The Suburban Herbivore

Full share from September 9, 2009

In week 19, we received one large acorn squash, one bunch of turnips, one bunch of French breakfast radishes, one pound of cucumbers, and one pound of Japanese eggplant. I still have the turnips from last week, so I think I’ll cook up some White Bean and Root Vegetable Gratin.

Last week at this time (week 20 of 20), we got three pounds of tomatoes (!), one pint of Sungold tomatoes (!!), a pound of eggplant, and one quarter pound of basil. Though I guess it’s not really too surprising that there were tomatoes. Second plantings can bear tomatoes into October around here, and farmer’s markets still have plenty.

Full share from July 8, 2009.

So, this is the point last year where I quit, though I didn’t know it for a while. I continued to take photos of our share each week and I saved the newsletters. And after a while of being out of the habit, it was too overwhelming to try to catch up. Fortunately, I have most of the photos, so what I’ve decided to do is present this week’s share in conjunction with the corresponding week’s share from 2008.

Full share from July 9, 2008.

This year, we got: four pounds of Big Beef tomatoes, three pounds of potatoes, one pint of Sungold tomatoes, one pound of cucumbers, four green bell peppers, one jalapeno pepper, and three onions: two white (Candy) and one red (Candy Apple). Last year, we got: four pounds of Big Beef and Pink Girl tomatoes, three pounds of Rose Gold potatoes, one pint of Sungold tomatoes, two pounds of Japanese eggplant, four yellow squash, two zucchini, and one cantaloupe. The differences are pretty apparent, but it will be more interesting to see what trends develop.

Whoops. Just as I was getting back in the blogging groove, work intervened, and I spent three weeks doing practically nothing but. Working, that is. Hopefully things will slow down long enough for me to catch up a bit on what I’d wanted to post several weeks ago.

Full share from July 1, 2009

Anyway, here is what we received on July 1. Since we took the entire share last week, our friends got the full box this week, so I’m not on the hook for dealing with the first of the eggplant. Though I’m sure there will be plenty more later on… We (i.e. they) got: 1.5 pounds of Big Beef tomatoes, 3 pounds of Yukon Gold potatoes, 1 pint of Sungold tomatoes, 1 pound of Japanese eggplant, 1 cantaloupe, 1 pound of green beans, and 1 pound of lemon cucumbers. I was sad to miss out on the sweet, sweet Sungolds this time. I grew Sungolds a few years ago, and I absolutely loved having them on-hand all summer.

Tomatoes are here! We received two varieties this week: Big Beef and Early Girl. Growing up, I’d always heard that it’s unusual to have tomatoes before the 4th of July, so I remain impressed when they show up before that. Certainly, the ones I’m growing won’t be ready for quite a while. A few years ago, I grew Sungolds, which are little, orange, sweet, and delicious. Since our CSA supplies those, I’m devoting my tomato space to ones that can be used for sauce and/or slicing. I haven’t written about my garden yet… I’ll do that soon.

Full share from June 24, 2009.

This week, we received two pounds of tomatoes, three pounds of Red Pontiac potatoes, one yellow squash, one zucchini, one bunch of basil, three onions (two yellow, one red), two cabbages (one green, one red), and three cucumbers (two green, one lemon). Since our friends are out of town this week, we are keeping the entire share for ourselves. Time for another cooking challenge!

I feel compelled to periodically remind the readers that my husband and I are splitting this share with another couple. What you see in the photo is the full share, and we are just keeping half of that. I like to include everything in the photo to illustrate the wide variety and quality of produce that we are getting from our CSA.

Full share for June 3, 2009.

Here is this week’s produce: one pint of strawberries, two yellow squash, one zucchini, one bunch of leeks, one bunch of orange carrots, one bunch of beets, one bunch of kale, three cucumbers, and some basil. Happily, we have more strawberries, though this will definitely be the last week. I have some cucumbers of my own growing in a tiny little garden that I carved out this spring (more about that later), so I suspect there will be pickles in our near future.

Greetings fellow Suburbivores! Jason here, Ryn’s husband and the official Suburban Herbivore taste tester. (What can I say? I’m a lucky man!) It’s summer, which means, among other things, cucumbers. And cucumbers, of course, mean pickles! I thought I would share my recipe for spicy, garlicky, Icebox Pickles. These pickles are super easy to make (I’ve already made three batches since we started getting cukes from our CSA), and will last months as long as they stay refrigerated. For a something milder, you could reduce the amount of garlic and red pepper, but really, why would you want to do that?

Ingredients

2 largish cucumbers, cut into spears

6 cloves of garlic, crushed + 2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1 cup white wine vinegar

1 cup water

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Place cucumbers and crushed garlic in a bowl or large jar. In a non-aluminum saucepan, combine the minced garlic, salt, vinegar, water, sugar, and red pepper. Bring just to a boil. Remove from heat and pour over the cucumbers. Cool to room temperature. Transfer to smaller jars (or just use the one big one), and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

We canceled our share for last week, as our friends that are splitting it with us were out of town. And this week’s share was fairly light. But I’m requesting a double one next week to make up for the one we missed, so that will be … something. For sure.

Last week we missed out on potatoes, of which there will be more, and red cabbage, which I am happy to be done with. Though I did turn up a fairly decent recipe for coleslaw online recently.

Anyway, we got a cute little watermelon, six tomatoes (!) and more lemon cucumbers, as well as leeks, regular cucumbers, serrano peppers, garlic, and the first of the eggplant. Elysian Fields grows Japanese eggplant, which are smaller, more tender, and not as bitter as the standard Black Beauty eggplant that one typically finds in a grocery store. I really appreciate them, because (1) I just don’t like eggplant that much, so having them be smaller is better, as far as I’m concerned, and (2) they are better for Asian/Indian cooking, which I’m more inclined to do anyway.

In rereading this post, I realized that I keep complaining about the vegetables I don’t like. To counter-balance, let me mention all the ones we got this week that I love: serranos, garlic, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I also love watermelon, which is of course not a vegetable. I don’t actually believe there are any fruits that I don’t like.

I am planning to do a flurry of posts this weekend, including reviews of the two Moosewood cooking classes I attended, and a guest post by my husband about making pickles. Stay tuned…

I am excited to already be getting tomatoes! I have heard in the past that, at least around here, tomatoes don’t show up before July 4. I don’t think I’ve managed to produce them earlier than that, but then, sometimes, I procrastinate a little in my planting. Unfortunately I forgot to include the two Big Beef tomatoes in the photo because they were in a separate paper bag.

This week I also received: one red cabbage, three leeks, six orange and yellow carrots, one bunch of beets, four regular cucumbers (not sure which variety), two lemon cucumbers (I’ll be making a separate post about this), a bag of green beens, and one head of garlic. Definitely some good stuff. From the newsletter that Elise sends, it seems that this is the last week for carrots and beets. I’ll miss the carrots but am soooo ready to say goodbye to the beets.

Half a pound of basil is a LOT of basil! I have no doubt that I could use it all myself, but I suppose I should give our friends who are sharing the share their share. Heh. We also received a cauliflower, a small red cabbage, some dill, two zucchini, four yellow squash, four cucumbers, 3/4 pound green beans, and two onions with the greens attached. It’s a pretty good haul, and I remain really happy with the shares so far this year.

I placed a quarter on top of the cauliflower for scale before taking this photo. This is a trick that I picked up in my geology classes – though they tended to use a pick-axe or lens cap or a person.

My husband is already planning to make pickles this weekend. I may ask him to do a guest post about that. I actually have a couple ideas of what I want to do with the cabbage. Dill is one of those herbs that confounds me a little. It’s very good in omelets. I haven’t used it for much else, and am open to ideas…