CSA Week 6

In our sixth CSA box, we got: 2 lbs new potatoes, 2 "Red of Tropea" onions, 1 fresh sweet onion, 1 bunch carrots, .75 lb zucchini (three small), .75 lb snap peas, 1 lb shelling peas, 2 lb fava beans, 1 head red leaf lettuce, 1 head green leaf lettuce, 1 bunch kale, 1 head garlic, 1 bunch sage, 1 bunch basil

OMG, so much!

This was a weird week.  We had a dear old friend to dinner on Wednesday, the day we picked up the box, then were at my parents' house Thursday and Friday night (with a plan for Saturday night, though we came back early).  I didn't meal plan, needless to say.  To compensate, I created a elaborate meal for our dinner party using as much of our box as possible.  :D

The big meal consisted of the following: 

Lamb and Fava Bean Stew.  I got the butcher at my local grocery with a decent meat department to cut up a leg of lamb into stew meat chunks.  They gave me the weight I wanted without the bone and changed the same price per lb as the whole leg with the bone in; love those guys!  From the box I used both red onions, garlic, and the fava beans.  I also used the homemade veggie stock in this.  We're saving all the discard bits for stock and it's working out very well!  The lamb stew turned out great.  I totally recommend it.

Hashbrowns made with the potatoes, sweet onion, and sage.  This was okay.  I tried to broil it to make the multi-dish meal easier on me, but I should have fried them.  Just so you know, the key to crispy hashbrowns is to shred, then rinse the starch away, just like you rinse rice before cooking it.  Then drain and throw it in a salad spinner to get it as dry as possible.

Garden salad using red leaf lettuce, sweet onion, carrot, and snap peas from the box and arugula (from our garden!) and tomato.

I dressed the salad with this avocado dressing, to which I added a bunch of basil from the box.  This dressing is good, but THICK, so be careful not to over-dress the salad.  Soooo easy to do.

We ended up taking the most of the remaining produce to my parents house, eating some and leaving the rest there.  In trade we brought home a ton of freshly shelled peas from their garden traded peas in shell for shelled peas, haha), a couple of HUGE daikon radish, and a bunch of garlic scapes.  Tried roasting the scapes, but they were pretty tough, so I think they are past their delicate prime.  I'll probably cut them way down to get rid of the tough stalks and make more pesto out of them and what's left of the basil.

Tonight we had brown butter pan-fried hake, fried sage leaves, and herbed rice and wild rice (with a bit of shredded carrots mixed in) with those roasted scapes.  Let me tell you the hake and sage more than made up for the scape failure (the failed scape?).  It turned out to be brown butter because I put the butter in the pan to melt then forgot about it.  Haha.  Luckily I caught it before it burned.  Anyway, fried the hake in the butter and it tasted like LOBSTER.  Except more tender and juicy.  It tasted like lobster WISHES it tasted.  It was so good!

Doesn't look like lobster, but sure tastes like it.

Tomorrow we're having chicken burgers (purchased from Costco, quite good!) on Dave's Killer Bread buns.  I'm thinking I'll make a lemon-sage aioli, and top it with more arugula from our garden.  Carrots from the box and peas from dad's garden.

What did you eat this week?