immersed ourselves in pork to the point that Mario had 2 lbs of pulled pork for breakfast one day at the famous Loveless Cafe, and it didn't seem weird!

But unfortunately, we're back in the land of regulated pork consumption, and so I will again start talking about the delicious vegetables and fruits we've been getting from our C.S.A. share.

VEGETABLES:

Over the past couple of weeks we've had:

Arugula
Thyme
Lettuce
Cucumber
Summer Squash
Zucchini
Broccoli
Kale
Swiss Chard
Collard green
Red gold new potatoes
Bok choi
Sweet salad onions
Beets

Here's some of how we've enjoyed our take:

Fancy BLT's: These are also known as BSBATAG's (brown-sugar bacon, arugula, tomato and gouda). I baked off the bacon on wire racks in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Then I sprinkled it with brown sugar and pepper and baked until it was all crispy and yummy. Then made sandwiches with the above listed ingredients on rye toast. These were awesome and helped ease us out of our "all-pork-all-the-time" state of mind and back into a "pork-is-good-in- moderation" mentality. Verdict: Holy freaking good.


Vegetable Quesadillas: Took the broccoli, swiss chard, and zucchini... sauteed with garlic and onions and then added some smoked gouda, put it in some tortillas and popped them in a George Foreman to toast them up. Verdict: Turned out pretty good. Mario and I enjoyed them. Sydney ate only the broccoli and cheese.

Grilled Salmon over greens: Marinated the salmon in lime juice, siracha chili sauce, shallots, honey and evoo. Grilled it up and served it over kale, collard greens, garlic and bok choi that I sauteed in sesame oil and then splashed with mirin and soy sauce. VERDICT: Very yummy. Mario hasn't really touched the sauteed greens I've been making unless I hide it in something or slather it with cheese. This he loved. Bok choi is my new favorite vegetable...Syd actually ate the bok choi, and it is funny to hear her say it. "buck CHOOOIIII!"

We've also been having a lot of mixed salads, and grilled vegetables to round out our meals. The cucumber we all enjoyed raw one day when we got home from work/daycare, with just a splash of rice wine vinegar and some salt and pepper on it.

FRUIT:

We also got a fruit share that started in the middle of June that I haven't really mentioned here. So far we've gotten strawberries, loads of big fat cherries, blueberries and some strawberry/blackberry jam. It has all been delicious and we've all enjoyed all of it. It;s funny to watch Sydney eat the cherries... she dangles them (de-pitted but with the stems ON) above her mouth before really chomping on them. This weeks blueberries are wonderful and Syd really likes them as well. All in all, the fruit has been much better received in toddler town than the veggies.

Sorry for no pics... all that tennessee pig product made my pointer finger too fat for the camera! I'll try harder next week!