Blistered shishito peppers

Shishito peppers are one of the highlights of late summer. While they look like a hot pepper, they are generally pretty sweet -- only about one in ten peppers will be spicy. So eating a plate of these is like a delicious, delicious game of chance, where no matter what, you always win.

When we got a pint of shishitos in our CSA share, we knew exactly what to do with them: blister them. One hot pan and five minutes later, we were ready to eat the entire pint in one fell blow.

I imagine these peppers would also be excellent grilled on the barbecue. Toss your peppers with oil, string them onto soaked skewers, and roast, turning to cook each side, until nicely blistered. Then salt and eat. I haven't tried this, though, so if you do, let me know how it goes! For science!

This method will work with shishito or padrón peppers.

Blistered shishito peppers

grapeseed oil or other cooking oil with high smoke point
shishito peppers
plenty of kosher or sea salt

Put a frying pan wide enough to hold all your peppers in a single layer over medium-high to high heat. Let the pan get hot before you start cooking. Test the temperature with a flick of water, just like you would if you were cooking pancakes; when the water sizzles away immediately, you're ready to go.

Add a generous slug of oil to the pan and let it heat up for a moment. Then add your peppers and toss or stir to coat. Let the peppers cook, stirring or flipping occasionally, until they are blistering and turning golden to dark brown in patches on all sides. This should take about five minutes.

When your peppers are done, remove them to a paper towel-lined plate or wire rack and immediately season with a generous amount of salt.

Serve hot. Eat them all. Hooray!

Blistered shishitos are great by themselves, but they also work well as part of an antipasto spread. A hard slicing chorizo or other spicy sausage and a chunk of manchego are the perfect match. Marinated olives would be pretty tasty too. Basically anything you'd get at a tapas bar is a good idea.

And of course you are going to want a glass of cold, cold beer on the side. Hot peppers and icy beer are one of the best possible combinations to eat on a hot afternoon.

What are your favorite late summer snacks?

Scrambled duck eggs with green beans, red pepper, and fresh herbs

We bought an egg share with our CSA. This means that along with our weekly vegetables, we also get half a dozen mixed brown, blue, and spotted eggs. They're excellent -- obviously super-fresh, with bright orange yolks and full whites. A fried CSA egg is a thing of beauty, especially split over a piece of sourdough toast. But six eggs is just about as many as we can eat in a week, considering our overall low levels of breakfast-eating and baking. And then the CSA decided to give everyone a sample of half a dozen duck eggs.

Suddenly we had double the eggs, and the duck eggs were nearly double the size of the chicken eggs, so it was more like we had sixteen eggs than twelve. It was definitely time for a couple of hearty weekend scrambles. And why not get the full use out of the CSA by adding plenty of herbs and vegetables?

For our herbs, we used curly parsley and dill, both of which are excellent with egg. I think dill is seriously underused in general, and particularly when it comes to eggs. It's great raw in egg salad, and it's also great cooked into a scramble like this. I imagine that it's similar to the classic tarragon-and-egg combination. Try it!

Scrambled duck eggs with green beans, red pepper, and fresh herbs
serves 2

butter
2 scallions
large handful green beans (or zucchini, broccoli, etc)
1/2 red bell pepper
2-3 duck eggs (or sub 5-6 chicken eggs)
~3 tbsp each fresh dill and parsley (or basil, tarragon, chives, etc)
salt, pepper

Chop your scallion whites, setting the greens aside. Saute in butter in an appropriate egg pan over medium heat.

Wash, trim, and cut your green beans into bite-sized pieces. When your scallions have begun to soften, add the beans to the pan, along with a punch of salt. Continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally, while you dice your bell pepper. When the beans are mostly tender, add your peppers and cook for another 2-3 minutes to soften.

Crack your eggs into a bowl. Finely chop your scallion greens, parsley, and dill; add them to the eggs. Season with salt and plenty of pepper. Beat with a fork until frothy and well mixed.

When all of your vegetables are tender, add your egg mixture to the hot pan. Cook, stirring frequently, until your eggs are done to your liking.

Serve your finished eggs with a little more pepper or a few fronds of herbs scattered on top. A simple green salad is definitely welcome alongside. And if it happens to be dinnertime, or Sunday brunch, a glass of dry white wine would not go amiss.

Have you ever cooked with duck eggs?

First garden green beans of the year

I planted a truly massive amount of green bush beans this year. We had the garden space, and can basically never get enough beans, so why not? Besides, after the moles killed multiple jalapeño plants and a tomato plant, I figured that more plants equaled a better chance of actually getting a crop.

Now the beans are the most successful plants in the garden, with no attrition by mole at all. I'm picking huge double handfuls every other day, so as to keep up a steady supply for the whole growing season. Later I'll let one or two plants go, so the beans mature in their pods and can be used for seed next year. Hooray!

For my first foray into homegrown green bean cooking, I went super simple. What better way is there to eat beans than sauteed with butter and garlic?

Green beans with butter and garlic
Serves one. Multiply as needed.

1-2 big handfuls green beans
1-2 cloves garlic
1 pat butter/slug olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Wash your green beans, trim them, and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Crush and mince your garlic.

Melt your butter or oil in a frying pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add your garlic and cook for about a minute before adding your beans. Season with several good pinches of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. If you like, you can add a splash of water to the pan and let the beans cook in the steam.

When the beans are done to your taste, season with pepper. Taste and add more salt as necessary. Eat immediately.

Of course, beans can also get a little fancier. This is especially the case if you also need to get through a CSA box of vegetables every week. In this case, I more or less just added some delightful extras to the basic green bean and garlic recipe. It's still super easy and still delicious.

Green beans with zucchini and dill
Serves one. Multiply as needed.

1 big handful green beans
2 cloves garlic
1 small or 1/2 large zucchini
1 pat butter/slug olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 tbsp chopped fresh dill (or basil, tarragon, parsley, etc)
wedge of lemon

Wash your green beans, trim them, and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Crush and mince your garlic. Chop your zucchini into thin rounds or half-moons.

Melt your butter or oil in a frying pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add your garlic and cook for about a minute before adding your beans. Season with several good pinches of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes. Add water to steam your beans if you like.

Add the zucchini and continue cooking for another 2-3 minutes, or until all the vegetables are done to your taste. Season with pepper and correct salt.

Serve topped with plenty of fresh dill and a squeeze of lemon juice. If you're having your beans alongside a seared piece of fish, put any extra dill and lemon on the fish.

Beans! They are the best.

Who's gardening this year? What are you harvesting now?

First CSA box of the year!

It's the first CSA box of the year! Here's what we got:

2 pints strawberries
3 huge leeks
bunch tokyo turnips w greens
bunch carrots w greens
bunch fresh dill
7 medium zucchini
2 little gem lettuce
1 bag mesclun mix
1/2 dozen eggs

This year we have an egg share, which is super exciting. Just look at all those colors! And who couldn't be excited about stuffing their faces with the first farm-fresh strawberries of the year?

There was only one problem: we got the box immediately before leaving the country for a week. How could we eat as much of this as possible in as little time as possible?

Fortunately, a good chunk of our share keeps pretty well. Leeks, turnips, and carrots are all reasonable storage vegetables. Eggs keep forever, which is good, because we had ten of our last dozen left too. The rest needed to get eaten or cooked and frozen pretty quickly. So what did we make?

Strawberries: Of course, we had to eat an entire pint raw as soon as possible. That's a given. Extras got washed, sliced, and frozen for future smoothies. Otherwise, we could have cut them up and strewed them over some of the mesclun mix for salad.

Zucchini: I am the main eater of zucchini in our house, but even I couldn't eat all seven in two days. I shredded a couple along with a carrot or two, mixed them with tuna, scallion, mustard, and sriracha, and had a lovely spicy tuna salad. I cubed up a couple more and threw them into some brothy soup. That took care of about half of them. The rest sat in the crisper and miraculously stayed intact for the duration of our trip. Other ideas: a zucchini pancake would be a good plan. Zucchini noodles and some relatively hearty lentil and tomato sauce would work well too. And cubed zucchini is great scrambled with a couple eggs or thrown into fried rice.

Dill: Since we had all the eggs, we could have made an excellent egg salad, but we didn't get to it in time. (This is actually on the list for this week.) Instead, I put the whole bunch of dill in a jar of water and put it in the fridge to see how well it would keep. This worked astonishingly well. I've since been snipping it into soup and strewing it over crispbread spread with cream cheese and topped with black pepper.

Lettuces: The little gems keep reasonably well, so we ate the softer mesclun first, along with the bit of romaine we already had. I don't know about you, but when I get a lot of pre-washed, perfectly fresh mesclun, I tend to just eat it in big handfuls out of the bag, or throw a handful of undressed leaves on my plate, along with whatever random quesadilla may be on the menu otherwise. That's exactly what happened here.

Verdict: success! We managed to eat all the tender vegetables in record time, and the rest kept in good shape for the week that we were away.

And now we have another box coming this afternoon. Yay!

Do you have a CSA share? What are you making with all your bounty?

Green curry with tofu and CSA veg

When I find myself in need of a spicy, delectable, and comforting dinner, my thoughts turn lightly to coconut milk curry.

Curry is one of those dishes that can take anything you throw at it. This makes it particularly vital as a tool for coping with the weekly CSA onslaught.

For instance, in this pan, we have:

- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 1 purple kohlrabi, peeled and cubed
- 1 small white turnip, peeled and cubed
- 1 random broccoli stem, peeled and cubed
- 1 purple bell pepper, chopped
- 1 handful mixed green bush beans and scarlet runner beans, chopped
- 3 green onions, whites only, chopped

With cubed, seared tofu, coconut milk, and green curry paste, plus a base of jasmine rice, this made a totally delightful dinner. And, as an added bonus, the crisper was substantially roomier afterward.

Hooray for curry!

Green curry with tofu and CSA veg

1 block firm tofu
peanut oil
1 medium to large onion
2-3 cups mixed vegetables of your choice (or as above, if you happen to subscribe to my CSA)
1 cup coconut milk
~2 tbsp green curry paste, adjusted to taste
scallion greens or cilantro to garnish
your choice of grain or noodle accompaniment

Start an hour or two ahead of time by pressing your tofu. Cut your block of tofu in half, creating two thin, wide slabs. Put your tofu between two cutting boards and weigh it down with a heavy cast-iron pot or a bowlful of water. If you like, put a towel under one end of the bottom cutting board to keep the whole contraption at a slight angle. Let your tofu press for at least an hour to eliminate excess water.

When you're ready to cook, slice your tofu into cubes. Heat a wide saute pan, preferably nonstick or cast-iron, on medium to hot. Add a generous slug of peanut oil. Sear your tofu cubes, turning occasionally. When your tofu is golden brown on all sides, remove it to a plate and set it aside.

Now it's time to tackle your vegetables. Chop your onion into 1-inch chunks and add it to the residual oil in the pan. Cook, stirring or shaking the pan occasionally, for about 5-7 minutes, or until the onions begin to soften.

While the onions are cooking, start peeling and chopping all the rest of your vegetables, beginning with those that take the longest to cook. After your onions are tender, add the longer-cooking vegetables to the pan. Cook them for about ten minutes before adding any delicate vegetables. I started with kohlrabi, turnip, and broccoli stem, and reserved my peppers and beans until the end.

When all your vegetables are just barely tender, it's time to get your curry on. Add your coconut milk and curry paste to the pan and stir to mix. Bring everything to a simmer. Put the lid on the pan, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for about five to ten minutes. Taste and correct seasonings as necessary.

Add your reserved tofu to the pan for the last two to three minutes of cooking. When the tofu is hot through, you are done. Hooray!

We ladled our delightful green curry over big spoonfuls of jasmine rice and garnished it with scallion greens. You can eat yours over any grain you choose, or over a pile of slippery rice noodles if you prefer. It's all good.

What strategies do you use to transform your kohlrabi and turnips into a feast?

Red cabbage curtido de repollo

If you want to make the pinkest pickle imaginable, I have just the recipe for you!

I've been making gigantic batches of curtido de repollo -- essentially, spicy pickled cabbage slaw -- ever since I first tasted it at our local Salvadorean restaurant. There, you stuff platefuls of pupusas with as much curtido as you so desire. The contrast between soft, chewy masa, creamy beans, and crunchy, tangy curtido is pretty spectacular.

At home, I've never yet attempted a batch of pupusas. Note to self: this really needs to happen as soon as possible. However, the curtido has been flowing freely. We eat it in tacos, in burritos, on top of big bowls of chili, and occasionally all by itself. SO good.

Normally, I use standard green cabbage and yellow onion to make curtido. This time, I had a lot of red cabbage and red onion from our CSA. Pink curtido it is!

Red cabbage curtido de repollo

1 small or 1/2 large red cabbage
a carrot
half a small red onion
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
1 cup water
2 serrano peppers, or whatever works for your spice tolerance
1 tbsp salt

Start by coring and shredding your cabbage and dicing your carrot and red onion. Put them in a large non-metal mixing bowl (mine is 4 quarts) and toss to mix.

Put your vinegar, water, peppers (chopped roughly), and salt in a blender. Liquefy. Be sure to keep your hand and maybe a towel over the top of the blender, so you can combat any liquid leaks. The result will be a light green brine with a layer of foam on top.

Pour your completed brine over your bowl of vegetables. Stir, getting all the vegetables wet.

The brine will not come up to the top of the bowl; this is fine. As the cabbage pickles, it will wilt and exude liquid, so the amount of brine will increase to cover all the veg within a few hours.

It will also turn pink from the red onion and cabbage. Hooray! Pink pickles!

Cover the bowl, put it in the refrigerator, and let it sit for at least three to four hours. Mix every so often, so the surface cabbage gets submerged in the brine. When the liquid level comes up to the top of the vegetables, you can stop mixing.

Congratulations! You are the proud owner of a big batch of curtido -- about 8 to 10 cups, depending on the size of your cabbage. It will keep well in the refrigerator for a good two weeks, getting gradually more and more pickley as it ages.

Eat your curtido with pupusas or arepas, on tacos, in burritos, on top of servings of chili, or alongside big bowls of tortilla soup. So crispy and tangy and delicious!

What's your favorite bright pink food?

We have a CSA!

Last week I happened to look at the notice board at the coffeeshop that is my pseudo-office and found a poster for Fifth Crow Farm's 2014 CSA. So I poked around their site and said YES PLEASE.

Obviously supporting local farms is great. The basic veg share fees work out to $25 per week, which is totally doable, especially for amazing farm-fresh produce. And our local pickup site is ridiculously near our house, which is super exciting and convenient (especially for people without cars).

This week we got our first box. Look at all the stuff! VEGETABLES FOR ALL.

Our basic veg share included:
- three heads of lettuce: red leaf, green leaf, and one that looks almost like a non-speckled Flashy Trout's Back, with bronzey scoop-shaped leaves
- a big bag of baby arugula
- three white turnips
- a bunch of radishes with greens
- nine baby artichokes
- a bunch of dill (MORE DILL!)
- three leeks
- and a jar of home-canned jam, unlabeled, but apparently strawberry-rhubarb.

OKAY.

We're getting a monthly honey share along with the standard veg. The honey comes from City Bees in SF. Hooray, local bees!

I'm not sure how we're going to use four different months' worth of honey, especially since our current pound of honey is only halfway out, but I imagine that we'll find a way. If nothing else, the oatmeal and tea are both going to get a lot more exciting around here. And maybe we'll even get some of the local allergy benefits. That would be great, considering that the only thing I've ever really been allergic to is California.

We were sufficiently excited by all the beautiful produce to make a big salad immediately. Red leaf lettuce, finely sliced radishes, and dill. We ate it before I had a chance to take a picture, but still. Hooray! Salad!

In conclusion, this was obviously a good decision. Also, HOORAY.

Have you ever used a CSA? How did it go? Did you have any issues getting through all your vegetables? I think that as long as we stay on top of things (and eat several big salads per week) everything will work out just fine.