CSA Week 7: The Zucchini Circle

So I fully admit that I have gotten a little behind schedule with blogging about our CSA life but here is the recap of what came in our box for week 7.  We have actually upgraded to a full share for the rest of the season because we had a friend that was interested in joining and it works out great because you get more then double the contents.  This is what we took home out of the share:

-2 lbs new red potatoes

-1 bunch early onions

-2 bunches of beets

-4 lbs yellow squash and zucchini

-1 greenhouse cucumbers

-1/2 lb  leaf lettuce mix

-2 bunches of radishes

-2 bunches of hakurei turnips

-1 bunch of toscano kale

Monday night was our smorgasbord vegetable dinner night where we used up a lot of our veggies to go along with the pork tenderloins that I did on the grill.  We roasted up the new baby potatoes with butter, olive oil, salt and pepper and finished them off with some fresh rosemary from the herb pots.  They had a delicious, earthy flavor and don't need to be "over-prepared" in some fancy recipe.  We had a bunch of broccoli from last week that we cooked up, and then sauteed up another batch of the hakurei turnips like I have been doing all season. 

Being mindful of last week's kale debacle, I picked a night that only I was eating (or so I thought) and made a new version of a kale pasta dish (yes, I'm still fully invested in the kale).  This week we had the toscano kale which is a little bit of a different variety then the curly kale that we have had all season since the leaves are larger and flatter (more like a collard) and have a dark green hue to them.  They sauteed up really nicely and I tossed them with some sweet Italian sausage, garlic, olive oil, white wine and some umami paste (an upgraded tomato paste that has become my new obsession).   In went the pasta and a small handful of Parmesan cheese and I had a dinner that I really enjoyed.  The next day I came to discover as I was looking for the leftovers, Andrew also happened to like this version as well since there was hardly any left and now we just have to get my mother on board for this and we can have another enjoyable kale dinner .  

As I said last week, all of the August food magazines have arrived in our house and they are all chock full of fantastic summer recipes that involve lots of farm stand produce.  If you know anything about me, you'll know that I have been a faithful reader of  the big food magazines such as Bon Appetit, Gourmet and Food and Wine for years and actually have quite the cataloging system in order to save all of the back issues.  The magazines and I had been in a rut lately ever since Gourmet closed at the end of 2009 (which I still haven't gotten over) and then I felt like B.A. had gone stale but my hope has been renewed ever since Adam Rapoport took over as B.A.'s new editor in chief and it feels like a completely different, exciting, new magazine.  I have made so many things out of the magazine over the past few months, the point of view is hip, relaxed and refreshing and I encourage you to pick up an issue if you haven't read through one lately so you can have the same success.  And how can you not be excited for an August issue when the last line of the editor's letter reads as this: "Because eating local isn't just about some political statement, it's about good taste".  

Here is one of my favorite's from the August issues that I know is going to become one of my instant summer classics - Zucchini Ricotta Fritters.  I'm not usually drawn to Mario Batali recipes but the picture of these guys sucked me in to try them in the first place and after one bite I was hooked.  They were super easy to make and would either be a great mini appetizer or a perfect light summer supper with a green salad on the side.  Usually zucchini becomes the hindrance of the garden because you get so much of it but I can not wait to make these again next week when the new round of it arrives.  And since our friend Maria stopped over Thursday night when I was cooking up the fritters, it reminded me of a blog post of hers last summer when she talked about the zucchini quiche recipe that my mother passed along to her more then a decade ago which is another easy summer recipe.  It's all one big culinary circle!!