Week 9

varied tomatoes, kale, green and yellow beans, head of red leaf lettuce, three different cucumbers, two green peppers, small bag of tatsoi, head of butter lettuce


Produce plans:

• Yay it's bean season! I love fresh picked beans. The green and yellow beans will get dived up between green beans and tofu w/nuoc cham (one of my favorite hot weather salads) and a jar of refrigerator pickle dilly beans which are a terrific accompaniment for too-damn-hot-to-cook nights with a plate of cheese, salami, crackers and a cold beer (Fat Tire Amber from New Belgium is my go-to beer this summer.)
• The two lettuces, tomatoes and one cucumber will go into a massive chicken Greek salad. I still have the mini beets from last week to add to this. (I ended up adding the beet greens to a goat cheese pasta sauce and they were excellent).
• The cucumbers will be slotted into happy hour consumption: I'm completely hooked on making Pimm's cups during these hot days of summer (recipe below) and a good chunk of cucumber goes in each drink. The rest will be used for my favorite summer beer snack.
• Brian has claimed the green peppers for use in some sort of jambalaya-ish combination with rice, andouille sausage, onion and whatever else he feels inspired to throw in. 
• The kale is enough for another kale Caesar salad. This time I'll add some cooked red quinoa and hard cooked egg to it to make it more substantial so it can stand on its own for lunch.
• The tatsoi will probably get chucked into some end-of-the-week, use-up-stuff-in-the-fridge stir-fry which is an undignified end for such nice organic produce. Or maybe I'll eat it for lunch mid-week with some tofu, scallions and kimchi. 

Pimm's Cup

makes 2 drinks

1 bottle Reed's extra strong ginger beer

Pimm's No 1

1/2 a lemon, cut in two pieces

1/2 a lime, cut in two pieces

2 inches of cucumber (preferably with skin on--scrub off the wax if it isn't an organic, uncoated cuke), cut in four pieces

ice

In the bottom of each of two pint glasses put one piece of lemon, one piece of lime and two pieces of cucumber. Take a muddler (or in my case, the handle-end of a wooden spoon) and mash the hell out of them to release the juice from the citrus and create delicious little bits of cucumber to float around in the finished drinks. Put some ice in the glass, add about 1/4 of the ginger beer to each glass, then add the Pimm's to taste (I put in about 2 oz--a good glug), stir it up with your wooden spoon handle, then top with the rest of the ginger beer and stir again. Go find a chair on a deck with a breeze and enjoy.