Auntie Pasto

This is our last CSA box … at least until we decide we’re not getting enough veggies out of the yard. Somehow I suspect that’s going to be a while.

I promptly snitched the leeks and added them to a cheese-and-vegetable pie which was our dinner last night. I got the idea from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, but it got totally rearranged to be gluten-free because Kristina was over — and then further rearranged because I was using veggies that I had, not the veggies that they called for. {: It was pretty good, I thought, but I continue to think that I like things spicier than the folks at Moosewood. If I make it again, the cheese sauce is getting kicked up a couple notches. Maybe a couple-dozen notches.

By the way, as a general rule of thumb, if you’re making a roux and you need it to be gluten-free, you can substitute rice flour for regular flour just fine. But be aware that rice flour tends to thicken more than wheat flour, so you may need to cut the amount of flour somewhat.

Aside from the leeks, we ended up with the carrots, zephyr squash (yum!) which I traded Kristina some of our home-grown zucchini for, half of the cantaloupe, the peaches, the apples (ooh, I need to make applesauce. Like, now), and the lettuce. I sent the herbs, tomatoes, and Swiss chard with Kristina. Also sent her home with strawberries. We’re still getting about a quart of strawberries every couple of days out of our front yard.

Not sure what I’m doing with yet, besides eating the lettuce and melon just plain, and making applesauce. Might eat the peaches plain too. Must plan for those carrots and squashes …

Tags: csa

Hey, so I’m actually making a CSA post on the day I got the box. Woo!

Haven’t made any serious plans about what to do with it yet, but I’m likely going to try to sweet-talk Kristina out of most of the tomatoes. Why?

Because I’ve already got about 3 pounds of tomatoes from my yard, and I’m thinking ketchup or salsa or barbecue sauce … (: besides just the plain eating. Yum!

Tags: csa

It would probably make more sense to do my CSA posts on the day when I actually get the box. Unfortunately, that day is also RPG night, so I’m usually pretty busy, and then don’t get to it over the weekend. Sorry ’bout that!

Here’s the CSA box for this week:

Kristina got the beets and the collards, and two of the boxes of blackberries. We got ‘most everything else, though we shared it.

What we’ve done with it so far: peaches, blackberries, and oranges are being eaten raw. No need to mess with good fruit, right?

The spring mix got turned into a simple salad with some lemon cucumbers, onion, and tomato from the yard. The salad dressing was a throw-together of cottage cheese, yogurt, lime juice, onion, garlic, paprika, salt and pepper in the mini food processor. Deeelicious. We had the salad with some hot dogs that Uncle Pasto smoked on the grill.

Speaking of the smoked hot dogs, the leftovers went for lunches and got sliced and tossed into a homemade mac ‘n cheese tonight. The broccoli went with the mac ‘n cheese. Not in, since we were putting hot dogs in it instead. We like Alton Brown’s recipe for roasted broccoli, and it makes a great side dish here because you can mix the breadcrumbs in with the mac ‘n cheese if you made a stovetop mac instead of a baked mac.

Tomorrow is going to be a pork-and-cabbage stirfry and a carrot salad, both from Beyond the Great Wall. Though I will be tinkering with the carrot salad a touch … And the next time I have a chance to rave about cookbooks, that’s the one on the top of the list.

The zephyr squash got made into a grilled veggie salad … but I’ll be talking about that in the next post.

Tags: csa

This week’s box contained the following:

Kristina got the chard and beets and some of the rest of the other food.

We used the oranges, carrots, and radishes as part of the 4th of July party — orange wedges and a veggie tray that also included cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, and cucumber. Veggie dip was a variant on the one I usually make — mix pesto with whipped cream cheese. I had cilantro in the fridge, so I made cilantro pesto.

I also used the kale for the party over the weekend, but it didn’t get eaten then because of the weirdness with the timing of the food. So we’ve been eating kale slaw (kale, raisins, pecans, and a buttermilk-mustard dressing) over the past few days. Kale is really sturdy — there’s essentially no difference from the first day I made the slaw until now. It’s not a bad way to eat kale, either.

The yellow squash got used as part of a pasta salad tonight. Pasta, ham, basil pesto, sauteed yellow squash, cherry tomatoes, green onions from the yard, and olives. Mmm.

The cabbage is slated for okonomiyaki tomorrow. (: MMMMM, I love that stuff. I should post the recipe for you guys when I get the chance. That reminds me … I need to work up a gluten-free flour mix for that …

Tags: csa

Sooooo, this is what I got in my CSA box this week:

They call this a SMALL?

Uh, yeah.

Now, the blackberries have mostly all been eaten already. The last of them are baking in a cobbler in the oven right now, and the rest of them were eaten fresh. The snap peas and some of the carrots went to our family Father’s Day celebration as part of a veggie tray. (For the record, the dip for the veggies? Super-easy. Mix pesto with whipped cream cheese, taste and adjust as you see fit. Done!) The peaches got turned into sandwiches (yes, sandwiches!) tonight — I’ll post that recipe shortly.

So what do I have left? Spring mix (well, that’ll get eaten anyway, we like our salads around here), avocados (probably on the salads), carrots, leeks, kale, beets, and rutabagas. Oh, and lemons, but lemons are one of those things that just seem to disappear around here. (:

I’m the first to admit I have no clue what to do with rutabagas. My mom suggested putting them in stew, but it’s not really stew weather. So I’m planning on using one of them as part of a ravioli filling. That’s where the beets are going too. It’s a souped-up version of a recipe I found in La Cucina. The beet-and-rutabaga-stuffed ravioli will get a brown-butter sauce with frizzled leeks.

To be honest, we mostly eat beets as roesti; Uncle Pasto likes them that way. I’ll post a recipe for roesti the next time I make it, along with pictures. I’m branching out deliberately into the ravioli arena this week because much as I love the roesti recipe, it’s nice to have multiple ways to eat things. That particular meal is going to be lamb chops, ravioli, and salad. Here’s hoping the ravioli do well.

The kale’s going into a chicken sausage stew thing (yeah, I know I said it wasn’t stew weather) to be served on Thursday for my game group. Maybe I’ll sneak the rest of the rutabagas into that. Don’t tell anyone. Shh.

Carrots are carrots; they’ll get eaten for lunches. The zucchini … well, we already got enough from the yard that we haven’t touched that batch yet. I’m thinking about making marinated zucchini, but since I have leftover zucchini salad from this evening, it probably won’t get made for another few days. If I get overrun with zukes, I’ll possibly make pickles — I have some pickling salt and plastic jar lids for my Mason jars inbound.

That’s my plan for this week!

Tags: csa

As you may or may not know, we’re subscribed to a CSA over here at the Pasto household. CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture”, and what this means is that we pay for and receive a box of produce every other week (soon to be every week) from a local farm. In specific, we’re with BeWise Ranch, whom we like very much. Some CSAs deliver their box to your house. Others have drop points in your neighborhood where you pick up your box (BeWise does this), while still others have drops at local farmers’ markets.The produce is all freshly picked and local, and in our experience, super-tasty.

If you don’t live in southern California, where we’re blessed with a year-round growing season, your local options for CSAs may be limited to only certain times of the year, or they may do farm exchanges with farms that are in different climate zones so that you receive more produce and more variety.

Why CSAs are cool:

One, you’re helping your local farming community by supporting them directly. They get the money, you get the produce, and the middleman and much of the packaging is cut out. You’re putting your money to work in your own community instead of giving it to some mega-corporation that may not even be in your state.

Two: your produce is fresher than you can get it unless you pick it yourself out of your backyard. Why? Because the folks at your CSA are local, and they’ve got very few miles to go between them and you. And fresher is better — not only is the food tastier, but it’s got more of its valuable nutrients still intact due to less time in transit.

Three: CSAs are often (but not always) organic or more-sustainably designed farming operations. Not only is what you’re doing good for your community, it’s good for the earth too.

Four: CSA produce costs compare favorably with produce costs at the grocery store. And that’s not just at the whole-foods marts; they actually compare well with the megamarts too.

Why CSAs are challenging:

One: You may receive more produce than you are used to eating, and thus have more food waste until you adapt and figure out what to do with it all. You can use this as an excuse to work more fruits and veggies into your diet, of course — they’re so good for you! You may also want to seek a CSA that has options for their box sizes, or split a box with a friend or family member that you see regularly. We currently split a large bi-weekly box with a friend, but are moving to a small weekly box (also split).

Two: You will have moments of “what do I do with THAT thing?” where you’re face-to-face with a plant you’ve never eaten before. A challenge to be sure, but fortunately, we live in the golden age of the Internet, where recipes are easily found. On the bright side, this will help you vary your diet and expand your cooking repertoire, and variety is not only the spice here, but the main course. (;

Three: You will have moments of “Ugh. I don’t like that.” If you’re a picky eater, you may want to go with a CSA that allows you to select the contents of your box (some do, some don’t), or again, you may want to split your box with someone who’s got a different taste in food than you do, so each of you gets food you like. This is also an opportunity to experiment further; when we started on the CSA, neither of us thought we liked beets, but we’ve found ways to eat them that we really enjoy.

Four: You will want to plan your weekly or biweekly food menu around your box, so you may need to shift your shopping day. This can be kind of a hassle. Check your CSA and see where and when their drop points are, and try to find the most convenient time and location. If your preferred CSA is very active, you may need to wait a quarter or two to see if space opens up at the most convenient time and place.

I’m planning on taking photos of my box and describing what we get each week when we start up the new quarter and are getting a weekly box. I hope it inspires you to seek out your own local produce!

Tags: csa