Sunday, December 6, 2009

CSA Week 2 - the beginning

So here's this week's take for my CSA half-share:


A head of romaine lettuce, a bunch of dandelion greens, some red chard (out of the extras box), a bok choy, some garlic chives, a zucchini, a yellow squash, a red bell pepper, a couple of black sapotes, and my nemesis: the Florida avocado (a Monroe cultivar this time).

What with the zucchini, squash, and pepper, I definitely foresee some ratatouille in our future. The greens, especially the chard and dandelion greens, may not need much more than some olive oil and garlic, though they often get along well with their friend the pig. Little Miss F is usually my go-to girl for the exotic fruits (she loves carambola, dragon fruit, mamey, persimmon) and even though I tried to explain that this is in the persimmon family, she was not entirely convinced by the "chocolate pudding fruit" description. I might well take a hint from this guy and break the ice cream machine out. Given the persimmon family relationship, I was thinking about doing some candied persimmon to go with (I've found some nice ones at the grocery store recently, both Fuyu and Hachiya) but Mrs. F and Litle Miss F just started candying some orange peel which might be sufficient. Chives will surely come in handy for something. And that avocado? Well, let's see what happens this week.



5 comments:

  1. Given my experience from last year, wait on the ratatouille (sp) till later in the year. We'll be getting eggplants and tomatoes along with the squash and peppers abd you'll have ratatouille coming out of your eyeballs. First time getting chives though. Got there late so the extras basket was more like the trash bin. Look forward to your posts on this. I'll chime in if I ever come up with anything worth spreading the word on.

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  2. I'm with L2M on the ratatouille issue; wait until you get the local eggplant.

    As for black sapote ice cream, I'm not the only one making the suggestion. Ice cream and milk shakes are a traditional uses for it. But I think I'm going to be breaking out the ice cream machine for the avocado this time around.

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  3. Thankfully, I'm not alone on the Florida avocados. They're my nemesis too. I heard they get better when roasted and at the Possum Trot brunch I had one that had been stuffed and baked and it was exceptionally good. Perhaps that's the secret. Please let me know if you find a way to make them edible.

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  4. Mrs. F already bought some eggplant, so ...

    I was contemplating the ice cream maker for the avocado too. There's also a dessert in the Momofuku cookbook that uses avocado, I was considering going back to that well again. Or maybe heat is the way to go, might counteract some of the wateriness of the flesh.

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  5. Hi, I made avocado coconut ice cream a few weeks back and it was divine! I also like shrimp salad with avocado.

    Another idea for eggplant is the Sicilian dish of caponata, you can get my recipe at

    http://ladivacucina.blogspot.com/2009/01/csa-food-challenge-day-4.html

    It's great to have in the fridge, you can serve it as a quick app for guest on crackers. I served it over seared tuna steaks!

    Good luck with the CSA, in all the Art Basel hoopla, I forgot to pick mine up! : (

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