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Summer on the go

The CSA is in full swing, producing our seven wonderful veggie items a week.  We've added a new element to our market trips: a very dear friend tipped us off to a way that we can compost!  A local small business, which has a booth at our Farmers' Market, will take away your compostables every other week for the incredibly low cost of $5.  When the market isn't in season, we can bring our pail to the co-op.  Finally, I can repurpose the post-stock vegetables!!

Behold! Veggies!
This week's CSA harvest: garlic scapes, kale, bok choy, summer squash, peas, Hakurei salad turnips, and lettuce.  We also picked up a pint of blueberries, because we have no self-control.

Due to a festival in town, the main street through town was closed.  We dropped off our CSA goodies in the car, picked up our coffee and a scone, and walked down the street to the co-op.  There was very, very little on the list this week: just a couple things to finish off a recipe or two, milk for Karen's coffee, and a loaf of bread.  But it was a lovely, sunny day for an early-ish walk through a charming little town.

This week introduces a new complication to our CSA and ethical eating plans: like many people, we travel a bit in the summer.  And I am both too cheap and too environmentally concerned to waste food.  So: what do we do with all this stuff before we go?



Freddie also likes CSA veggies.
Good news, everyone: this week's posts are on stuff you can make and freeze while your veggies are fresh!

Who likes Indian food?  We are, to put it mildly, fans.  And the Instant Pot makes it easy.

My saag recipe is a loose adaptation from The Indian Instant Pot Cookbook.  One major difference that you will notice right away is that the cookbook's version calls for baby spinach, making it palak paneer.  The difference, as I understand it, is that saag can be made with whatever greens you like (usually spinach and mustard greens), while palak uses spinach.  So this week, the saag is being made with a nice mix: beet greens and spigariello.  It freezes really nicely in 2 cup portions, which is enough to make a pretty much instant dinner when paired with a can of chickpeas and some rice.

The second recipe is a house favorite for pasta: pesto!  Pesto is often made with basil and pine nuts - not necessarily inexpensive. Ground-breaking news, friends: all you need for pesto is a leafy green, an aged cheese, and toasted nuts. Any kind will do. (And olive oil - of course.) Pesto also freezes well, either in small jars or in an ice cube tray.  The advantage to an ice cube tray is that you can pop them out of your freezer as needed. But let's be honest, once the jar comes out of the freezer, I'm happy to eat it all week: on pasta, on a flatbread, even as a sandwich spread.  This week's lemony kale, walnut, and parmesan pesto is adjusted from a cooking class recipe.

Another perk to this home-processing of one's veggies: now, when we get back, there's no need to worry about what to eat.  Just grab a jar of something yummy from the freezer and behold! dinner!  (I have even occasionally asked the cat sitter to pull something down out of the freezer the day before we return...)

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