Summer 2014 CSA: Weeks 8 and On

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Achieve with Athena

At one point I was posting about our summer CSA experience pretty regularly.

Since I kind of fell off the bandwagon with keeping you guys up to date on our CSA creations, today’s post is basically going to be a photo dump of CSA meals from week 8 through the end.

Random week’s stash:

Steak and veggie wraps:

Green bean and tomato quinoa salad:

Salmon with veggies on the side:

Another random week’s stash:

Grilled eggplant and chickpea salad:

Grilled peach and cherry salad with salmon, corn, and goat cheese:

Quinoa, kale, and beet salad:

Heirloom tomato pizza with corn, greens, and pesto:

Farro and veggie stuffed pattypan squash:

Lamb stuffed eggplant rollatini:

Heirloom tomato caprese salad:

Grilled shrimp nicoise salad:

Fish lettuce wraps with cabbage and carrot slaw:

Veggie and turkey kabobs with corn on the cob:

Barley and veggie salad:

Steak and potatoes with greens:

Swiss chard pizza:

Obviously this wasn’t everything, but I wanted to ~~delete all these pictures off my phone~~ get caught up. We signed up for a fall share with the same farm that we partner with at work, but this time around we cut back to a small share because we were getting a TON of produce. I’ll continue to share our experience, meals, and tips with you guys!

–Let’s chat–
Did you participate in a summer CSA program? If so, how did you like it? Are you doing one in the fall? What are some fun foodie creations you’ve made recently?

If you guys have any recipe requests based on the pictures from this post, let me know!

Summer 2014 CSA: Weeks 6 & 7

Posted on July 30, 2014 by Achieve with Athena

Morning! Time for another CSA update.

Can you even handle how huge that turnip is?! We got it during week 4 or 5, and we’re STILL eating it. I don’t even love turnips that much.

Here’s what our stash has included in the past couple of weeks:

Week 6: Blueberries, spring onions, lettuce, squash, cucumbers, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil, turnips, fennel, collards, rainbow chard, dill
Week 7: Corn, cucumbers, squash, potatoes, spring onions, lettuce, peppers, eggplant, tatsoi, lemon balm, basil, kale, and green chard

All the deliveries are kind of starting to blend together since we usually have some ingredients that last beyond a week, and we’ve also been stopping in at the farmer’s market on the weekend to pick up anything extra (plus meat and fish). Let’s just say there is definitely not a shortage of veggies in our home! Here are some of our latest creations:

Stuffed zucchinis (probably a mix between this recipe and this recipe):

Summer squash, bell pepper, and chickpea salad:

Hummus crusted chicken with a side of farro, bok choy, and turnips:

Ground lamb, chard, and kale stuffed eggplant:

Zucchini and shrimp fritters over greens:

Grilled mango and blueberry kale salad:

An easy cucumber salad with dill, inspired from our Veggietecher lunch at work:

Tropical kale smoothies (I’ve been adding 2 scoops of vanilla protein powder to this recipe)

Grilled haddock with a corn and tomato salsa, potatoes with onions, garlic, and parsley, and roasted zucchini/squash with dill:

Grain free zucchini muffins:

Grilled plum salad with cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and pine nuts over lettuce with a homemade citrus dressing made of lemon balm and orange:

Some fun meals, huh? The delivery we got yesterday might be my favorite yet though! Will share soon. 🙂

–Let’s chat–
What have you been eating lately? Do you like turnips? Any recipe requests from this post?

For more on my summer 2014 CSA experience:

Summer 2014 CSA: Weeks 4 and 5

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Achieve with Athena

Time to talk produce!

I skipped my CSA recap last week because Tim and I slacked a bit on using our week 4 farm share ingredients while we were on our staycation. I mentioned that we made sure to wash and store everything properly so that it wouldn’t go bad while we were away, and last week we focused on trying to combine items from both weeks into our meals.

Our week 4 stash included strawberries, squash, collards, lettuce, purslane, broccoli raab, spring onions, green chard, beets, lemon balm, and cucumbers. Our week 5 stash included lettuce, cabbage, escarole, squash, cucumbers, potatoes, spring onions, garlic scapes, parsley, kale, bok choy, and kohlrabi. I’m pretty sure we also had a few items left over from week 3, and one staff member also forgot to have someone pick up her produce while on vacation, so I snagged a few items from her. It’s been produce overload for sure, but that’s a good thing in my mind.

We used the cucumbers for our 4th of July contribution, the almost Mediterranean chickpea salad I posted last week.

On the last night of our vacation, we threw together a salad to use up the butter lettuce that we had still from a previous week. We topped it with tuna steak from the farmer’s market and added tomato, avocado, and feta. We also used the lemon balm from our farm share to make a homemade salad dressing.

For lunches on our first day back to work, we combined the red leaf lettuce and purslane for a salad base. For toppings, we used barley, strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, walnuts, and goat cheese. I’ve never heard of purslane before (did you know it’s a weed?!), and it was to die for. I need to find it again.

Next on the list was tackling our zucchinis and squash. I recently posted this recipe for spiralized raw zucchini salad with edamame and avocado in one of my Friday Favorites, and it was the first thing that came to mind when brainstorming meals. Tim used our mandolin to slice the zucchini really thin, and we added grilled shrimp and feta to round out the meal. .

Our second squash/zucchini meal was steak skewers, squash, zucchini, and red onion. We enjoyed the skewers on top of more greens with tomato, grilled garlic scapes, and our last cucumber. I can’t remember if this was our escarole meal or not? I have a hard time differentiating between regular lettuce and escarole.

Our dinner on Thursday and Friday night last week was the grilled version of this chicken and black bean casserole, using farro instead of rice. We also threw in the collards and Swiss chard into this version so they wouldn’t go to waste. And yes, that’s MORE zucchini you see there. It’s peak season for sure!

To use up the beets, we made our own version of this roasted beet and chickpea salad.

Unpictured in this post are the scrambled egg breakfasts Tim made for Erica, Chris, and I on Saturday morning before Erica and I left to get our nails done for Slesh’s wedding. We had a ton of eggs to use, and our mix-ins were mushrooms, zucchini, summer squash, collards, chard, and spring onions.

When we got home from the wedding, we got creative and grilled some cod, then topped it with a kohlrabi and cabbage slaw. On the side? More chard! It’s so good when simply sautéed with a little garlic. Tim plans to eat the rest of this slaw with some BBQ pulled chicken when I’m away this weekend.

Finally, here’s what I’ve eaten for lunch this week. Lots of simple salads over the past two weeks because we’ve been so busy!

I won’t lie, we ended up tossing the broccoli rabe this week because we simply don’t like it as much (and it went bad). Our parsley went bad too, but I think we’re doing pretty well considering how much we’ve been away. This week is crazy for me since I’m focusing on party preparations for the weekend, but thankfully Tim is taking care of everything in the kitchen. I’m hoping next week I’ll be able to contribute more (I always feel bad when I don’t), and I think we’ll be pretty caught up by the time next week’s farm share delivery rolls around.

Let’s chat about zucchini and squash! What are your favorite recipes and ways to cook these summer staples?! Also, what do you tend to eat during busy weeks?

For more on my summer CSA experience: