Earlier in the season, we got some radishes.  I’m just not that into radishes, but this year I was on a mission to use all that I got to the full potential.  I used them in salads - green, tuna and rice salads.  I kind of started to like them.  My friend in Vermont also got radishes from her CSA and told me about this radish top soup.   I was curious, but it was too late, no more radishes.  Until two weeks ago.  I got a small bunch of radishes, not enough to make the soup, but I didn’t use them and then last week in the free bin SCORE!  Radishes!  Loads of radishes!  I made the soup.  It was on one of the chilly fall nights last week.  I didn’t really know what to expect.  Well . . . it was perfect.  Cozy and comforting and a little bit like baby food.  And it was super simple.  I’m hoping for another score this week in the free bin.  I used the tops of four bunches.  Now I have plenty of radishes left over and a little bird told me I can roast them.  We’ll see.  I am going to make this soup again.  I’m hoping for another score this week in the free bin.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 medium red potatoes, diced
• 4 cups raw radish greens
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1/4 cup milk
• 5 radishes, sliced

Directions

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onion, and saute until tender.
2. Mix in potatoes and radish greens, coating them with butter.
3. Pour in chicken broth.
4. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes.
5. Allow the soup mixture to cool slightly, and transfer to a blender. Blend until smooth.
6. Return the mixture to the saucepan. Mix in the milk.
7. Cook and stir until well blended. Serve with radish slices.

This week check out member, Amy Plattsmier’s recipe that uses potatoes, parsnips and a food mill. Yum!

When my packrat husband, Jason, and I were slogging through the process of signing up for a wedding registry 10+ years ago, I nixed many items he wanted to include, one of them being a Williams Sonoma food mill. Not having any idea what a food mill was, I never gave the omission a second thought, that is, until I had a baby. All of the baby books with sections on making one’s own baby food extolled incessantly the virtues of the food mill, but still I stubbornly chose the back of a fork to mash freshly steamed squash or banana for my toothless child.

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So I made some delicious BLTs this week with the lettuce and tomatoes we got.  I really enjoyed them, but now I wish I tried this Bacon, Lettuce and Plum recipe that appeared in the NY Times on Wednesday.  Maybe this week . . .

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Well, it’s been a gluttonous couple of weeks.  After vacation, I am trying to eat healthier and spend less. It’s time to stat making more meals at home.  Luckily I have a full pantry and lots of good produce from the CSA every week.  I was really happy about the fruit share this week.   I live for those donut peaches.  But they didn’t last long.  My kids and I basically sat at the dining room table eating donut peaches and apricots.  I was thrilled that they loved the fruit so much.  My husband is lucky that I managed to save a couple for him.  It wasn’t easy.   For dinner we made veggie kebobs on the grill.  I put  potato, zucchini, garlic, pepper and red onion (not CSA) on  a wooden skewer brushed with some oil and I also mixed some eggplant with oil and salt and pepper and parsley and grilled it.  It was a super satisfying cheap healthy meal.  The next night I decided to tackle the beans.  I’m not that into beans.  I think I may have been forced to eat them as a child.  When I saw them at pick-up, I wasn’t too happy, but I am trying to use everything so I found this recipe which used the beans and the parsley (see below).  Very quick and easy.  I served that over a Trader Joe’s grains mix and added lots of salt and pepper.  It was really good. I may be changing my tune about beans. Read the rest of this entry »

So, most of you know that we donate our leftover shares and vegetables to Food Not Bombs. Ever wonder what happens after that? Well, board member and founder of the CSA Diana Liss and board member Karen Oh went to volunteer at Food Not Bombs to help them cook our leftovers and other donations and then serve them to the public at a local park.

Food Not Bombs is housed at 123 Community Space, a shared community space in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Currently located at 123 Tompkins Avenue, 123 Community Space has just been through a nasty eviction battle and will probably move in September. The space hosts four grassroots groups: A New World In Our Hearts, Freegan Bike Workshop, Misled Youth Network, and NYC Anarchist Black Cross and hosts a variety of community programs from free/low cost screenprinting workshops to bicycle repair to political prisoner letterwriting. Read the rest of this entry »

Our first ever Progressive Dinner was a great success. Everyone who participated had a great time. Many good recipes were shared and demonstrated by fellow CSA members. Read the rest of this entry »

Member Ainslie Binder made a halved version of this recipe and said it was—as Rachel Ray would say—”DELISH.” (Well, actually, Ainslie said it was “delicious,” but I could not resist!)

Fresh Sour Cherry Cobbler

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Where I used to live, summer was all about the zucchini. Everyone seemed to grow them and there would be so many that you couldn’t unload them on your colleague or neighbor. If you left your car door unlocked (this was a rural area, so no one really locked their cars), you might end up with a couple in your front seats. Actually, I think this is the only time people locked their car doors. We also used to carve our names in them as they grew and if they got too big, they were kind of tasteless so we’d use them for target practice. Read the rest of this entry »

For those of us lucky to get a fruit share, we will be getting Sour Cherries. They are a delicacy–great for cooking and often used in pies. But they are sour! Some eat them fresh, but they are used in cooking, especially soups, pork dishes and pies and liquers are made from them. I wonder what I will do with them, so I’ve found a couple of articles about them that you might find informative. Read the rest of this entry »

Aside from the usual salads, we didn’t do anything super spectacular with our share.

I think, the thing I love most with kale is sausages. This is a classic recipe (also sausages with broccoli rabe) that has been written up numerous times on various blogs, including this vegetarian recipe. One good twist to this dinner staple that my husband did was to add a can of whole italian plum tomatoes to the mix. Just squeeze the tomatoes with your (clean) hands to roughly crush them up. Read the rest of this entry »