Zero Waste CSA Week 5

This week our CSA gave us: two summer squash/zucchinis, eggplant, two cucumbers, three purple onions, snap peas, green beans, napa cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, spring mix, and cilantro. Collin’s garden also gave us a few zucchini this week, so our recipes were very squash-heavy.

• Cauliflower Mac & Cheese— I could just end the blog post here because this was the best recipe ever. I didn’t follow that recipe exactly because I wanted to use up what I had one hand, so I used cream, cheddar cheese, and mozzarella cheese instead of the yogurt mixture they came up with. I also made a panko bread crumb topping, which was essential.
• Tacos — on the first night Collin made tacos and we used some of the spring mix and cilantro. We ate the rest of the spring mix in salads throughout the week.
• Summer Chicken-Vegetable soup— I found a similar recipe in a magazine a long time ago, but this is the first time I used it. It’s just vegetable stock (I used some from last week’s post!), white chili beans, yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, rotisserie chicken, fresh parsley & basil from the plants that our farmers gave us in the first box, corn, lime juice, and scallions. The only ingredients in this recipe that were not from my CSA were the limes, corn, beans, and chicken. This is a recipe that where I just combined everything and put it in a ziplock in the freezer for another time. All I have to do is thaw it then put it in the crockpot for a few hours and then top with sour cream and cheese. Future Miranda and Collin are going to be happy about that.
• I also made some chicken and hummus bowls for lunches this week using the rest of the rotisserie chicken, a cucumber, some cherry tomatoes, rice, feta cheese, and a dollop of the beet hummus from last week. I will definitely be repeating this recipe. Sidenote: We were grilling with some friends tonight and someone asked us what our favorite recipe has been so far with our CSAs, and the beet hummus was definitely in our top three.
• We brought roasted turnips to a grill out this week and they were a big hit. They have a similar texture to roasted potatoes and they are especially good sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Everyone was raving, especially because most of them had never tried turnips before.
• For dinner one night this week I made sausage zucchini boats. SO delicious, budget-friendly, and a perfect way to use a few of the zucchinis. I made many of these and then froze whatever we didn’t eat.
• Roasted salmon tacos– This recipe includes a homemade slaw that I made with a cucumber and the napa cabbage. It has a dill and vinegar dressing and then the slaw goes right on the tacos with roasted salmon and avocado. Perfect perfect perfect.
• We ate the radishes, snap peas, and broccoli with hummus at ranch dressing when we saw Shakespeare in the park with friends. I still have some broccoli left that I’ll take in my lunches this week and eat raw.
• Lastly, with our green beans, I decided to pickle them. I haven’t tried them yet, but I hope they turn out alright. 😉 I’ll let you know next week.

This tweet made me laugh today, but you all know that isn’t happening in this household.

You may find this hard to believe, but I did not used to like cooking. When Collin and I first got married, I definitely had unrealistic expectations for myself of what a wife was. I could not live up to these expectations with my full time job. I went back to the same boring recipes every week and it just made me hate cooking.

Through this challenge, I think that I have begun to see cooking as more of a creative outlet and a way for me to de-stress after work. It’s something that I can do at the end of the day while listening to music or a podcast (or Nanette, which I highly recommend). Even as I write this, I am making zucchini bread at 11:45pm and just enjoying this quiet and peaceful house.

I hope that you can find some fun in cooking by challenging yourself in new ways like this.

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