CSA: Charleston — a whole lot of summer

Another delicious week with our Pinckney’s Produce CSA! This week was like an explosion of summer goodies.  Here’s what we got:

That’s:

• 8 ears of corn (gave 4 to the neighbors)
• 6 potatoes
• 9 yellow squash
• 9 cucumbers
• 8 zucchini
• 4 pattypan squash
• 6 banana peppers
• 1 bag green beans (gave 1/3 to the neighbors)
• 1 bag broccoli
• 1 small bag of cherry tomatoes
• 3 sweet onions

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I picked up our box.  For dinner, I made a stir fry with the broccoli and 2 of the pattypan squash, which I served over brown rice.  I also made refrigerator dill pickles with the cucumbers and bread and butter pickles with the yellow squash, half of the zucchini, and the banana peppers.  One reason I make so many pickles is that people love them, and they’re a nice thing to give away.  If we had a smaller box for our two-person family, I wouldn’t give so much food away, but as it is, we just can’t eat it all, and we can’t freeze it because we’re moving in two weeks.  My boss in particular loves pickles, and I give him a jar of each variety each week.  He’s kind enough to return the jars for a refill the next week!

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I adapted Rachael Ray’s Green Minestrone recipe for dinner, using up half of the green beans, and half of the remaining zucchini.  I made a few changes, using a couple of slices of bacon instead of pancetta, omitting the spinach (though if I’d had greens this week, those would have worked well), and omitting the celery (I tossed in a little celery seed to get the flavor).  I didn’t have a lot of parmigiano reggiano on hand, so I tossed a couple hunks of parmesan cheese rind into the pot while I was simmering the soup to get the flavor.  I always freeze my parmesan rinds to use in flavoring soups– they’re the secret ingredient to a good chicken soup!

Thursday

Thursday night, I tried a recipe that a fellow CSA member recommended on the Pinckney’s Produce Facebook page.  I had seen the recipe in my Real Simple magazine, but the fellow member jogged my memory.  It was a zucchini and orzo salad with feta cheese.  I added the cherry tomatoes and served it alongside grilled tilapia, which I sprinkled with a little lemon juice and dill to mimic the flavors of the pasta dish.  Yum! We had a feeling it would be a very tasty stand-alone pasta salad with the addition of some tuna, so that’s what I did with the leftovers.

Friday

Friday was a quintessentially Charleston night.  It has nothing to do with our CSA, but food is involved, so I thought I’d mention it here.  We went out to a friend’s family’s Isle of Palms beach house for a shrimp boil.  This was the view:

And this was the food:

So good! We stuffed ourselves on spicy shrimp, sausage, potatoes with garlic, onion, corn, and carrot (a BRILLIANT addition to the mix), we danced around, we took a walk on the beach in the dark, and we swam in the ocean, which felt divine.  It was a great night with friends that reminded me just how much I’m going to miss this place.

Saturday

Saturday Jon was on call and I was home alone, so I ate leftovers and watched World Cup.

Sunday

Sunday brunch was a scramble I made with the rest of the pattypan squash, eggs, fontina cheese, bacon, and fresh basil. Delicious!

For dinner on Sunday, I made a potato, green bean, and corn salad, which has a tangy mustard vinaigrette (I added red pepper flakes and the sweet onions).  We had a dinner made of side dishes by eating the salad with the leftover pasta salad from Thursday, and some of the squash pickles. 

Monday

Monday we ate a little bit of leftovers and a whole lot of popcorn for dinner.

Overall: a delicious week! We ate almost everything, and we’re looking forward to two more weeks of goodies before we move. I’ve already arranged for a coworker to take over our share for the remainder of the season.