conuly

I just forgot to post the past two weeks. *blush* Got some potatoes, though - that's why I asked about them.

Anyway, this week I got 4 winter squash, 4 peppers, 4 pounds potatoes, half a pound salad greens, almost a whole pound of chard, a quart each of apples, plums, and pears, a dozen eggs, and that's it.

8 pounds tomatoes (half of them went right into the swap box, ye gods)
2 heads garlic (I just bought garlic - swap box)
1 bag apples
1 box yellow plums
1 quart pears (mmm)
8 oz salad
10 peppers (!!!!)
4 pounds beets (half of those went in the swap box)

Bought two big bags of peaches the other day, $4 at the farmer's market, a *really* good deal... and Evangeline stepped on them :( So I'm making pie tomorrow! Pie, pie, PIE!

This week we got:

2 pounds, 14 oz orange tomatoes (half of them got dumped in the swap box. We have enough tomatoes, thanks!)
7 oz salad greens
2 (I think) pounds yellow squash
4 heads garlic
8 red onions

A bag of apples
a quart each of red and purple plums

A dozen eggs

Please note that these eggs we get weekly? They're jumbo eggs, organic and I think pasture raised, and noticeably better than standard eggs. mayna posted about that last year, and she's right - they have sturdier shells, larger and brighter yolks, yellow-ish whites (which may indicate the presence of riboflavin, THANK YOU, egg producers of America, for your informative FAQ!), and a better flavor.

You can see the difference when you crack one. It's remarkable. I'm tickled pink about what those eggshells must be doing to the compost. (And there, Jenn - you're so worried about orange peels making our compost too acidic? Eggshells, that's our alkali!)


Edit: LOL.

"Eggs are one of today's best food buys. A dozen Large eggs weighs 1 ½ pounds so at 90¢ a dozen, eggs are only 60¢ per pound. Eggs supply high-quality protein and a variety of important vitamins and minerals at a very low price.

NINETY CENTS A DOZEN?

Now, it's been a while since I paid attention when I went to the store and bought eggs, but that's really inexpensive for large eggs.

4 ears of corn
2 bunches of spinach
2 (very ripe) melons
6 peppers
3 and a half pounds of tomatoes

A dozen eggs

A box each (a quart, I think) of apricots, nectarines, and blueberries.

First I learned that one can eat beet greens. That was interesting, certainly.

Read an article about a farmer at the farmer's market who gets frustrated with customers who ask for the greens to be cut off their beets, but then turn around and buy chard. Sure, it makes him more money, but beet greens and chard are the same thing, and it's so wasteful! (He ought to put a sign up to that effect, really.) I understand his feelings.

Then I learned that radish greens are edible. They're a lot like kale, but not quite as strong.

That was a little disturbing. When you buy radishes in the supermarket, you usually buy them in a bag, without the greens attached at all. It would never have occurred to me that you could eat them except that that was mentioned in my new cookbook, 660 Curries (which I really recommend).

Today, I read in my CSA papers that carrots are related to parsley and that the greens are totally edible.

And now I'm pissed.

Did you know that you can eat carrot greens? Did anybody? Because I sure didn't, and given that the most common way to buy carrots is with the leaves detached, it would never, ever, in a million years have made sense to me that I was buying carrots (and radishes, and beets) without a valuable source of nutrition. Like white wheat flour, with nutrients just removed from it altogether.

Not that I particularly *want* to eat carrot greens - if they're anything like the parsley they're related to (and they sure do look the part), I'm positive I don't, in fact - but why is it that I only just now found out that it is an option? How many more things am I totally, blindly ignorant of? Things that ought to be common knowledge?

It's like finding out how easy gluemaking is, all over again. It's not about making glue, or even knowing how to make glue - it's about not even knowing I had a choice. It's like being 11 years old again, and the only school-sponsored education about my period was in fact an ad for commercial products, so other, perfectly good ideas weren't even thought of - the choice was taken away from me. It's like all sorts of these little moments built up, until I'm actually very annoyed. It's not like that, it is that.

I am not a happy Connie.

(The carrots at the CSA also came sans tops. I *am* emailing to comment on it. I'd just rip the tops off, again, parsley, ick, but then I could put them in the swap box.)

I'm doing this from memory, I forgot my list of stuff :(

We got 4 eggplant, 6 green bell peppers, 5+ pounds of squash, half a pound of salad greens, another four or so pounds of cucumbers, a dozen eggs, a box of peaches, a box of apricots, a box of blueberries. Edit: And carrots! What seemed like a lot of carrots.

So not too much this week! Next week, maybe we'll get more. I hope so - 'dul ended up using all my green beans, I was very disappointed, though I repurposed some of them after the fact.

Gonna make squash bread or cake later. Not sure which.

'dul made ratatouille today, but without eggplant. It was really good. At first I attributed it to the lack of eggplant, but then I realized what *else* was noticeable by its very absence - parsley! (And when that man cooks parsley, he goes way overboard.) I didn't even notice it was gone, but that clearly was what really made all the difference.

Oh, and an okra recipe for jedirita (eggplant recipe is simply going to have to wait, I'm working on finding mine. I do sometimes panfry eggplant in a limited amount of oil (it will sop that up like nobody's business) with pepper and cumin, that's always yummy. And once I made a raw eggplant salad which, being raw, bypassed all the weird texture issues one normally gets with eggplant, but hell if I can remember what-all else was in it besides raw eggplant! Black beans, I think, and salt and pepper, and maybe corn.

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15 oz kale
15 oz chard
4 lbs cucumbers
2 lbs squash
1 lb fava beans
8 oz salad greens
quart of yellow plums
quart of peaches
dozen eggs

Better get cookin'. Didn't use up enough last week, with the nieces gone, ended up trekking a lot of soft squash (did you know squash won't keep?) over to Julia's house today as I watched her kids. Made pasta. With squash. (Mmm.)

I'll post about them later, in the morning. Meant to get up at around 7:30 today, got up at SIX IN THE MORNING. And I couldn't fall asleep at night either. Gorram it.

We got 4 lettuce, 8 oz baby greens, 4 root veggies (mix or turnips or beets, I got all beets), 10 oz cucumbers (I got one BIG cucumber), 22 oz squash, 2 bunches scallions, 24 oz kale. And two bunches of sage, but as we have sage growing rampant in our garden I donated that to the "Take a veggie, leave a veggie" bin and took an extra squash instead.

We also got a dozen eggs, a quart of peaches, and a quart of cherries.

The beets and turnips, alas, had the greens cut off of them :( I'm going to actually email the farmer and ask if maybe it's easier to leave the greens on, and those of us who want to eat such things can.

Picked up the following:

One dozen eggs
Quarter pound of I don't know what
Three bunches scallions
Two bunches (two each) broccoli
Pound of kale (KALE!)
Four (4???) heads lettuce (quick - I need a way to use up lettuce that's not salad!)