The Great Utah CSA Experiment - Week 8!

Coming into week 8 I was anxious for my next CSA share, as I'd missed out on the regular vegetable ritual for the past two weeks. Included in the East Farms share was a healthy supply of midsummer vegetables:

	CSA SHARE		Price(Organic)				Price ('Normal')	Value
	0.98 lb Radishes (1 bunch)						1.10/lb	$1.08
	1.09 lb Onions (3 large)						1.99/lb	$2.17
	0.99 lb Green Beans						5.32/lb	$5.27
	0.98 lb Zucchini (2 small)						1.49/lb	$1.46
	3.76 lb Corn (6 ears)						3/1.00	$2.00

As you can see, my local grocer doesn't carry any of these in 'organic' varieties - I'd have to make an extra trip to a more exclusive grocer to find those. Even so, the value still holds when compared to local supermarket fare.

I was happy to find more onions as I've been low and I use them a lot in my cooking. They tend to store well in my pantry so even if I get more I can be happy about using them for the next few months. Corn is a wonderful midsummer treat for us, grilled with the husks on or peeled and boiled before being served on the cobb with plenty of butter, salt, and pepper. Radishes again became my personal refrigerator snack, and the green beans succumbed to the glazed green beans recipe featured in week 5 (more on that below). And that covers everything but the zucchini.

Ah, zucchini. Craig spied it and immediately said "zucchini bread?!" with such excitement that I almost had to shush him. Where I'm from you can't get excited about zucchini. It's delicious, it's nutritious: it's ubiquitous. Even if you show no desire for zucchini, during this season you're liable to be handed a box that contains more than you'll ever be able to prepare or eat. But if you get excited about it. . . I'm afraid to see the results. So far the season is early, the zucchini is small and tender, and Craig is excited about this vegetable. We'll see how he feels in a month!

This particular zucchini was young enough to make great vegetable stir-fry with the onions and garlic also received from CSA offerings, which is what I did. See: vegetable hash recipe from week 4, but substitute zucchini for the potatoes and add a little of your own favorite seasoning instead of using the packet. Our two small zucchini were enough to fill our whole frying pan, sliced. That's another thing about it - I swear the vegetable multiplies when you chop or grate it because the cut amount is always larger in volume than the pre-cut amount. You Have Been Warned.

Borski's share for the week gave me more onions, which store well, and beans, which can be frozen if necessary, as well as a few more new vegetables for the season:

	CSA SHARE		Price(Organic)				Price ('Normal')	Value
	0.44 lb Apricots						1.99/lb	$0.88
	0.47 lb Lemon Cucumbers						1.88/lb (green)	$0.88
	1.06 lb Wax Beans						5.32/lb (green)	$5.64
	3.34 lb Yukon Gold Potatoes						1.49/lb	$4.97
	1.5 lb Yellow Onions (2)						1.99/lb	$2.98

Wax beans are just like green beans, only they are whitish or yellowish in color. My sister has a variety that are purple, but they turn green when cooking (She calls them 'Magic Beans' and this is a great way to get the kids excited about them). Lots of varieites of beans can be grown in Utah! Craig very nearly offered to cook these beans himself so long as we used the Glazed Green Beans with Tomatoes recipe (see picture at right for Glazed 'White' Beans with Tomatoes). Clearly, this recipe is a keeper!

I almost didn't know what the cukes were, I'd never seen a lemon cucumber, despite having once sold lemon cucumber plants at a garden center some years ago. For those of you who haven't seen one either, here you are:


I soaked them in raspberry balsamic vinegar for an hour then ate them. They taste just like normal cucumbers to me!

There weren't many apricots, those were gone in one 'snacking', but I was surprised by the number of potatoes: it's a good thing they will last for weeks in the refrigerator! In the meantime I dug around for potato recipes. My own experience has been either to mash them, bake them, or put them in stew; but looking at these golden orbs all those methods seem too mundane, reserved for grocery-store russet clones. (Let's not even approach the layered-with-cheese option here). In fact, a quick Google search tells me that those grocery store russets I've been using all my life aren't even good for all those cooking methods. What can I say, I'm a potato newb.

Finally I settled on a simple recipe that I hoped would let me get a taste for the potato flavor: Oven roasted potatoes. I tried it twice, once with paprika and the second time with rosemary. They tasted a little sweeter than the russets I'm used to cooking with, but they also had a great texture that was a little less mealy too. I thought they were great, both times I made them Craig cleaned his plate and asked me for more, so that's clearly a thumbs up. Add the fact that the recipe was a good deal simpler than mashing baking or stewing them, and I think we have a new family favorite!

Recipe for Week 8:

-----Oven-Roasted Potatoes-----

3 Yukon Gold potatoes
2 T. butter or oil
1 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
1 T. seasoning (optional)

Wash the potatoes and cut them into chunks. Mix the butter, salt, pepper, and seasoning, and melt together in the microwave. Toss the potatoes with the butter mixture until thoroughly coated. Bake uncovered @ 350 F for 25 minutes, then remove, turn the potatoes, and return to bake for another 20-40 minutes as necessary. (Larger potato chunks will take longer to bake).

I've done this recipe with 1 T. paprika and again with 1 T. dry rosemary, both were delicious. Be creative!