CSA week 20, and there was a lovely surprise for me today: our farmer told me I had it all wrong, and we have two more weeks of glorious produce! I’m very excited about this, because, well, glorious produce, and the fall crops are just beautiful. We’re due for a hard frost any day now, so the final two weeks will be cool weather crops all the way.
So in this week’s box, we have:
- a big head of romaine lettuce
- 2 “sweet dumpling” squash
- 2 bell peppers
- celery
- lots of carrots
- 2 kinds of kale
- 2 heads broccoli
- 4 beets
Besides all this bounty, we have about a half bushel of apples in great variety, which will probably get turned into jar after jar of applesauce this week. I don’t sweeten this – it’s sweet enough all on its own! Just cook the apples a bit, squish them, and pack them into jars.
Because the weather forecasters predict high temperatures in the 50s all this coming week, my kitchen will shift into autumn mode: soups and stews are perfect for cooler weather. I’m roasting a chicken today – you remember how to roast, right? Summer’s over, and the oven is going on.
There’s so much to be excited about, when cool weather returns. Crisp cool weather gets me excited to cook all over again. Roasted veggies and homemade bread will be in our meal plans for the foreseeable future. Ideas for using up this week’s produce:
- broccoli-cheddar soup from Simply Recipes
- roasted broccoli with smashed garlic from Skinnytaste
- stuffed sweet dumpling squash (with bacon and maple syrup!)
- oven-baked kale chips
- garlic butter rice with kale from RecipeTin Eats
- grated carrot salad in the French style from David Lebovitz
- roasted beets
- stuffed pepper soup from Skinnytaste
- cream of celery soup from Simply Recipes – because why not check out what the canned version is trying to be?
Do you have plans for cool-weather cooking? Really, I’d like to hear.