Category: CSA

Our Final CSA Friday

This is it.  The last CSA share of the season. It’s a little bittersweet for me.  On one hand, I’m going to miss having it to look forward to every week.  On the other, I didn’t use as much of the produce as I’d hoped to and wound up giving away or throwing away more than I would have liked. But I got to expand my horizons, and try some new recipes, and as a whole I’ve really enjoyed it.

I definitely would recommend Great Country Farms if you’re interested in doing a CSA share in Northern Virginia next year.

Our final haul:

We have a ton of squash we’ve been collecting over the past few weeks, and I put them in a pretty wooden bowl we were given as a wedding present.  Makes a really festive table decoration, don’t you think?

CSA Friday 10/12

CSA

One more week to go!  I can’t believe our CSA season is almost over.  It’s been so much fun, and so interesting.  We have enough potatoes to last us through the next few months, and the apples have been AMAZING.

Anyone know what that big squash on the left is?

Sweet Roasted Acorn Squash (Secret Recipe Club)

It’s always fun to have my Secret Recipe Club assignment be a blog I know well.  Lesa from Edesia’s Notebook has been blogging since 2007 and has a TON of great recipes on her site. Like most of us food bloggers, she doesn’t like making the same recipe twice, so she’s had plenty of meals to tell us about.

Last week I had a ton of acorn squash from my CSA, so I did a search on Lesa’s site to see what she had.  Her Roasted Acorn Squash recipe intrigued me so I decided to give it a try. I wasn’t so sure about using Nilla Wafers so I made half of them with Rice Krispies just in case the Nilla Wafer version was too sweet.  I’m glad I did, because I really enjoyed the Rice Krispies on there.  They added a bit of crunch without any extra sweetness (the brown sugar took care of that!).

This is my last month participating in Secret Recipe Club.  I’ve had so much fun doing it and am grateful to have been a part of it for so long.

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Sweet Roasted Acorn Squash (Secret Recipe Club)

Ingredients

  • 4 small acorn squash, about 1 lb. each
  • Kosher salt
  • Olive oil
  • ½ cup butter, softened
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • 3 tbsp vanilla
  • ½ cup Rice Krispies

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°.
  2. Split the squash in half and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. Set the squash halves, cut sides up, on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt. Drizzle with olive oil.
  3. In a bowl, cream the butter with the sugar, and vanilla. With a brush or a spoon coat the cut sides of each squash half with the butter mixture. Sprinkle with the Rice Krispies.
  4. Use a fork and make a few holes in the flesh of each squash half, so the butter mixture has room to spread its flavor throughout.
  5. Bake until tender, about 30 minutes.
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Eggs with Collard Greens and Bacon (CSA Friday)

CSA

Another week, another fun batch of produce from Great Country Farms. I’m going to feel a real hole in my life when the CSA shares end in a few weeks. Thursdays are so fun…it’s like getting a present every week!  I love not knowing what’s going to be in the box (I purposely don’t go to their Facebook page until after I receive my box so I don’t get an spoilers).  Here’s this week’s haul:

Last week we had a bunch of collard greens, and I made some soup with them.  They get very tender in soup and I just love it.  I was craving a nice savory omelet the other night so I chopped up some collard greens and sauteed them with butter and salt.  Then I added some cooked, chopped turkey bacon with a few eggs and made what was supposed to be an omelet.  But it turned into scrambled eggs.  It happens.

The combination was delicious.  The greens were earthy and the bacon was salty, and the eggs were light and fluffy.  I think I’ll be making that again a few times this weekend, especially now that we have Swiss chard too!

Herbed Green Beans (CSA Friday)

Great CSA haul this week!  The apples are enormous and the squash makes a perfect table centerpiece (until I cook ‘em, of course).  We got what’s probably the last of the green beans, and I looked up a recipe on the McCormick website since I’d just spent time at their facility and was really impressed with their use of herbs and spices to kick up the flavor of veggies.  I’m a plain veggie gal, I’ll be honest.  Sometimes I’ll add butter and/or salt, but that’s it.

So when I tried this recipe for Herbed Green Beans, I wasn’t sure how I’d like it but figured I’d give it a shot.  Let me just tell you that I threw my ideas for dinner out the window, and ate a large bowl of green beans.  THAT’S how good it was.  For reals.

I stayed fairly true to the recipe as it’s written, but I took the lazy way and microwaved the green beans instead, and then just sort of eyeballed the additions, since I didn’t feel like pulling out the scale to see how much I had.

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Herbed Green Beans from McCormick

Ingredients

  • **Recipe from McCormick**
  • 1 lb green beans, trimmed
  • 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp rosemary
  • 1/2 tsp Thyme Leaves
  • 1/4 tsp Sea Salt
  • 1/8 tsp Black Pepper

Instructions

  1. Bring beans and water to cover to boil in medium saucepan. Reduce heat to low; simmer 4 to 6 minutes or until tender-crisp. Drain. Return beans to saucepan.
  2. Toss with vinegar, oil, rosemary, thyme, sea salt and pepper. Cook and stir over medium heat 1 to 2 minutes or until heated through.
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