[local eating] produce (CSA week 3 of 20)

[magid]

The fish share was canceled for Tuesday pickups, due to the nor'easter. They're adding on a day at the end to make up for it, which is fine: I ate the last of the fish yesterday, in the end of the potato soup, so having some time between fish is fine with me.

On the plus side, there's a cherry tree near me that's fruiting, which I've been taking advantage of. I'm trying to decide what to do with them, given that getting cherry pits out are a bit of a production. Current thoughts (other than eating out of hand, of course) include

• cooking with meat and vinegar (and possibly just warning (still-theoretical) guests about pits)
  
• making some kind of cherry chutney (essentially, the previous idea but letting me use it whenever, rather than immediately (a quick check with Chef Google nets this, or this, or this as starting points))
  
• cherry jam or cherry butter
  
• cherry liqueur
  
• some kind of crumble, crisp, or clafouti

Any other ideas are welcome. Also any suggestions for what to do with mulberries, which I'm going to try to harvest as well.

This week's farm share includes

• a head of lettuce (I chose red leaf)
  
• a bunch of dill
  
• a third of a pound of garlic scapes
  
• two-thirds of a pound of Hakurei turnips (I chose small ones, to maximize greens and minimize and bitterness)
  
• a bunch of curly parsley or a bunch of cilantro (no surprise, I chose the former)
  
• two pounds of summer squash (I chose zucchini)
  
• a bunch of young white onions with greens
  
• a bunch of kale or collards (I dug down to get to the lacinato kale)
  
• a stalk of broccoli
  
• a small head of green cabbage

I still have most of last week's lettuce (but no other salad leaves), some dill, scallions, and scapes, and a couple of carrots left. Also some of the turnips, carrots, and kohlbrabi in the form of Shabbat's slaw, which may be re-dressed with a mixture of mayo and chipotle mustard to reinvigorate it. Plans for outstanding veggies include lots more green salad, possibly some cole slaw, stir-fried broccoli and carrots, roasted summer squash, and perhaps trying to make some Japanese-style pickled turnips.

Comments

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

mulberries appear to be good at dying things.

i would just eat the cherries. I even bought some at the Davis farmers market today. yum.

wow, and i was feeling overwhelmed with my small share!

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I split both a large Parker and Red Fire share (so I get half of each, modulo preference tweaks) and this week, Parker was, absurdly, twice as big as RF. The lists don't tell the whole story, since Parker bunches and heads tend to be quite a bit larger than Red Fire bunches, but Red Fire tends to have more variety. (The combination is excellent.)

We also got cherries at the market today. Yum. :)

[magid.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to note when things are small, but I just don't have the patience to weigh bunches when I get home, especially right now when I have a regular evening obligation that barely leaves me time to put things in the fridge and post before leaving. So it's useful to have the comparison. It's very cool that your splitting shares is working out so to everyone's satisfaction.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'm eating some of the cherries, but this is more than I want to eat, plus it gives me the chance to play around with them, something I don't afford when I'm paying premium prices for them...

[(Anonymous)]

Kirsch!

Have you invested in a cherry pitter? Add chopped cherries to your chocolate cake batter. Make cherry cheese blintzes. Or maybe dry cherry halves and dip in chocolate? Ooh, chocolate cherry ice cream, if you have a way to make ice cream. Something with almonds.

The poor onions, they were so young.

Outstanding vegetables!

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether the liqueur I would make would be able to be called kirsch; my general process involves steeping in 100-proof vodka, then in sugar.

I do have a cherry pitter (also known as my olive pitter :-). I like the chocolate-cherry cake idea! Alas, I have never made blintzes nor ice cream from scratch, though perhaps this will inspire me. And the cherry-almond combination is an excellent one; thanks for the reminder.

I'm now going to have to think about my onions as a collective Yorrick!

[kissoflife.livejournal.com]

hee. 'alas, I knew....' ack, trying to make a good pun sent me in all sorts of 'way inappropriate for this post' directions. *g*

[magid.livejournal.com]

Alas, you knew my onions too well?
That is a bit upsetting, I admit.

And I would not want to come between a woman and her onions ;-P

[kissoflife.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly!! ;-P


There's prolly even an Alger allusion to be had here somewhere...
and now I'm off on a "Grosse Pointe Blank" reverie. It never stops.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen "Grosse Pointe Blank," I don't think. So references would be lost on me.