So, this was a lost week.  Well, maybe not entirely lost, but entirely not planned.  I DID end up making Vegan broccoli and cheese bake, which I will share my recipe for because it came out wonderfully. 

Here's the photo from Week #3 CSA share:

Our second CSA box arrived with a heavy dose of fruit, which was much appreciated! 



What you see here is 1 quart of cherries, 1 quart of strawberries, 1 pint of raspberries, 2 pints of peas, and 1 quart of blackcaps (the blackcaps were from our garden).  This side of the box disappeared within 2 days, and without any prepwork needed!   uuhh... sorry there's no recipe ideas other than set the boxes out on the table and let the family have at it.

Now, since I'm on the topic, lets talk briefly about blackcaps.  I have a huge patch in the backyard that grows wild.  The berries are smaller than blackberries and have no pit, much like raspberries.  They make amaaaazing wine, and jam, if they don't disappear immediately upon being picked.

These little berries ripen every year on the 4th of July and keep producing LIKE CRAZY until the end of the month.  For the next couple of weeks, I'm expecting to pick about a quart PER DAY.   I freeze a good number of them and they work just fine for cooking and fermentation projects. 

She took a break from bike riding to help (EAT) pick blackcaps

There was actually 2 of these containers full today that I picked, and probably at least 1 more out there on the bush.  It'll have to wait until tomorrow!

Now that we've discussed fruit, how about the rest of the bin?

We  got 1 head of red romaine lettuce, 1 head of red leaf lettuce, 1 small bunch of kale, 2 crowns of broccoli, and 2 small zucchini.  The heads of lettuce and the kale quickly became  a raw green salad for a family get-together on Sunday night (with some leftover for lunches during the week... I just keep it sealed up in the fridge, ready to go).  The zucchini was sliced and grilled up with some of the leftover garlic scapes and some asparagus I got from the store.

That leaves the broccoli.  I'm going to be making a broccoli/cauliflower (non-dairy) cheese bake later this week which I will share the recipe and photos for in my next blog post.

** One note from this week:  I wasn't all that impressed with the volume or variety of veggies in our CSA share this week and I actually ended up buying stuff in the produce section at the grocery store to supplement!  We also ended up going to a local orchard and picking up an extra quart of cherries and a pint of raspberries...aaaand a half dozen friedcakes for the girls and hubby.

The first week of our full share from the CSA included a lot of greens.  I described the contents in detail in my last post. 

Here are the recipes and photos from my two featured recipes this week. 

We had the Buttercrunch Steak Wraps on Sunday (along with a vegan pesto over whole wheat bowtie pasta). 

Radish pickles with garlic scapes, caraway sauerkraut in back, and kale ribs pickling on the right.

So, as promised, here's the haul!    It's very, VERY green... which I LOVE.  I love the challenge put forth too and getting the kids to try everything in this bin (including radishes and garlic scapes).


Over on the right you'll see that there's 2 quarts of strawberries and a pint of sugarsnap peas.  Um.  Those disappeared within the first 24 hours that I brought them home.  I just left them out on the table and they were eaten as is.  The peas were, by far, their favorite and I only actually got to try maybe 2 or 3 of them before realizing that they were completely gone!



Next we have 2 bunches of Kale, 1 bunch of rainbow chard, 1 head of Green Leaf lettuce, and one head of Buttercrunch lettuce.    The first thing I did was make a huge tossed 100% green salad with some kale, Green Leaf and Buttercrunch lettuce to put in the fridge for dinner accompaniment/snack.  I will continue to replenish the bowl as it empties out during the week. 



To finish off the Butter Crunch lettuce, Sunday dinner this week is going to consist of some Seared Steak and Veggie Lettuce Cups.  These cups will also feature the garlic scapes as a background flavor.     I will update the blog later in the week with my recipe/any modification ideas that I come up with to make it super-kid-tempting.

So, that leaves us with 1 small bunch each of rainbow chard and kale.  These will be going into one of my favorite recipes:  Smoked Pork with Greens and White beans.   I'll share this recipe later this week along with the Lettuce Cups.

And then, we are left with a bunch of radishes.  Um.  So... nobody in our house actually likes radishes raw.   At all.   But, I figured out a trick a little while back when I had a leftover veggie tray (FULL OF RADISHES):  They make really tastey, crunchy, not-at-all-spicey pickles. I'll be lacto-fermenting this bunch whole in 2% brine along with the remaining garlic scapes for a little added flavor.  They'll be ready in about a week, and I'll share the process with everyone once they're complete.


Summer time with the kids actually came early this year when preschool ended the first week in June.  Things around here have been nothing short of hectic, trying to keep 2 preschoolers entertained, but I'm so glad we decided to do this CSA project. It gives us all a great thing to focus on and my eldest really enjoys going with me to pick up our box every week.

We even made some stone "markers" with veggies on them one day while we were waiting for pickup to start.  I wanted to get the kids as involved as possible with the process and what better way that with arts and crafts that require a picnic trip to the park/lakeshore?




That's acrylic paint on Lake Ontario stones from the nearby lake shore.  I let the kids do the initial painting, and then I went over it to define a few parameters/make things a little more recognizable.  

Hope you're enjoying Summer and the abundance of green that's suddenly available!

Spring is here in full force and the weather is starting to hint toward Summer.  We've been grilling and having campfires  and LOVING being outside in the warm weather.  Well, the other day it was 90 f. and humid outside.  I looooved it, but my family was complaining "IT'S SOOOOO HOT!!!"... I blame their Scandinavian bloodlines for their inability to take the heat!


We didn't want to turn on the stove, or the grill, and all the kids wanted to do was play outside in the sprinkler.  It was dinner salad night.  We ate our salads outside just before a thunderstorm rolled through and ate almost an entire watermelon for dessert.




Pictured here is a green salad with fresh veggies cut into it. Leftover sliced roasted summer squash, marinated artichoke hearts, pickled beans and asparagus, red sauerkraut, melon, and a couple dolmades for good measure.  The Wild Rice Lentil Salad topped everything off and rounded it out so that it was a super-filling dinner salad.  I topped mine with Mustard Balsamic Vinaigrette (1 tbsp brown mustard to 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar and 1/4 cup olive oil).

Lately Dandelions have been getting some attention because they are among the 1st food sources for honeybees at the beginning of Spring. So, this year I waited a bit until the trees and other flowers started blossoming before I harvested ONLY the wide open flowering tops of dandelions to make Dandelion Wine! I've done this every year for the last 3 years and am in LOVE with both the process of picking and preparing and with the beautiful golden wine that results. My girls love to help pick flowers too!
I blogged about the recipe and process last Spring and am currently at the point in the process where I'm waiting for the must to activate with the yeast. In another day or so I'll bottle it up in a 1 gallon carboy.

Here's our haul

Quinn helped me "Pick and Pluck" this year!

Ani helped me stir the ingredients together for wine!

As the weather heats up, this recipe is fantastic either eaten hot as a light dinner or eaten chilled as a pasta salad.  Either way, it's great to eat out on the porch in the sunshine.

This is a spinoff of my recipe for Pasta Shrimp and Peas that I shared last year around this time.  Both of these recipes have proven to be kid pleasers.