CSA week 9: up and over the hump

Here is what we took home in this week's box out of the full share:

-2 lbs of yellow squash and zucchini
-4 ears of corn

-2 lbs of cucumbers (slicing and kirby)

-1 lbs of red potatoes
-1 lb onions

-1 large eggplant
-1 bunch hakurei salad turnips

As I said in my previous post about CSA week 8, it is starting to feel like we are hitting a wall and are not going through the veggies as effortlessly as we did in the beginning.  But after a few days at home and a mental recommitment to the CSA cause, I'm ready to get back on the wagon and have a number of ideas for whats to come to carry us through the rest of August (and since this summer feels like it's going at warp speed, I have to squeeze every ounce out of it during this month).  We still have the turnips and red potatoes kicking around that I plan to use for dinner on Sunday where I've already decided that we are going to have a classic summer meal of hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and the classic Italian marinated string beans that we will talk about in the post for week 10.  We use a lot of the cucumbers just in salads but I've also been dying to try my hand at pickle making so depending on how many we get next week this will probably become my "DIY" project.    The zucchini and corn went to another batch of pasta that we had on Monday night which was great and my mother actually embraced her inner baking skills as well and made a chocolate zucchini cake that our friend Maria had passed along the recipe of.  I was pretty excited when my mother informed me she was going to bake because you have to understand that she has never really been an enthusiastic baker so I knew that when these rare moments happen, you have to savor it and enjoy them.  The only adjustment that was made to the recipe was that the nuts were omitted but they were not missed at all and  I look forward to making it again when we have a plethora of zucchini.  I will talk about how I used the onions and eggplant in the next post but the food that needs a few minutes of recognition was the meatballs with the Swiss chard and tomato sauce. 
 

Swiss chard is another one of those foods that we never ate in our house before but when the bunch of it came in week 8, I was very excited to try it.  Around the same time, we got a new cookbook at work in called "Rustic Italian" and if you have ever seen our house you would know that we are complete suckers for cookbooks.  This one didn't make it home yet but I was very inspired by the front cover which had this nice bowl of meatballs on it covered in a Swiss chard tomato sauce that looked delicious.  I didn't follow the recipe exactly when I was making them but I remembered the basic ingredients that went into it and went from there.  This is also a good moment to veer into a quick side story.  When you work for Williams-Sonoma, it is inevitable that you are going to end up with a fully stocked kitchen which among many other things has been one of amazing perks of the job.  But at the same time you also get sucked in to buying some gimmick of a kitchen tool because either the price was a steal or you've looked at it for days and convinced yourself that you couldn't go on cooking without this.  The product then comes into your house and after it sits there for weeks or months untouched because in reality it's not as essential as you originally thought it would be, it ends up in the same closet that all WS employees have of unused kitchen gadgets.  After working there for a number of years, I definitely have my pile of unused kitchen gadgets but by this point I also know what I'm going to use and what is not even coming near the house but sometimes things slip through.  Well last year, my mother got sucked into buying the meatball grill basket which is a stainless still basket that allows you to grill your meatballs on the grill because a customer came into her store raving about how fabulous the meatballs were and because of the bargain end of the summer price that it was at, she proceeded to buy one for us and a number of them for our friends (which by the way, I'm still waiting to have this meatball off that we keep talking about).  The basket sat unused in a closet until this summer when I finally decided to pull it out this summer when I had some ground beef in the house and I was shocked at how delicious the meatballs were when made on the grill because they were moist in the center but had a nice crispy charred grill crust on them.  I've now in turn, talked it up to a number of my own customers in the store even though my staff thinks I'm crazy with how excited I get every time someone is on the verge of buying it.   I just used a basic meatball recipe and by no means is the recipe going to be ruined if you aren't lucky enough to own a meatball grill basket (but I know there are a number of them kicking around Derby!!!).  If you are not a meatball fan, you can also use the sauce just mixed in with pasta and it will still be great. 

the meatball basket in all its glory

Meatballs with Swiss Chard Tomato Sauce
-In a large saute pan, heat up a few tablespoons of olive oil until shimmering.  Toss in half of a chopped up onion and let saute until it is soft and translucent.  Add a few cloves of chopped up garlic and let saute for another minute or 2 making sure not to burn your garlic.
-Toss into the saute pan your washed Swiss chard leaves and stems that get cut into a 1/2 inch -1 inch size dice and let it cook down like you would with spinach or other greens.  Drizzle a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar into the pan and let cook until almost all of the liquid is absorbed. 
-Add a 28oz can of whole plum tomatoes to the pan that you crush up and break apart with your fingers.  If this is too messy and involved, you can also use a knife to give them a quick chop but I like the rusticness that it adds to the dish.  Throw in a handful of raisins (I always have a bag of trader joe's golden raisins in my pantry) and season the pan with salt, pepper and a small pinch of ground fennel.
-Let the sauce cook for 15-20 minutes, giving it a stir every once in awhile until it thickens up a little bit.  Add the meatballs in and cook for another few minutes allowing all the flavors to mix together.