We just ate an incredible, gourmet-looking dinner. We had a zucchini-polenta torte (or was it a casserole?) and a salad. The salad was arugula, cucumber, Gorgonzola (blue cheese), and black raspberries, with balsamic vinaigrette dressing. The torte was in 3 layers: seasoned polenta, sliced zucchini, and cheddar cheese. For the polenta layer, I simmered together 1 cup of fine cornmeal (sold as polenta), 1 quart of water, about a tablespoon each of cumin and minced garlic, about a teaspoon of salt, and maybe half a teaspoon of chili powder (I wasn’t measuring anything). I arranged it in a 9×13 pan, and baked it at 350 for maybe 45 minutes. The arranged circles of two large zucchini made it look very pretty. The spiced polenta layer made it very tasty. We accompanied the meal with another local agricultural product: perry (hard pear cider) from a farm in northeastern Massachusetts.
This week’s CSA drop-off left us with one bunch each of arugula and tatsoi, two zucchini, two yellow summer squash, four smallish cucumbers, one head of cabbage, one pound of Kentucky Wonder beans, two pounds of green beans, and two pounds of potatoes. We were also supposed to get one bunch of spring onions, but I gave those away to someone else at the pick-up.
Tatsoi is new this year, and looks like dark green arugula, but Greens, Glorious Greens says it’s flat cabbage and good for stir-fries, which is probably what we’ll do with it. The zucchini and summer squash would be good grilled and in sandwiches (or just plain), but we’ll probably just sautee them and tossed with pasta.
A couple of salads have made use of last week’s lettuce, this week’s arugula, a couple of cucumbers, and (as mentioned above) all the black raspberries we hadn’t simply eaten already. Beets would have gone very well, but to get the right texture they have to be boiled and cooled before slicing into salads, so we didn’t put beets in.
The weather finally broke. We had a couple of cool days this week. Finally, I did some blanching and freezing: the pound of Kentucky Wonder beans and a pound and a half of slender little carrots, yellow and orange mixed. The beans blanch and shock for about 3 minutes, and the carrots get 5 minutes. I had intended to do the two pounds of green beans, too, but ran out of time.
What’s still in our fridge? Some beets and carrots, all four pounds of potatoes that we’ve gotten so far, the bunch of dill I bought to make potato salad with, one kohlrabi, two zucchini, two summer squash, three cucumbers, one head of cabbage, one bunch of tatsoi, and two pounds of green beans. I wonder what else we can freeze.
Tags: arugula, cabbage, cucumber, green beans, Kentucky Wonder bean, perry, potato, raspberries, summer squash, tatsoi, zucchini
