CSA Charleston: think it’s possible to eat too much soup?

Another week, another CSA post about our Pinckney’s Produce CSA share! Now that we’re into November, I’m actually pretty sad that we’ve only got two more boxes left, one we receive today and one we receive next week!

This is what we got:

• 1 head cabbage
• 1 bunch mustard greens
• 1 bunch collards
• 1 head cauliflower
• 4 small heads broccoli
• 5 sweet potatoes
• 2 bell peppers
• lots of tomatoes
• 1 eggplant
• 2 rutabagas
• green beans

The first night (Tuesday) Jon and I made two batches of soup AND dinner (and I managed to write a presentation for class the next day AND watch So You Think You Can Dance, because I am just that awesome, or, more honestly, because I can get a lot more done more quickly in the kitchen when Jon is helping). With the sweet potatoes and rutabagas we made another batch of the curried soup we so enjoyed last week, and we froze about 4 quarts of it. We also made broccoli cheddar soup (loosely following this recipe, except I just put the cheddar IN the soup– didn’t melt too well but it was delicious) with the broccoli and cauliflower.  We froze most of the soup, saving two servings to have for dinner the next night.  And for dinner, with half the mustard greens and half the collards, we made a batch of smoky beans and greens, which I also enjoyed for lunch at work the next couple of days.

Wednesday night I had class and we ate the broccoli cheese soup for dinner. The verdict was that it didn’t look great, but it tasted delicious. I’m pretty sure most of the broccoli cheese soup served in restaurants must be made with Velveeta to get the color and smooth texture, and since I used real cheddar, it was neither pretty in color or in texture, but very yummy.

Thursday I made eggplant parmesan of sorts, making a sauce of the mess of tomatoes and bell peppers and broiling the eggplant slices with bread crumbs and cheese on top, all of it served with pasta.  I didn’t LOVE this meal, but Jon seemed to like it and has eaten most of the leftovers.

Friday, Jon was on call and I was home alone. I ate leftovers and made a batch of Cabbage and White Bean Soup with Sausage using 1/2 the cabbage.  I also baked a loaf of No Knead Bread I had started that morning.  I seriously recommend this soup! I think it’s the apple chicken sausage and the rosemary that make it so delicious, but I’ve been seriously enjoying the leftovers!

Saturday morning I baked another batch of the cheddar jalapeno scones I tried last week, this time using 3 jalapenos instead of 2.  I think if I try them again, I’ll use FOUR. I just want them to have more of a kick. Still, though the blogger at Smitten Kitchen says they don’t keep well, we’ve been enjoying them for breakfast/snacks all week.  Saturday night we ate cabbage soup for dinner.

Sunday we had leftovers for lunch and went out for dinner, but I ended up making a pot of soup.  I needed to do something with the rest of the greens, so I used the other 1/2 bunch of mustard greens, 1/2 bunch of collards, and 1/4 of the cabbage to make a soup loosely based on the cabbage and sausage soup.  I didn’t have any more sausage, so I fried up some bacon, then sauteed some onions in their drippings, then tossed in the greens and got them all coated in yummy flavor before adding chicken stock, canned diced tomatoes, some tomato paste, some cannelini beans, and some herbs to the mix.  I froze a lot of this soup, but had some for lunch yesterday and can say it came out almost as well as the cabbage and sausage soup.

Last night we used up the last of our veggies in a stir fry made of the green beans, 1/4 head of cabbage, and some onion.  I served the stir fry with rice and ginger-soy marinated salmon.  A great meal!

I’m going to try really hard to be more creative with the last two boxes, but it’s hard to not eat some of the delicious things we’ve already discovered over and over again.