Your box contains the following items, give or take any subs.
- 1lb. red/green little gems
- 1/2lb. mesclun
- 1/2lb. broccoli di cicco or spigariello
- 1 basket mixed medley cherry tomatoes
- 2lb. mixed summer squash
- handful mint leaves
- handful Genovese basil
- 1/2lb. yellow romano pole beans
- 1lb. walla walla onions
- 1lb. Valencia oranges
- 1 dapple dandy pluot
- 1 white nectarine
Here’s a recipe for mixed summer squash soup, as I help you not get tired of all the squash in your box each week. You can use the walla walla onions, but I’d recommend using a regular yellow onion, cut into half inch pieces, and the two pounds mixed squash, cut in half lengthwise, then into half inch pieces. Sweat the onions and squash in a pot with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, but don’t brown. Add your liquid of choice, about a quart of chicken stock, veggie stock, or plain water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or so. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup to your desired smoothness. Add salt and black or white pepper to taste, and a teaspoon or so of white wine vinegar, or lemon juice. When serving, add torn or sliced basil leaves, and you can also add sliced squash blossoms into the bowl. Now you have three very different ways of preparing summer squash: soup, shaved raw salad, and grilled and tossed in a basil pesto sauce.
This week there’s yellow romano beans in the box. The last few weeks saw bluelake beans. We will have off and on various varieties of snap beans. My favorite and simplest way to cook and serve beans like these is to blanch them in salted, boiling water for 3-5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the beans, and your desired tenderness, then toss them into a bowl that has some olive oil (you can also add a little butter if you like) with a clove or two garlic that’s been finely minced. If the beans cool down before serving, put the bowl on top of the pot of water you cooked them in, bring it back to boil, and use it as a way to heat up the beans without cooking them any more.
I’ve been enjoying cherry tomatoes sliced in half, with walla walla onions sliced and added to the tomatoes, with sherry vinegar, olive oil, basil, salt and pepper to taste. I like to let it sit for a few minutes so the vinegar can bring all the flavors together. Have you noticed the best tasting salad is the last handful you left in the bowl that you end up eating before doing the dishes at the end of the meal? Time for all the flavors to meld together really makes a difference.
Enjoy!
Martin