Our Veggies Runneth Over!

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We picked up our CSA box of vegetables on this lovely Saturday morning.  After our heat last week, it was wonderful to be able to go outside and not feel like you were walking into an oven.  Next we went to the Westside farmers' market in Madison.  Its a great place to be able to fill in some of the gaps in your "box."  I purchased candy onions as well as another interesting variety (forgot the name) from Blue Moon Community Farm. Kristen has an excellent website with some wonderful recipes.  A friend is a member of her CSA and has shared her recipes over the years.  Now Kristen has many of them posted so you can all try and enjoy them.  http://www.bluemooncommunityfarm.com/recipes/.  We stopped to buy tomatoes from Real Food farms from Athens Wisconsin.  They are a certified organic farm that is able to offer tomatoes earlier than many other farmers because they practice "tunnel farming" or hoop houses.  If you're interested in learning more about it, check out this interesting article: http://simplegoodandtasty.com/2010/05/25/tunnel-farming.  The farm grows as many 50 different varieties of heirloom tomatoes.  Visit their stand if you have a chance when you are at the Westside Market. 

I'll discuss more of our favorite vendors in another post, but I couldn't finish without telling you about Honeybee Bakery.  Mary specializes in organic whole grains, farm fresh dairy, and seasonally available fruits in her tasty treats. http://honeybeebakery.org/.   This morning we bought a loaf of sourdough seeded bread, a cheddar biscuit, and a shortbread apricot bar. My daughter-in-law's absolute favorite treat of Mary's is her lemon shortbread cookies filled with lemon curd.  They sell out quickly. 

In our box today we got 5 ears of corn-on-the-cob.  You can be sure that we had that for supper.  It was very sweet and tender.  Next I made a great salad with lettuce from our farm, some thinly sliced red onion, blueberries, goat cheese feta and toasted pecans with Annie's Pomegranate Vinaigrette.  Our next course was Parsnip, Potato Fish Chowder.  I've posted this recipe earlier.

This was a very bountiful box. We also got zucchini and summer squash, broccoli, cauliflower, a Sweetheart cabbage, cucumbers, parsley, fresh garlic, carrots, a Cippolini onion and some celery. In my opinion, Wisconsin farmers should skip the celery.  There are a too many leaves and some tough skinny stalks.  I have not become a convert.  All the other vegetables look perfect.  My next project is to plan what I'll make with everything. I'll post recipes for the dishes that are new, turn out well and want to share. 

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