SUMMER CSA: WEEK 2

This week’s haul:
1 onion
1 bunch celery (mine in exchange for P taking the head of cauliflower, a vegetable I haven’t yet learned to appreciate)
½ bunch spinach
1 head lettuce
1 leek
1 pint strawberries
3 round (“eight-ball”) zucchini
10 Italian flat (Romano) beans

The “entirely new to me” award goes to the Italian flat beans. I was suspicious of them at first sight, so huge and tough-looking, but the Internet assures me they are just like green beans but even more delicious and actually more tender. I think I’ll try them with shallots and lemon this weekend.

Aren’t those little zucchini adorable? I’m stumped on what to do with them, though. The normal treatment for round zucchini seems to be to stuff them, but I haven’t been a huge fan of stuffed zucchini recipes I’ve tried in the past, and besides, these are so wee, they would end up like canapés. I do have some stray leftover ricotta nearing its expiration date in the fridge, though, so maybe a snack-sized version of this recipe would be just the thing. Otherwise, of course, I can just use them like normal zucchini. We’ll see how next week’s menu plays out.

I’m not sure how I’ll use the leek, spinach, or onion yet, but they shouldn’t be too hard to dispatch. The lettuce will go for salads and the celery for snacks, and I’m actually eating the strawberries right now.

Here’s a quick rundown of what ended up happening with the last CSA box:

• Lettuce: Used in BLTs, tacos, and salad
• Carrots: Eaten as snacks
• Rosemary: After some Internet research, I actually ended up freezing it for later!
• Onions: One used in Shrimp Boil, the other in Pasta Ascuitta
• Oranges: Two eaten as snacks, three still in my fridge
• Strawberries: Eaten as a snack
• Avocados: Two used in Guacamole My Way, one used in Pasta With Tomato, Avocado, and Oregano (and the fourth one, as I mentioned, bartered to Carpool J, which I now regret slightly, considering how good they were)

Everything was delicious, but on a par with what I usually get from the farmers' market. The avocados stood out as the most remarkable, or maybe it was just my triumphant improvised guacamole that impressed me so much. Runners-up were the oranges, which were consistently sweet and juicy, if not as sexy as the blood oranges we'd gotten the week before.