Contents of this week’s box: Apples, sweet & mild peppers, butternut squash, garnet red sweet potatoes, purple top turnips, butter lettuce, carrots, eggplant, hot peppers.
Conne’s vacation continues this week. Here’s my take on this week’s box. What a great mix!
Peppers confession: I have struggled with the peppers in years past, resorting to dicing & freezing them for use in grits casserole and on pizzas. This year, I’ve turned a corner and can’t seem to get enough of them, or the eggplants either. It’s one of the things I love about the CSA. If they weren’t landing in my kitchen in the CSA box, I wouldn’t be buying them and my culinary lens would narrow to a pinhole of my own making over the years..
Conne has contributed quite a few recipes featuring jalapenos. See them at this link: https://grassfedcow.com/ingredient/jalapenos/ I’m particularly interested in the Honey Jalapeno Chicken Tenders. The Hot Pepper Apple Pie sounds like fun. You’ll need a pepper jelly recipe for the apple pie. Try this one: https://grassfedcow.com/recipes/pepper-jelly/.
Last crazy pepper idea, this one for the campfire. Try wrapping a brie wheel slathered with jelly in aluminum foil and heat in your campfire coals. Add apples, or use apple slices to dip? Consider it an experiment, potentially a gooey one.
Love the apples. Last week, we tried the Apple Upside Down Cake, which disappeared in a few days. Terrific. This weekend, we’re trying Apple Pecan Blondies. And throwing a couple of apples wrapped in foil into that campfire, for kicks.
Needing eggplant inspiration from the beatnik 70’s? Try this moussaka recipe from my mother’s ex-boyfriend Paul. The resulting casserole might be short on authenticity, but is long on yum.
Soak eggplant slices in heavily salted water for 2 hours, rinse, pat dry and saute in high-temp oil until tender and light golden brown. Drain in colander. Brown onion in 1/2 cup butter. Add meat to brown. Stir in tomato sauce, ground cloves, salt and pepper to taste. Cook down until most of the liquid is absorbed. Make a thin white sauce from flour, 1/2 cup butter, milk and nutmeg. Layer eggplant and meat sauce in casserole dish, cover with white sauce and bake at 400 degrees until golden brown, about 20 minutes.