Week 18: Thinking inside the farmbox

Do you love collards or hate them? I love collards, even though my house smells a little funny for days after I cook them. If you haven’t ever made collards, you begin by washing the leaves in three changes of water and then cook them in chicken stock, vinegar (or hot sauce), a ham hock, salt, and pepper (or red pepper flakes if you used vinegar, rather than hot sauce). They take about two hours to cook down, so plan ahead.

After they’re eaten, save the leftover liquid, called potlikker, and use it to make soup. It might not look like much, but it will make the most amazing lentil or pea soup.

Accompanying this week’s collards were smothered pork chops and spicy sweet potato wedges. For several recipes this season, I’ve prepared a seasoning salt from scratch, and I’m eager to experiment and hopefully come up with a couple of my own blends. The seasoning for the sweet potatoes included coriander seeds, fennel seeds, dried oregano, red pepper flakes, and kosher salt.

Spicy sweet potatoes

The propane on my grill has been refueled, so I was looking forward to grilling my allotment of shishito peppers. Unfortunately, Chicago’s weather has been less than ideal for grilling—cold, windy, and often rainy. So instead, I sautéed the peppers. The result was reminiscent of the Padrón peppers I often order when I get tapas.

Simple shishito peppers, with salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon

Week 18 also included arugula, Brussels sprouts, shallots, acorn squash, French breakfast radishes, Italian Chioggia beets, popcorn on the cob, and leeks.

I roasted the Chioggia beets, which were then sliced and served with feta and arugula. Writing this blog has made me aware that I default to roasting beets. Maybe I’ll try to branch out with the next batch.

Beet salad

The acorn squash was roasted until tender then stuffed with spicy sausage, black beans, tomatoes, red peppers, chili powder, and cumin. I also made sautéed Brussels sprouts on the side. I slice the sprouts thinly and then cook them in a skillet with garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and sometimes red pepper flakes. The radishes were part of a white bean salad, and finally, potato, cabbage, leek, and sausage soup helped me catch up both on potatoes and on all previous boxes.

Week 17: Thinking inside the farmbox

As I receive more root crops in my share, I am trying to enjoy the last of the summer vegetables and find myself turning to simple preparations to let them shine. Week 17 brought assorted tomatoes. I put the smaller ones on pizza with fresh mozzarella, slices of hot peppers, onions, and fresh basil. The larger ones were lunch, with drizzles of olive oil and balsamic, sprinkles of salt and pepper, and, of course, more fresh mozzarella and basil.

Similarly, the fresh green beans needed nothing more than a quick steam and chopped garlic and dill, olive oil, and salt and pepper.

During the past month, I’ve expanded my knowledge of squash. I learned that delicata squash has a thin peel. I’m used to the thick-skinned varieties like butternut squash, so I was skeptical that the skin could be stripped off with just a vegetable peeler, but it came off quickly and easily.

Delicata squash with sage, rosemary, and apple cider

Red kuri squash is a thick-skinned winter squash with a chestnut flavor. It looks a bit like a small pumpkin without the ridges. I used it in a soup. My grocery store was out of fennel, so I made a last-minute substitution of roasted parsnips.

The delicata squash was simmered with sage, rosemary, and apple cider. It smelled and tasted like fall. It was part of a meal that included my Mom’s recipe for meatloaf (with a few tweaks) and mashed rutabaga and pears. If you’re looking for an alternative to mashed potatoes, try this recipe. I’ll be making it again in the future.

As I noted in the previous post, I’ve been working with two boxes at once during the past couple of weeks. I’m almost caught up. I still have a head of cabbage and a few hot peppers that I’ll roll over to next week.

Week 16: Thinking inside the farmbox

This week and next, I’m planning to use a lot of potatoes. I got a little behind on potatoes during this year’s CSA journey, and I’m storing several varieties in my refrigerator.

First up, wilted kale and roasted potato salad. This recipe roasted the potatoes with garlic and Parmesan cheese and then tossed the hot potatoes and a lemon-tahini dressing with raw kale. It was a tasty addition to pork chops and roasted sugar beets.

The sugar beet I received was huge. I opted to use it alongside the pork to add a sweet note. When planning the menu, I thought it might be similar to pork chops and apples, one of my favorite combinations. I diced the beet, drizzled it with olive oil, sprinkled it with salt, pepper, and chopped fresh thyme, and placed it into the oven to roast alongside the potatoes for the winter salad.

Speaking of apples, there was an interesting tidbit in the weekly email from Nichols Farm. Nichols grows 200 varieties of apples, and most of those have about a two-week period for harvest. If they’re not taken off the trees, they will fall to the ground.

The box also contained eggplant and pak choi, both of which I used in a noodle dish, as well as delicata squash, potatoes, green sweet peppers, cauliflower, and mini pumpkins.

My husband's grandmother emigrated from Hungary to the United States in the early 1950s. Every winter, I cajole him to make her recipe for chicken paprikas. (I could do it, but it’s nice to have the night off from cooking.) The recipe includes making cucumber salad, which he often tries to get out of doing, and nokedli—a soft noodle or dumpling similar to spaetzle.

I try to return the favor by making some of his favorite fall and winter comfort foods, such as stews, chili, and stuffed peppers, another Hungarian favorite. The sweet peppers were delicious stuffed, and I served them over mashed cauliflower and potatoes to catch all the sauce.

Stuffed peppers

And finally, I learned this week that although some are purely decorative, you can eat many of the varieties of cute mini pumpkins that are so ubiquitous this time of year. A couple tips from my research. One: Try to eat pumpkins that are fresh; if they sit around they can become bitter. Two: Avoid squash that are shiny on the outside, it’s likely they have been coated with something inedible. I stuffed my little pumpkins with wild rice, cranberries, and pecans and served them with small potatoes coated in dill butter and garlicky rapini.

Mini pumpkins stuffed with wild rice

Technically, the rapini is part of the next box. I’m working on two at once because I was out of town a couple of weekends ago. I’m almost caught up, but the delicata squash from this week’s CSA will appear in the next post.

Week 15: Thinking outside the farmbox

This week’s box contained butternut squash and what might be the last of the sweet corn—a fitting metaphor for the ending of summer and the beginning of fall. And, I decided to put them together for a meal of butternut squash and carrot soup with corn salad on the side. The corn salad was the epitome of summer flavors with crisp, raw corn kernels, sliced radishes, cilantro, lime, green onions, and jalapeños.

Butternut squash soup (with crispy bacon on top) and corn salad

In the fall, butternut squash soup is a staple for me. I like it with bacon, with apple, or with toasted pumpkin seeds on top. This particular recipe used garlic, caraway seeds, squash, carrots, one apple, and a little vinegar. I liked it a lot and will make it again in the future. If you’re interested, here are a couple more of my favorite squash soup recipes: Savory Pumpkin Pie Soup with Cinnamon Marshmallows, Pepita Streusel, and Whipped Creme Fraîche and Roasted Butternut Squash Soup, an easy, tasty soup that eliminates the annoying step of peeling the squash.

The pumpkin soup is a crowd-pleaser, and it’s great to bring to potlucks. If you decide to make it,  don’t think about leaving out one of the toppings. They’re easy and turn a standard soup into something fun. I’ve also made the streusel with rice flour for a party that included a gluten-free friend, and it turned out great.

The box also contained rapini, German Butterball potatoes, radishes, Italian garlic, orange and red sweet mini peppers, and mixed cherry tomatoes.

According to the farmers at Nichols Farm, during the fall, the rapini has fewer flowers and is more leafy. I used it along with diced cherry tomatoes to make a penne pasta dish. And the small sweet peppers were fabulous in a pepper and onion salad.

Leafy rapini

As the season progresses, I find it easier to use the produce in the box. The first few boxes have a lot of greens and vegetables that are better if they are used quickly. Now, I’m receiving more squash, potatoes, and other root crops. They keep a little longer, so there is less of a rush to use everything.

Next week will be fun. I have an an enormous sugar beet and tiny pumpkins.

Week 14: Thinking inside the farmbox

For me, comfort food is the cuisine of the South. From kindergarten through high school, I lived in North Carolina, and although parts of my upbringing were decidedly Midwestern (both my parents grew up in Illinois), my time in the region gave me an appreciation both for the food and laid-back vibe.

So this week, I was excited the box contained fresh Mississippi purple crowder peas. Despite their name, crowder peas are not peas. They’re a species of bean, and their common name is cowpeas. If you’ve never had them, they are similar to black-eyed peas. After shelling, I simmered the peas with onions, garlic, pepper, and bacon, ladled them over rice and served them alongside garlicky chard.

The box also contained Savoy cabbage, sweet corn, poblano peppers, plum tomatoes, red potatoes, red beets, and the leeks I used in last week’s post.

I stuffed the poblano peppers with a mixture of rice, beans, tomatoes, cheese, and sour cream. As an aside, if you decide to make this recipe, I used about half the salt. I tasted the filling as I was adding salt, and it seemed salty enough to me. The peppers are just as delicious on the grill, but I’m out of propane, so they went into the oven to roast.

The finished peppers paired really well with a spicy sautéed corn. It’s a good thing I like hot peppers, though, because, interestingly, this batch of poblanos was hotter than the jalapeño I diced for the corn.

In the past, I’ve had a little trouble making good tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes; it always seemed to turn out a bit watery. The secret must be good summer tomatoes. My CSA tomatoes have changed my luck with fresh tomato sauce. This week, I made a simple linguine with burst tomatoes and chiles, and for the second time this summer, my sauce was phenomenal.

Finally, if you’ve been following along, I’m sure you can take a stab at how I used the beets: beet salad with greens and blue cheese. And it was delicious.

Next week will bring what possibly will be the last of the sweet corn. It is mid-September, after all.

Week 13: Thinking inside the farmbox

Labor Day has come and gone, and the march toward fall has shifted into a higher gear. This week’s update from Nichols Farm indicated many of the fall crops are ready. I love my summer CSA, but I think I’m equally as fond of the fall one, which is filled with Brussels sprouts, pie pumpkins, squash, sweet potatoes, and other root vegetables.

In the last post, I provided a sneak peek at this week’s orange Turkish eggplant. The small, round globes easily could be mistaken for tomatoes or persimmons, but when sliced open, it’s pretty clear they’re eggplants. Inside, they have more seeds than the large oval purple eggplants commonly available in grocery stores, but, to me, they have a similar taste. Previously, I have used Turkish eggplant in recipes that specify other types of eggplant, but this time, I wanted to see if I could find something that used it specifically. I found this recipe on NPR’s The Salt, which roasted the eggplant with onions and then combined it with fennel and white peaches.

The finished Turkish eggplant dish

The share still is filled with big bags of assorted tomatoes, and I’ll be sad when their season is over. I mixed this week’s tomatoes with olive oil, sherry vinegar, and assorted herbs before heaping them on top of grilled bread slathered with ricotta.

Grilled bread with tomatoes and ricotta

I also received yellow bell peppers, red onions, potatoes, cauliflower, and sweet corn. Looking back on the week, its theme was loads of fresh herbs. The corn became part of a raw corn salad, dressed with olive oil, sherry vinegar, and herbs. I used dill, mint, and chives, as the recipe suggested, although I think many herbs would work.

Corn salad

For Sunday dinner, I sprinkled a boneless leg of lamb with herb salt, and then it headed out to the grill for 20 to 30 minutes. The sides were the aforementioned grilled bread with ricotta and tomatoes and a bell pepper and onion salad.

Although my brother-in-law often joins us on Sundays, there’s only so much damage three people can do on a 4-pound leg of lamb, especially with such delicious vegetables. The leftovers made a great dinner with sides of roasted cauliflower and roasted potatoes. I got a head start on next week’s box, chopping the leeks and adding them to the cauliflower and potatoes. In addition to the leek, I seasoned the cauliflower with olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh thyme and sprinkled it with Parmesan cheese during the last 10 minutes of roasting. The potatoes got tossed with a spicy seasoning salt and olive oil.

I also baked, using last week’s carrots in muffins. And I made another batch of refrigerator dill pickles. This time, I thinly sliced a jalapeño and put it in with the sliced cucumbers, dill, smashed garlic cloves, salt, and white vinegar. It added just the right amount of spice.

Onion, garlic, dill, pickling spice, jalapeños? What’s your go-to combo for refrigerator pickles?

Week 12: Thinking inside the farmbox

This week, I stumbled upon a great recipe for kohlrabi salad on the “Feasting at Home” blog. I mentioned that I enjoy kohlrabi in the Week 3 post, and, although I’ve made tasty dishes with it in the past, I thought this salad was outstanding and a great accompaniment to grilled pork with homemade bourbon barbecue sauce.

This week’s share contained another round of pickling cucumbers, eggplant, Yukon Gold potatoes, assorted sweet bell peppers, mixed varieties of tomatoes, green beans, green onions, summer squash, and corn.

Sweet peppers and onions always make me think of grilled sausages and White Sox and Bears games. I love to sit in the bleachers at U.S. Cellular Field and cheer for the Sox while munching on a Polish sausage with grilled onions. And, if you’re marathon training during the fall, coming back from a 20-mile run to the smell of brats grilling at pre-Bears-game tailgates is pure torture (although it makes you pick up your tired feet and hurry home to eat something). I haven’t been to as many games as I’d like this year, so I indulged at home with turkey brats and grilled sweet peppers and onions.

As much as I like to eat fries with my encased meats, I opted for something a little healthier—grilled eggplant topped with tomatoes, basil, and feta. I made the salad twice because the tomatoes were so delicious. And, both times I ate quite a bit of it during preparation.

Grilled eggplant with a fresh tomato salad

Grilled salmon with a ginger vinaigrette, a side of grilled peaches and onions, and green onion sour cream mashed potatoes also were on the menu this week. I love grilled fruit, both in sweet and savory dishes, and peaches and onions together are a surprising, yet perfect match.

It’s the time of year for piles of zucchini. When I get overwhelmed by the amount of summer produce, I try to remember that I’m going to crave these in-season beauties in January.

I thought was going to have to bake with this week's zucchini, but the July/August issue of Cuisine at Home had some great suggestions for using up a plethora of summer squash. I debated whether I should try the zucchini enchiladas, which used hollowed-out zucchini in place of tortillas, or the zucchini involtini with pancetta bread crumbs. I went with the involtini. They were really tasty, and I’ll be saving the enchilada recipe for another batch of squash.

Finally, this is the best recipe for creamed corn. The creamy yellow kernels are topped with a delicious sweet and savory garam masala butter. Thinking outside the box with spices can result in a new favorite recipe. One of my go-to cookie recipes is a garam masala oatmeal cookie, and before I tried them, I never would have thought to add garam masala to cookie dough.

Do you have any favorite recipes that use spices in an out-of-the-box way?

I've got these little guys on tap for next week. They're orange Turkish eggplant.

Week 11: Thinking inside the farmbox

I love where I live, but there’s no place for a serious garden outside my fifth-floor condo—just a lovely balcony that has enough space for a bistro table, a grill, and potted plants. I have tried container gardening, and I had a lot of luck with tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, and various herbs. However, despite the fact that I’m lucky to have outdoor space in the city, I dream of a small square of earth where I also could grow shell beans, okra, and eggplant.

Shell beans, like lima beans, butter beans, fava beans, blackeyed peas, and cranberry beans, have tough, inedible pods, so the beans must be shelled prior to cooking. Similar to their dried counterparts, they’re cooked in simmering liquid, but they don’t take as much time and there is no need for soaking. This week’s cranberry beans were delicious with kale, shrimp, and a side of roasted cauliflower with lemon, cheese, and chives.

A cranberry bean pod

Shelled cranberry beans

In addition to the cranberry beans, kale, and cauliflower, the week 11 box contained Russian banana potatoes, Italian garlic, candy onions, assorted tomatoes, tomatillos, and big, fat ears of Mirai sweet corn.

I was a little backed up on squash, and I knew more were coming. So I roasted a big pan of all the mixed varieties I had in my fridge (zucchini, yellow, pattypan) after tossing it with olive oil, sliced garlic, and a seasoning salt that has, among other things, salt, crushed red pepper, rosemary, and lemon oil.

Roasted cauliflower with cheese and chives

The assorted tomatoes made a simple sauce for pasta. I quartered them because they were a little larger than the recipe required and cooked them with garlic and olive oil and crushed red pepper.

There was a big bag of tomatillos and a handful of jalapeños. I wanted to make a pork and tomatillo and potato dish, but the recipe I’ve used in the past requires a slow cooker. Since I moved last year, I have not located where my slow cooker is hiding in storage. So, I hauled out my dutch oven and prepared braised chicken with a tomatillo and jalapeño sauce and roasted potatoes. I still have a few tomatillos and jalapeños left, so I’ll need a plan for those next week.

It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through the season, and the farmers at Nichols Farm are working to harvest and prepare crops for fall and winter storage. As I said last week, I’m not ready to think about the winter ahead. For now, I’m planning what to do with next week’s veggies: eggplant, sweet peppers, and piles of squash and tomatoes. I think I might need to bake more zucchini bread.

For all the container gardeners out there: What are your favorite plants to grow in small spaces?

Week 10: Thinking inside the farmbox

The Chicago Bears’ first preseason game was August 8. The beginning of football season brings a huge wave of mixed emotions. I love football, and I’m devoted to the Monsters of the Midway, but I know the parade of blue and orange Forte, Cutler, and Urlacher jerseys headed into Soldier Field signals fall is coming, followed closely by a cold, snowy winter.

For now, though, the weather is warm, and I’m delighted that my CSA share is filled with tomatoes, sweet corn, and peppers. Juicy in-season tomatoes are the best tomatoes I eat all year. I’ve been looking forward to them for months and have been dreaming of making the tomato pie in my Tupelo Honey Cafe cookbook.

For me, cookbooks are hit or miss. Paging through them in a bookstore, they look so tempting. But sometimes, I make two or three recipes and the book goes on the shelf. The flip side of that is the stack of cherished cookbooks, filled with go-to recipes. My Tupelo Honey cookbook is one of those. In case you’re curious, my other two favorites are Rick Bayless’ Everyday Mexican and Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill cookbook. I’ve made almost every recipe in these three, and they’ve never let me down.

The tomato pie was decadent. It’s definitely not an every-week meal, but it was such a treat—layers of flavorful tomatoes and cheese. It smelled so good baking that my mouth watered while I waited for it to come out of the oven. On the side were summer squash oven chips—slices of summer squash breaded in panko and Parmesan and baked.

Tomato pie, fresh out of the oven

The box also contained sweet corn, Russian blue potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, dragon tongue beans, chocolate bell peppers, and golden beets.

Several weeks in a row of cucumbers gives me fits. By the time I’ve made pickles, cucumber salad, and chilled cucumber soup, which is what happened with last week’s cukes, I’m usually out of ideas. I often resort to putting sliced cucumbers on sandwiches with herby cream cheese and smoked salmon. This week, however, I made a spicy cucumber salsa to serve with bell pepper rellenos and roasted corn with lime butter.

Cucumber salsa

I don’t have any difficulty figuring out what to do with shishito peppers. They are delicious grilled. I alternated them with chunks of flatiron steak on skewers, brushed the kebabs with oil, and sprinkled on a seasoning salt.

Grilled steak and shishitos

The beets were roasted and used in a beet salad. Clearly, I default to beet salad, but honestly, it’s my favorite way to eat them, and I’m not sure it could ever get boring.  

Dragon tongue beans are one of those items that make it fun to be part of a CSA. They are a heirloom wax bean that’s about six to eight inches long, wide and flat. They are yellow with purple stripes that, unfortunately, mostly disappear when blanched. They’re still tasty, though, especially when tossed with a lemony, mustardy dressing.

Dragon tongue beans

I’m enjoying everything, and there are exciting things to come. On tap for next week: shell beans.

Week 9: Thinking inside the farmbox

The turnips turned a delightful shade of bright pink during their two-week soak in brine. Straight from the Mason jar, I thought they were a bit salty. However, their salt and sour flavors were a great complement to grilled meat.

Pink pickled turnips

I must be lucky this summer. I’ve stumbled upon two fantastic grilled chicken recipes—the spicy sambal chicken that, to-date, I’ve made twice, and the Moroccan chicken brochettes I prepared to accompany the pickled turnips.

Moroccan chicken brochettes

This week, the box contained Japanese eggplant, purple cauliflower, haricot verts, assorted cherry tomatoes, English telegraph cucumbers, onions, red cabbage, Temptation bicolor sweetcorn, and red fingerling potatoes.

When brainstorming what to do with cabbage, I often hit a wall. Although I’ve made many different cabbage recipes over the years, when I see a head of cabbage, my first thoughts are kimchi (see Week 7 post) or slaw. And what goes with slaw? For those of us who grew up in North Carolina, pulled pork, of course. But I wanted something a little less time consuming. So, a spicy slaw went on top of grilled fish tacos with lime sour cream and chipotle pico de gallo.

Japanese eggplant is excellent grilled. As it cooks, it gets both crispy and soft at the same time. I also grilled the green beans and tossed them with what I’m pretty sure was mizuna. Every once in awhile, I receive something in the box that is an addition to the list the farmers sent out earlier in the week. Sometimes I know exactly what it is, and sometimes I have to guess.

Grilled Japanese eggplant

I’ve never grilled green beans, but a page in a recent Bon Appétit that encouraged grilling green beans, snap peas, snow peas, and the like inspired me to try it. I might put them in the grill basket next time so they could get a little more charred, but they turned out just fine wrapped in a packet of foil. I also have to credit Bon Appétit for the corn recipe. I was flipping through the July issue while thinking I wanted to make a Mexican-style corn. I looked down at one of the pages and there was the recipe for Charred and Raw Corn with Chile and Cheese.

Last week’s green peppers were delicious in a spicy watermelon salad. I’ll confess that I don’t think I’ve ever made the flank steak portion of this recipe, but I make the watermelon salad several times every summer. It’s spicy, sweet, and cooling.

Hopefully I’ll receive an abundance of tomatoes and eggplant in the weeks ahead. These summer staples can be a jumping-off point for so many tasty meals. This week’s tomatoes were roasted with a sticky garlic honey glaze. They went straight from the pan to our plates, but they’d also be great on top of toasted bread.

Roasted tomatoes with garlic and honey

Do you have a favorite recipe for cabbage? I’d love to try it.

Week 8: Thinking inside the farmbox

I think I’m a relatively adventurous eater. Fried pig ears? Tried them. Sweetbreads? Pretty tasty.   In addition to broadening the amount of foods I’ve tried, sharing new tastes with my dining companions builds camaraderie and conversation around the table.

Although it’s fun to sample new things, there are several items that I almost always order when I see them on a menu. One of them is orecchiette with sausage and broccoli rabe. The Sessantina broccoli rabe in this week’s box gave me the perfect excuse to prepare it at home this week.

Orecchiette with sausage and broccoli rabe

Beet salad also is difficult for me to pass up. To accompany the pasta, I made a salad with roasted beets, frisée, ricotta salata, and a mustard-shallot vinaigrette.

Beet salad

In addition to the beets and broccoli rabe, this week’s box contained new German butterball  potatoes, Seneca sweet corn, broccoli, shallots, Velour French beans, Eureka pickling cucumbers, bell peppers, and celery.

I still had the fennel and some squash from last week’s box. I opted to use that, one of the green peppers, and one ear of corn in a summery sauté that went on top of a creamy goat cheese tart. I also made green beans with dill butter. The Velour French beans are so pretty. They’re a deep rich purple before they’re cooked, but they turn bright green as they steam.

A pickle update: Pink pickled turnips are still working in the fridge. I’ll crack them open this week, so look for an update in next week’s post. There were pickling cucumbers in the box this week, so now I'm planning to make refrigerator dill pickles this weekend. As an aside, I’m still searching for the perfect recipe for gin dill pickles. The one I made previously turned out way too salty.

The sweet corn from Nichols Farm is the best corn I’ve ever eaten. This week’s ears were grilled and slathered in miso butter. They were part of a delicious Sunday dinner that included a repeat of the amazing spicy chicken I made earlier in the month (with the addition of shallots tossed in the spicy sauce and skewered with the chicken). I also roasted the new potatoes and broccoli.

Next week, there will be more corn and Japanese eggplant—one of my favorites. I’m also planning to use the rest of the bell peppers and celery from this week’s box.

Week 7: Thinking inside the farmbox

I’m not a math whiz, but I can count to ten. I was out of town for week 6, visiting family in North Carolina. I didn’t stay out of the kitchen, though, because my mom and I were hosting an engagement brunch for my sister. The guests indulged in breakfast bread pudding with berries, jalapeno frittata, mini Parmesan hash browns, strawberry shortcakes, fruit, bagels, and mimosas. Cheers to the happy couple!

The jalapeno frittata recipe is a winner. My sister-in-law made it for a family get-together, I asked for the recipe, and since then, it’s become a go-to dish for several of my friends and acquaintances.

It’s difficult to use everything in the box if you’re not around for part of the week, so I shared some of the week 6 vegetables with one of my neighbors. She received Napa cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Swiss chard, sugar beets, daikon radishes, and green Italian garlic.

I kept the zucchini, the White Satin carrots and the fava beans, and I made a risotto with fava beans and zucchini. Fava beans are fun to eat once in awhile. They’re a lot of work. When popped open, each big fat pod yields a few beans. However, shucking the beans is just the beginning of the prep work. The next step is to boil the beans for a minute. Once they cool, you can make a slit in the tough skin and pop out the bean.  

Bright green fava beans after being removed from their tough outer skins.

I blanched the White Satin carrots and the carrots from the week 7 box, then glazed them with butter and honey. In addition, week 7 included popcorn on the cob, Red Candy onions, Sweet Slice cucumbers, green beans, new potatoes, Savoy cabbage, Romanesco cauliflower, assorted summer squash, and fennel.

Green bean salad with feta and herbs.

As summer flies by, the farmers at Nichols Farm indicated the next wave of in-season vegetables will be cucurbits (cucumbers, pickles, squash, and melons). They also have started digging new potatoes, some of which were in the box this week. It’s important to note new potatoes have tender skins and can’t be stored at room temperature or scrubbed roughly.

What to do with an enormous head of cabbage? Spicy, tangy kimchi, of course. I found this recipe, which captured a lot of the flavors of the fermented version without the wait. The recipe suggested serving it on top of pork chops or fish, so I roasted some salmon and put the new potatoes on the plate to balance out the spice.

Cucumber salad, roasted cauliflower, and grilled summer squash and chicken brochettes rounded out the week. There were a lot of zucchini, so I also made some zucchini bread.

Zucchini bread fresh out of the oven. It's always nice to have baked goods in the house.

Finally, popcorn on the cob is so cool. You take the cobs, place them in a paper bag and microwave for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes. The popcorn pops right off and is ready to be tossed with your seasonings of choice—I like butter, salt, and something spicy.

Week 5: Thinking inside the farmbox

It’s the Fourth of July. In addition to celebrating the United States, Independence Day is a wonderful excuse to consume the mayonnaise-dressed picnic food I secretly adore. I severely limit my consumption of potato salad, broccoli salad, and macaroni salad, however, choosing to indulge only a few times a year. Honestly, I think these tasty salads would lose their appeal if I ate them more frequently.

This year, instead of purchasing it, I made broccoli salad for our July Fourth cookout. I gave the broccoli a quick bath in boiling water and used about half the dressing along with the traditional onions and sunflower seeds. The salad had all the flavors that make it one of my favorites, but I could actually taste the broccoli because it wasn’t hidden under a thick coating of mayo.

In addition to broccoli, this week we received baby carrots, snow peas, the biggest kohlrabi I’ve ever seen, joi choi, Chioggia beets, Vidalia onions, turnips, baby summer squash, and arugula.

A very large kohlrabi

Marinated and grilled summer squash also was part of my July Fourth cookout. One of the perks of a CSA share is it encourages you to mix up your vegetable consumption. Left to my own devices, I usually default to some kind of potato and green beans, broccoli, or Brussels sprouts when I can’t think of anything else to make.

Summer squash marinating before grilling

This week, however, I made a couple of recipes that will definitely return when I’m stuck for a vegetable side dish: spice-crusted carrots with harissa yogurt, and Chioggia beets and arugula with raspberry mint vinaigrette.

Beets and arugula with raspberry mint vinaigrette

The beets, carrots, and roasted kohlrabi accompanied grilled pork chops with cilantro-lime sauce. And the snow peas and joi choi were part of a quinoa stir fry that should be on the menu at Protein Bar.

Quinoa stir fry

If I had all the time in the world to stand in my kitchen, I think you’d find me either baking or pickling. I don’t have much experience with pickling. I’ve made a few quick pickles here and there, but I love to eat them, and I’d like to have the opportunity to try different recipes—from spicy to sweet. I planned to make some pink pickled turnips this week, but I was headed out of town the Thursday after the Fourth, and in the melee of packing, I didn’t get a chance to make my pickles. I plan to get to it this week, though. They have to sit for two weeks, and I’ll report back in a future post.

Week 4: Thinking inside the farmbox

A few years ago, I took a Tastebud Tutorial class at The Chopping Block, which is a recreational cooking school here in Chicago. The instructor discussed different flavors and how to combine them. I still follow recipes most of the time, but this class, plus a hefty dose of Top Chef, helped give me confidence to begin cooking without recipes.

This week, I endeavored to re-create the spring peas and burrata salad I had at the Publican. I cooked the peas with some olive oil and shallots and then stirred in some orange segments and the juice from the orange, basil, mint, and parsley. The dish was tasty, but I didn’t get it exactly right. I think next time, I’d blanch the peas and then mix them with the citrus, herbs and raw onions so the flavors would be a little stronger.

In addition to the English peas, this week the box contained golden beets, Tuscan kale, garlic scapes, fresh shallots, spinach, assorted lettuce, broccoli, and Yukon Gold potatoes.

Garlic scapes are the flower stems produced by garlic plants and are removed so the plants can focus on producing a fat garlic bulb. I did not impress my husband the last time I made them. I sautéed them, and he characterized the result as “garlic sticks.” This time around, I made a pesto to drizzle over spinach and ricotta gnudi, made with the fresh spinach. It was garlicky, but we love garlic, so it was a hit with both of us. I had enough garlic scapes to make a double batch, so I hope to find myriad uses for it in the upcoming weeks.

Garlic scape pesto

Spinach and ricotta gnudi ready for a bath in boiling water.

I made some sesame kale to accompany grilled sambal chicken skewers, which were spicy and sweet. Honestly, it was one of the best grilled chicken recipes I have ever made. Chicago only has a limited amount of nice summer days, so the grill is a major part of my summer menus. I also grilled the broccoli and swirled the green garlic pesto into creamy mashed potatoes, both of which were sides for grilled steak.

Grilled broccoli with chipotle lime butter

There were a couple of containers of strawberries in the box, and they inspired me to make cream cheese pie. I love cream cheese pie. It’s easier to make than cheesecake, and it’s tastier—usually because it has more fruit topping. This one, with a thick layer of strawberries on top and a Nilla wafer crust, was extra delicious.

Strawberry cream cheese pie

There’s a lot to be excited about in upcoming shares, according to the farmers at Nichols Farm. They informed the shareholders this week that sweet corn is beginning to tassel, which means we’ll be getting corn in the next few weeks!

Week 3: Thinking inside the farmbox

Have you tried kohlrabi? I had never eaten it until I joined a CSA. I was missing out. Kohlrabi is from the same family as cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cabbage—cruciferous vegetables that sometimes are called cole crops. It’s delicious either raw or cooked, and, honestly, I can’t decide which preparation I like better.

I opted for raw kohlrabi this week because I had marked a recipe for a kohlrabi and apple salad in the February 2014 issue of Bon Appétit in anticipation of this year’s CSA.

Kohlrabi and apple salad

There also was a bag of sugar snap peas nestled in the box. I never liked them as a child, and that caused me to avoid them as an adult. Two years ago when they showed up in the share, I was a bit apprehensive. I shouldn’t have been. They were delicious and a good example of why you should always give vegetables another try. After all, the little girl who turned up her nose at sugar snap peas thought circus peanuts were awesome.

Besides crunching on them raw, this salmon recipe is one of my favorite ways to eat sugar snap peas. I like the flavors in it so much, I often make it with haricot verts if snap peas are out of season.

In addition to the snap peas and kohlrabi, this week I received fennel, joi choi, spinach, mixed large-leaf lettuce, yellow set onions, chard, and baby red beets.

Baby red beets

Although sausage, lentils, fennel, and onions accompanied by garlic spinach sounds a bit wintry, it was a rainy week here in Chicago, and a hearty dish really hit the spot. The joi choi was stir-fried with red peppers, pineapple, green onions, shrimp, ginger, and garlic. I also prepared my go-to chard recipe and crushed beets with a lemon vinaigrette.

Fennel, lentils, onions, and herbs

Finally, it seems a bit strange to wax poetic about lettuce, but the heads of leafy greens that come in the farmbox have given me a whole new perspective on salad. They’re extremely flavorful and don’t need to be weighed down with loads of toppings. In fact, I like to eat a big plateful tossed with nothing but a simple vinaigrette.

On tap for next week: garlic scapes and English spring peas. This past weekend, I had dinner at the Publican, and in addition to several delicious meat and fish dishes, I ate a plate of spring peas and burrata that was divine. I’m planning to make something similar. We’ll see how that goes.

Do you like kohlrabi? What’s your favorite way to prepare it?