Now my blog posts about the produce we get from our CSA (Bear Swamp Farm) will be named CSA and whatever week we happen to be in for our distribution. If you want to read just those entries all you have to do is enter CSA in the search box and all those entries will be ready to view. The first two entries have different names, so you can find them by clicking on “CSA 2009” under the categories listed on the right side of the blog.

Last week’s included what you see pictured above: Swiss chard, beets, fresh garlic, and two kinds of lettuce. The lettuce was young and tender and was eaten just in salads and on sandwiches. The freckled lettuce was kind of funny. When I reached in my box to pull it out my first thought was gosh, this has lots of dirt on it. I’m going to have to wash all that off when I get home. Was I surprised to find that it wasn’t dirt—just spotted lettuce. It had a wonderful peppery kind of taste. Absolutely delicious!

Pedro seems to be struggling with the weather and different kinds of creatures in his garden. Here are a few excerpts from his weekly newsletter:

I love his sense of humor about all of his trials. But really, what would Bear Swamp Farm be without at least one bear?

It’s interesting to try and use what we get in a new recipe. I hate to just braise/cook/wilt/whatever and have it as a side vegetable dish. Too boring! I scan the recipes online at either allrecipes.com or epicurious.com. Epicurious has mostly recipes from Bon Appetít, but it does have other recipes as well. Food & Wine’s web site also is a good source. As always, the recipe can be found by clicking on the link which will take you directly to our personal recipe book. This way I don’t have to take up space with the actual recipe in the post, plus if you want you can just print it out directly from the recipe archive.

We made a delicious Swiss Chard and Leek Tart with the chard. It was ever so creamy! The puff pastry tart shell made making this a breeze!

We have several good beet recipes but I wanted to try something new. I had picked up some golden beets at our local farmer’s market with the idea of mixing the two together. When I found Golden and Crimson Beet Salad with Oranges, Fennel, and Feta I knew it was meant to be tried! The flavors were fresh and all the ingredients worked perfectly together. The feta cheese added just the right amount of saltiness to the citrus. The beets, especially the red ones from the CSA, were wonderfully sweet and oh so good! Yum!

We used to eat beets only occasionally, but they are fast becoming one of my favorite vegetables when in season. If you think you don’t really like them, try tossing them with some olive oil, kosher salt and pepper, then roast them in the oven (400 F; cover the pan with foil) until they are just tender. When cool, the skins will slip right off. I dare you—go ahead and try them!

Update: When I picked up our distribution for this week (nope, not telling you yet; next week!) I told Pedro about the “freckly” lettuce and how good it was and that also I had thought it had dirt clinging to its leaves. He told me that strangely enough the lettuce is called Freckled Amish Bibb!

Beergaritas poolside.

I just have to share this trick with you! I learned about it over on Mary’s blog.

First you need strawberries! These are from the Warwick farmer’s market and are really small berries so cutting the stems off would really cut into (so to speak) the meat of the berry quite a bit.

Take a straw and poke it into the bottom of the berry.

Push up until you’ve detached the leafy stem. It should pop right out.

You end up with beautifully cored, stemless berries!

This worked like a charm for these small berries. It cut the prep work down considerably. For big berries you will probably have to give an extra poke or two.

I was making a Strawberry-Rhubarb tart with them, and funnily enough looking back into my blog archives from last year I made the same tart on nearly the exact same day! How strange is that? And again with fresh strawberries and rhubarb from the Warwick farmer’s market! I won’t bore you again with the recipe. If you want it you can follow the link to last year’s post.

Now go and eat some tasty strawberries and use this trick!

Oh. my. goodness. And I do mean goodness. I don’t think we’ve ever tasted anything quite as good as these Key Lime Bars.
Quick! Follow the link, get the recipe, run (don’t walk) to the grocery for the ingredients, make them, eat them.

Be warned—they are extremely addictive.

Such sweet joy.

I took this photo yesterday afternoon during yet another thunderstorm with heavy rain. I liked the reflection of my dining room light projected into the darkness outside.

Things have been strange this week. Lots of passings. Poor Farrah. She had the bad luck to die on the same day as Michael Jackson. Her death was totally over shadowed by that dark man. And by dark I am not referring to his color but to what a tortured soul he was. He was brilliant once upon a time. Maybe too much so. Everybody remembers what they were doing in life when Thriller came out. We were living in Germany at the time and whenever I hear songs from that album it takes me back there. Good times. Good memories. Where were you?

It was a strange day yesterday with a mix of clouds, sun, and of course, rain. Only two days this month have not registered any kind of precipitation at all. It’s been one of the wettest Junes on record. We have lots of mushrooms popping up in the yard and I even picked some fresh puffballs to contemplate eating. But, we aren’t completely sure of that even though we know they are edible. They smell wonderful and when cut in half have a creamy looking texture to them. Still thinking.

I mowed around this one the other day so I could take a photo of it. Not eating this one, but I think it’s pretty awesome!

The pool is warming up. Finally! The night before last we took our first skinny-dip. It was heaven. The pool temperature was up to 76 degrees. Still a little chilly but it felt great. We hope to get in some pool time over the weekend in-between the predicted afternoon thunderstorms. Hopefully some grilling can take place on the deck too. We still need to plan out our menus. I don’t want to get too carried away with planning because we are going to the Warwick farmer’s market tomorrow and will hopefully find some nice fresh peas. We did get peas from our CSA but they are too little to actually shell and must be eaten like snap peas.

We have used up everything in our produce box except for the peas. The romaine lettuce went into a wonderful Caesar salad. The recipe can be found here. The dressing was awesome and the homemade croutons are a definite must-do. I forgot to take a photo ... oops. We added leftover chicken for protein. (Leftover chicken from oven “fried” chicken the previous night.) We’ll be making this recipe again!

Last night we used the bunch of spinach in a delicious Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing. Just click for the recipe. This recipe we saw on Good Eats on the Food Network (Alton Brown). And, I did remember to take a photo before devouring it.

The day lilies have started to bloom. I just love it when they are blooming and the dragonflies do too! I took these photos yesterday after a little rain shower.

I love how the stamens look like an orange forest; the anthers covered in pollen, just waiting.

I know this is a strange mix of topics for a blog post, but it’s just what is on my mind this morning. I could show you a photo of how I’m coming on my embroidery but I think I’ve finally run out of steam for today.