Back From A Break

I had a little two (okay, three) week hiatus from posting, in part due to a vacation I took to Iceland!  It was one of the best trips I've taken, and would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.  There's not a lot of produce there, so my CSA share was the furthest thing from my mind while I was vacationing.

What did I do with it all, you ask?  I let a friend pick up up and keep it.  In the past, I've had a friend pick it up and save it for me, too, but with the timing of this vacation, that would not have been worth it.  Besides, who wants to come home to a house full of vegetables to pack into the freezer or pickling jars and luggage to unpack into drawers and laundry machines? 

If you're feeling particularly magnanimous, a number of CSA farms will happily donate your share to a local food bank for you.  Many of them do that anyway with any shares that don't get picked up on a given week.  You could also coordinate donation through your church or school for a single family in need.

In the mean time, for those of you who haven't taken vacation, here's a couple of rapid-fire ideas for your shares, things that I've been making in August:

Make a potato salad out of whole/halved baby potatoes (starting their season about now), diced onion, diced carrot and diced celery (all in season).  Dress it with equal parts fat free greek yogurt, mayo and a ton of chopped dill and finely minced garlic.  Word of caution - take the potatoes out of the boiling water before you think they're done cooking, because they keep cooking after you take them out, even if you rinse them with cold water.  You don't want to end up with dill mashed potatoes.

Make an "Israeli" salad out of diced heirloom tomatoes, diced cucumber, a can of drained and rinsed chick peas, a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley and a handful of chopped mint.  Dress with vinegar, oil and a little coarse salt.

Here's an amazing recipe for chocolate zucchini bread:  http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chocolate_zucchini_bread/  At least 1/2 of my zucchini goes into one of these every week.

I'll be better about posting for the rest of the season.  Hopefully, we'll start getting more fall veggies.  I'm almost all zucchini'd out.