Cooking Out Of The Box

It’s that time of the year - the time we can only dream about in January - Fresh Tomato Season!

 I can never grow tired of tomatoes in season.  There are so many things to do with them that they never grow boring.  I have to admit, merely sliced with salt and pepper never bores me with tomatoes.  Here’s a few things that we’ve done recently… but there will be much more to come!

The first BLT is always special.  We make our BLTs with a twist, focusing on maximum flavor by adding goat cheese, onions and arugula.  Nothing tastes like summe like this BLT does.

A nice Caprese Salad just can not be beat.  It’s simple, with only fresh mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, olive oil, balsalmic vinegar, and basil.  Fresh basil from the garden makes it even better.

And this year we added something new to our repetroire.  Grilled Pizza with olive oil, tomato, prosuitto, mozzarella and basil.  The grill adds a terrific smokiness that you can’t get out of an oven.

I am always excited to see asparagus season arrive in the spring.  Besides radishes, spinach, and greens in general, asparagus is one of the first real signs that winter really might be over with and that spring is truly here.

Having said that, I don’t really regret it when asparagus season starts to ebb away, either.  It is really easy to OD on asparagus when you are desperate for fresh produce in May and early June.  So, here are just a few things that I did with asparagus this year:

Grilled Proscuitto Wrapped Asparagus - This is a marvelous way to prepare asparagus.  It creates a smokey, salty, slightly crunchy dish which adds a lot of interest to the vegetable.  It’s a perfect alternative to simply steaming or sauteeing the vegetable.

Grilled Asparagus Salad - This was one of my favorite ways to prepare asparagus this year.  We simply tossed the asparagus with some garlic, olive oil, balsalmic vinegar, salt and pepper.  While the asparagus grilled, baby greens were tossed with chopped kalamata olives, tomatoes, onions, olive oil, more balsalmic vinegar, salt and pepper.  While we again grilled the asparagus to add to the salad, this wasn’t necessary.  It was, however, really convenient.  The grill was already hot and it avoided dirtying another pan to clean up!

I know that in a month or so I’ll miss asparagus.  But for now, I’m ok with zucchini.  Ask me what I think of zucchini in a month though! 

. . . Even if blog entries don’t!

I’ve become lax in updating all of my blogs as of late, mainly because I’ve been so busy with the “real world” that my blogging as fallen by the wayside, in general.

This is not a good thing!  But even worse, whereas I had been doing really well in terms of using up veggies in the produce box… well, last week, that went right out the window as well.  I was only home for dinner 3 out of 7 nights last week, and that doesn’t exactly create an ideal situation!

But this week will be better.  It better be better, because this week I have the following to use up from my CSA box:

• Red Cabbage
• Broccoli
• White Turnips
• Chioggia Beets
• Fennel
• Green Top Carrots
• Scallop Squash
• Scallions
• Strawberries
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Summer Squash
• Zucchini

Of course, this is a challenge, because I am NOT a beet or turnip fan.  We’ll see if I can find a palatable way to prepare these.

In addition to our CSA box, we also opted to share a fruit box with another member.  Lots of fruit to dig through!

Technorati Tags: red cabbage, Broccoli, White Turnips, Chioggia Beets, Fennel, Carrots, Scallop Squash, Scallions, Strawberries, Sugar Snap Peas, Summer Squash, Zucchini, CSA box, produce box, seasonal produce