Roasted radishes

When I was little, I loved radishes. I was the six year old snacking on radishes and carrots while everyone else was eating french fries. I still like them, but I honestly don't love the bitter taste of raw radishes as much as I did when I was a kid.

I got a whole bunch of radishes from my CSA, and I decided to give roasting a try. They turned out GREAT. I would highly recommend this method for cooking radishes--takes the bitterness out but leaves most of the flavor intact.

Sliced thin

Fire escape tomatoes

My fire escape has been very generous to me recently! I have more mint than I know what to do with, plenty of basil and parsley, a pepper plant with two green peppers, some celery I rooted, and a HUGE tomato plant that has been giving me a bunch of tomatoes recently! The plant itself doesn't look all that great, but I think that's because it put so much energy into its fruit. I can't complain, though!

Just as the first one was turning red

My first little harvest

So many more!

Pesto, my favorite food

My favorite food: pesto pasta with shrimp

Pesto pasta with shrimp has been my favorite food for the majority of my life. It's what I asked for for every birthday dinner. I hold out every summer to have enough basil to make my own, and by combining some of my own with some from my CSA, I made some great pesto last night!

I use basil, garlic, romano cheese, pine nuts, lemon juice, and olive oil in my pesto. You could use a different nut or a different cheese if you'd like.

Basil for the pesto: mine on the left, farm share on the right

CSA update

I have to apologize for not posting much. I have been creative--I've made three dresses, cooked quite a bit, and coaxed my garden to stay alive despite construction on my fire escape (where the garden belongs). I have just been super busy with work and then a vacation and haven't been posting!

What does this mean, though? Well, it means there will be a ton of posts in a few weeks updating you on all this awesomeness! For now, here's an update of my CSA, weeks 5-10. I haven't been updating as much because most of the food I've been getting hasn't required much cooking--lots of it has been good raw or just very simple--steamed or sauteed, so I haven't taken a ton of pictures. That being said, here are a few of my favorites meals from the past few weeks!

Week 5

Week 6

Cream of asparagus soup

Cream of asparagus soup

I really like asparagus. I really like soup. So cream of asparagus soup seemed like an exciting challenge. The dilemma: I can't eat cream. Greek yogurt is my standard go to substitute, but I have yet to cook with it without curdling it. This creamy cream of asparagus soup was delicious. I split it in two batches--the first I curdled when heating it back up to eat, the second is in the freezer, hopefully waiting on a better fate.

The ingredients

CSA, weeks 2-4

After a busy month of weddings and work, I'm all caught up on my cooking with the CSA veggies (and fruit). In week 2, we got some of the best strawberries I've ever had along with the other produce. Everything has been absolutely delicious, and it's forcing me to try new things with veggies other than my usual go to meals. I've been getting more squash than I really know what to do with, but it's ok because 1) I LOVE zucchini bread, and 2) my fiance was in town last week and made a really good summer spaghetti with the squash.


So, to catch you up, here's what I got and what I did with it!

Week 2:

asparagus
green leaf lettuce
greenhouse-grown tomatoes
zucchini
summer squash
broccoli
strawberries

Week 2 of the farm share, to be split between two people

Mediterranean Beet Salad

I promised to post this about a week ago, but with the sew along and weddings to attend, I haven't had much time! I made this beet recipe from the New York Times with the beets from the first week of my CSA. My friend had made it last year for the 4th of July.


I followed this recipe exactly (except for one mistake, which I'll describe here). I cut the recipe down to a quarter, which was plenty for me (and the max I could make with my one large beet). The recipe says you can use either sherry vinegar, white wine vinegar, or cider vinegar--I chose cider. Finally, the recipe calls for roasted beets. Well I went ahead and cut up the beets/peeled them and laid them out on a cookie sheet. Then, while they were in the oven, I clicked the "roasted" on the recipe. It didn't want me to do that at all! You're supposed to put the entire beet in a casserole dish with a little recipe before even cutting it!

Mom's Zucchini Bread

This was a major favorite while growing up. Everyone in my family loves it, including my dog, who gets it for her birthday every year. This means that any time my mom makes the bread, my dog expects presents. You definitely have to try this recipe!

CSA Week 1!

I joined a CSA with a friend this year. We got our first box of produce last Monday. Between the two of us, we got

1 bunch asparagus
1 bunch carrots
1 green leaf lettuce
1 red leaf lettuce
1 bunch kale
2 greenhouse-grown tomatoes

1 bunch beets
2 zucchini
2 summer squash
2 heads of broccoli

I think I'll post what I do with the contents of each box every week (or at least most weeks). We split it evenly, so I got half a bunch of stuff that came in bunches, half a head of each lettuce, and one tomato, zucchini, squash, and head of broccoli. 

I steamed half the broccoli for dinner one night (I know, it's not really a dinner, but I had had a late lunch that day).

First use of the steamer in the new apartment