Our Second Month of CSA Boxes for 2025

 After our first month here I was on such a good roll.. until I forgot to pick up my box! Then we had a few boxes where the produce wasn't that great. The corn was real tiny and quite pale, our tomatoes were often split open and two boxes in a row the eggplant was rotten inside. I've heard it's been a rough growing season were we're either getting so much rain and lots of cool weather or it's pure sunshine with temps in the 90's and no rain for weeks on end. 

CSA Vegetable Box #5 July 17th; I completely forgot it was Thursday until it was nearly 6 and since I have a 30 minute drive and boxes must be picked up between 2 & 6 I had to forgo my box this week.  

CSA Vegetable Box #6 July 24th; Basil, kale, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, zucchini and squash

I used the cucumbers to make dill refrigerator pickles and both the garlic and basil to make a jar of pesto and a basil vinaigrette. 

The tomatoes went into our salad and the kale was roasted and served as a side dish at dinner. We diced some of the onions into our potatoes and roasted them both as our other side dish.  

The squash and zucchini were used to make zucchini relish (something my husband fell in love with years ago when one of his workers brought in a jar his wife had made and I decided to scour the web and find a recipe to try making my own). I also made zucchini bread. 

  

 Alec and I also made zoodles and a vegetable stir-fry for dinner one night. 

 

CSA Vegetable Box #7 July 31; cucumbers, zucchini, corn on the cob, eggplant, tomatoes, beets and waxed beans.  

I used many of the cucumbers and the tomatoes to make a cucumber salad. We used the corn to go with our burgers one night for dinner. I used the beans in the vegetable stir- fry I mentioned above using last week's zucchini and squash.  

We were gifted a lot more squash and zucchini from friends and neighbors that grow vegetables too so I spent one morning cooking up a double batch of squash casserole using up ALL the squash and making 4 small 8x8 pans of it to freeze for fall and winter. We didn't use the beets though; we can't seem to find a way we actually enjoy them. I've tried everything I can think of to prepare them.. 

 CSA Vegetable Box # 8 August 7th; corn on the cob, more cucumbers, red leaf lettuce, basil, eggplant, a cantaloupe, tomatoes, and some peppers. 

We ate the corn that very night with our meal. I used some of the cucumbers with a couple tomatoes and a few handfuls of the basil to make a cucumber caprese salad to bring to a pot luck picnic. I processed the rest of the basil into a pesto sauce for our pasta. We cut up the cantaloupe for everyone to pick at. 

Both eggplants were thrown away when I sliced into them and found they were a deep brown inside. I diced up the peppers with some onions, garlic, and ground turkey to make a pasta dish one night. The remaining cucumbers joined the remaining tomatoes and the red leaf lettuce with other veggies from our fridge to make a salad.

 CSA Box #9 August 14th: More cucumbers, squash, zucchini and tomatoes. A different type of lettuce, a small watermelon and another cantaloupe, a variety of peppers and some green beans.  

We used the green beans that night for dinner and I cooked up the eggplants first thing the next morning in preparation for the eggplant fritters I was making to go with dinner & I cut up both the melons for snacking.  

I made a salad and a cucumber salad using the lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and other supplies we already had in the house.  And finally I cooked up a summer squash lasagna to use up most of the squash. Evan cooks up peppers and onions each week to use in his eggs or on his sandwiches each day so he used up the small ones for that. I used the larger peppers along with some bell peppers from my mother in law's garden and onions I had in the pantry to make fajitas for dinner another night. 

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