Friday, September 3, 2010

One Whole Farm Share in 3 Nights

There was this one crazy week where I decided I was going to be able to use up  the entire CSA (farm share) that Iris has for the week. Mind you this normal share is meant for 4 people to eat. I managed to cook it all in 3 nights of crazy cooking.

The share of the week consisted of 4 lbs of tomatoes, a dozen ears of corn (of which we only took 10), about 8 cubanelle peppers, 2 zucchini, 2 lbs of potatoes, and 2 egg plants.

On Wednesday night, I made my tomato and corn soup, a giant pot of it. This time I cored the tomatoes first. But I still missed one step - boiling them first to get the skin off. Otherwise it would have been a smoother texture.

Tahini substitute - peanut butter
On Thursday night, I made baba ganoush from the egg plants (double batch), and the recipe called for tahini. But I didn't have any, and after a brief search of the great Tubes that is the Internet I found that I could substitute peanut butter - so in it goes into the lemon juice! :-)

For the egg plant, you needed to roast it first, then let it "drain". I stuck it in a salad spinner to expedite.


Also on that night I made potato and zucchini pancakes (effectively latkes). I didn't quite realize when the recipe says it will serve 8 people, that it meant it would be the entire meal for 8 people with nothing else. So I was frying batter for about 3 hrs. That was a long night of cooking.



To finish it all off on Friday night, we stuffed the cubanelle peppers with chicken sausage and baked them. It was super easy, just remove the raw sausage portion from the casing by squeezing the meat out onto the hollowed half pepper shells and bake. To finish, top with marinara sauce, which I doctored with some fried garlic and onions.

And voila, the meal is served! Thanks Iris for taking all these awesome pics! It makes my food look so much more appetizing than the fuzzy ones I take with my little flip phone's camera. :-)
The final product - basil chicken sausage stuffed cubanelle peppers with apple sauce drizzled potato and zucchini pancakes. Creamy tomato and corn soup to follow. Tortilla chips and baba ganoush as appetizers.