Use Your Booty: Grilled Sausage Sub Platter

Yesterday I asked Dave what he wanted for dinner and he sheepishly asked for sausage and pepper subs. I'm not a huge fan of this type of sandwich (and he knows it): the roll is always too big and fluffy, overshadowing the filling; the filling needs to be inserted perfectly, otherwise everything slithers out the back end when you take a bite; and frankly, I like to eat with a knife and fork most of the time.

So this was a great compromise: we took the traditional insides threw them all on the grill and served it all on a platter with fresh tomatoes, olive focaccia and some spicy kale (not in the picture) on the side.

I made garlic oil and brushed it on the peppers, onions and eggplant prior to grilling. I'll admit the eggplant is not traditional, but I love grilled eggplant and it stretched the sausage so we had enough left over for another meal. The peppers and kale came from my CSA and the eggplant from the farmstand down the road. The tomatoes were a gift from the lovely ladies at The Herb Farmacy (a fellow farmer's market vendor).

A note about the sausage: This sausage was INCREDIBLE. I got it from Tim Rocha at Kellie Brook Farm. His booth is two over from mine at the farmers' market, so I was able to do some shopping in between customers. I bought a pound each of his hot Italian and chorizo sausages. Last night we grilled the hot Italian sausage. It was everything you want sausage to be: fatty enough so it didn't try out on the grill (even though we had a fiery flareup or two), good seasoning (not too salty, just enough heat), and deep porky flavor. Seriously, we sat at the table, chewing the meat and saying over and over how good it was.

Tim raises Berkshire hogs and the flavor is just great: rich and porky with just enough fat (although it is a leaner breed than some other heritage breeds). In addition to Newburyport, MA, Tim also sells his meat (pork, chicken, veal) at markets in Portsmouth, Exeter and Hampton, NH.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Quick Pasta Dinner

What can I say? I'm a sucker for an egg and some crispy crumbs. If you've been reading this summer's posts, this dish may look a little familiar, but it's a nice go-to for when you don't know what's going on the dinner table. I boil some pasta, make a quick sauce of sautéed vegetables and top the plate with a poached or fried egg and some crispy bits. The crispy crumbs add a nice textural contrast to the plate.

This plate was: linguine and a sauce of bacon, chunks of plum tomato, and shreds of Swiss chard and onion. I drained the pasta (I lifted it out of the pot with tongs), and added it right to the skillet containing the sauce. Then I poached the eggs right in the pasta pot. In the meantime, the crumbs were toasting in the toaster oven with a little olive oil.

Dinner in about 15 minutes!

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

CSA Booty - Week 13

Be sure to check out Use Your Booty: Show Your CSA Box Who's Boss for ideas about how to manage your CSA vegetables.

In this week's share I picked up:

• 6 ears of corn
• 2 pattypan squash, 2 yellow squash
• 1 head of cabbage
• Cherry and plum tomatoes
• 4 Anaheim chile peppers
• 1 bunch of broccoli
• A whole pile of kale - picked my own!
• 1 bunch of Swiss chard
• A bunch of basil
• A whole mess of purslane (more to come on this!)

So here's what I think I'm doing with these items:

• I think I'm going to make a pudding with the corn.
• The cabbage is going most likely become another slaw, maybe with the broccoli.
• The plum tomatoes will get roasted and eaten either on pasta or perhaps on bruschetta.
• I have two avocados ripening on the counter, so I'll like make chile rellenos with the peppers and spiced greens with some of the kale.
• The cherry tomatoes have already gone into tomato pie.

So how'd I do with last week's haul? Here's what we ate from the CSA last week:

• Half the corn was steamed and eaten hot with butter. Yum. The other half went into a salad with a few other vegetables.
• I stuffed the Anaheims with Monterey jack and some thinly sliced onions. They went into a skillet and got all silky soft.
• The cabbage made a slaw with a few other vegetables.
• I fried some of the zucchini and the rest went into the corn salad.
• I made this gorgeous tomato rarebit to test for Food52 with great tomatoes I had.
• The plum tomatoes went into a pasta sauce with Swiss chard, onions and bacon.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share.

Use Your Booty: Box Car Willie and Friends Rarebit

For the recipe for this delicious bowl of comfort, you're going to have to head over to Food52. This rarebit was an Editor's Pick in the recent heirloom tomato contest. Those of you familiar with rarebit will wonder where the toast is. Just think of the tomatoes as the toast and go happily on your way. I recommend you have some bread on hand to sop up the gorgeous tomatoey-cheesiness that will be in the bottom of the dish.

I used a combination of tomatoes: a big beefy type, a few cherries and a stripy saladette number - no idea of the names of any of them. A note of warning: the tomatoes will be insanely hot when you pull the dish out of the oven. As painful as it will be to wait for them to cool, it will be less painful than the scorched mouth you'll have otherwise.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

CSA Booty - Week 12

Be sure to check out Use Your Booty: Show Your CSA Box Who's Boss for ideas about how to manage your CSA vegetables.

In this week's share I picked up:

• 9 ears of corn
• 3 zucchini
• 1 head of cabbage
• 1 cucumber
• A lotta tomatoes
• A whole mess of Anaheim chile peppers (I used three of my choices to make sure I got enough for us for dinner)
• 5 jalapenos
• I had more options in "pick your own" but didn't have time, so I had to pass on some flowers and greens. Boo.

So here's what I think I'm doing with these items:

• We've already eaten half the corn - steamed with butter. Yum.
• I stuffed the Anaheims with Monterey jack and some thinly sliced onions. We ate them last night with the corn.
• The cabbage could become sauerkraut but is more likely to become a slaw.
• I think I'll make fritters with the zucchini and pickle some of the rest.
• I'm have to make this tomato rarebit to test for Food52 and plan on using the great heirlooms I picked up.
• I'll turn the plum tomatoes I got into a simple pasta sauce.

So how'd I do with last week's haul? Here's what we ate from the CSA last week:

• I made a green lasagna with the amaranth, kale and onions
• We made a super delicious stack of BLTs - my bacon comes from North Country Smokehouse, it's amazingly smoky and really makes the dish.
• We enjoyed a lovely plate of green pasta with tomato sauce and burrata.
• I am confident that I have a stash of leftover vegetables waiting in the fridge that I'll need to address later today.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share.

Use Your Booty: Pasta Verde with Tomato Sauce and Burrata

After making that green lasagna on Tuesday I still had some leftover pasta dough. So I wrapped it up and left in the fridge to await future use (or the compost bin). Tonight I made a quick tomato sauce with the remainder of our CSA tomatoes (mostly cherry tomatoes) and decided to roll the rest of the pasta and have it for supper.

As an aside: I got this Kitchen Pasta Rolling dingus for Christmas (thanks Mom!). If you like fresh pasta I can't recommend the purchase (or gifting, if you are so lucky) of of these more highly. A hand cranked machine isn't that hard to use, but this motorized roller makes pasta making so much faster.

I rolled the pasta and turned it into corzetti (or croxetti), a hand-stamped round pasta from Genoa, Italy. That there is my corzetti stamp, purchased on our trip to Genoa a few years ago. And down there, is a tray of corzetti ready for boiling. For those playing along at home, I rolled my to "6" on the pasta roller - this is a thicker setting (the thinning setting is "8") about what I would use for linguine.

Burrata is a cheese made of mozzarella wrapped around fresh cheese curd. If you can't find it, a few slices of fresh mozzarella and/or a scoop of fresh ricotta would be a satisfactory substitute.

So, no recipe today, just the idea for you:

Make a fresh tomato sauce: I used about 1 pound of tomatoes (coarsely chopped) and 2 cloves of garlic, sautéed together until the tomatoes broke down and got saucy. I didn't seed or skin my tomatoes, but probably should have (the cherry tomatoes seeds and skins were a little tough). Season to taste with salt & pepper.

Boil up some fresh pasta (about 3-4 ounces per person).

Sauce the pasta with the sauce and top the dish with a few slices of burrata.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Lasagna Verde

I admit it, I had blog envy. I saw this gorgeous post on radicchio lasagna over at AuthorJane's Cooking from the Farms series and got lasagna on the brain. She had gotten her radicchio through one of her CSA memberships. I didn't have radicchio, but have a lot of greens so I decided to use my bunch of amaranth and half of my kale.

I'm going to give this recipe to you in several steps (pasta, filling, bechamel, assembly) because each component can be made ahead and/or used as its own dish. Make sure each component is well-seasoned and delicious on its own before layering it into the lasagna.

This looks like a lot of steps and components, but from start to finish I pulled this dish together in 45 fast-paced minutes (not counting baking time). It would have been even easier had I had a stash of cooked greens in the fridge like I usually do.

Pasta Verde

I made a green pasta for my lasagna. If you don't want to make your own pasta, skip this step and use Barilla No-Boil lasagna noodles.

Makes about 1 pound of pasta

• 4 cups tender greens (amaranth, spinach, chard leaves, etc.)
• 2 eggs
• pinch salt
• approximately 2 1/4 cups (about 10 ounces) flour

In a saucepan of boiling water, cook the greens until they are tender, about 5 minutes. Drain the greens and run cool water over them to cool them off. Squeeze as much water out of the greens as you can.

Put the greens into the bowl of a food processor with the eggs and salt. Process until the greens are very finely chopped. Add 1 1/2 cups of flour into the processor bowl and process, pulsing, to pull the eggs, greens and flour into a dough. The dough will come up onto the blade of the processor and roll around. Feel the dough and it will likely be sticky, add about 1/4 cup into the bowl and process a little more.

Pull the dough out of the bowl and knead the dough, adding flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the countertop. The dough should be soft, smooth and supple. Wrap the dough in plastic and set aside until you're ready to roll it out.

After the dough has rested for 20 minutes, it's ready to roll.

Sautéed Greens

Makes about 3-4 cups of greens

• olive oil
• 1 large onion, peeled and thinly sliced
• 10-12 cups of greens leaves, coarsely chopped (kale, amaranth, chard, spinach, collards, etc.)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• salt

In a large skillet, over medium-high heat sauté the onion in olive oil until softened. Add the greens and a pinch of salt to the skillet and continue to cook, stirring and tossing the greens to wilt them down - this will take about 10 minutes. If the skillet seems too dry, add a 1/2 cup of water and keep cooking. After the greens are wilted, add the garlic and vinegar to the pan and sauté for another 5 minutes.

Set aside to let the greens cool.

Bechamel Sauce

Makes 4 cups

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 4 cups milk
• pinch of nutmeg
• salt & pepper

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and then add the flour. Using a heatproof rubber spatula, stir in the flour making sure it's well blended. When the flour has started to turn golden, add a splash of milk. Stir the milk in well with the spatula. Whisk in the rest of the milk in 1 cup increments.

Bring the bechamel to a gentle boil, whisking frequently. Season well with nutmeg, salt and pepper.

Set aside. If making aside, cover the surface of the bechamel with a piece of waxed paper.

Lasagna Verde

Note that I don't pre-boil my fresh pasta noodles in this dish, the pasta stays much softer this way. For more firm pasta layers, parboil the noodles for 1-2 minutes before layering them into the dish.

• 1 recipe green pasta or 1 pound Barilla no-boil noodles
• 3-4 cups cooked greens
• 8 oz mozzarella, shredded (I used the little mozzarella balls called perlini)
• 3 ounces parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 375.

Grease a 9" x 13" baking dish and cover the bottom of the pan with a few spoonfuls of bechamel.

Roll the pasta in a pasta roller (I like to roll as I assemble because it's so much easier to just put the sheets straight into the pan), rolling each new layer of pasta as you need it.

Stack ingredients up in the pan to make three layers in the lasagna. Each layer contains: 1 layer pasta, 1 layer greens, mozzarella, grated parmesan and about 1/2 cup of bechamel. The final and top layer is pasta, bechamel and parmesan. Make sure the entire surface is covered with bechamel.

Cover the dish loosely with foil and bake for 30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling. Take off the foil and broil the top to brown the cheese.

Let the lasagna sit for 5 minutes before serving.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Orecchiette with Chard, Sausage and Ricotta

This meal was inspired by a dish I used to make a long, long time ago. It was called Rigatoni alla Buttera. It's a hearty plate of pasta, sauced with ricotta (or cream) and tomato and studded with peas and chunks of sausage.

Dave begged for some meat on the dinner plate (we've been eating a LOT of all-veggie dishes), so I pulled out the last of some pork sausage I made in my last sausage-stuffing binge (time to pull out the grinder again I guess). I also had a half container of ricotta in the fridge, so it was logical to try to pull a dish together using that too. I had to add some vegetables to the pan so I used Swiss chard (you can sub in spinach, kale or any other green you have on hand) and sliced raw onions.

To add a little crunch I made a handful of big breadcrumbs by cubing stale bread and pan frying them in olive oil.

Orecchiette with Chard, Sausage and Ricotta

2-3 servings

• 8 ounces Italian sausage, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 8 ounces orecchiette pasta (substitute shells if you can't get your hands on orecchiette)
• 1 bunch Swiss chard, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 12 ounces ricotta
• 1 small onion, sliced into paper-thin rings
• 1-2 handfuls big breadcrumbs

In a large skillet, sauté the sausage over medium-high heat until cooked through and browned.

While the sausage is cooking, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the orecchiette to al dente. Right before the pasta is done, add the Swiss chard into the pasta pot to wilt it down. Drain the pasta, reserving a cup of the cooking water to use in the sauce (I usually put a coffee cup in my colander to remind me to save a cup of water.)

Put the pasta and chard back into the pasta pot with the ricotta, sliced onion and sausage. Stir everything together, adding a little pasta water to loosen up the sauce and make it creamy. Taste and add salt & pepper as desired. Just before serving, stir in big breadcrumbs.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

CSA Booty - Week 11

If you're just stopping by - be sure to check out Use Your Booty: Show Your CSA Box Who's Boss for ideas about how to manage your CSA vegetables.

This week's share was made up of:

• 1 bunch Swiss chard
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 bunch amaranth
• 1 bunch of broccoli
• 2 boxes of onions (one yellow, one red)
• Lots of tomatoes: big red beefsteak types, plum tomatoes and cherry tomatoes
• I cut a big bunch of parsley
• I cut 6 beautiful zinnias

So here's what I think I'm doing with these items:

• The Swiss chard will be sautéed down and dressed with olive oil, lemon and chili flakes and served on bruschetta and/or wrapped in prosciutto (thank you, Alice Waters for the prosciutto idea)
• I am in a pasta-making mood, and this gorgeous lasagna on my friend Jane's blog has spurred me to act: lasagna verde, made with amaranth (in the pasta and filling) and kale (filling)
• BLTs are in my future, methinks
• I think I'll make a batch of oven-roasted tomato sauce with some more of the tomatoes
• The parsley is the main ingredient in salsa verde and I think I'll make a batch to sauce something grilled
• The broccoli is probably going into a pasta salad with some tomatoes and herbs

So how'd I do with last week's haul? Here's what we ate from the CSA last week:

• I've put the zucchini and squash in a sauté with some fresh corn
• The kale's was sautéed with a lot of garlic
• The broccoli was paired with more kale and some Israeli couscous and topped with a fried egg and some tomatoes
• We ate the tomatoes in a panzanella with last week's bok choy and lettuce and some of the onions and green beans
• Some of the chard became a ricotta-sauced dish of pasta and sausage

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share.

Use Your Booty: Panzanella con Verdure

No recipe, just an idea for you to play with.

Here's another version of Panzanella. This once had bok choy (sautéed), green beans, tomatoes, lettuce and oat cheese. I made a sherry vinaigrette to dress it and showered it with torn basil.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Drink of the Week: Sun Gold Tomato Martini

I tried making quite a few variations of a sun gold tomato martini last summer. What challenging research projects I give myself!

Before this most recent attempt, I have made these all as muddled drinks, that is, I've crushed the tomato in with the gin, shaken the drink and then strained the tomato out. Delicious, but sorta bloody Mary-ish. In this version, I made sun gold tomato gin by steeping crushed tomatoes in gin and straining it through a coffee filter. This made for a drink that was the essence of tomato without any of the heaviness of tomato juice.

Even better, I can stockpile bottles of tomatoey sunshine to enjoy in the cold winter.

Sun Gold Tomato Martini

Prepare the gin by steeping crushed sun gold cherry tomatoes (slightly overripe ones are perfect) in gin. Just put the tomatoes in a jar and cover them with gin. Let steep for three-four days. Strain the liquid through a coffee filter into another jar.

To make your cocktail, combine in an iced mixing glass:

• 3 ounces tomato gin
• 1 ounce dry vermouth (Dolin is great if you can find it)
• 2 dashes orange bitters

Stir until very well chilled and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a fresh sun gold cherry

tomato if you have one.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Show Your CSA Box Who's Boss

What a well-fed and inspiring summer I've been having! I've been getting produce from my CSA for nearly three months now. I have made some gorgeous meals, like this dish of seared gnocchi and pea tendrils. I have also made some rather pedestrian dishes: sautéed kale anyone?

In the last few weeks I've also been dealing with a lot of stress about how to use all these vegetables. I'm really busy these days. I have a number of great clients who keep me busy during the week and then on weekends, I'm a baked goods vendor at my local farmers' market.

No matter how tired I am though, the idea of wasting any of this gorgeous produce is really distasteful to me. So here are a number of tips I've developed to help me get through the remainder of my CSA's growing season with a relatively clear conscience (at least with respect to wasting food!).

Make your CSA part of your weekly routine: Make a date with yourself to do your pickup and put things away when you get home. When my pickup's been a rushed affair I enjoy it less and am more likely to put things away in a slapdash manner.

Pack your booty up properly: To me, there's litte that's more depressing than pulling out a bag of produce only to find it's wilted, soggy, slimy, etc. I have made the process packaging my produce part of my CSA pickup experience. This really saves time when I'm searching for dinner ingredients. When I get home from the farm, everything gets wrapped up in a way that makes things easier for me later:

• Bunches of greens are loosened up (if there's a rubber band holding a bunch together I cut it off) and wrapped in a dish towel and then bagged in an open plastic bag (like in that picture there, see?). This also makes the greens take up less space.
• Any non-edible parts of the vegetable are cut off - for instance carrots tops are tossed directly into the compost bin.
• I put similar items together: scallions and herbs go into one bag, carrots join beets and turnips in one bag, lettuces are all bagged up together.

Put together a recipe box: It's handy to have a collection of meal ideas to use as inspiration for your cooking. You don't need to be working directly from recipes; I use a list of go-to meals (frittata, tart, pasta with vegetables) in combination with recipes I pick up on the internet and in magazines. I use my computer to keep track of my meal ideas, but a binder or notepad might be just fine.

Make a meal plan: Make meal planning part of your CSA pickup process. Use your collection of recipes to put together a list of what you're making in the next few days. It doesn't have to be super detailed, but I find it very comforting to know that I'm planning on a frittata, a tart, a pasta dish, sides for a grilled chicken, etc. I also use this meal planning time to note any holes in my pantry so that I can pick up additional vegetables and ingredients at the farmers' market or supermarket.

Cook down your greens ASAP: We've gotten pie after pile of greens this summer, so I've made pan after pan of sautéed greens.

Greens with garlic, greens with ginger, greens with chilies, greens with spices, etc. Cooked greens can go into pasta, a frittata, on a sandwich, on bruschetta. Cooking greens down is easy and it can be done ahead of time. Plus cooked greens take way less space in the fridge than raw greens.

Soup is your best friend: I agree that when it's 90 degrees outside, the last thing you want is a hot, steaming bowl of soup.

There are some nice chilled soups you can try (like lettuce soup, gazpacho or vichyssoise). I also make soups and put them into the freezer for use on colder summer nights or in the fall. Soups are great sponges for a 1/4 cup of this and a handful of that.

The freezer is your other best friend: Don't get me wrong, pickling and canning are great, but on a hot day, and when you're in a hurry, there is nothing simpler than throwing something into a Ziploc and then into the freezer. Most vegetables do need to be cooked prior to freezing, so I'll usually blanch or sauté my vegetables and then put them into LABELED and DATED Ziploc bags and squeeze all the air out. Tomatoes don't need to be pre-cooked: I core them and throw them right into bags. When they thaw later, the skins will slip right off. Most important: keep a list of what you've put into the freezer so you don't forget what's in there.

Don't take it if you don't want it: CSAs are a great way to try new things, but if you know you aren't going to use those tomatoes or that Swiss chard don't bring it home. Most CSAs give their uncollected produce to shelters or soup kitchens, so the produce won't go to waste. That said, if a vegetable is new to you, try it at least once before you give up on it.

What are your tips for managing your CSA share? I'd love to hear from you.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Easy Vegetable Tart

So here's a savory tart made with the tart dough recipe that I used to make the fruit tart.

I pulled the filling together while Dave made the crust. He's never made any kind of pastry before, and he put the dough together quickly and pressed it into the tart shell.

I tossed together some CSA tomatoes, cooked Swiss chard and cubed goat cheese (Middletown Tomme) from West River Creamery. I crumbled a leftover savory shortbread over the top of the tart - next time I think I'll use chopped nuts or shredded parmesan over the top.

So nice to have another quick weeknight recipe on hand. In the time it took to preheat the oven, we made the tart crust and put together the filling. The tart takes about 35-40 minutes to bake, so a really delicious, elegant dinner is on the table in about an hour.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: BLT Fattoush

I really like bread salads. They're a great way to showcase fresh vegetables. Panzanella is the bread salad that I make most often; it requires a hearty, rustic loaf, which I don't always have on hand. Fattoush is a bread salad made with fried or toasted pita bread. Traditionally fattoush is pita with parsley, tomato, onion and herbs.

I actually wanted to make BLT sandwiches for dinner, but had so sandwich-suitable bread in the kitchen. I did have a bag of pita chips left over from an event earlier in the week, so I decided to use them as the base for a fattoush salad. The devilled eggs are definitely a non-traditional garnish as is the addition of bacon.

The fattoush formula is very adaptable to whatever's in the pantry. It's a great "sponge" for bits of leftover cooked and raw vegetables. I like the pita to be about 1/3 of the total salad, but you should feel free to find your own perfect ratio of pita to vegetables.

No recipe today, just a guide:

BLT Fattoush

For each person you're serving, combine in a large bowl:

• 2 handfuls of torn lettuce leaves
• 1/2 cup of coarsely chopped tomato
• 1-2 slices of cooked bacon
• a few slices of very thinly sliced onion
• 1-2 handfuls pita chips, crushed lightly

Dress generously (the chips will soak up a lot of dressing) with a lemon or red wine vinegar-based vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Green Bean and Potato Pesto Salad

Yesterday was a red-letter day vegetable-wise: our first green beans of the season and the first corn! The corn needed no embellishment other than a gentle enrobing of butter, and I turned the beans into a salad. I had fresh pesto on hand from last week's basil so I prepared a Genoese-inspired potato and green bean salad.

Green Bean and Potato Pesto Salad

Serves 3-4

I didn't have any on hand, but this salad would even better with the addition of a handful of toasted pine nuts or walnuts added in at the end.

• 4 handfuls green beans, stem ends cut off, beans cut into 2" lengths (I used both green and yellow beans)
• 3 medium-sized red-skinned or Yukon gold potatoes cut into 1/2" dice
• 1/4 red onion sliced thin
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup pesto
• salt and pepper
• red wine or sherry vinegar

This is a little fussy, but you really need to cook the beans and potatoes separately to ensure they are cooked properly.

Fill a large bowl with very cold water.

Put a large saucepan of water on the stove and bring it to a boil. Salt the water well (2-3 healthy pinches). Put the beans in the water and boil for 2-3 minutes until they are bright green and tender. Using a slotted spoon or strainer, transfer the beans out of the boiling water and into the bowl of cold water. When cool, transfer the cooked beans to a mixing bowl.

Since I used yellow beans too, I then repeated this step with the yellow beans.

Bring the water back to a boil and then cook the potatoes until tender, about 7-10 minutes. Transfer the potatoes out of the boiling water and into the bowl of cold water. When cool, transfer them to the bowl with the beans.

Add the onions to the beans and potatoes.

Stir in the pesto, adding enough to sauce the vegetables well. Taste and add salt & pepper to taste. If the salad tastes a little flat, add vinegar, a few drops at a time, until the flavor is right for you.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

CSA Booty - Week 8

This week's share was made up of:

• Plum tomatoes
• 2 bunches of bright lights chard
• 1 bunch of kale
• 1 bunch of amaranth
• 1 head of lettuce
• 1 bunch of basil
• 1 bunch of spring onions
• 2 bunches of broccoli
• Parsley, chives and rosemary
• a lovely lily stem - so fragrant

So here's what I think I'm doing with these items:

• I think I'm going to make this kale pasta again - it was really good and super easy to put together. I'm out of pancetta, so I'll make it with bacon.
• I'm going to try a Mexican recipe of chicken in amaranth sauce (it uses both the green and the grain which is sorta neat) with the amaranth greens
• The lettuce is either going to be a salad (maybe), but I didn't make lettuce wraps last week and I think I might want to this week.
• The basil is going into pesto to sauce some trofie pasta I bought last week. Hello Genoa!
• The onions are going to be added into many dishes: they are super thinly sliced and raw in various dishes.
• I think I'll make a quiche with the broccoli and some of the chard.
• The rest of the chard ... hmm ... maybe Swiss chard tacos? I might take some of the larger leaves and use them as a wrapper for fresh fish on the grill.
• I'll just slip those tomatoes in here and there for color and flavor.

So how'd I do with last week's haul? Here's what we ate from the CSA last week:

• This past week was super busy, so I decided to stock the freezer with a few soups to tide us over for future weeks: the lettuces all went into lettuce soup and the amaranth into callaloo. Each batch yielded 3-4 servings of soup.

• The kale went into pasta with kale and pancetta - make this pasta (pictured left), it's a great use for kale and because you slice the leaves thin, the kale isn't as assertive as it can be sometimes.
• The tomatoes went alongside a burger (with some grilled lettuce and chard pickles), into breakfast hash and a tomato salad we served with grilled mackerel.
• The broccoli was turned into a salad along the lines of this one from the NY Times.
• The spring onions were sliced thin and shredded over and it various dishes, like the pasta dish, the burger and the tomato salad.
• The chard went into a frittata with some leftover pasta, peas and goat cheese.
• I have to confess that I didn't get to the bok choy in time and it went into the compost bin. Made me sad to waste it, but it's the first vegetable from the CSA I haven't used, so I think that's pretty good.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share.

Use Your Booty: Kale Spectacular

As a service to my blog readers and fellow CSA members, here's a wrapup of the ten kale recipes I've got on this blog.

• Kale pesto
• Chickpea, kale and butternut squash salad
• Pasta with kale & pancetta
• Bruschetta with kale & white beans
• Ribollita
• Torta d'Erbe
• Sri Lankan Greens
• Braised Kale (scroll down for the recipe)
• Cream of Arugula Soup (Kale variation in the recipe)
• Beans & greens

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Pasta with Kale and Pancetta

What a great way to use up kale. Plus, put enough crispy pancetta on top and you've got a chance at winning over kale-haters. From start to finish, this dish took less than half an hour to pull together.

Pasta with Kale & Pancetta

Serves 6-8

• 1 pound whole wheat spaghetti
• 2 bunches kale, leaves pulled from the stems and cut into thin strips
• 4 ounces thinly sliced pancetta (if you only have thick-cut pancetta, cut it into small cubes)
• 1/2 of a small onion, sliced into super-thin strips
• 1 egg, beaten, optional
• parmesan cheese
• salt & pepper
• sherry vinegar

Boil the spaghetti in a large pot of salted water. When the pasta is almost cooked through (just still a tiny bit chewy) add the kale to the pasta pot. When the pasta is cooked to your taste, drain the pasta and kale, reserving a cup of the cooking water (to make sure you don't forget this part, put a coffee mug in the colander to remind you to scoop out some pasta water).

In the meantime, sauté the pancetta in a skillet until it's crisp. Set aside.

When the pasta ia cooked, dump it back into the pot, add in the sliced onion, and stir in a little pasta water. Add in the beaten egg, if using, and keep stirring, adding more pasta water if needed to make a saucier consistency. Stir in a handful or so of parmesan cheese. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste (I like this dish peppery).

Portion the pasta into soup plates and top with crispy pancetta. Drizzle a few drops of vinegar over the top. Enjoy!

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

CSA Booty - Week 7

This week's share (week SEVEN? Wow Summer is starting to fly isn't it?) included:

• 1 bunch Swiss chard
• 1 bunch amaranth
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 small box of tomatoes - yay!
• 2 lettuces
• 2 bunches of broccoli
• 2 bunches of spring onions
• 1 bunch of bok choy

So here's what I think I'm doing with these items:

• The lettuces are going to be used as wraps for pork larb (a salad of ground pork and herbs).
• The tomatoes are going into either a salad or a quick tomato sauce for fresh pasta.
• I have a bushel of lettuce that I'll turn into lettuce soup.
• I'm pickling the spring onions and using the long scallion-like leaves as scallions.
• The kale will be turned into a white bean and kale pesto spread.
• I'm going to use the amaranth to make callaloo again.
• The broccoli will be steamed and sauced with lots of garlic, anchovy and parsley.
• Bok choy becomes a stir fry (with last week's still unused bok choy).
• I'll probably make some sort of tabouli-ish salad with the chard.

So how'd I do with last week's haul? Here's what we ate (and what CSA items were used) last week:

• Kale-wrapped lamb patties (ugly, but delicious) (kale, lamb)
• Beet carpaccio (beets, onions from CSA share and beets from Farmer Bob)
• Sri Lankan amaranth (finally!) (amaranth), curried cauliflower (cauliflower from Farmer Bob) and radish pickle (radishes from Farmer Bob, onion from CSA share)
• Pea risotto (peas, pea greens) with bacon & egg
• Pickled Swiss chard stems (Swiss chard) - that's them over there
• Beet green, tomato and bacon sauté with seared gnocchi
• Salads

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share.