Week Twelve: A New England Stir-Fry

What a great weekend. Dan and I were in Newport, RI for our annual trip with a bunch of friends for beaching, polo, and relaxing. We had perfectly sunny weather (as evidenced by my sunburn) for all of the above. I’d cut up half my watermelon from last week and tossed it with a chopped cucumber for a beach snack – unfortunately, though, it did not make it into the beach cooler. I was surprised to discover that it was a white watermelon – normal on the outside but bright yellow flesh inside. So pretty! Tastes just the same as a red watermelon, and the rest of it froze up nicely to put in my water.

Sunset over the polo grounds.

We didn't go for our usual Tuesday pickup this week, and we learned that Thursdays appear to be a lot busier than Tuesdays! With a lot more kids running around being cute. I picked up my usual carrots and potatoes, some Italian (I think) peppers, arugula, and another watermelon. Aly got more tomatoes, some eggplant, lettuce, bell peppers, and collards. We also got a half-pint of raspberries... time-consuming but worth the effort!

Peppers and arugula.

Now I know why they're so darn expensive at the store!

I also took a walk through the herb garden, which I haven’t done in ages. I made a conscious effort to pick stuff I thought I’d use, so ended up with chocolate mint, regular mint, lavender, dill, Thai basil, and purple basil. I had grand plans for a lavender or chocolate mint mojito, but my hopes were dashed upon discovering that we had no seltzer in the house. (I settled for some Newport Vineyards merlot instead. Way more local than Caribbean rum!)

Another yummy watermelon.

Clockwise from top left: Dill, chocolate mint, mint, purple basil, Thai basil, lavender.

New England Stir Fry

I made up this recipe name based on the ingredients and cooking method: a little New England boiled dinner, a little fun stir fry. We grilled some chicken sausage and the ear of corn, tossed the carrots with butter and sugar/cinnamon, and then plopped the potatoes into the peppers’ fry pan. Yum.

1 package chicken sausage (we used precooked Sweet Apple)
3 or 4 small bell peppers, cut into 1” pieces
6 medium carrots, peeled, halved lengthwise and then crosswise
2 pounds potatoes, scrubbed, and cut into chunks
Oil for frying, about 2 T
1 ear of corn per person (we only had one on hand, which we decided at the last minute to use)
2 T butter
1-2 tsp cinnamon (to taste)
1 T sugar (to taste)

Put the potatoes and carrots in a pot with plenty of salted water and bring to a boil. Test the carrots for done-ness first, as they cook faster. Scoop out with a slotted spoon and put into a bowl. Mix in the butter to melt, and then add cinnamon and sugar. Cover and keep warm. Check the potatoes – they shouldn’t be too mushy. Fry the peppers in the oil in a big frying pan until nice and crisp. Drain the potatoes and add to the pan with the peppers to finish.

Hot peppers!

Almost-candied carrots.

Meanwhile, grill the sausage and corn (keep most of the husk on but get as much silk off as you can). Alternately, you could probably cook the sausage in the pan with the peppers, adding them later to let the sausage cook through. And the corn could probably be broken up and added to the potatoes and carrots.

Delish!

Week Eleven: Halfway

Well, we crossed the halfway mark of the CSA this week… time certainly has been flying. The weather’s been weird, which seems to have led the farm crew to worry that the harvest would start shifting into autumn mode. Given this week’s harvest, though, I’m pretty sure the plants are still in summer production mode. The tomatoes, anyway.

We could pick a half-pint of raspberries from the fields. This one is about the size of the pad of my pinky finger.
And now I understand why these are so darn expensive at the grocery store!

We could pick ten (!) things this week… and we could double up on a few things. When Matt & Aly learned that they had the option to double the “five pounds of tomatoes” item… I think they actually jumped for joy. So we came home with ten pounds of tomatoes! They also got shallots to share, some potatoes, and lettuce. I got more purple peppers, carrots, beets, corn to share, and a watermelon.

There's nothing here to compare for scale, but this is what ten pounds of tomatoes looks like.

The size of my cookie jar!

  

After we sweated buckets at yoga, we came back to revel in the tomato glory and make some salsa, which Aly’s going to post about, yay! Matt and Aly grilled up some of the corn for dinner with chicken drumsticks, and I made some pickled peppers and carrots. I had a couple leftover white ones, so I chopped up two each of the purple and white peppers, then diced up about four large (for the farm) carrots about the same size. I poured my usual made-up-proportions pickling mix over everything, and it’s all sitting in the fridge getting yummy.

What's up, doc?

Peter Piper is jealous of my pickled purple peppers.

 I’m not sure what I want to do with the watermelon just yet… I mean, there are so many things I could do! I’ve used a melon baller to make watermelon ice cubes for my water (also did this with sliced cucumbers for Pimm’s cups!), but I feel like I should do something more exciting than that.

Speaking of Pimm’s cups, the English dinner with our parents went really well! Dan, my pie crust expert-in-residence, learned something about how we can apply the pie crust next time (what exactly, I already forget – crusts are not my thing!), the stew itself was great, and my Pimm’s cups were ratest “best ever”. I also exploded the Camembert container again, but I made sure to put it on a small foil-covered baking sheet before putting it in the oven!

Still not perfect... but not all over my oven!

We got the Pimm’s cups recipe/proportions straight off the Pimm’s web site: 1 part Pimm’s to 3 parts lemonade. As I was making the first batch, Dan realized that in the UK they might refer to Sprite as “lemonade”… but as we already had a gallon of Market Basket’s finest in the fridge, we stuck with that – to great success, I feel. The week prior I had washed, quartered, and frozen a container of strawberries, so those were ready to do double duty as ice cubes and a little flavor. I also froze cucumber slices (same deal), and lemonade in an ice cube tray. I garnished each glass with some mint from the yard (what little I could find after Dan had gotten to it with the weed whacker), and by Jove, they were delicious.

It's Pimm's o'clock somewhere!

Week Eight: Purple Pickled Peppers

I’ve become only a little obsessed with those pickled veggies. I like to think it’s a healthy addiction, though, since vegetables are good for you. And vinegar has literally zero nutritional value, so the only “additives” are some sugar and salt… I say it’s a win. I made them for Steak Friday last week, and again Tuesday night with this week’s harvest.

We got a lot of good stuff this week. Aly got a pound of tomatoes, lettuce, corn (we split the 6-ear allowance), squash, and cucumbers. I got new potatoes, bell peppers (green and purple), gold zucchini, and carrots. I also grabbed some dill and Thai basil from the field (my plant seems to still be doing ok). I had a cucumber from the grocery store that I didn’t have a chance to use last week, so I made more dill-pickled goodness to have with lunch this week. The purple peppers start leeching a little of their color into the vinegar, so by the time I eat my snack I have white and purple streaked peppers… very pretty.

Gold zucchini and a bell pepper

I’m trying to find some new recipes to try, but this week has been really crazy and I haven’t been home at a reasonable hour yet this week. Maybe I’ll make a carrot cake this weekend? Mmmm, baking. I do have a master plan for some of the veggies, so hopefully we get another good harvest next week. I will definitely post about that!

Fresh corn... the beer did not, unfortunately, come from the farm!

Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry to make pickled veg this week I didn’t think to take a picture of everything all together – so all you get are fridge pictures.

Mmmm veggie goodness.

And a picture of my favorite dog ever.

Rupert aka Captain Fuzzypants.