What's in the box, 8/6/14 edition

In this week's box: two types of potatoes (Peter Wilcox and Yukon Gold), broccoli, onions, red oak leaf lettuce, curly kale, green peppers, Persian cucumbers, yellow cumbers (salt and pepper cukes, according to the email), fairy tale eggplants, and summer squash (note the cool striped zucchini).

We tried the two types of cucumber with dinner, sliced with a bit of salt.

I love the field fresh veggies and the fact that we can eat the cucumber skins.

Tomatoes!

Finally, locally grown tomatoes are available. I bought these tomatoes today at Verrill Farm.

I made them into a Caprese salad (without the basil).

Note the pyramid shaped salt, which I bought last weekend at Trader Joe's. I didn't realize how large the pyramids were going to be. They are a bit too big for a last dusting of salt before serving, but they are really pretty on the tomatoes.

I am ready for my "tomato lover's" supplemental share to start at Siena Farms. I think we're just one or two weeks away from its start, when I'll get a flat of tomatoes in addition to the box each week. I just checked; it starts the week of August 11, so just one week to wait!

Links: Chocolate cherry bread, alternative pie crusts, plum and ricotta tart - and iced tea

This post from Baking Bites with a recipe for chocolate cherry bread describes it as being inspired by Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream. (You had me at Cherry Garcia.)

This post from Food52 about alternative pie crusts mentions using leftover steamed rice mixed with egg whites and cheese to make a crust for quiche. I will definitely try this the next time we have leftover rice.

This plum and ricotta tart from Food52 recipe sounds good, although more work than a cake (e.g., this plum torte recipe from Smitten Kitchen that I tried last year). I think it would be good with cherries instead of plums as well. Or maybe some nectarines or peaches.

Not a link, but the drink of my summer: iced tea, made in the fridge, with 4 tsp of loose tea or 4 tea bags put into a quart canning jar. Once filled with 4 cups of water, cap it and let it sit in the fridge overnight (or for 24 hours - I make my iced tea for the next day when I take out the day's iced tea from the fridge in the morning). If you used loose tea, strain the iced tea before drinking; if tea bags, just remove them from the jar. In the photo below, I used jasmine pearl tea, which opened into beautiful spider-like spirals.

I have tried many types of tea cold brewed this way (e.g., green, darjeeling, grapefruit infused black tea, jasmine). All good. Great for a hot summer day.

A new gadget

I don't usually buy kitchen gadgets at the grocery store, but I had to get this one.

It's an ice cube tray, with small sections that have silicone on the bottom.

When I get large bunches of herbs from the farm, I like to save some for the winter by chopping them (by hand if just a small amount or using the food processor if a larger amount) and adding a small amount of water or olive oil. Then I fill the ice cube tray sections and freeze. Once frozen, I pop them out into bags so that I can reuse the ice cube tray.

Sometimes it's been a challenge to get out a cube without breaking the tray. (I'm looking at you, dearest husband.) While I've not had a chance to try it yet, I think this new ice cube tray provides an easy way to get the cubes out.

Perhaps we'll get a bunch of cilantro or dill this week in the box, then I can try it out.

Pasta with beet greens and mushrooms

I had some beet greens saved from beets that we got in the box, which I wanted to try in a pasta dish. I bought some mushrooms, as they seemed like a good accompaniment.

I decided to poke around to see what people on the internet had done with beet greens and mushrooms before, and found this recipe for pasta with beet greens, herbs, and mushrooms on the Canadian Food Network, which I didn't follow while cooking, but which definitely inspired what I cooked.

Start a pot of salted water for your pasta.

Here are the mushrooms that I bought. (I saved the trimmings in a container in the freezer for broth.)

The beet greens, washed and chopped.

Sauté an onion for 5 minutes.

Then add the chopped mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes. Your pasta should go in the boiling water about now.

Add some hot pepper flakes. After adding, I thought, "Wow, that was a lot of hot pepper." You might want to use less.

After letting the hot pepper cook for a minute or two, add the beet greens.

Pour a little balsamic vinegar over them and cook until wilted.

As the balsamic vinegar evaporated, I added pasta water to the veggies to make some sauce for the pasta.

Stir in the pasta and cook for a minute.

Serve.

And yes, I did add too much hot pepper. While I like to top my pasta with cheese, I had to use extra to make the pasta seem less hot.

Overall, a good recipe, provided you have a lighter hand with the hot pepper flakes than I did.

Chard tzatziki

When I made the chard oshitashi, I made chard tzatziki at the same time with this recipe from the Martha Stewart web site, as they both called for the chard to be boiled about 4 minutes then plunged into an ice bath.

As I had cooked all of the chard together, with just a rough chop, I removed some leaves from stems to use in the tzatziki, then finely chopped it. I added it to a cup of fat-free greek yogurt in a container.

Then I added 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, one tablespoon of olive oil, some salt, and some cayenne pepper. Don't skip the cayenne; I think the tzatkiki would have been rather plain without it.

Stir together and chill.

I had it for lunch the next day, with pita, green peppers, and carrots for dipping.

It was fine, but I will be making chard oshitashi with all chard from the farm (and, just hypothetically, the two bunches I might have bought yesterday) from here on out, given that it's so easy and so good.

Pasta with zucchini, tomatoes, and fresh herbs

It's time for summer pasta, with freshly cooked veggies and lots of fresh herbs.

 

Start by sautéing an onion (or some scallions, which is what I used this time) for about 5 minutes. Also start your pasta water on a burner to boil.

Add sliced zucchini and summer squash. Cook for 5 minutes or so.

Then add chopped tomatoes. Your pasta water is probably boiling now. Add the pasta and set your timer. Mine needed 11 minutes, which was long enough to finish cooking the veggies.

While the veggies and pasta are cooking, chop your herbs.  I used a mix of basil, oregano, and parsley.

Then add the chopped herbs to the tomatoes and zucchini.

When the pasta is done, cook it for a minute in the zucchini and tomatoes.

Then serve.

With cheese, of course.