The theme of this week’s CSA box was TOMATOES!  This is precisely why I decided to learn to love tomatoes.  If I didn’t like tomatoes, this box would’ve been totally wasted on me… and Mike would’ve be forced to eat more tomatoes than he really wanted.

- Red Seedless Watermelon
- Little orange peppers
- 4 ears of sweet corn
- Green bell pepper
- Red onion
- Plum tomatoes
- Red round tomatoes
- Baby heirloom tomatoes

Let’s start with the highlight: pizza!

I slow roasted some of the plum tomatoes.  Heat your oven to 325.  Slice the tomatoes and remove the seeds.  Coat with olive oil and sprinkle with dried basil, dried oregano, and dried thyme.  Let them roast for about 30 minutes.  The smell will fill your house!  These tomatoes were awesome.  I made my usual pizza crust and got it ready to go.  As I was heating up my grill to make an awesome pizza, the propane ran out.  So… Plan B.  I went down to the basement and found my pizza stone.  If you don’t have one, a baking sheet will work fine.  Heat the oven to 500 with the pizza stone inside.  Once it is heated, sprinkle some corn meal on the stone and add the crust.  I then add sliced mozzarella, the roasted tomato slices, and a little fresh basil.  It cooked for about 10-15 minutes.  Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn.  Remove. Slice. Mmmmm…. it was pretty good even though it wasn’t on the grill.

I told you about my yummy black bean turkey burgers with the corn and tomato salad.  So that used two ears of corn and the round tomatoes.  It was really good.

The watermelon was a crazy color!  Super red.  And delicious.

I made a stir fry with the green pepper with some tiny little eggplants I got from the farmers’ market and some shitake mushrooms — a little sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, Sriracha, and a splash of fish sauce.  That was lunch for a couple days.

I did my usual quick weeknight meal of pasta with a fast tomato sauce.  This time I made it creamy.  I made a quick roux in a pan – one tablespoon of butter and one table spoon of flour.  Added a little milk (I only had skim — something else would’ve made it thicker), some garlic, some quartered baby heirloom tomatoes, and some fresh basil.  Let that boil and I had a sauce.

I also did my usual chicken sausage dish.  This was on Thursday night and our fridge was nearly bare.  I had the little orange peppers, one tomato, and the onion left.  I had no eggs for a frittata.  We already had pasta.  Bring me the chicken sausage.  Browned the sausage, sauteed the peppers and onion, added the tomato.  It is a pretty good meal, I must say.

I ran out of propane for my grill last week.  That really set the stage for how things were going to go.  No grilling.  Indoor cooking only.  Ok… Breathe.  We can do this.

I love making turkey burgers.  Some people think they are difficult to make because you really have to add tons of flavor to make them taste good — I don’t see this as a challenge, but as an opportunity.  You can make a turkey burger taste like almost anything.  I decided to go Tex-Mex-ish with my burgers this time with this quick and easy recipe.

Black Bean Turkey Burgers with Warm Tomato and Corn Salad

For the burgers:

- 1 lb ground turkey
- black beans — I used canned this time.  If you use fresh, you need to cook them VERY well.  They need to be almost mushy.
- garlic powder
- chipotle powder — I wanted a little heat and some smokiness.  Chili powder, cayenne, or smoked paprika would work great here.
- cumin
- salt and pepper

Strain and rinse the black beans.  Allow them to dry almost completely — you don’t want water in your burgers.

Add the beans to a large bowl and squish them with your hands.  They don’t need to be total mush, but you want them to mix into the ground turkey.  Once those are squished, add your turkey.  I use a 93/7 turkey — I have used 99% fat free turkey before and I find it to be way too dry.  Your call, though.  Add some garlic powder, a little cumin (it is very powerful), a little chipotle powder (don’t over do it!), and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Mix it all together.  You can use a spoon, but I find that my hands are the best tool for this.

Divide your turkey mixture into four burgers.  Per Bobby Flay, put a small indent in the center to keep them from puffing up into flying saucers.  This really works!

As I mentioned, I was out of propane so these burgers had to be cooked indoors.  I heated my cast iron pan over medium-high heat and added some canola oil.  Once it is VERY hot, add the burgers.  They’ll get a great crust in the cast iron pan and they won’t be sitting in grease like beef burgers would.  Cook for about 7 min on each side until they are done.

For the Tomato and Corn Salad:

This was super simple.

- dice some tomatoes — I think I used 3 small tomatoes because that’s what I had left from my CSA
- corn from 2 ears (From my CSA)
- serrano chile — jalapeno or any other type of chile would be fine here or you could skip this.
- garlic

Cut the corn from the cobs.  Make sure you get all of that delicious corn milk by running the back off your knife down the cobs!  Heat a pan over medium heat; add a little canola oil.  Add the corn until it cooks through.  It cooks very quickly.

Mince the garlic and the chile; add them to the corn.  Stir until fragrant.  Then add the diced tomatoes.  You just want those to warm through, not turn into a sauce.

Serve the burgers with a health scoop of tomato and corn salad on top.  They were great as leftovers for lunch, too.  Delicious.  Healthy.  And indoors.

Remember my niece?  The 7 year old teenager who made me do the Running Man?  She’s awesome.  She came to stay with Mike and me by herself last weekend and we had a blast – we even cooked.

I don’t have kids yet, so Lily is really the first kid who I have watched grow and transform from a baby into a real person.  Suddenly we can have conversations about things other than cartoons and coloring and whatever else we talked about when she was four.  Over the weekend we talked about how sad it is when people abandon their dogs and how nice it is when people adopt them (we both have pound-puppies).  I took her to the farmers’ market and we talked about why the produce there tastes so much better than when we get it in the store. “Because it is so fresh!” she said.  Smart kid.  There are also those hilarious kid comments that remind me that she is, in fact, 7…

-  [While driving in DC, I pointed out some of the monuments… this happened next…] “I really like this place.  It is so easy to remember all the presidents here!”
- “You know that stinky truck smell?  I just love it!  I don’t know why, but I just love it!  It smells so good to me! I don’t know why!  I just love it!”
- And about 87 times after going to the zoo, “Aunt Shel, remember when that monkey peed?  That was hilaweeous*!” *”Hilarious” in 7 yr old speak

She’s a really nice kid.  Always willing to help.  Always eager to snuggle.  And always always laughing…often for no apparent reason. 

Over the summer she spent two weeks with my parents and went to camp; one of those weeks was spent at chocolate camp.  Yes, chocolate camp.  Why has she spent a week at chocolate camp already in her 7 years of life and I haven’t spent a single day at chocolate camp in my 30 years of life?  Because life isn’t fair, I guess. Wanting to live vicariously through this kid, I asked her lots of questions about chocolate camp.  She didn’t have many answers that didn’t include the words “something,” “stuff,” or “like.”  “My favorite thing we made were these chocolate circle somethings. They were like circles…and chocolate…I don’t remember.  But they were really good.”  Thanks for the help there, kiddo.  Maybe get more deets next time.  But she kept talking about the chocolate circle somethings.  “They were circles of chocolate…and something… we dipped the circles in the chocolate… and the circles…”  Ugh.  “…there was peanut butter something in the middle…”  Wait.  Peanut butter?  Did you make buckeyes?!  “Yes!  Buckeyes!  That’s what she called them!”  How did I manage to figure that out?  Who cares?  We’re making them, I told her.  Uncle Mike was going to be *very* happy about this project.

At any given moment those twins who played Ben Geller on Friends are on some tv show on Disney.  They are in multiple shows.  I don’t get it.  Anyway, Lily was completely absorbed in the Ben Gellers when it was time to get the buckeyes made.  So I made them.  Alone.  Woe is me. 

(Not entirely alone.  When it came time to roll them in the melted chocolate, she came running.  And when it came time to lick the bowl of chocolate, she and Uncle Mike grabbed a spoon.  Such great helpers.)

This recipe is pretty common, but I got it from a friend who made them for a super bowl party.  They are a great dessert for adults and kids alike.  For those of you who have kids, they are a perfect thing to have them make as they are no-bake and involve no knives.  For adults, they are divine.  Everyone loves buckeyes.

Buckeyes

- 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl, mix together the peanut butter, butter, vanilla and confectioners’ sugar. The dough will look dry. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on a waxed paper-lined cookie sheet.

Press a toothpick into the top of each ball (to be used later as the handle for dipping) and chill in freezer until firm, about 30 minutes. (My freezer is totally full, so I put them in the fridge for a few hours.  Worked just fine.)

Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler or in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir frequently until smooth.

Dip frozen peanut butter balls in chocolate holding onto the toothpick. Leave a small portion of peanut butter showing at the top to make them look like Buckeyes. (I drizzled chocolate over the top.  I’ll be honest…I did this so that there wasn’t a ridiculous amount of chocolate left in that bowl.  I knew that whatever was left was going to be devoured by that kid.  Typically you don’t drizzle.)

Put them back on the cookie sheet and refrigerate until serving.

Great box last week!  Now that I’m a tomato eater, these tomato-filled boxes are way more exciting.  Life has been quite hectic lately so my meals have been on the quick side.  Does quick have to mean unhealthy?  Less tasty?  Less fresh?  No way.  It just means quick.

My favorite dish of the week (and of many of my weeks as of late) – The Severino ricotta cavatelli that I love so much with a quick CSA sauce.  A little garlic, diced tomatoes (I used 2), and some fresh basil from my garden.  Toss the pasta and voila!  A delicious fresh QUICK dinner.  This is my new go-to for nights when I just don’t feel like cooking but I really can’t afford to not use some CSA veggies.

The other 2 tomatoes and the green pepper went into a frittata.  I sautéed the green pepper, added some garlic, tossed in the tomatoes, and added 3 egg whites and 3 whole eggs.  Once it started to set, I added some fresh basil.  Cook it like and omelet until it is mostly set, then put it under the broiler to finish.  I find that adding the basil while the eggs is still runny on top coats it a bit so it doesn’t burn under the broiler.  This meal was enough for dinner and we had leftovers for lunch. 

2 purple peppers – I love purple peppers because they’re so cool looking.  They really taste like green peppers, though.  And if you cook them, they lose their purple color which is terribly upsetting if you were counting on a pretty purple frittata.  So… eat them raw.  I cut these into a large dice along with a cucumber I had left in my fridge.  I made a quick vinaigrette with some olive oil and some delicious peach white balsamic that I got from Lebherz Oil and Vinegar Emporium in Frederick.  It was very tasty.

The zucchini and the Asian eggplant were both stir-fried with some shitake and oyster mushrooms in a sauce of sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, Sriracha, and a splash of fish sauce.  Mike doesn’t eat zucchini, eggplant, or mushrooms so this was my lunch for a couple days.  Despite what he might think, this was one tasty dish.

Lettuce – I again put this in my smoothie with some banana, yogurt, a splash of vanillia, and some low-fat chocolate milk.  It was very good on the first day.  I highly recommend it.  I made a big pitcher of it to have for a few days for breakfast… I do not recommend that.  On Day 2 it wasn’t as good but still drinkable.  One Day 3 it was inedible.  What did I learn last week?  Make lettuce smoothies fresh or don’t make them at all.

Cantaloupe and yellow watermelon – EATEN.  GOBBLED. NOM NOM NOM.  (If you’ve never tried yellow watermelon, you should.  It is better than the red stuff.)

I’m in love with Asian cuisine.  Specifically the Eastern and Southeastern Asian cuisine.  I love the complexity of the flavors — fresh and sweet and savory and spicy all in one single bite.  The more I try the cuisine, the more I love it.  I really feel like I get a taste for the culture of the region with every dish.  I have this theory (I think it is a pretty common one) that traditional food in any nation is the food of their poorest people.  Using every part of the animal and local ingredients that are simple to grow — I think that is never more evident than it is in Asian cuisine.  I would love to drop everything and travel the world exploring the connection between poverty and traditional cuisine.  But alas, no can do.

I am priviledged to live in a region of the United States that has extremely high quality authentic food from the many regions of Asia.  Montgomery County, MD has the highest percentage of Chinese ancestry in any place besides California and Hawaii.  Northern Virginia has some of the largest populations nationwide of Vietnamese Americans.  Annandale, VA specifically has a rapidly growing Korean population and is home to one of the nation’s Koreatowns.  Virginia and Maryland both are in the 10 Top states with the highest Thai populations in the country.  Why am I telling you this?  Because it means I have phenomenal food from the many regions of China, Vietnam, Korea, and Thailand right in my backyard.  How did I get so lucky?

I could live entirely on the cuisine of those nations.  I crave it constantly.  I cannot understand when someone says, “Eh, I had Thai two nights ago so I don’t want Korean tonight.”  WHAT?!  They are totally different!  But fine.  As you wish.  I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not adore this food. 

Learning to cook this cuisine is often quite difficult.  Unlike learning to make a pot roast or learning to roast a chicken, there is so much about cooking this cuisine that is built in to a person’s being.  Watch a show where they feature a cook from Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, China or any of the other nations of the Far East.  It is often the way they move their hands or the decades-old kitchen tools or just the way they know when something is perfect.  I can make a Thai-style curry.  I even learned from a great Thai chef in the area.  But it will never ever be the same no matter how many times I try… and I vow to try a LOT.  In fact, my mother-in-law once opened my refrigerator and commented that it looked like an Asian restaurant.  I took that as a compliment.  I always have fish sauce, chili paste, miso paste, sesame oil, soy sauce, Sriracha, rice vinegar, mirin, sweet chili sauce, and oyster sauce in my fridge.  There is usually a jar of kimchi too.  Open my pantry and you’ll find at least 3 different types of noodles not including the Italian style pasta.  My freezer?  Packed full of frozen dumplings and buns for steaming.  I love it all and I crave it all the time.

Learning to cook it… I think the key is starting slowly.  Finding the right ingredients for many dishes is tricky but possible if you have Asian markets in your area.  But there are some dishes where you can usually find everything you need in your local farmers’ market and grocery store. 

Chinese Style Cold Sesame Noodles

- Package of soba noodles or spaghetti
- 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter, almond butter, OR sesame paste (I used peanut butter)
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 teaspoon or more chili sauce (Sriracha)
- Garnish (optional) — scallions, cilantro

Cook the noodles per the directions on the package.  Rinse and allow them to cool.

Put all of the other ingredients (not the garnish) in a bowl and whisk until it is all combined and smooth.  This might take a lot of whisking, but you’ll get there.  Taste it.  Awesome?  Should be.  You can adjust the flavors to your taste.

You can serve this at room temperature or put it in the fridge to chill.  It is great served immediately or saved as leftovers.  I love this dish.  It is wonderfully flavorful AND it is a great dish for those nights when it is just too hot for a warm meal. 

Vietnamese Style Summer Rolls — Goi Cuon

- Rice Paper Wrappers — they look like this
- Thin rice noodles — they look like white threads
- Cucumber (from my CSA!)
- Red pepper
- Shrimp (or you can use tofu)
- Thai basil and/or mint

The rice noodles get blanched, not boiled.  Boil a pot of water.  Once it boils, remove from the heat and add the noodles.  Often times the noodles come in little bundles — I used two bundles for 4 rolls and had some leftover.  They should sit in the water for only about 5 minutes or so.  Check to see if they are soft — if not, let the soak longer.  Then remove them and rinse under cold water.  Leave them in the strainer to dry.

You should slice the cucumber and pepper into thin matchsticks.  To do that, slice the top and bottom off the pepper.  Slice the pepper-hoop in half to open it up and slice thinly.  You see the fancy chefs on tv cut peppers this way a lot.  For the cukes, just slice long-ways into sheets and then again into thin strips and then cut those strips in half so they are short.  It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to fit.

I bought shrimp that were already steamed and cleaned.  Just be sure to remove the tails.

Soak the wrappers in warm water until they are pliable.  You will feel them go from feeling like paper to feeling like soft delicate wrappers very quickly.  Be careful with them!

To wrap…

Lay the soft wrapper on a flat surface.  Add some noodles, cucumber, pepper, a few shrimp (I fit 3 in each), and some leaves of Thai basil and/or mint.  Fold in the sides first and then roll — just like a burrito.  Mine were way too loose and were a little hard to handle, so next time I’ll try to roll them tighter. 

For the dipping sauce: I used some of the sauce from the cold noodles above and a little sweet chili sauce mixed together.  If you don’t have sweet chili sauce, the peanut sauce above would be great alone. 

Can’t find wrappers or don’t feel like it is worth the effort?  Deconstructed spring rolls are also great (I did this with the leftover ingredients): noodles with cucumber, red pepper, shrimp, and Thai basil with a little bit of the sauce. 

These are fresh and delicious! My husband said they tasted just like the ones from the restaurant.  Successfully making these summer rolls was a HUGE deal for me!  (Did you see the photo above?  Did you??  DID YOU???) It was a very proud moment.

Chile rellenos are my favorite dish at Mexican restaurants.  Everyone does them a little different, but the essence is the same: pablano pepper stuffed with deliciousness.  While they seem to be mostly filled with cheese and/or chicken (and sometimes pork but I don’t eat pork so I don’t want to count those because I get sad), “chile relleno” literally means “stuffed chile.”  They are usually battered and fried; a good chile relleno has just enough batter to add flavor but not so much that you can’t taste the chile. 

Pablano chiles are great for stuffing.  They are usually mild-medium in heat (although it is not uncommon to get a bite that has a little burn) and have a shape that just screams “FILL ME UP!”  I spotted a few small pablanos at the Silver Spring farmers’ market; while I love using these peppers for other dishes (sauces, salsa, salad, other dishes that start with S), I had never tried to make my own chile rellenos.

I don’t deep fry things at home.  While I am a strong supporter of deep fried things (namely Oreos), I prefer to leave that as a treat to be enjoyed on special occasions (namely the county fair).  At home, I try to keep things on the healthier side so I can enjoy fried things when I’m out while still fitting into my pants.  How do I prefer to cook things?  We all know the answer to that.  I grill.

I got my peppers home and introduced them to the others, mostly CSA items – corn, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, black beans, and barley.  They got acquainted.

You do not need a recipe for this dish.  You need to know what you think tastes good.  You can do this however you want.  Hopefully I’ve at least planted the seed for you to try stuffing some peppers with whatever you like and grill them to the point of deliciousness.  Don’t like spicy food?  Use green or red bell peppers.  Same idea. 

Start with the beans as they will take the longest to cook.  Get them going and leave them alone.  You can use canned beans, but I recommend fresh.  If you use canned, don’t forget to rinse them to get all that sodium-filled liquid off  of them.  If you use fresh — soak for as long as you are able.  I soaked for about an hour while I did other things in the kitchen — over night is best.  Some beans require soaking, but you can get away with skipping this step with black beans.  It is better if you can do it, though.  Black beans cook at a 1:3 ratio – I made 1/2 cup of beans so I added 1 1/2 cups of water. See how that works?  This is math that I can get behind. Cover and let them simmer for about an hour before you check on them.  Depending on your preference and the beans, it could take an hour and a half. 

I had a couple ears of corn left from my CSA box, so I threw those on the grill just to get some of those tasty brown grill marks. 

While those grilled, I made some barley.  Barley cooks at a 1:4 ratio — I made 1/2 cup of barley, so I added it to 2 cups of water.  Cover it and cook for about 30 minutes before checking it.  If it isn’t done yet, put the lid back on and don’t open it again until it has been a total of 40 minutes.  Letting out that steam could cause your barely to stick to the pan.  My husband, the one who does the dishes, does not like when that happens… as you can imagine.

I threw a few onion slices on the grill just to get some marks.  I chopped a tomato and the grilled onion into a small dice.  I also happened to have some freshly made chipotle tomato salsa; you use whatever kind of salsa you like.  I chopped the cilantro — I love this stuff, so I used a lot.  Your choice.

Cut the corn off the cob.  Mix all of the ingredients — the corn, tomatoes, onion, cilantro, black beans, barley, and a little salsa (to your taste).  This is your filling.  Want cheese?  Add it.  Do whatever you want!

Slice the tops off the pablanos.  You should be able to pop the stem right out of the cap.  With a knife or your fingers, remove the core and seeds from the inside of the pepper.  If these are fresh from the market, they are more likely to be a little hotter than ones you get from the super market.  Be careful with the seeds!  Wash your hands with dish soap often.   

Fill the peppers with your filling.  Put the cap back on and secure with a tooth pick.  I recently got this really cool mesh roasting pan for the grill.  It is cool because it is so open to the flame.  Some grilling pans have so much surface area that I don’t think you get much grill flavor.  These mesh pans tend to be way overpriced, in my opinion.  BUT they are still on sale at Williams-Sonoma!  (I am not paid to endorse Williams-Sonoma or their products, but would glad accept free goods.  Thanks.)  Anyway, put the stuffed peppers in some sort of pan — they’ll fall through if you put them right on the grates.  If you don’t have a pan, you can use foil.

Grill them with the lid closed until the peppers get nice and charred on the bottom. 

Remove.  Add a dolop of sour cream and/or cheese and serve.  These peppers were delicious — so fresh tasting!  Some of the pablanos definitely had more heat than you would expect, but we were ok with that.  The flavor is fantastic.

Yes, last week was week 13 of my CSA box.  Yes, I’ve missed a few weeks of telling you about my CSA boxes… but, per your suggestions, I’m back and more interesting than ever!  (Well, don’t get your hopes up too much.)  Every week I’m going to do a post on how I used the previous week’s box of produce — you know, once I’ve actually used it all.

Week 13:

• Cantaloupe
• Cucumbers
• Onions
• Tomatoes
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Green bell pepper
• Lettuce (every week with the lettuce… ugh)

Let’s start with the boring stuff:

The cantaloupe was eaten as is — why do anything fancy with a fabulous, ripe cantaloupe fresh from the farm? 

The cherry tomatoes are rinsed in a little colander and put on the counter “to be used for dinner one night.”  Inevitably, they are always eaten as we each grab one when we pass by.  They are ridiculously delicious.

One of the cucumbers was peeled, sliced and put into a pitcher of water with a sprig of rosemary.  I set it in the sun for a couple hours and then into the fridge.  The cucumber and rosemary infused water was so refreshing.  I loved it.

One night I did my usual quick I-don’t-have-the-energy-to-make-something-more-interesting dinner — I sliced and browned some chicken sausage in my cast iron skillet; sliced and sauteed one of the onions and the green pepper; diced and added one whole tomato.  The tomato juices mixed with the oil from the sausage and made a nice sauce.  This dinner is so quick and easy, and pretty darn good. 

Now, hear me out on this… while some of the lettuce was used to make a salad or two along with some of the cucumber and tomato, I used about half of the lettuce in my morning smoothie.  WAIT, don’t leave! Along with some milk, fat-free yogurt, a banana, and some all-natural peanut butter (the kind you grind yourself at Whole Foods — this is my new favorite thing — the grinder is so cool), I couldn’t taste the lettuce at all.  REALLY.  But it was there as was the nutritional benefits of having it there. It is even more nutritious with kale, spinach, chard or other dark leafy green.  Just try it.

Now for the two highlights of my week:

First up… grilled chile rellenos.  They were stuffed with a delicious barley salad that included this week’s tomatoes and one of the onions along with the previous week’s corn.  These babies were delicious.  You’ll have to check back tomorrow for the full story.  (This is like when you’re watching the finale of a reality competition show and the jerky host keeps going to commercial and you go “NOOO!  COME ON!  JUST TELL ME ALREADY!”  It is like that.  Right?  Right.)

Second… Vietnamese style summer rolls that went along side cold sesame noodles.  There will be a post on this fabulous dinner on Thursday. The summer rolls were filled with some of the cucumber, some red pepper from the farmers’ market, shrimp, Thai basil from my garden, and some thin rice noodles.  Dipped in some homemade sauce… well, you’ll have to read on Thursday for the rest of the story (RIP, Paul Harvey).

Just because it was one of my all-time favorite recipes, I also want to mention that I made pasta with fresh corn and sage brown butter(corn was from the previous week’s CSA box and the sage was from my garden).  This is a great summertime recipe.  Not the healthiest thing ever, but super delicious and very quick.  AND if you’re interested, the Silver Spring Whole Foods (and maybe others in the area, I don’t know) has the Severino ricotta cavatelli in stock now!  Well, they have some… I may have bought 4 boxes to store in my freezer.  Ok, 5.  Ok, FINE.  I bought 7 boxes total.  Don’t judge.

We were without power for one full day thanks to our weekly super-storm.  Our power wasn’t out long enough to put any of our fridge food in danger, but it did get warm enough in the house to put some of the produce that stays on the counter in jeopardy.  One morning in a fit of panic, I forced my husband to take a whole tomato that was on the brink of compost-death in his lunch.  (It was still good, no mold.  I wouldn’t force-feed him moldy tomatoes.  Or I would at least cut the moldy part off.  I’m a good wife.) The cantaloupe required immediate eating as well.  Luckily, I don’t think we lost anyone.  It was touch and go there for a minute.

Last season I did a post every week on the contents of my CSA boxes.  I started doing it again this year and, as you probably noticed, they dropped off.  Here is an example of what I’m talking about: http://www.eatniks.com/2010/06/csa-year-2-week-5/  So, my faithful readers, do you want me to forget about those posts or return to posting every week?

If you have ever had the great pleasure of driving down I-85 South through South Carolina on your way to Georgia, you have seen the PEACH.  The big posterior-looking peach water tower in Gaffney, SC.  Complete with the little nubbin that you find at the bottom of peaches and a leaf on top.  It looks fuzzy.  It is pretty spectacular – and it was the source of many laughs as a kid.  The water tower really looks like a giant rump with a leaf on top.

As awesome as that water tower is, forget about it.  Forget Georgia peaches and Carolina peaches.  They’re great and all, but they fall short.  I have found the best peaches on earth and they are not Georgia peaches.  They’re actually grown in Pennsylvania and sold at my (yes, MY) farmers’ market in Silver Spring, MD.  They are super sweet and have an intense peach flavor just as a peach should; plus, they’re just juicy enough to be delicious but not so juicy that you have to eat them leaning over the sink. They remind you why eating local and season fruit is totally worth it.  These peaches are white peaches from Three Springs Farm.  I’m addicted. I visit my dealer weekly. “Ben, you got the stuff?” “Yeah.  You got the cash?”  And the exchange is made.  If peach addiction is wrong then I don’t want to be right.

I’ve become sort of obsessed with these peaches.  I buy some every week to have for my husband and me to take for lunch, but I’ve also bought more for some other fun dishes.  Here are two of my favorites.

Peach Pie

I’m a total pie freak.  It is my favorite food – any kind, just not chicken pot.  Although good, it isn’t pie in my mind.   One of my primary cooking goals is to become an incredible pie maker (totally for selfish reasons).  A few weeks ago I made my very first crust from scratch and it went great!  Given my peach obsession, it was time for a peach pie. 

You could use a premade crust if you’d like, but this really is very easy.  Just try it!  This is Mark Bittman’s recipe.

Crust (you need to make two – a top and a bottom):

- 1 cup flour (plus additional for rolling)
- 1/2teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- 8 tablespoons butter (one stick cut into 8 pieces)
- up to 3 tablespoons ice water

Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor.  Give it a whir to mix.  Add the butter and turn on the food processor.  Process until the mixture looks like cornmeal; that should take about 10 seconds.  Don’t over mix it! 

Put the mixture in a bowl and add the ice water one tablespoon at a time.  Mix with your hands until you can form the dough into a ball.  It might only take one or two tablespoons of water.  Form into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap.  Put it in the freezer for 10 min or the fridge for at least 30 min to chill. 

After it has chilled, you’re going to roll one of the crusts out on a cutting board or your countertop.    Sprinkle the counter with flour and rub flour on your rolling pin.  Roll the dough out carefully until it is about 2 inches in diameter larger than your pie plate.  Drape the crust over the rolling pin and place it in the pie plate; press it into the plate.  Put the crust in the fridge for an hour or in the freezer for 30 min.

For the filling:

I got this recipe from someone on Twitter – unfortunately, I don’t remember who it was.

- 5 cups peeled and sliced fresh peaches (about 9 medium peaches)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

I leave the skins on my peaches, but that is up to you.  Put the peach slices in a bowl and add the lemon juice.   Mix the dry ingredients in another bowl.  Toss the peaches with the dry ingredients until well coated.

Heat your oven to 425 degrees.

Roll out the top crust.  Spoon the filling into the bottom crust in an even layer – make sure your peaches are all laying flat.  Brush the edge of the crust with water, cover with the second crust, press gently to seal. Flute or crimp the edges. Cut a few steam vents in the top.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven, brush with melted butter (optional), and cool on a wire rack for 1 hour.

This pie is outstanding especially with my special white peaches.

Grilled Peach and Corn Salad (or Salsa depending on your mood)

Grilled peaches are incredible and require very little effort.  You could grill peaches and have them on their own without any fuss.  I started making this dish last year with my CSA veggies and fell in love.  It is one of my favorite things to make.  This year, I made it even simpler because the peaches are so wonderful.  Cut the peach into big chunks for a nice summer salad or chop them into smaller bits for a sweet and spicy fresh salsa.

For grilling, you want peaches that are ripe but not overly ripe.  They need to be able to hold their shape.  Cut the peaches in half through the crease that runs from the stem to the bottom of the peach – you know, the part that really makes a peach resemble…ehem… your money maker.  Twist the two halves of the peach to separate them from the pit.  To remove the pit, use a spoon (I like to use my grapefruit spoon for this) to scoop it out. 

Now, there are different ways of doing this.  I’m a minimalist.  Why mess with a good thing?  I make sure my grill grates are clean and super hot, and then put the peaches face down.  I don’t use oil or anything.  Get all the peaches down and close the lid just for a couple minutes.  The cooking process doesn’t take long.  The heat from the grill will draw out the juices from the peach and start to caramelize.  If you touch them before they have those great grill marks, they’ll stick and break.  Don’t do that.  After a couple minutes, check the peaches.  If you can easily pick them up, check for grill marks.  Once you have marks, they’re done.  If you want a little extra char, you can put them on the skin-side and grill for a couple minutes but that’s optional.  This whole process should really take about 3 minutes.

For the corn – there are tons of different ways that people grill corn.  In my opinion, people make this way more complicated than it needs to be.  Here is how I do it – and I always get fantastic results: shuck the corn.  Clean off the silk.  Put the corn without any oil or anything on a very hot grill.  Close the grill.  Check it periodically to see that it is getting nice and brown.  Rotate it until you have grill marks all the way around.  Remove when it all has nice color.  That’s it.  Really.   There’s no need for the parboiling, pre-steaming, leaving the husk on, etc.  Get it naked.  Grill it. 

I also throw a couple of jalapenos on the grill to roast.  Once they get some good char, turn them.  You don’t want them to be completely black like a roasted red pepper, but you do want some roasty color.  That’s flavor.  You are going to leave the skin on, though, so keep that in mind.  Once they’re done, remove the stems and remove the ribs and seeds (unless you want the additional heat). 

Once everything is done, cut the kernels off the cob. (Tip: doing this on a cutting board will result in corn all over your kitchen.  I find that putting the corn in a Pyrex dish or similar and cutting it there keeps everything contained nicely.) I learned a great tip watching one of Paula Deen’s shows this weekend.  After you cut the kernels off the corn, take the back of your knife and run it along the cob as if you were slicing it.  This will remove all of the leftover corn bits and, most importantly, draw out that delicious corn milk.  This will enhance the corn flavor of your dish.

Dice your peaches.  Chop your roasted jalapenos.  Put it all in a bowl and stir.  This is great immediately, but I think it is even better after a few hours later or even after sitting over night when the flavors all meld.  The nectar from the peaches will flavor everything.  The jalapenos give it a great heat and flavor without being overpowering.  The flavors all go so well together, there’s no need for anything else.  You could add mint or cilantro if you wanted, maybe a squeeze of lime, diced grilled onions.  You can absolutely get creative!  If you’re using great, quality local produce then just the naked grilled peaches, corn, and jalapenos are awesome – and super healthy.  There’s nothing to it!

My Summer of Tomatoes is going very well.  I love them.  That’s weird, I know.  To clarify, I love the good ones.  The bad ones are dead to me.  This week we got these adorable baby heirloom tomatoes from the CSA.  They were all different colors and some were shaped sort of like bowling pins.  Not sure what that was about, but hey… they’re heirloom.  They were really delicious. 

I also got a big bag of basil, some garlic, and a bunch of sweet onions.  Last year I mentioned CSA Scrabble – this was like when you pick all of your tiles and they spell Quartzy or something that will secure your win.  This was too easy.

Tomato Tart

Making your own crust is totally worth it and not very hard.  It does take time, though.  If you would rather not make your own crust, a store bought one is fine.  Whole Foods has great frozen crusts – the whole wheat one is really good.

For the crust:

(This is Mark Bittman’s pie crust recipe minus the sugar.)

- 1 cup of flour – I made a whole wheat crust which means ½ cup white flour and ½ cup whole wheat flour (plus more for when you’re rolling the dough)
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt (I use a pinch)
- 8 tablespoons of butter (1 stick – if you use a stick, cut it into 8 pieces)
- 2-3 tablespoons of ice water

Combine the flour and salt in a food processor and pulse a few times.  Add the butter and turn on the food processor.  Process until the butter and flour are blended and it looks like cornmeal – about 10 seconds.  When you squeeze some of the mixture together, it should stick.

Put the mixture into a bowl and add the water one tablespoon at a time.  For a white flour crust, I’ve never needed more than 1-2 tablespoons.  For the whole wheat crust, I used 2 tablespoons.  You want it the dough to just be able to make a ball – if it gets too wet, add more flour.

Roll it into a ball and wrap securely in plastic wrap.  Put the ball in the freezer for 10 minutes or the fridge for 30 minutes.  I made my dough a couple of days ahead and left it in the fridge. 

Before you take the dough out of the fridge get all of your other ingredients ready to go (see below).

Sprinkle you countertop or cutting board and rolling pin with flour.  Carefully roll out the crust into a sheet – making it into a circle is highly unlikely, so don’t stress.

For the filling:

- onions (I used 3 little ones – you decide)
- 4 cloves of garlic (again, to your taste)
- one box of baby tomatoes
- fresh basil
- part skim ricotta cheese
- marjoram or oregano
- salt

Caramelized onions are wonderful, but I never have the patience to actually get to that point.  My strategy with onions, and the one that I employed for this dish, was to get them sautéing before I did anything else.  I let them cook for as long as I can while I prepare the rest of the dish, stopping to stir every few minutes so they didn’t burn.  This way they get soft and sweet but I don’t have to stand over them for an hour waiting for them to caramelize.

Mince a few cloves of garlic – I used three or four small to medium sized cloves.  I love garlic.  You use what you want.  When you’re almost ready to put the dish together, toss the minced garlic in with the sautéing onions.  Stir them until you can really smell the garlic.  Don’t let it burn!  Keep it moving just for a few minutes and then remove the onions and garlic from the heat.

Slice the little tomatoes in half. 

For the ricotta, I mixed in some fresh marjoram (oregano’s very close cousin) and a pinch of salt.  Just a little something to kick up the flavor of the ricotta.  You could add other herbs or you could leave it alone. 

Roll out the tart crust and move it to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Spread the ricotta on the crust leaving the edges clean for when you shape the tart.  Spread the onions and garlic.  Place the tomatoes cut-side down to cover the entire tart. 

Now you need to fold up the edges of the tart.  It doesn’t have to be pretty – in fact, it shouldn’t be pretty.  Fold up one piece, then the next pinching the two together so it doesn’t fall apart.  You can see in my photo how it should look – it is basically a free-form pie.

Drizzle the tart with olive oil and brush it on the crust.

Put the tart in the oven at 375 for 30 minutes.  Check to see if the crust is browning.  You can cook it up to 45 minutes (I think mine took about 40 minutes).  About 5 minutes before it was done, I sprinkled on some of the fresh basil. 

Remove it from the oven and move it to a cutting board.  I added more basil as I love fresh basil; you do what you like.  Slice it like a pizza.  Serve.  Enjoy.  Make yummy noises.