Too many veggies!!!

Joining a CSA was one of the best google induced ideas I've ever had.  Check out this weeks lot!

....and you can't forget the left overs from subsequent weeks....

Needless to say, we had a crap ton of vegetables.  Since these are fresh and don't contain preservatives, they only stay good for about a week (depending on the veggie).  So I had to be creative and do something with them all!. Now, I didn't come up with these things myself.  As part of the CSA, we get a cheaper price when we pledge "sweat equity".  What that means is, we pay less money, but go to the farm for a minimum of 3 hours to help out.  We harvest, plant, weed, etc.  Basically anything the farmer needs that day.  It's really REALLY awesome! Very cool to see where the food is coming from, and a total learning experience in the art of farming for this city-born girl. That being said, I got most of these ideas from the people in the CSA.  We decided to blanch the rest of the greens we had (different kinds of kale and chard).  What that means is you cut the leaves off the stem and boil them for about 1 min. Then you plunge them in and ice bath, dry them off and they are ready to be frozen! Voila, veggie stores for winter soups! We also did this with our purple beans.  We had so many beans.....

Then we had tons and TONS of basil.  The obvious choice? Pesto!

Pesto is so easy to make (and so delicious) it's ridiculous.  Here's how I did it:

Ingredients

2 cups basil

2-3 cloves garlic

1/4 cup walnuts (traditionally you use pine nuts, but they are insanely expensive)

1/2 cup EVOO

Salt 

Basically, put it all in a food processor and blend until smooth! I also salt to taste after everything has been blended.  This stores great in the fridge or freezer and makes about 1 cup.  Later today I am going to make Thai pesto spring rolls with it...yummmmm

To the cucumbers.....

We have an insane amount of cucumbers.  Those white things you see in the first picture? Also cucumbers....so we decided to make pickles! I forgot to take a picture of them but I got this recipe for "freezer pickles" from a woman named Marsha at the CSA.  She is clearly a wealth of food storage/use knowledge and I basically follow her around with a pen and pad when I'm supposed to be working on the farm.

"Freezer" Pickles by Marsha

Ingredients:

6 cups medium sliced cucumbers

1 cup white vinegar

2 cups white sugar 

1 tsp pickling salts (or Kosher salt)

1 cup thin sliced onions

Take the onions and cucumbers and throw them into a gallon sized ziploc bag.  Put the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and stir until dissolved.  Add the mixture to the bag and seal, getting out as much air as possible.  Let that sit on the counter for 2-3 hours, flipping occasionally so the cucumbers get equal exposure to the vinegar mixture.  Then put them in the freezer! They store pretty much indefinitely, and when you want to eat them just take them out and thaw them.  In retrospect I probably should have aliquoted them into smaller bag so I didn't have to thaw all of them to eat them, but you live and learn! 

Finally, with a little help of a facebook request, I had an idea for some delicious infused water.  I used watermelon, mint (from my garden) and a cucumber.  I dropped some in two of my nalgene bottles, filled it with water and let it sit in my fridge overnight.  It was seriously delicious, I couldn't believe it.  Infused water is THE BEST when you get really bored with drinking tons of water all the time!  This is a small sample I made...