CSA 2013 Partial Share #7

CSA 2013 Partial Share #7
- 12 oz yellow wax beans
- 1 bulb fresh garlic
- 1 Walla Walla onion
- 2 golden or green zucchini
- 2 cucumbers
- 1 petit green cabbage
- 1 Napa cabbage
- 11 oz green beans

 Winner: This is tough. Just kidding. Obvious winner of the week is the humble yellow wax bean. I won't even pretend to understand my fascination with these, but it borders on the obsessively unhealthy. I just like the idea of waxy vegetables. Waxy beans, waxy potatoes, waxy eggplants. It's kind of like my obsession with stems. I should note that wax beans are not waxy in texture. No one really knows why they're called wax beans (or butter beans, which is equally as cute). Speculative theories point to the yellow color of the beans as a possible explanation, but I personally find that solution too easy. I will ruminate over this quandary while I ruminate on some wax beans. (Sorry not sorry. Couldn't help it. When do you ever get to use the same word in different ways in the same sentence? If you have a brain like mine, the answer is "not often." Indulge me.)
Challenge: Zucchini. Sorry I just...not a fan...I like looking at them? I will try to be creative. Also a little concerned about the sheer volume of cabbage. Too bad none of these are very freezable, except perhaps the green beans. I must say though...I'm thankful for the break from the flood of lettuce and turnip/radish/beet greens. :)

Fennel and Red Cabbage Salad

I've been holding on to a small head of red cabbage from CSA share #7 for a few weeks now, so I thought this might be a good time to try and use it up. Red cabbage is a great source of vitamins and minerals, including the antioxidant, Vitamin C. The thing about cabbage is that once it's cut, Vitamin C starts to disappear right away. Plus, it starts to wilt. So it's a good idea to use up the entire head of cabbage when possible, in order to maximize the health (and flavor!) benefits.

I had a bunch of oranges, pineapple, and apples stored in the fridge for sangria-making purposes (yum!), so when I happened upon a recipe for fennel and red cabbage salad with oranges, I decided to sacrifice a few of my sangria oranges for salad. Glad I did, because the salad turned out quite nicely. The original recipe called for things like pepitas, tamari, hemp seeds, and cilantro, none of which I had on hand, so I made a few modifications and tried to use up the random things I had lying around my kitchen. I also like keeping things simple and quick, to save time.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold my dumbed down fennel and red cabbage salad.

Fennel and Red Cabbage Salad
Ingredients:
- 1 small head of red cabbage
- 2 small fennel bulbs
- 2 oranges
- lemon juice
- olive oil
- balsamic vinegar
- salt

Recipe:
1. Wash and trim fennel bulbs. Reserve fronds and stalks for soup stock (stalk stock teehee) and garnish.
2. Wash and core red cabbage. If you're hungry, you could microwave the cores for a minute or two and eat them as a snack. Nom nom.
3. Slice the cabbage and fennel into thin strips, coleslaw style.
4. Drizzle the fennel strips with olive oil, lemon juice (I used the juice from a third of a lemon), and salt.
5. Slice orange segments into bite size pieces and add to the fennel mix.
6. If you're not eating the salad right away, store in the fridge and mix everything together just before serving/eating*. Keep the cabbage separate from the fennel so the red coloring doesn't leach into the fennel slices. Or the oranges. I imagine purple and orange in combination would turn a rather unappetizing shade of brown.
7. Toss the cabbage with the fennel/orange mix and then drizzle a bit of balsamic vinegar on top. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Garnish with a few fennel fronds.
9. Enjoy.

* If you're making lunch for work and you're short on tupperware (like me), you can wrap up the red cabbage in some saran wrap to keep it separate from the rest of the salad and put it on top of the fennel. Don't use foil, as the acid from the lemon juice might do funny things to your lunch :(

I had way too much red cabbage, so I just brought in the extra cabbage to work the next day, microwaved it, and added salt and pepper. Pretty tasty but it smelled pretty strongly of sulfur. Fortunately, my coworkers are accustomed to far more offensive smells, like fish and kimchi (we sit right by the microwave and the Korilla truck stops by every now and then), so I think I'm still on good terms with them. I hope.

CSA Share #11 is coming in tomorrow! I have a crapton of vegetables, but they're pretty storage-friendly, so I'll probably wait and see what I get in tomorrow's share before I cook any of the CSA leftovers. My inventory consists mostly of onions, garlic, jalapenos, and fennel stalks. I have a pint of frozen chicken consomme, so I might make some soup this weekend and freeze portions for later use.

On a somewhat (not really) related note, I had brunch with my friends at Clinton St Bakery down in the LES. Chocolate chunk pancakes with maple butterscotch syrup. I die. Haha. And the icing on the cake? When I walked in the door, I immediately noticed a sign hanging on the wall with a list of local farms that Clinton St. Bakery sources their fresh ingredients from. I excitedly pointed it out to my brunch friends, but I think my enthusiasm was a little one-sided. #foreveralone

CSA Share #7

Alright, I've resigned myself to perpetual busyness. I'll be moving to a new apartment this week and I'll need to figure out a new routine for bringing my produce home. Seems like I'm not the only one staying busy though - our farm has their hands full trying to combat the record drought and heat.

A few posts back, I touched on last year's season and how the heavy rainfall (and Hurricane Irene) wiped out a lot of farms and CSAs. The idea of rain being a bad thing for crops honestly didn't really cross my mind until I read last year's Free Bird Farm blog posts. However, droughts and excessive heat are nothing new to me (yay Arizona). When our CSA sends out the farmer's updates on how weather is affecting what's ending up in our share boxes, I definitely empathize.

On a related note, corn fields in particular seem to be getting hit pretty hard. From what I remember in my plant genetics lab research days from high school, corn is quite heat-hardy but needs a lot of water. Not only does this mean no sweet corn for me :( but it means less corn for everyone. Including animals. So...we can probably expect higher corn, beef, pork, and chicken prices next year. Ah well. Good thing I don't eat much meat these days anyways. :)

This week's share was pretty good (no more broccoli yay!):
- another bunch of beets
- parsley
- 3/4 lb green beans
- 3 medium red onions
- 1 bunch carrots
- 1 Italian eggplant
- 1 red cabbage

Extras (not included in the original distribution list but available at pickup):
- 2 patty pan squash
- 1 yellow zucchini

Alrighty then. This week's roundup:
CWTC: GREEN BEANS! I love green beans. I rarely manage to cook them - I end up eating them way too fast. I don't even really need dressing or dip for these, as long as they're fresh. Just wash, snap off the tips, and voila. Snacks.
WTF: parsley...
TAV: Eggplant. I love eggplant in Chinese food, but I've never really eaten it on my own. I have no idea how to cook it. Everyone loves to hate on eggplant for some reason, but I'm determined to make this work. Just watch me!

Side note: I love how much purple there is in this share! The onions, cabbage, eggplant, and even the beets are all various lovely shades of red-purple to deep purple-black. Pretty!

Side note of shame: I still have a lot of leftover produce from last week. I'm falling behind...help! I still have the romaine lettuce, zucchini and squash, chard, broccoli (for the last two weeks, actually), and garlic scapes from a while back. I think I should invite my friends over for a housewarming party. Little will they know it's really just a cover for using up all my extra produce. I feel like it's not a good sign when you start viewing your friends as broccoli vegetable disposals.