CSA Week #10

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  Essentially, one purchases a ‘share’ in a local farm – much like the stock market, one then has a vested interest in seeing the farm succeed.  Dividends/pay outs come in the form of produce – vegetables and sometimes fruit.  Different farms do things differently; my farm happens to be also organic, and I pick up my box each week – Tuesdays for me – from a local location.  Join me on this journey – my inaugural season with a CSA – as I explore the various vegetables I receive and what I can do with them to turn them into delicious happiness…
For more information on CSAs, click here.  To find a CSA local to you, you can click here or for one in NYC, visit JustFood.org.  I found mine by typing “Forest Hills CSA” into Google – my neighborhood name + the word CSA, and I’m sure that would work for you as well.  Good luck and enjoy the fruits of your labors… har, har. 

Multiple inspirations for this week’s CSA goodies…

As I thought what to make with the veggies, I’d recently watched a movie… you may have heard of it… called Julie & Julia.  There’s a ton of food porn in the movie, and any number of dishes that it might inspire you to make, and yet, I chose the one that they don’t even film.  A moment of a small green sliver on a fork, then it’s in Julie’s mouth as she says, “I know! Braised cucumbers, who’d have thought?”  That’s it.  But that’s the item I chose to turn my eye towards, for a number of reasons.

First, because to me, braising implies a long cooking process, low & slow, but a long time.  It turns out that I’m wrong (is that surprising?) and braising just means… well, if you Wiki it, you can see what it means, though I’m not sure this method is entirely a braise.  Whatever.  It was delicious. 

I’ve cooked cucumbers before – usually just a quick run with heat and that’s it, to maintain its delicate texture and enhance the flavor – and my mom has definitely cooked them before, so I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the concept of cooking them… though I know people often express surprise at this.  But then, I also cook lettuce, which some people really think I’m weird for doing (hey, it’s a great way to use up that head of Romaine that’s about to go bad, and it’s delicious)… 

Let’s just say this was delicious enough for me to post on Facebook “… could bathe in the deliciousness of the braised cucumbers she just made, holy f*.”  And this was enough to get Julie Powell – yes, the Julie herself! – to comment to me in the very affirmative.  Life is good.  You should make this and eat it, because it will make life even better. 

One fairly large cucumber
Butter
Salt
Pepper
Lemon (half will probably do fine)

Peel, then cut cucumber in half lengthwise.  Using a spoon, scrape out the seeds so your cucumber half looks like a boat.  Slice. 

Heat pan with a little bit of butter in the bottom.  Once it’s all melty and nice looking, throw in the cucumbers, stirring around the pan to coat with the butter a bit.  Add salt, pepper to the pan.  2-3 minutes then turn off the heat (the cucumber should look slightly softer but not mushy; some of the thinner sliced pieces, if you chop it a bit unevenly like I did, may have turned translucent but they should not ALL be translucent), squirt the juice of half a lemon on top, plate and enjoy the heck out of your plate.  It is fabulously delicious. 

The other dish I made, well, you’re probably used to this by now.  It’s the soup that I rave about all the time.  Who eats soup when it’s soupy outside?  Who cares, it’s delicious and I like it, but really should stop that sour cream madness… that can’t be too healthy for me, right?  🙂  The cabbage, chard, all of the leafy greens went in there, and some chorizo…  And I’ve named my soup, even though each one has been different (one had beans, another had a can of tomatoes as a base…): Summer Soup.  Why?  Not because it’s chilled or cold – nope, I usually heat this to near boiling before I have any – but because the ingredients are all summer season veggies!  I don’t think I’ll be buying kale in the winter to make this – nope, by that time, I’ll have winter veggies for my Winter Soup, right?  Right! 

Happy eating! 

Previously:
CSA Week #1
CSA Week #2
CSA Week #3
CSA Week #4
CSA Week #5
CSA Week #6
CSA Week #7
CSA Week #8
CSA Week #9