CSA Update: 7/15/12

July 15, 2012 by Jen 12 Comments

This will be the last CSA update for almost a month, as I’m leaving tomorrow for a 3 week trip to Taiwan! Not sure how much I’ll be blogging while I’m away… so if, for some reason, you go into willblog4food withdraw, you can always read (or re-read) my Taiwan posts from previous trips. Enjoy!

Here’s what we got in our Eatwell CSA box last Wednesday:

strawberries
basil
cherry tomatoes (!)
Roma, shady lady, or early girl tomatoes
Middle Eastern cucumbers
mixed lettuce
plums
Italian flat leaf parsley
zucchini
Wakefield cabbage
white spring onions
Colorado rose potatoes? (the ones we got were definitely not red-skinned as advertised)

Not sure if you could tell by my exclamation point above, but I was super excited about the tomatoes, and the cherry tomatoes in particular. Our first tomatoes of the season! We made Creamy Orecchiette with Cherry Tomatoes, Basil, and Garlic, a recipe included with the CSA box. It was very easy and tasty!

Mmmm, creamy pasta with sweet cherry tomatoes and loads of basil.

We also made a salad with the mixed lettuce, cucumber, and strawberries, adding some nut for crunch.

colorful summer salad

As much as we love stir-frying zucchini, I opted to make zucchini bread this time. It was good, but I’m not sure this was the best recipe. I felt like it had a little too much spice and not enough zucchini. Once I find the perfect recipe, I’ll be sure to share it with y’all. These loaves sure did look and smell great coming out of the oven, I have to say.

Zucchini bread, fresh from the oven.

I’ve been wanting to make potato salad for a while, and the red potatoes were a perfect candidate. Except that the ones we got weren’t really red… so it’s possible there was a mix up? In any case, we decided to make potato salad (American style = sweet relish, red onion, celery, mayo, and hard-boiled egg) for a BBQ Saturday with TC’s family and my sister’s family. The potato salad was just OK — we left the skins on, but I think for this variety of potato, we probably should have skinned them. We also made a green salad with walnuts, dried cranberries, apple, and homemade vinaigrette. TC’s family provided macaroni salad, grilled chicken, baked beans, corn, a dreamy chocolate pudding dessert concoction, and lemon bars. That’s what I call a BBQ!

The BBQ spread, top left going down: potato salad, green salad, baked beans, macaroni salad, corn, and chicken (on upper right).

Oh, and somewhere in the last week, we made homemade salsa with the other tomatoes and spring onion to put on top of breakfast burritos. We’ve also been dipping cucumbers slices in hummus. Delish!

p.s. Can’t get enough of CSA goodies? Check out this link party over at In Her Chucks!