CSA week 3

I picked up ML’s and my 3^rd CSA order on Saturday.  The deliveries are getting progressively better.  The first week’s box was a little scant, last week turned up some yummy beets and more Swiss chard, along with onions, potatoes, mulberries etc.  This week yielded 2 bunches each of heirloom carrots, beets, 2 kinds of onions, potatoes.  I was really excited about the carrots – much more than is normal for any sane person, I’m sure.  There were purple carrots!  C’mon, how cool is that!  J 

Fortunately there was no chard this week.  I’m a little tired of greens at this point, after 2 weeks of Swiss chard and the co-op kale.  I make potato-kale gratin the week before and finished up the kale (which was surprisingly fresh-looking after almost 2 weeks.  Scary.) by baking it into a cornbread stuffing dish, and used the Swiss chard  in some mashed potatoes.  Mmm…comfort food. J

Other than all this produce-inspired fun, it was another busy weekend.  After a luxurious day off from work on Friday (carpooling is leaving me with far too many hours on the clock), the DH and I headed to the Bellevue Little Theatre to see the Great American Trailer Park Musical.  Yes, I drug my husband to a musical.  He survived.  I thought it was great!  A very talented cast and some extremely adult content. 

Saturday morning was the CSA pickup and farmer’s market, followed by 30 minutes of cruising through Benson trying to find the Benson Plant Rescue sale with my mom.  It was worth the effort – we drove away with 10 large flowing shrubs (roses, daisies, etc) and some smaller plants for under $40.  Hopefully it rains again soon, so I can get them in the ground!

Saturday night, Diva Soma put on a spectacular show at the Shark Club.  It was unusual because most of our dances were brand new – very few repeats, which was nice.  I had a new solo, which I felt went smoothly and despite one of our best dancers being out sick, we pulled off some group dances very well.  After the show, the DH and I headed over to a local music venue to catch a couple of bands with his friends…but we got home early enough to get a good rest in, and we got an early start on Sunday.  Wanting to catch the pre-noon matinee of the new Batman movie, we awoke early and took off for a run around Lake Zorinsky.  Phew.  I’m glad we went when we did – it was a hot humid morning before 10 a.m.  Summer is definitely here.

Well, here’s to the start of another busy week (raising coffee mug).  Amongst the usual array of meetings and rehearsals, the DH is celebrating his 5^th year as a licensed pharmacist.  Whoo-hoo!  I couldn’t be more proud.  Congrats, honey!

Cherries

My boss offered up his cherry tree on July 4^th, so I met up with a coworker and we went to town, each filling a bucket in about 20 minutes.  After over an hour with a cherry pitting machine (and thanks to my DH who took over midway), I have 2 ½ quarts of frozen pie cherries and a homemade cherry crisp that I took to work.  Mmmm….

In other local fruit news, my in-laws brought their ice cream maker over that afternoon and we used my hand-picked strawberries and some peaches from their tree to make ice cream.  We also grilled with some local grass-fed hamburgers and hotdogs; I added a couple of local side dishes to the mix as well.  From the Farmer John cookbook I got for Christmas, I made up some kohlrabi and carrot slaw, and a marinated beet salad.  I’m not a slaw person, so I left that for the DH, but the beet salad was excellent.  I had ordered two bunches of beets from the co-op last week – Chioggia and another (not-identified) variety.  I have plenty leftover, so I’m going to whip up another of the beet recipes sometime this week.

I have some kale from the coop, too, part of which I used to make a potato and kale casserole for lunch yesterday.  It was decent – smothered the potatoes in some herbed butter and covered the whole thing in parmesan cheese.  Hard to go wrong with cheese!  The rest of the kale will go towards a Cajun Kale and Corn salad, or perhaps a soup with potatoes and carrots. 

Our CSA delivery for the weekend was cancelled – too small a harvest, so small that they didn’t even attend the farmers market at all.  Fortunately not every farm is having this issue, so plenty of food is available.  My own garden yielded two large bags of lettuce mix; the last for the season I fear, as one plant had started to bolt.  I harvested all I could – good eating for this week at least.