Posts Tagged ‘Mint’

CSA2 Week #9

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 by virginia

We weren’t expecting to pick up our CSA share this week but due to unforeseen circumstances, our trip was unfortunately cancelled. Not a big deal, as we plan on redoing the same trip next year. And this means we have more time to eat our veggies, as I was starting to get worried about the state of our fridge again. Hey, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right? Well in this case, we got a ton of tomatoes this week, so Josh is making gazpacho, one of my favorites. This week our share contents included:

Greens – 1 lb
Peppers – 3 each
Squash – 1.15 lbs
Cucumber – 1.5 lbs
Tomatoes – 4.5  lbs
Watermelon – 1 each
Mint – 0.12 lbs
Perslaine – 0.12 lbs

Chard, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, purslane, squash, mint, watermelon on top

Spaghetti carbonara with chard is one of our favorite dishes, and so easy to make. It’s always a quick standby dinner for us. Other simple suppers include pureed zucchini soup, or zucchini pancakes with smoked salmon and poached eggs.

I was surprised to see purple peppers, since we’ve been getting a lot of green peppers. I wonder if they taste the same, or if they’re any sweeter. I might just eat those fresh with a salad.

We also got more purslane, which I’ve been using as a garnish. It adds a citrusy, almost sweet bite to every dish. This batch will be the perfect topping for Josh’s garlicky gazpacho.

As for the mint and watermelon, maybe we can combine those for a refreshing salad or an interesting dessert? So many possibilities!

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CSA2 Week #2

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 by virginia

It’s Wednesday again so you know what that means – CSA day! We were back at our normal pickup location this week so I ran there after work to get our veggies before heading back out for a softball game. We got a wide variety of items in this share, and so far the crops have been looking great. This week our share contents included:

Garlic scapes – 0.4 lb
Lettuce – 1 head
Broccoli rabe – 0.5 lb
Fava beans – 0.5 lb
Greens – 1 lb
Mint – 2 oz
Cucumbers – 0.65 lb
Squash – 0.9 lb

Broccoli rabe, mint, garlic scapes, lettuce, fava beans, ruby chard, squash and cucumbers in front

Josh and I were both super excited to see broccoli rabe on the list. It’s something that we’ve never gotten before from the CSA, and we know exactly what we want to do with it. A few months ago we were at Becco, my favorite restaurant, and ordered a special appetizer of the day. It was burrata served on top of braised broccoli rabe and grilled bread, lightly dressed with olive oil and salt. The combination was heavenly. The burrata was rich and creamy and just melted across the broccoli rabe. The bread added a nice crunch, and it was a wonderful dish that we hope to replicate at home.

We were also happy to see fava beans, though we probably don’t have enough to make a batch of Egyptian style falafel. I’m sure we’ll figure out another good use for the beans though. Same with the cucumbers and squash – we didn’t get a whole lot of those but we can probably just prepare them simply and enjoy the freshness of the vegetables.

This week we didn’t have much choice for the greens, as all the boxes had swiss chard in them. There were a few different colors available but I stuck with the gorgeous ruby chard, since those looked the nicest. Josh and I made a delicious spaghetti carbonara with the ruby chard from last week’s share, which I plan on posting about. We also got another head of lettuce, red leaf this time, and more garlic scapes.

As for the mint, mojitos anyone?

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CSA Week #13

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 by virginia

The weather this week has been unbearably hot, and I wonder how that has affected our CSA crops. I felt bad because Josh had to run home right after work to pick up our share, and then go out again to meet some people for a happy hour. We had a bunch of repeats this week, and our fridge is absolutely packed with squash and tomatoes. The tomatoes I don’t mind, but does anyone have good suggestions about what to make with squash? We’ve already made squash soup, ratatouille, zucchini bread, and squash pancakes (similar to potato pancakes). We’re running out of ideas, and we still have lots of squash left. This week our veggie share contents included:

Watermelon – 1/2
Peppers – 5 mini
Tomatoes – 1 1/4 lbs
Mixed Greens – 1 lb
Squash – 2 lbs
Beets – 3 each
Spearmint – 1/8 lb
Beans – 1/2 lbs

Greens, squash, watermelon, tomatoes, spearmint, pole beans, mini bell peppers, beets

I’m not sure what kind of greens we got this week. They kind of look like baby collards. Anyone have any idea? The watermelon we got has yellow flesh. I don’t think I’ve had yellow watermelon before, and I wonder if it tastes the same as pink watermelon. We also got a lot of mint, so I foresee lots of mojitos.

We got lots of fruit this week, and I think we currently have more fruit in our refrigerator than we have vegetables. I made a tasty apricot tart with our CSA apricots that were starting to get overly ripe. It was a great way to make sure the fruit didn’t go to waste. This week our fruit share contents included:

Italian Plums – 1 3/4 lbs
Apples – 1 bag
Peaches – 2 lbs

Apples, peaches, Italian plums

The apples we got were similar to macintoshes. The Italian plums this week were pretty soft so we’ll either have to eat them really quickly, or I’ll have to turn them into a dessert. Meanwhile, the peaches we’ve been getting are fantastic. They’re the juicy, sweet, white variety and I’ve been eating a few each day. Can’t believe the summer is almost over!

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Minty Mojitos

Monday, June 28th, 2010 by virginia

Minty mint

So what do you do with a third of a pound of mint? That’s the dilemma we faced when we got our first CSA share. Josh and I like mint but don’t really cook with it too often, plus we still have our mint plant from last year that is surprisingly still alive and producing leaves. We decided to go with the more obvious route and made a few batches of minty mojitos.

To make a mojito, muddle together a handful of mint leaves, a teaspoon of sugar, and the juice of half a lime. Really squish it all together for about a minute to extract every last bit of flavor. Add rum into the container where you’ve been muddling the other ingredients and swirl it around a bit. We like two shots per drink. Pour it all into a cocktail mixer with ice. Shake well, pour into glasses filled with ice, top off with club soda, garnish, and serve.

Lime mojitos

We also made mojitos with lemons (are they still considered to be mojitos?) when we accidentally ran out of limes. Mint lemonade is a classic summer drink, and adding rum into the mix only made it better. Vodka would probably do the trick as well.

Lemon mojitos

The mint really works well with the citrus, and you can boost up the flavor even more with citrus-flavored rum. The amount of rum/sugar/club soda can vary between personal tastes, but adding a lot of fresh mint leaves really brightens up the drink. It’s perfect for these hot summer days!

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CSA Week #1

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 by virginia

Josh and I decided to join a CSA this year after reading about CSA shares on other blogs. What is a CSA? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Read here for a good description of what a CSA is, but basically you buy a share of a farm for a season and your share translates into weekly vegetable deliveries. In addition to the vegetable share, we got a fruit share as well, though the fruit deliveries don’t start until later in the season.

The vegetable shares were supposed to start next week, but due to the freakishly hot weather recently, some of the crops have ripened sooner, so today was our first delivery. The pick up location is near our apartment, so Josh headed there straight after work, as we were both eager to see what we got. The core group of our CSA sends out the list of share contents the day of delivery, but seeing it on paper is different from seeing the bounty before your eyes.

So for Week #1, our share contents included:

Garlic Scapes – .16 lbs (or 4 scapes)
Lettuce – 2 heads
Pac Choi (bok choy) – 2 heads
Radish – .5 lbs (or 6 radishes)
Mint – .3 lbs
Greens – .75 lbs

It doesn’t sound like a lot, but believe me, we have enough vegetables to last us the week.

From left to right: Bok choy, greens, mint, lettuce, radishes, and garlic scapes in the middle

And considering that this is early in the season, I can’t even imagine what our contents will be like during the heart of the summer! I’m thrilled to bits that we decided to join a CSA, and I really hope that means we will be cooking more from here on out. We’ve already made a pesto sauce from the garlic scapes, which I’ll be posting about soon. Hopefully this will become a weekly feature from us every Wednesday when we pick up our share!

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