CSA week 19, and we’re almost at the end of the CSA season: only one more week. I suspect that we’re seeing the last of our high summer produce (corn and tomatoes) – tune in next week to find out if I’m right. I’ll miss the tomatoes, especially; February tomatoes just don’t have the same flavor.
This week, though, our box still holds a little bit of summer. We are delighted to receive:
- 4 Roma (paste) tomatoes
- 6 ears corn
- cauliflower
- butternut squash
- lots of lovely carrots
- one turnip – or is that a rutabaga?
- leaf lettuce
- romaine lettuce
- green onions
- 2 ripe red peppers
We find that the CSA distributions are perfect for meals during the week, but not enough for preserving in quantity. I tend to buy tomatoes by the half-bushel in late September to put up tomato paste (in the oven or in the slow cooker), oven-dried tomatoes, and tomato sauce. There have been years where we hosted an all-day tomato-canning party, where we turned 200 pounds of tomatoes into sauce and paste. This year my needs were much more modest. I found that 5 pounds of Roma tomatoes is the perfect start for one batch of slow-cooker tomato paste, and that for my own family use, freezing the paste in cubes beats canning small jars.
The coming week’s weather forecast includes highs in the 80s (F) and also in the low 50s, so this week’s ideas are all over the place, from a fresh tomato tart to roasted cauliflower and squash.
- fresh tomato tart (our last chance of the year for this!)
- tomato beef
- corn chowder from Simply Recipes
- roasted cauliflower with Parmesan
- garden-style Sloppy Joes
- butternut squash roasted with cumin and Aleppo pepper
- carrot cake muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
- ginger-scallion chicken from the New York Times