CSA: Week 18

Arg! I'm so far behind on blogging. Here's a quick update on last week's CSA. I received:

2 yellow bell peppers
some tomatoes (I don't remember how many!)
green beans
small jar of blackberry jam!

I think that was everything. If I think of anything else I'll come back and add it later.

I tried the blackberry jam last night on some toast and it was delicious. I wish I had a larger jar of it. When I first opened the jar I thought maybe it had molded or something because the top of the jam was all white. Turns out there was a wax type disc over the jam. Once I pried it out I could see the delicious jam underneath.

I'm going to have to learn how to make jam next year I think.

Rain, Rain Go Away!

Until today, I had not been out to the garden since last Wednesday. This is what I found in the rain gauge when I went out there this afternoon:


From last Thursday through Saturday night we got almost FIVE inches of rain. I think it might have been the remanents of tropical storm Lowell (from the Pacific) but I'm not completely sure. It was not the remanents of hurricane Ike. That went east of us.

Needless to say the garden is completely waterlogged. Luckily the plants did not suffer any major damage. A couple were leaning over but that can be fixed.

I snapped a few quick pictures. The beans are pretty much done. They look really, really sad. Mostly just a bunch of dead branches sticking up in the air. Not many leaves left. The only beans that are growing are turning yellow before they get very big.


The watermelon patch is also dying out. I haven't seen any new watermelons for several weeks now. In the picture below the roma tomatoes are to the left and each plant has several dead branches. The zinnias are to the right and they are doing fairly well. I need to cut them back a bit in a next few days.


The sunflowers no longer have blooms. They just have big giant heads. They really did get to be 12 feet tall though which is just amazing.


I also spotted several mushrooms when I was walking out to the garden this afternoon. I'm not a mushroom eater so I have no idea what kind these are.





I just checked the forecast and we are supposed to get sun for the next five days. Thank goodness! Honestly I don't think the plants have enjoyed all this rain.

Roasted Eggplant Soup

The eggplant plants have been producing tons of eggplants this year. I've been seeking out eggplant recipes and came across this one for Roasted Eggplant Soup on All Recipes. I'm kind of a soup junkie so I was all over it. I pretty much made it as stated in the recipe except I only used 1/2 cup cream instead of a full cup. I bought a pint of cream from the local dairy farm and it was super thick and rich so I only needed 1/2 cup. Here's how it went:

Roasted Eggplant Soup
4 servings

3 tomatoes, halved
1 eggplant, halved lengthwise (or 2 small)
1 small onion, halved
6 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
Crumbled goat cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place tomato, eggplant, onion and garlic on a baking sheet lined with foil. Brush with vegetable oil.


Roast in preheated oven until very tender and brown in spots, about 45 minutes.


Scoop out eggplant pulp and discard skin. Slip skins off tomato halves. Place eggplant pulp, peeled tomatoes, onion and garlic in a heavy saucepan with broth and thyme. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce heat and simmer until onion is very tender, about 45 minutes.

I have to take a minute to say that this soup looked completely disgusting at this stage. Eggplant is not attractive when it is cooked.


Puree in pot with an immersion blender, or in batches in a food processor. Return to low heat and stir in cream. Looks much more appetizing!


Bring to a simmer, thinning with more broth if necessary. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls and sprinkle with goat cheese.

The result? It was pretty good. It took a really long time to make though. The texture of food is also very important to me and in this soup the eggplant seeds bothered me just a tad. But not enough to not eat the soup. I really liked the goat cheese part too. I froze a couple bowls of this soup (pre goat cheese) and it did well in the freezer.

Honestly I don't know that I'll make this soup again. And that's not because I didn't like it or anything. It was good but it wasn't so good that I see myself craving it. I'm going to hang onto the recipe though. It might end up being one of those "once a year" recipes that I bring out when we have more eggplants than we know what to do with. Kind of like the Mexican Zucchini Casserole I made several weeks ago.

I would like to mention that if you do not own an immersion blender and you cook soup frequently, you need to get yourself one. This is my immersion blender:


It was extremely cheap. I got it on Black Friday a few years ago for $5. It works great. I don't use it all the time, but when I do, boy am I glad to have it. It doesn't take up much space in the kitchen so I don't mind having it around when I don't use it frequently.



Other eggplant recipes:
Summer Stew
Eggplant Croquettes

Strawberry Corn

Back in week 14 of my CSA program I received three ears of dried strawberry corn in my share. Strawberry corn is basically small ears of red corn that look like strawberries.


The CSA guy said to let the ears sit on the counter for another week and then I could put them in a paper bag in the microwave and the kernals would pop off the cob into popcorn. I finally tried it last week.

I put the ear on the left into a brown lunch sack and folded over the top. I put it in the microwave and set the timer for three minutes. I wasn't really sure how long to set the timer, but I figured I could just listen like I do with regular microwave popcorn.

I started the microwave and listened. Before long the kernals started popping! It sounded just like regular popcorn. Not quite sure if I was expecting a more special popping noise or what.

It only took about a minute and a half before the popping slowed down enough that I stopped the microwave and got the bag out. This is what I found:


About half a cup of popcorn popped off the cob. There were a bunch of kernals that popped but stayed on the cob.


The popcorn tasted ok I guess. I think I overcooked it a bit and it didn't have any seasoning. The strawberry corn was fun to try but I don't think I would want to have it around regularly. It would be a fun project for kids though!

CSA: Week 17

A better CSA share this week! I received:

1 zucchini
1 green pepper
2 tomatoes
2 small hot peppers
a bunch of okra


This was perfect timing on the zucchini because I haven't had a zucchini from the garden in several weeks now. I'm just about over my previous zucchini saturation.

I was not so excited to see the plethora of okra as there is a ton of okra from my own garden in the refrigerator right now. I need to find a good recipe to use up all this okra.

Previous CSA posts:
CSA: Week 16
CSA: Week 15
CSA: Week 14
CSA: Week 13
CSA: Week 12
CSA: Week 11
CSA: Week 10
CSA: Week 9
CSA: Week 8
CSA: Week 7
CSA: Week 6
CSA: Week 5
CSA: Week 4
CSA: Week 3
CSA: Week 2
CSA: Week 1

Garden Count Update

I have finally added up my tallys over the past two months and here are the numbers of everything I have picked from the garden so far. These numbers only include good items and do not include anything that went straight into the compost bin.

Zucchini - 77
Bush beans - 2,192
Grape tomatoes - 508
Okra - 98
Watermelon - 7 (102.5 lbs total)
Roma tomatoes - 126
Big boy tomatoes - 33
Yellow bell peppers - 15
Eggplant - 19
Broccoli - 2 heads
Enough basil to make approximately 8 batches of pesto
Several bouquets of zinnias (one or two each week)

Now some of the counts are a bit misleading. The tomatoes and beans would be better presented in pounds instead of eaches since tomatoes and beans can vary greatly in size. However I do not have a food scale so I count them instead.

I want to get some average prices for these items from my local grocery stores and calculate how much this yield is worth. For example today I saw watermelons at my grocery store for $5.99 each! That would mean my seven watermelons above are worth approximately $42.

But would I have actually purchased seven watermelons this year if I didn't have them in the garden? Probably not. However since I did have the watermelon to eat, I'd like to think that I bought less of something else to eat and ate the watermelon instead.

Anyway at the end of the season I will compile that information and post.

CSA: Week 16

Kind of a disappointing share this week. I received:

3 tomatoes (one with a bad spot)
2 green tomatoes (as in unripe tomatoes for making fried green tomatoes)
1 teensy banana pepper about the size of my thumb
1 half green, half red bell pepper (already wrinkled in places)
2-3 handfuls of yellow salad tomatoes

Oh well. It is what it is. Luckily I have more than enough yield from my own garden.

Last week I said it wouldn't be too much longer until it started to feel like fall outside. Well today is the day. The remanants of Hurricane Gustav are soaking the midwest with rain. Luckily we are on the edge of the remanants so no flooding yet, however we have had an almost constant drizzle for the past 24 hours, accompanied by temperatures in the low 60s to upper 50s. The garden got 8/10 of an inch of rain yesterday and then another 4/10 today. And it is supposed to rain all day tomorrow too! I probably won't have to water the garden for a week. Which means I won't have to wrestle the 300 feet of hose and that makes me happy. I'll gladly take the rain.

Previous CSA posts:
CSA: Week 15
CSA: Week 14
CSA: Week 13
CSA: Week 12
CSA: Week 11
CSA: Week 10
CSA: Week 9
CSA: Week 8
CSA: Week 7
CSA: Week 6
CSA: Week 5
CSA: Week 4
CSA: Week 3
CSA: Week 2
CSA: Week 1