Applesauce

Faced with a surplus of apples back in January, I went digging for applesauce recipes and found this one. With the glut of apples our CSA is providing us, we've now got the process down pat. Which is good because it's hard to beat warm, just finished cooking applesauce. : )

CSA Week 8

This week's CSA included a small canteloupe, blueberries, apples (loving our fruit share!), corn, a green bell pepper, summer squash, eggplant, tomatoes, an onion, potatoes and a cucumber.

The canteloupe will get cubed and eaten with lunches, the blueberries are going into blueberry pancakes (our first this year since the earlier ones all went into jam), and the apples are TBD. I want to taste one first to see how sweet or tart they are, then we will make a determination. They are cute as heck though!

The corn we are going to take off the cob and eat with lunches and (possibly) cook into cornbread. Nom. The summer squash are going to get kitted up and frozen as veggies for pasta, the potatoes are destined for soup. The green bell pepper will go on pizza, along with some of the tomatoes and onion, The eggplant got re-homed with my coworker. The cucumber will probably be eaten as a snack.

The balance of the tomatoes and onion will make a start toward tomato sauce.

Bacon Green Beans

For Thanksgiving, we decided to make use of the green beans that the hubby canned this summer. (I was studying, so he got to have all the fun. : P ) A bit of searching brought up this recipe which sounded tasty. I know it looks like a weird mush in the picture but the flavor was really good!

Sweet Potato Pie (Sort of)

As I mentioned yesterday, I have a few out of date recipes to post. This one is from Thanksgiving. Nearly 3 months ago. But let's not look at it that way. Instead, let's consider this an early jump on next year. Nine months early. I found this recipe on The Pioneer Woman's site. I figured that of all people she would know her way around sweet potatoes. Which was important because, while I would make them a standalone food group, my husband is not really a fan.

Garlic Potato Soup

With a bounty of potatoes to go through I figured we needed something that would use a few more than the potato rolls did. I used this recipe as a base and tweaked it to suit what we had on hand.

Potato Rolls

My daily contribution to my year long "Around the House" photo project. 365 photos. Blogged here.



Following much the same train of thought as with the squash loaf we also made some potato rolls. In a good/bad turn of events, they don't actually require much potato, so you could easily make these with left over mashed potatoes, or think ahead and actually boil and mash a few extra. We used this recipe because how can you say no to a recipe that has taken a prize at the county fair two years running?

Braided Squash Loaf

There came a point in our CSA membership where we found ourselves absolutely over-run with squash. And so I went hunting for recipes that required squash! I've also been wanting to try my hand at bread recipes, so this recipe was a match made in heaven--even if we had yellow summer squash instead of butternut squash.

One Pan Breakfast

Lately, we seem to be on a breakfast for breakfast, brunch, and dinner kick. Maybe it's because it's quick and easy. Maybe it's because when you have a fridge full of potatoes and onions and squash it just screams breakfast. Or maybe that's just me. Regardless, this is a simple, straightforward, dump-everything-in-and-go sort of recipe. Which makes it perfect for days when you are a bit short on time but still want something more involved than cold cereal.

Blueberry Sauce

Our CSA boxes have been full of plump, ripe, amazing blueberries. Maybe it's years of conditioning but it seems somehow wasteful to simply eat the berries ($5 a box prices will do that to you). So instead I've been putting them in things. Muffins, pancakes, cobbler. And this past weekend, in a stroke of brilliance? Sauce. A syrupy, sweet, multipurpose topping/filling/syrup that will make you want to lick your plate.

Blueberry Cobbler

Did you know that blueberries are one of the so called "superfoods"? So that means that this cobbler is totally a healthy breakfast. Which is good, because I may have eaten it for breakfast. And snack. And dessert. See how much restraint I showed? Lunch and dinner were other things entirely.

Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce

Marinara sauce is one of those things that always seemed hard. (Like butter.) The hubby and I had tried to make our own sauce once, in college. We ended up with a soggy, watery, sad mess. But with all these luscious CSA tomatoes, I knew the time had come to tackle it again! I used this recipe as inspiration and then proceeded to change, well, almost everything. The brilliant part though? No stewing, boiling, or reducing needed!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

I'd never actually had stuffed bell peppers before but with the super sweet and flavorful CSA bellpeppers we were getting, it made sense to make them the star on the dish instead of just a supporting actor. When we received several small bellpeppers, as well as one large one, in this week's share, we seized the opportunity. We used this recipe as a base and used what we had on hand.

Blueberry Pancakes

My daily contribution to my year long "Around the House" photo project. 365 photos. Blogged here.



I'm am a particular pancake eater. I like them fluffy, moist, and just-so or I don't want them at all. So when I decided to toss most of our CSA blueberries into the pancake recipe from the Breakfast cookbook by William Sonoma, there was some trepidation. Boy am I glad I took the plunge! Perfect, soft, delicious pancakes!

Potato Salad

Despite not generally liking mayonnaise, I have something of a love affair with potato salad. Only, before this weekend, I had never made any. My mother in law has an amazing recipe, but since we couldn't get ahold of her, I scoured the internet and then just sort of threw things together. I'm sure some extra seasoning would punch it up (I think my mother in law uses paprika, among other things), but this was tasty. The hubby is happily munching the leftovers, so I may have to make this again this summer to get my potato salad fix!

Cucumber and Tomato Salad

When I was a kid my mom used to make a tomato salad (sometimes with cucumbers). I loved that stuff and so when we ended up with ample amounts of cucumbers and tomatoes through our CSA I knew just what to make. Only when I asked her for the recipe, it turned out there really wasn't one, so I just went off what I remembered and what tasted good.

Breakfast Potatoes

Breakfast for dinner. The best way to enjoy lots of delicious breakfast foods all at once. And to, you know, actually take the time to cook breakfast. (Seriously, anyone out there making waffles from scratch on a weekday? Yea, me neither.)

Swiss Chard Macaroni and Cheese

One of my new fave veggies, thanks to our CSA, is Swiss Chard. It's amazing wilted and put into just about anything ever. Of course, I like greens anyway, but YUM. SO when I found a dish that combined swiss chard and macaroni and cheese (one of my all time favorite dishes), I knew we had to give it a try!

Zucchini Bread

One thing the CSA has given us is an abundance of zucchini. And while it is delicious, there is only so much grilled and sauted zucchini two people can eat in a week. And so in comes zucchini bread! I found this recipe and adapted it to what we had on hand.

Pasta Primavera

With lots of fresh veggies to use and fresh butter on hand pasta primavera was a natural choice. The alfredo sauce comes from PASTA by Williams-Sonoma, the rest was improvised on the spot.

Sparkling Strawberry Lemonade

I have a bit of a love affair with strawberry lemonade. Restaurants that offer it generally win my undying affection as soon as I spot it on the menu. I made this for some friends we had over, but really, it was just a good excuse to make strawberry lemonade and not finish off the pitcher (myself) the same day. Some people have self restraint; I pawn food off on friends. ; )

This recipe comes from over at the wonderful Julie at Willow Bird Baking.