Week 11

I think we may have to call this week eggplant week! Yes, the eggplant have started to come in strong enough to cover all of our CSA members, so this week everyone will receive one of the five varieties we are growing. We have fairy tale, the beautiful purple and white striated variety; hansel and gretel, the small black and white eggplant that look very similar to asian eggplant but are smaller; kermit eggplant, the small green globes that are about 2 inches in diameter; and last but not least nadia, your typical large black globe eggplant that most people are accustomed to cooking. Have no fear of these beautiful vegetables. When cooked properly, eggplant quickly rise to the top of the best tasting vegetables around. We'll have more on them in the recipe section.
Another exciting vegetable to show up recently in the garden---red peppers! It'll still be a few weeks before there are enough for you all, but they are most definitely worth getting excited about. We had two chopped up in our omelets for Sunday brunch and we were in food heaven. Most likely next week you will get a couple green peppers to tide you over until they ripen red/orange/yellow.
This past week has been a week of budgeting for us. We're trying to figure out what all we can plant this fall in terms of perennial fruits and vegetables. We'd really like to put in some blueberry bushes for our future CSA, asparagus, and also some woody cut flowers like pussywillow, hydrangea, viburnum, and more peonies. But all of these things are expensive, so we're trying to prioritize. At the same time we're trying to get our house up, so it has been very hard trying to figure out what is most important. Bathroom tiles, or a small hoophouse for flowers? Decisions, Decisions. Whenever I'm faced with a decision that I'm completely stalling on, I remember a part in one of my favorite movies, Touching the Void, a true story about a mountain climber who fell on a climb with a broken leg into a glacial crevasse and managed to work his way back to his base camp that was probably five miles away. He says at some point during the film that no matter what had happened to him, if he wanted to stay alive, he had to keep making decisions, even if they were the wrong ones, if he wanted to get anywhere and stay alive. I think we'll stay alive if we can't decide on blueberries or asparagus, but hopefully you get the gist here.....
In your boxes this week:
Half share
2 lbs of heirloom tomatoes
2 pints cherry tomatoes
1 pint of eggplant
1 pint padron peppers
1/2 lb lemon cucumbers
Full-Share
same as half with extra
melons, cantaloupe and watermelon
extra pint of padrons or eggplant, whichever we have more of on Wed.

RECIPES
Marinated Eggplant with Mint from Epicurious.

Eggplant Caviar from Alice Waters' Art of Simple Food
Preheat oven to 400F.
Slice eggplant into 1/4 inch thick rounds.
Sprinkle the cut surfaces with: salt, fresh ground black pepper, olive oil.
Place cut side down on a baking sheet and roast until soft. Test for doneness near the stem end: the eggplant should be very soft. Remove from the oven and let cool. Scrape the flesh out of the skins into a bowl and stir vigorously to loosen into a puree.
Add: 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
salt
fresh ground pepper
1 garlic clove, peeled and pounded to a puree
2-4 tbsp chopped parsley or cilantro, or mint
Mix well and taste, adding more salt and lemon as needed.

Martha Stewart's Spicy Sesame Eggplant
Sara Foster's Heirloom Tomato Salsa as follows
makes 3-4 cups
2 lbs heirloom tomatoes, cored and diced
1 small red onion, minced
2 jalapeno peppers, cored, seeded and minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
grated zest and juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp white vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Place tomatoes, onion, jalepeno peppers, garlic, red pepper, lime zest and juice in a large bowl as you prepare them. Drizzle with olive oil and vinegar, sprinkle with the sugar, cilantro, salt and pepper, and toss gently to combine. Taste for seasoning and add more salt and pepper as desired. Cover and refridgerate for atleast 2 hrs to marry the flavor. Will keep for up to 1 wk.

Flower Shares this week I'm not 100% sure as of now what will be in the arrangements, but I'm thinking globe amaranth, celosia, and possibly a couple stems of lovely lisianthus. We also have a bunch of lilies coming on, so it may be another week of orientals, this time with a pink stem to go with the white.

Thanks everyone and enjoy your veggies and flowers!