csa haul: week seven

July 18, 2010 9 Comments by Maddie

The corn-and-tomato inundation has begun, and every week, our CSA share gets heavier and heavier. Last Thursday—pick-up day!—the plastic handles of the bucket-like bag dug themselves deep into the creases of my bent fingers. And in order to make it from the drop-off cooler back to my car, I had to lean to one side, awkwardly swinging myself in a forward motion. So the real fun started at home, after the heavy lifting, as we stood in the kitchen and puzzled over the fate of our new friends.

With no grill to our name, we relied on Mexican flavors to imbue the ingredients with a summery taste. Not that they needed much garnish—food this fresh doesn’t need to be masked by spice or ever meet a flame to be rendered delicious. But hey, we’re partially in this CSA thing to stretch our creative muscles, and so here’s what we cooked up.

Sweet corn: Two kinds of salad as a vehicle for the spice. Corn and tomatillo salad, which was bright with lime and cilantro, and chipotle-corn salad, with a creamy-smoky yogurt dressing.
Tomatoes: What we didn’t snack on at lunchtime became part of the chipotle-corn salad.
Cucumbers: Gobbled up in raw slices. Maybe next week I’ll use them to de-puff my eyes, because I’m clearly never going to do any creative cooking with them.
New potatoes: These became straight-out-of-the-diner home fries. Cooking the ingredients separately ensured that we wound up with crispy but cooked-through potatoes and caramelized onions that weren’t at all overdone.
Onions: The onions were used in everything from the home fries to both salads, but they really shone when Ted folded them into a batch of falafel. The deep-fried exterior had bite, and the center was impossibly fluffy.
Green garlic: Some minced cloves went straight into the falafel too.
Basil: There was just a little bit, so we used it to top roasted peaches that bubbled away underneath a mixture of brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon.

Now it’s time to plot the upcoming week’s recipes. Thursday pick-up is sneaking up on me! Better get crackin’…

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
  • Emily

    Feel free to use my grill anytime…

  • http://thevillagecook.com michelle @ The Domestic Mama

    I love the pic, I can see and almost taste the texture and flavor! Well done! :)

  • http://onafarm.blogspot.com Sprout

    What are you reading there??

  • http://IslandEAT.wordpress.com IslandEAT

    Hi, Maddie. Very clever of you to whip this up – I am a bit jealous of people involved in CSA, but then again I chose to live on a rural island…at least I was able to buy organic sour cherries at our Saturday Market (a produce-baked goods-canned items-craft market during June – September). Then yesterday I got organic dandelion honey and clover honey from a beekeeper’s sister, who lives on our island. It was $20 for three KG (nearly six-and-two-thirds pounds for your Imperialists). So, I guess I should stop whining already….

    I enjoyed your posts, as always!!

    Thanks,

    Dan

  • http://www.alittleginger.com Maddie

    Emily — Good call! I’ll have to take you up on that…and soon.

    Michelle — Thanks so much! And let me tell you, it tasted just as good. :)

    Sprout — That’s Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. It’s a book about writing that my journalist dad gave me as a Christmas present.

    Dan — Wow, that’s a great deal! And to get it from the beekeeper’s sister, too…makes it that much cooler. My boyfriend has the secret ambition of becoming a beekeeper, so he’d love having a friend like that!

  • Ted

    Ahem… we prefer the term “apiarist”.

  • PSBlades

    That looks awesome. I miss food like that. Also what is CSA? Is it always delicious?

    Another also – I want to friend your page or whatever its called. How do i do this?

    Glad to see you are eating some great foods! :)

  • http://www.alittleginger.com Maddie

    Ted — I will defer to you, as you are the only wannabe apiarist I know!

    Paul — It sounds like you’re eating some cool stuff in China, too. :) To answer your questions: 1) CSA = community supported agriculture, which means you get a ginormous bag of vegetables from a local farmer every week. And 2) unfortunately, you can’t “friend” my blog, since that’s a Facebook-specific thing. But! You should totes check out the “subscribe” section on the sidebar to get my RSS feed.

  • http://www.happyolks.com Kelsey, at Happyolks

    Mmmmm! I’ve never thought to put corn in my tomatillo salsa — delish! Love love love your blog!! <3