Farm share, week 15

[magid]

• a spaghetti squash
  
• two leeks
  
• a lettuce (I chose green leaf over romaine.)
  
• twelve carrots (I mixed orange, yellow, and purple ones again. None are very large.)
  
• a bunch of chard (I got red.)
  
• ten sprigs of basil
  
• three tomatoes (rather small types)
  
• an eggplant (I chose the regular dark ones, not the lighter violet kind.)
  
• six bell peppers (I chose only red and orange, though there were also purple ones.)
  
• three hot peppers (longish ones, and ones that might be jalapenos (both red and green); I got a green jalapeno and two of the larger ones.)
  
  
• fruit share: eight Gala apples

Boston Organics, small box, some fruit.

• two acorn squash (local)
  
• two ears of corn (local)
  
• two cucumbers (local)
  
• two cantaloupes (Anyone have good uses for cantaloupe other than fruit soup?)
  
• four plums
  
• six kiwis
  
• a half pint of blueberries, spilled out of their container (annoying, but local)

And a dozen eggs. All in all, this delivery seems like too much fruit, and not enough of it useful, somehow. I mean, I eat all of these things, but there aren't basics.

I'd been looking forward to more cabbage, having decided that if I'm going to make sauerkraut, I ought to make a lot of it. Ah, well.

Current thoughts for how I'll use some of this:

• an autumn-y soup with onions, garlic, kale, chard, radish greens, leek tops, carrots, spicy sausage, and hot sauce. Possibly some beans as well.
  
• baked winter squash with caramelized leeks, rosemary, and perhaps some hard Italian cheese (though I'd have to go to Brookline to get some)
  
• roasted eggplant with sauteed peppers (both sweet and spicy)
  
• applesauce, or a baked apple (with other fruit?) dessert something
  
• salads, both green and fruit

Comments

[queue.livejournal.com]

That soup sounds wonderful.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I suspect it'll transmogrify when I actually start making it*, depending on what else I find in the fridge.

* Which would be after I finish the chicken-cabbage soup currently occupying the pot.

[(Anonymous)]

I like cantaloupe soup, which you mentioned, and I had a cantaloupe ice cream once, but is fresh cantaloupe not an option?

How much cabbage have you remaining?

Apple crisp could include other fruit and strikes me as yummy as both dessert and as breakfast accompanied by yogurt.

I had a dream last night about butternut squash, in which I was surprised and annoyed that the one I had was so puny and was not looking forward to peeling it.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Fresh cantaloupe is an option; I just wasn't sure I'd be able to get through two cantaloupes in time. However, having wielded a melon-baller last night, I reduced the two melons and six kiwis to two bags of fruit, one of which is my breakfast, the other of which is going to my houseguest, who happily likes both.
Cantaloupe ice cream sounds good. And while cantaloupe soup is fine, I'm not in the mood to make it; no clue why, other than the chilly weather, perhaps.

I have a medium-sized head of red cabbage and a huge (double-sized?) head of green cabbage. I haven't weighed them (though thanks to Electrictruffle, I have a scale), but it's a lot, though still not enough to fill the 5-gallon plastic container that used to hold pickles. (There's a kosher pickle place in Worcester, btw, though the "small" containers are a gallon...)

I'm leaning towards applesauce, just because I can can it for later, but that doesn't preclude apple crisp, especially if I go apple-picking this weekend.

Squash dreams... wow. I hope all your real-world squashes are large and easily peeled :-).
(Butternut's the one I use most when I need the squash peeled before cooking; the others just aren't worth the time.)

[(Anonymous)]

Cantaloupe and kiwifruit is an interesting combination. It certainly feels to me like the wrong weather for a chilled soup, fruit or otherwise. The hearty soup you describe feels more appropriate.

I'm so intrigued by the giant cabbage.

Wow, five gallons of pickles! I adore pickles. There's a kosher pickle place in Worcester? How cool.

I enjoy making applesauce. I'd like someday to make an apple cake for Rosh Hashanah. I've also had plum tart on my mind lately.

Thank you for the good squash wish, which was creative and made me giggle!

Peeling butternut squashes isn't exactly difficult for me, especially once I realized it was easier if I quartered them first, but when I peel them, something odd happens to the skin on my hands. It should be the most of any of our troubles. They make a great soup, though. (Now I'm picturing the squashes wearing chef's hats and using wooden spoons, standing near a large pot, making soup. Butternuts are of course the right shape.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Kiwi fruit are tricky for me, in that they're pleasant to eat, but feel like work, plus they don't cook into anything, so I have an unfortunate tendency to let them age unless I cut them up immediately (well, in this case using the smaller end of the melon baller, for fruit similarity :-). It was more fruit salad with just two fruits than a pairing of the two, somehow.

The hearty soup has been started; I just need to add hot sauce and rebalance when I reheat it. At one point the liquid was reddish from the chard, but I think it may have swung over to green.

The problem with five gallons of pickles is that there's no way to fit them in the fridge (and have room for anything else). Theoretically, I suppose they're fine out of the fridge as long as they're submerged, but I tend to like eating them cool to cold.
I don't remember the name of the place (and I don't think they have a website); the only reason I know about them is that my mom found them. They have sours and half-sours; I don't know if they have anything else.

Applesauce is convenient (and useful not only straight but to help in lower fat baking). Apple cake is yummy... maybe I should make some for RH. It's tricky, though, knowing we'll start the meal with apples and honey; too many apples makes things unbalanced.

Plum tart sounds lovely.
Hm. I don't think four plums is enough for a tart. I might need to get more...

I have that same thing happen to my skin, a sort of feeling of something coating them, then drying to be just a little smaller than my skin, and it's really difficult to come off. I also have something similar happen with summer squashes. Just the price to pay for squashy goodness :-).

I've not made an orange-only squash soup in a long time; I keep wanting to have greens (kale, collards, whatever) in there, too.
Hee! Squash cooks! Now, you'd think they'd have to go heavy on the meat and eggs and such, because it would be too close to cannibalism if they were the veggie chefs....

[(Anonymous)]

I imagine little kiwi balls must be very cute.

How neat, the color change of your soup.

I like my pickles chilled too.

Homemade applesauce, for me, is especially for latkes.

I just last night came across my mother's tart recipe.

Yes, the squash coating is indeed difficult to remove. I like the way you describe the sensation as drying to be smaller.

Greens in squash soup sounds yummy. The soup for which I use butternut comes out mostly pale orange, if I recall correctly. I wonder whether carrot soup made with your colorful carrots would still come out deep orange.

Perhaps butternuts only stay away from consuming squashes, but partake of other vegetation?

[magid.livejournal.com]

The kiwi balls were cute... they're gone now :-).

I tend to eat my latkes plain; I'm not sure why. We didn't get them very much growing up: my mom decided they were too fatty, so she'd make potato kugel instead. And applesauce on kugel never seemed at all right.

I don't think I've ever officially made a tart, because the recipes look fussy in ways I don't manage well (arrange all those fruit slices? who has time?).

I don't think I'd make a carrot soup, because they don't mush as well as squash does. (And I tend to use a masher rather than an electrical appliance for soups.)

Maybe they'd prepare othere vegetation... but possibly not nuts, either :-).

[(Anonymous)]

Ha! No butter either, then?

I take apple sauce and sour cream on my latkes. It is funny how certain condiments will go with one dish and not with another when both dishes are essentially the same.

I usually refrain from blending soups. It's interesting that you describe mashing soup, because that's what I do to the butternut in the previously-mentioned soup. I've left my carrot soup unblended, but it is a different soup that way. To be made properly, indeed, it must be pureed, and it must be served with bagels.

What sort of sieve or food mill was used before electricity to puree soups, I wonder.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Butter? On latkes? Never heard of that before.

Condiments: yes. And I definitely get into a rut about them (though I admit I don't use them much).

Carrot soup with bagels? Bagel bites? Bagel chips? (I'm having a hard time picturing bagels with soup, 'cause I assume they don't dunk-and-absorb as well as less dense bread forms.)

Maybe foodmills. Or mashers used by strong people. Cooking wasn't for the weak back then!

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, I caused confusion by responding not-in-order. I apologize. No, the butter remark was in response to the butternut squashes not preparing nuts.

Carrot soup served with fresh bagels, yes. Whether and how the two are combined is up to the individual. It's a comfort thing for me.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Got it. No nuts, no butters, no squashes, and they're good to go :-).

I'm lacking the bagel gene, strangely. I mean, they're nice every so often, if they come my way (good ones, that is), but I never seek them out the way I do for onion pockets (or real Russian raisin bread, which is not just pumpernickel with raisins in it, nice as that can be).

bagels

[magid.livejournal.com]

Which is to say, everyone's got their comfort bread :-).