CSA Box Week 14...and freezing veggies

I've been on vacation and now back! It's been a while since I posted so here's this week's veggie box. From my last box I received (Week 12), I blanched and froze some of my veggies such as corn, kale, and swiss chard to eat them for later in the winter. I certainly wish I could eat them fresh, but this is the next best option since I couldn't finish them, plus I wanted to enjoy some summer veggies during the winter months. As I was preparing for freezing, I felt like a bear, getting ready for hibernation and storing extra food away. :) Here's a link on freezing vegetables - it has an easy to read table listing the length of time to blanch each type of vegetable. When trying to remove all of that air from the plastic bag, one trick is to seal up the bag except a small area. Insert a small straw there and inhale the air out of the bag.

Here's this week's box of food (1 and a half times my normal food box size):





Here are some of the dishes I made:

sauteed iceberg lettuce	Corn Chowder
eggplant with spicy peanut sauce	Chocolate zucchini bread
Zucchini Frittata	Garlic Bread

Thai Lettuce Wrap

Mmmm..lettuce wraps are a great way to use up a mix of veggies and that lettuce you have in your fridge. Iceberg lettuce is best for this recipe, but you could probably replace it with red leaf or romaine.

Thai Lettuce Wrap

Basil Eggplant

I would never eat eggplant growing up. I think it was the mushy ness, which is the same reason why I never liked oatmeal. So after years of not liking eggplant, I decided to venture out of my comfort zone and added 1 eggplant into my CSA box. In fact, this is my first time ever cooking eggplant at home. To get me into eating eggplant, I cooked it as a thai dish, one of my favorite cuisines. I'm sure glad I added this into my foodbox because this dish turned out flavorful! I'm definitely going to add eggplant as a vegetable to eat more frequently! Now...how bout more oatmeal too?

Basil Eggplant Recipe

CSA Box Week 11

It's beginning to look a lot like fall here in Seattle. But a little rain can't dampen spirits to make great tasting food. Here's in my box this week:


Below are the dishes I'm making:

Thai Lettuce Wrap	Basil Eggplant
Turnip Potato Soup	Mexican Slaw