Mama, Please Let Me Read For a Few More Minutes

The best part of going to the library today was tonight when I had to tell Future Farmboy to turn off the lights more than a half hour after I gave him five more minutes to wrap up his reading.

"But mama, I'm almost finished with this page."

I love that he is getting so wrapped up in books.

I don't know why we don't go to the library more often. We left today with 10 books and a book on cassette.

I also realized that I need to set time for me to visit the library sans kids. We were so busy selecting our family reading material, I never had a chance to look for my next page turner. If only I can find a book that'll make it hard for me to turn out the lights.

Oak Park library photo from anthonylibrarian's Flickr photostream.

Except for the Waste, I'd Give Our CSA Experience an 8

I joined my CSA this year fully expecting that I'd be confronted with unfamiliar produce. That was actually one of the big draws.

I wanted to not only get farm-fresh veggies already in our diet, I wanted to be exposed to new foods and new ways to prepare them.

We definitely got our chance to try plenty of new things this season, including our recent eggplant lasagna. I'd eaten eggplant of course. But this was my first time cooking it.

Also new to us (to the point that we'll seek it out), thanks to King's Hill Farm: torpedo onions, Napa cabbage, beet greens (huge hit), multiple varieties of delicious squash, celeriac, savoy cabbage and some of the most beautiful heirloom tomatoes I've ever seen.

Still, if we do this again (we probably will), I'll need to do more food storage research. I hate throwing food away, yet I found myself doing way too much of that in the weeks following a share pickup.

Out of desperation, at one point I threw a load of veggies that were on the verge of waste into a crock pot and made veggie stock.

But I also tossed too many rotting veggies into the garbage pail.

At the end of the season, I got better about blanching or roasting and freezing.

We have plenty of leftover corn. And we're set for the winter with our roasted sweet mystery pepper (cubanelles maybe) and roasted poblanos.

But I don't want to do this again without setting aside time to prep the produce for storage. Oh...and we need to set up a compost.

That would help.

Tall Corn Harvested

Just got word from Hoosier Outsider that he harvested the tall corn in the front yard at The Farm.
It came down just in the nick of time. Grant County had its first heavy frost last night.

This is Why My CSA Box Was So Heavy

This Sunday is all about squash and peppers.

I admit I'm cheating a bit and giving some of this bounty away. But we're also doing some experimenting and cooking for the week.

I have my Española Butternut Squash simmering on the stove now. And later today I'm going to try to do something with the spaghetti squash and the ambercup squash. I've never cooked either, but am up for the challenge.

Now...what to do with all these peppers.

I learned a trick from Hoosier Outsider. I literally just toss a handful of whole peppers in a freezer bag and put it in the deep freeze. Works great for jalapenos that I need to just dump into a soup later on down the road.

But this is more than I think we'll eat this winter unless we roast & freeze or puree. Our fridge is already overloaded with a previous King's Hill Farm delivery of these and poblanos.

So we'll be doing a bit of all of that, firing up the grill outside so I don't smoke us out and sting our eyes.

Ugliest Root Veggie. Tastiest Soup

I've been reading about celeriac ever since I started this blog. But it wasn't until I bought a half share in a local farm this season that I actually got my first look at what is clearly the ugliest root veggie I've ever seen.

Don't believe me. Take a gander:

But after a little trimming and a good peel, it's clear this is a hearty, versatile vegetable. Big surprise, it smells a lot like celery.

I learned tonight that it's excellent in soup. We really enjoyed this recipe from A Good Appetite. It's essentially a potato-leek soup with a kick.

We crumbled a little bacon from this morning's breakfast on top. [The iFarmer, in his second bowl, mixed in some steamed broccoli.]

I have one more root in my fridge, so I'll be looking for another use.