What this week will bring

Week #13 CSA Box:

1 Summer Squash
2 Zucchini
4 Green Peppers
Purple Beans
Celery
Swiss Chard
1 Hot pepper
2 Yellow Onions
Dill
2 Eggplant (small, white!)
Tomatoes- 5 romas, 1 giant heirloom, 1 green zebra, 1 pint of yellow pear and cherry tomatoes

Oh the bounty! Seriously. I’m thinking eggplant parmesan for one night, with our delicious sauce. I want to oven roast those romas with olive oil, balsamic and salt and pepper. Green beans will be good sautéed slowly with the dill thrown in at the end. Zucchini and summer squash I’ll shred up for Disappearing Zucchini Orzo (note to self: buy orzo at HFS tomorrow, hopefully they have Eden brand).

Hmmm….I always have a hard time with chard and celery. And green peppers. Some of the peppers may end up in the freezer, because we are reaching our limit on pepper tolerance. Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

I am also soaking 2 lbs of locally-grown chickpeas right now, so that they can cook overnight and be ready by the morning. We’ll use up what we can and freeze the rest. When I was first buying them, I kind of reeled at the price. A $4 bag of hard little beans?!? But then I realized, they were only $2/lb, and that they expand A LOT when you soak/cook them – this 2 lb bag will be many, many cans worth, and those typically sell for $1.99 each, at least for organic.

So what am I going to make with the chickpeas? Well, probably a double batch of Cheezy Roasted Chickpeas (from Vegan Lunchbox). These are a great way to get Silas to eat protein. We just toss the chickpeas with nutritional yeast, salt and oil and roast them in the oven for a ½ hour. They’re like popcorn, but with protein! And nothing gets stuck in your teeth.

I’m also anxious to try Sunshine Burgers, from The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook by Robin Robertson (checked out from the library, but I’m definitely going to have to buy it). They contain chickpeas, tofu, sunflower seeds, onion, pepper, bread crumbs and spices – all of which we have, and local!

We might also do a quick pasta dish with chickpeas and our fresh tomato sauce from this weekend.

Right now I’ve got some local tofu thawing from the freezer. I think it’s going to become Chicken-Fried “Steak” or Savory Soy Scrapple (from The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook). Haven’t tried either recipe, but I’m on the hunt for meat analogues since the local diet pretty much excludes everything except for tofu. And seitan, if I can ever figure out how to make it from scratch.