Sunday Dinner and Using up the Veg

This is pretty and delicious, but it's all supermarket foods, no CSA foods. 

Whenever we've been in the market for a CSA, and that's been a few times now, we have The Conversation.  The Does-It-Really-Make-Sense-To-Get-A-Full-Share conversation.  And when people ask me about my CSA, they're often surprised that we get a full share.  Most of my friends in two-person households get a half.  A half share means, depending on your CSA, either that you pick up a full haul every two weeks, or that you get a lesser haul weekly.  The every two weeks thing wouldn't work for us; I like having lettuce, always, and lettuce doesn't keep like that.  Neither does the rest of it.  


But when you sign up, several of the farms have a note that says something like, "A full share is appropriate for a family of four, or a couple of vegetarians who always cook at home," and that scares Sous Chef Brian, because we're not vegetarians, and we eat out more than we care to admit. 


I'm always the one rooting for a full share, and so far, we've always gotten one.  I like to freeze veg for later.  I'm ok giving away one item to a neighbor if I know we can't get to it (or if it's beets).  


Last week was the first time I really felt like we'd gotten through everything without preserving any of it.  This week, the haul* seemed like kind of a lot.  Especially with this heat and my refusal to cook. 

Veggies, salt, pepper, oil, grill, vinaigrette, cheese, pesto.

But on Sundays we make up a big meal and invite friends and go all out a bit.  This time, with the heat, no one wants to cook, but it's still Sunday and this is what we do, so it's grilled veggie sandwiches and pasta salad, crackers and dip and some cheese.  Oh, and grilled peaches and ice cream for dessert.  Pretty simple.  Simple, but vegtastic.  

Tomato, bacon, vegenaise, sour cream, blue cheese powder**

I went out and bought broccoli for the pasta salad and zucchini and portobellos for the sandwiches.  Even with extra veg purchases, we're in pretty good shape at the start of the week.  Our veg aren't going to be wasted. 


We had been using the lovely challah rolls routinely, and used the last of them for these sandwiches.  The dip I made had tomato (and bacon) so that, plus grilled tomatoes, took care of what was left of those. 


I sautéed up the chard for the sandwiches, and we grilled onions and eggplant (and some portobellos)  too.  We had blueberries with our peaches and ice cream. 


So in yesterday's meal we had: tomatoes, eggplant, onion, chard, peaches, blueberries, broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms and broccoli.  Eight veg and two fruits.  Sure, we don't always cook like that, but it's entirely possible to do a veg-centric dinner that tears through any reasonable person's produce supply.

We have salad greens and carrots and onions and snap peas and blueberries and eggs and greens.  That's weeknight easy stuff.  The salad, blueberries, peas and carrots will find their way into our lunches, probably with the cucumber, and the onions and mustard greens will be part of some night's dinner, and the leftover veg from Sunday will cover another two meals. By next week's pickup, all but the eggs will be gone. 

Grilled peach, cinnamon, sugar, olive oil, vanilla ice cream, blueberries

*yes, the haul, in this case, includes things we purchased in addition to our assigned veg, so it's bigger than what you get by subscription alone. 


**ok, it's not legitimate food, but I went to a fancy spice store a few weeks back and bought both blue cheese powder and romano cheese powder and it's awesome.