A (quarter) peck of pickled peppers

3 pounds of peppers

After weeks of saving up hot wax peppers and mild banana peppers from the farm, I got a bumper crop of some sort of hot pepper.  They were offering an unlimited supply, so I filled a plastic grocery bag, probably close to 3 pounds.  Unfortunately, I don't know what kind these peppers are, but a farmhand told me they were "medium" spicy.  After the poblano-burning-my-hands incident, I figured I'd be safe in considering them on the hot side, but perhaps not a Scotch Bonnet.   

Putting food by

When I first heard that there were unlimited tomatoes in the farm share, I instantly thought this would be the perfect excuse to learn how to can my own tomatoes for future use.  Canned whole tomatoes are a staple in my pantry for soups and sauces, so if I could save money on the store-bought version by investing a little time, why not?  Unfortunately, I missed the unlimited-tomato offer, which is not that big of a problem since I really wanted plum tomatoes.  So I kept an eye out for a good deal, and one day I stopped at a farm stand close to home that had a large basket of plum tomatoes for just $16.  The box I left with had around 30 lbs. of tomatoes...more than I knew what to do with.  Almost.

Off my game

After a weekend away, and a long day of teaching and yoga, I decided to cook up some dishes in advance to save time later.  I had three eggplants saved up, but they were looking sad and wilty (who knew eggplant could wilt!?).  I was craving Indian, but couldn't find anything online that sounded tempting.  I turned to my favorite cookbook, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, and found exactly what I wanted: Curried Coconut Eggplant with Potatoes.  Perfect, since I just got sweet potatoes, and the recipe also calls for tomatoes.  The only thing I didn't have was ginger, but knew that wouldn't matter too much.  What does matter, though, is that you don't burn the spices.  First I burned the mustard seeds I was supposed to be toasting.  Then the rest of the spices burned, including all my garlic.  I went forward, though, and stirred all the veggies & coconut milk into the charred mass.  We'll see how it turns out when I have it for dinner tomorrow, but I'm not too hopeful.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I managed to burn the frittata I made for the morning as well.  I hope my cooking skills recover by the time I get to the giant bag of hot peppers.  They were unlimited in this week's share, so I should have enough for pickling and a new batch of hot sauce.

Stuffed peppers & gazpacho

Teaching four classes is turning out to be more work than I had thought, but I have still managed to keep up with the produce.  Keeping up with the blog is another story...Soon I'll write a post about the preserving I've been doing, but in the meantime, some regular old recipes for what I've been making.  The summer vegetables are at their peak, and there has been a wonderful variety of peppers at the farm.  I've been saving up the hot ones to pickle, but when another CSA member offered me her share of poblanos, I knew I had enough to make something a little special.

Dips & sauces

Fresh salsa

Being away for two months, I've forgotten how much I have to keep up with my produce.  It really is nice to feel like there's always food in the house, but I hate having to toss a gorgeous tomato that's gone bad because I didn't get to it in time.  I'd almost completely forgotten about my plans to make salsa fresca.  It's one of my favorites to make, especially when I'm in Russia and want something exotic.  Finding tortilla chips in Russia isn't difficult, but a good dip is hard to come by.  My favorite part about this dip: add avocado and you have guacamole!

The colors of summer

My colorful haul for the week: wax
peppers, cucumbers, summer squash,
tomatoes, eggplant, onions,
herbs & spaghetti squash

Today was my first time back at the farm myself in over two months.  What a treat to see the bins of veggies and pick out my produce.  As I moved around the room from cooler to cooler, I noticed a trend in my bags: one was full of greens & yellows, and the other was full of reds, purples, and oranges.  When I make a salad or think about what to serve for dinner, I often try to eat a variety of colors.  I guess I've gleaned information from the FDA over the years that different colors of fruits and vegetables indicate different kinds of vitamins and minerals, so you get more of a balance by eating different plants.  But it was a real treat to see the variety in one week's worth of produce.

Back in the saddle

Adorable tiny graffiti eggplant!

After quite the hiatus, I'm back to cooking with the amazing produce from my CSA.  Soon I hope to write a bit about my food life while I was in Russia, but in the meantime, more seasonal Jersey veggies.  Since I only arrived on Friday after a 32-hour journey home, my roommate was kind enough to visit the farm for me.  This week's haul: eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes (unlimited pick-your-own!), onions, bell peppers, jalapenos, Hungarian wax peppers (and some rather similar looking sweet peppers, but we quickly discovered you can distinguish them by smell), cucumber, butternut squash and a mix of herbs.  This is an entirely different ball game from the greens of June.