We’ve just passed week 13, so here’s the CSA late summer update. We’re 75% done. The veggies are beautiful! We still see summer tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, summer squash, and corn. The melons have come and gone (this makes me happy; I’m not much of a melon fan.) We’re also just starting to get some cooler weather produce: potatoes, onions, cauliflower and greens.
Besides cooking the freshest vegetables around for some sensational suppers, I’ve put up several batches of ratatouille. Since it freezes so well, I make sure we have a supply for the cold months. Eggplant, summer squash and/or zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic – what’s not to like? It’s amazingly wonderful to have a simple omelette with ratatouille when it’s freezing cold outside.
Link to recipe: ratatouille
I put up the first of the big batches of summer tomatoes last weekend. A burst of cooler weather meant I was willing to use the oven all afternoon to make some roasted tomato paste. This is the simplest thing ever: Peel, seed, and squish the tomatoes, put them in a wide flat pan, and bake until the paste is so concentrated that you can drag a spatula through and leave a wide clean streak. Ten pounds of tomatoes yielded 13 4-ounce jars, which will most likely see us through the winter.
Link to recipe: roasted tomato paste
Sometime in September, there will be another big tomato crush, though I don’t think this will be a 200-pounder year (that would be 8 half-bushels, which is a LOT of tomatoes. It depends on how many people want to join in the fun, and whether our schedules mesh. I’ll certainly be canning tomato sauce for my own family, so there’s at least another half-bushel of tomatoes to process in the next few weeks. Honestly, once you’ve managed a mega-crush, putting up a mere 25 lbs seems easy. Look for a post next month with step by step instructions.