winter CSA, week 2

[cellio]

Good haul today. I'm glad I brought two cloth bags; it was easier to distribute the load that way than it would have been to carry the box.

• dozen free-range eggs (I assume it's the chickens that are actually free-range, not that the eggs are ambulatory)
• head hydroponic lettuce (same type as last time)
• one large butternut squash (estimate 4 pounds)
• one Celebration squash
• six Rome apples
• two pieces celeriac root
• four medium red onions
• six small purple potatoes ("Magic Molly")
• two daikon radishes (I think; they said we'd get either daikon or "green meat" radishes and these look more like the pictures of the former)
• 8oz chive and onion chevre (with hechsher!)
• 17oz jar apple butter
• expected but not present: garlic

I sent email asking about the garlic, wondering if it had been delayed, and they wrote back right away and said the farm hadn't sent them quite enough so some boxes didn't get it, but they'd have a bag with my name on it at next week's pickup. (It's a biweekly CSA, except that they moved the pickups in the week of Dec. 25 a week earlier, so next week.)

My choir has a pot-luck dinner next week, so I'll do something with the butternut squash for that (not sure what yet, but presumably it'll involve roasting). I plan to pickle at least one of the two radishes; I love pickled daikon and have never made it before (have never actually bought fresh daikon). Celeriac was new to me; I used one tonight to make this dish with celeriac and peas and it was tasty. I'm planning to use the other to make this mash with potatoes and horseradish. Not with the purple potatoes, though; that would look weird. Those I'll roast, probably, maybe with rosemary.

I sometimes bake acorn squash filled with apples; on the other hand, squash is nice with savory herbs too. I don't need to decide right away. One way or another, I know what to do with all of this.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Once again I want to mail myself to you!

[margarita_r]

Nice bunch! And I so miss the choir potluck dinners!

[hlinspjalda]

Gorgeous haul!

Before I got my MIL's butternut squash soup recipe, this is what I used to do with it for fancy.

one large or two small butternut squash
pomegranate sharbat syrup (homemade)
olive oil
salt

Peel the squash. Cut in half lengthwise and seed. Slice in uniform slices about 1/4” thick.

Toss slices with salt and a couple of tablespoons each of olive oil and homemade pomegranate drink syrup.

Lay slices flat, not overlapping, in shallow pans. (I use cookie sheets with rims.)

Roast at 400 until done, 20-40 minutes.

Keeps and reheats well.

The sharbat is the medieval Baghdad (or is it Andalus?) recipe of equal volumes sugar and juice, cooked into a syrup. I like to cook briefly, yielding a light syrup that doesn't taste so candied. But the pom juice has tannins in it which keep this dish from being too sweet.

[cellio]

Thank you! That sounds yummy.

No pom juice at the store today, so I didn't make this this time, but I want to try that in the future.