We Have a Lot of Vegetables

Wow. We have a lot of vegetables.

We didn't really use as much last week as we could have, that much I admit. After work today, before I picked up the share, I bought some odds and ends at the grocery store. When I came home I discovered that Jen must have gone shopping yesterday because now we have a lot of produce. Now that Jen has a car I need to take better stock before doing my own shopping. Along with last week's stragglers we need to use up a fresh batch of produce from the farm share and the excess that we've both purchased.

Also, if anyone has a recipe that uses fifteen limes please send it my way.



This week in the share we got: three pounds of squash, Pooa Kheera cucumbers (whatever the hell that is), red scallions (like regular scallions but the part that you don't eat is red instead of white), romaine lettuce, dill, radicchio, green beans, eggplant, peaches, and blueberries.



Last week I'd purchased some corn that we never used. It was the first real corn of the season from this farm in Connecticut so I foolishly bought it thinking I'd make it into something. Tonight, to avoid having to throw it away, I did just that by turning it into a salad with kale, onion, garlic, sweet potato, red and yellow pepper, tomato, black beans, scallion, lime juice, hot sauce, chili powder, cumin, pepper, salt, and celery salt. I'm not sure why I added the celery salt but after tasting it I thought that celery salt was what it was missing. It's odd because other than hot dogs (and maybe potato salad) I can't ever remember that happening before.



I had intended to grill some zucchini tonight but as I drove home -- for an hour and a half in the sticky 90 degree heat, pouring rain, unable to open by car windows, during a traffic jam, for an hour-and-a-half -- I decided that I didn't want to stand in the rain and grill.

I cooked up some garlic, onion, and ground beef from the freezer along with a mixture of squash from last week and this week, tomato, salt, and pepper. To accompany the stew I did the unthinkable and cooked the remainder of some brown rice and white rice together in a pot to get them out of the cupboard. We have a lot of assorted grains in the pantry that need to be used up in the coming weeks so this was a solid start.

It was a good stew but I think it could have done without the ground beef. Mostly because the ground beef had been frozen and I'm starting to thing that frozen ground beef is kind of nasty. This only hit me recently but I feel that going forward I'm going to only use fresh ground beef. There's just something about the texture and flavor of frozen ground beef that is unpleasant from me. I guess I'm just becoming even more of a jerk with every passing day.

Fantastic.



For beer I had a Liberator Dopplebock from Thomas Hooker. I bought it because it was $18.99 for a four pack so I figured it must be good. Besides, it was from Thomas Hooker whose beers generally always impress me.



As a dessert I used the rest of the quark which I served with fresh blueberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, and a drizzle of honey. I enjoyed this dessert quite a bit but Jen was not exactly sold on it. After dessert I felt satisfied enough to sit back and watch the Tour de France in peace. Jen, on the other hand, I think was rummaging around in our candy stash trying to find a bag of chocolate chips satisfy her dessert craving.

If we're ever on some sort of marriage-based game show and I'm asked what Jen's least favorite type of German fresh cheese curd is I'm going to clean up.

Clean up!