Ok, I just looked at the 10-day forecast and there’s no break in sight. The heat, it is here to stay. The stove, it is staying off as much as possible.

This week’s share:

-Lettuce
-Garlic
-Peas
-Summer squash
-Cucumbers
-2 cabbages (one was a swap for MORE cilantro)
-Eggs

We’ve been out of town or not eating at home a lot, again, so I’m playing catch-up with the mountains of greens in the fridge. Luckily the fresher your greens, the longer they last. Heh. I had two bunches of kale, one flat-leaf and one curly, and no desire to touch the stove, so I finally dug out a raw kale salad recipe I saw over at The Kitchn a million years ago and off I went.

The recipe was for one bunch of kale but it was more than enough dressing for two. After cutting out the stalks, roll up the leaves and cut them into thin ribbons.

Add a bunch of pecorino (I’ve seen similar recipes that use parmesan or ricotta salata), then dress with, according to the recipe, the juice of two lemons and a half cup of olive oil. And pepper. Hold on salt.

Whoooooa. So puckery. I think I should have added more oil but I couldn’t bear to. This was so lemony it was as if I had gone crazy with salt, even though there wasn’t any except in the cheese. Next time I’ll start with one lemon and proceed cautiously, because in theory this is fantastic.

You let the salad sit at room temperature for at least an hour so the lemon softens the kale up a bit. Toasted walnuts would have been a great addition.

We ate it for dinner with toast. I ate leftovers with toast. And then I made egg salad and put the last bit on top. I highly recommend that last idea.

Another thing I highly recommend: Corn Chex. I’d forgotten how much I like them until eating them at Ben’s mom’s house this weekend. I am not a cereal person but pregnancy changes you.

I’ve also been brewing iced coffee using my dad’s method, which is definitely worth trying if you have a Bialetti pot.

And I’ve been hiding out in the living room, where we put in the big air conditioner. It’s a mess because I have my work stuff scattered around, along with things I’m reviewing for my Fit Pregnancy blog. Poor neatnik Ben hasn’t cracked yet, but I’m guessing it will happen soon. Maybe not, though: We’re going to Squam this weekend! Nothing could be better.

Sometimes all I really want is a giant bowl of greens. Garlicky kale is my favorite, or maybe chard, but spinach will do, too. (Not the baby stuff, that goes mushy too fast. Save it for salads.) But this dinner was really inspired by the divine confluence of the arrival of a care package from my mom, containing a pair of “Poach Pods,” and the simultaneous arrival of an early egg share from the farm. Fresh gorgeous eggs! I silicone helmet that is supposed to make poaching eggs foolproof! Clearly I needed to find something to top with poached eggs.

Spinach. Wilted spinach salad with bacon dressing. Maybe some cherry tomatoes. Toast. This was an easy plan! Of course, I ended up making more of a sauté than a wilted spinach salad, but who cares? We were happy.

Once I had cooked the bacon and softened the red onion, I added in red wine vinegar, a pinch of brown sugar, and a forkful of dijon mustard, and stirred it together with the rendered bacon fat to make a dressing/sauce.

I threw in the tomatoes, which I’d quartered, and cooked them a little bit. (This was a mistake; should have added them at the same time as the spinach.) Then in went half of the very vigorous and enthusiastic spinach. Once there was room, I added the other half.

I cooked that on low heat until it was wilted.

Meanwhile, the Poach Pods!! Wonderful for adorning grapefruits and salt cellars; also great for poaching eggs!

And let’s discuss those eggs. Oh my GOD. I have missed the farm eggs so much over the winter. No matter what fancy organic natural free range heaven-sent eggs I bought from Whole Foods, the yolks were pale and the whites were runny after six months of eggs from the farm. But back to the pods. You oil them (to prevent the eggs “sticking like glue,” according to my mom), break an egg in each, and then set them afloat in an inch and a half of simmering water. Cover the pan, wait four to six minutes, and voila! Poached eggs!

I had a surprise when I cracked open the two huge eggs I’d chosen from the carton: they BOTH had double yolks!

Off to sea:

Finished, if slightly overcooked (my fault, I panicked because of the double yolks):

You scoop the eggs out with a spoon, and they plop onto whatever you’re serving them with in perfect little domes.

The eggs were delicious, despite not being quite runny. Light and creamy and fluffy. Ben claims he hates eggs, but the farm ones don’t seem to count. They “don’t taste eggy,” he says. He’s right, they taste like heaven. I have used 8 of the dozen since Thursday, pacing myself AND going out of town for the weekend. Just look at the color of those yolks and tell me you aren’t dying to get your hands on some!

I could have sworn I wrote this up, but apparently not. Back at the beginning of the winter share distribution I got a truck load of extra-awesome vegetables, including purple potatoes and cauliflower and a stalk of brussels sprouts. I combined all three in a dinner designed purely for my own amusement, because seriously?

How fun are those?

I took some beauty shots before getting down to the cooking:

As cool as the stalk of sprouts is, it does leave you with a slight problem:

Yes, that is the top (huge) sprout next to the one from the bottom of the stalk. Since the sizes were so wildly uneven, I decided to make Greta’s shaved oven-roasted sprouts. The cuisinart makes this WAY easier; use the blade that looks like this and attaches to that stalk thing to keep it at the top of the bowl:

12 seconds later this:

Became this:

I cut the cauliflower into florets to roast (at 400 or 425) alongside the shaved brussels sprouts, and tossed each with oil, salt and pepper.

Meanwhile I boiled the potatoes and tossed them (while hot) with a butter/vinegar/mustard dressing.

A few slices of grilled steak for protein and voila!

The leftovers were excellent for lunch the next day, and in daylight the colors were even crazier:

[FYI, purple potatoes and cauliflower taste essentially the same as normal potatoes and cauliflower, but they look purple. So: Worth it.]
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I’m scrambling to pack for a lengthy round of holiday visits. Looking forward to NYC and to the usual cooking orgy back home in Oregon. I hope everyone has a lovely holiday season!

Yesterday I picked up my first winter share from Stone Soup–two bags full of treats:

Let’s zoom in a bit, since that is a LOT of stuff.

Let’s see, I’m pretty sure it is:
-1 enormous white cabbage
-8 oz. salad greens
-2 rutabagas
-2 heads garlic
-1 head *purple* cauliflower (there were white, cheddar, and romanesco varieties, too!)
-1 stalk of brussels sprouts, OMG I am in love
-2 delicata squashes
-1.5 lbs. daikon radish
-2 bulbs celeriac, yippee!
-2 lbs. onions
-1 bunch of gorgeous little white turnips, with greens
-2 lbs. sweet potatoes
-1 bunch cavolo nero

So exciting. Let’s zoom in even closer on some of my favorites.

I know I’ve said it before, but vegetables just amaze me.

I am alone for a couple nights, so I indulged in a super-simple dinner, even though I knew I should be eating up those perishable greens and saving the sturdy root vegetables for later in the winter.

Dinner for One: Mashed rutabaga and toast

Peel and cut up the rutabaga (preferably not an enormous one):

Boil in salted water until nice and tender.

Mash with butter, salt and pepper. (I have recommended it in the past, but it’s worth repeating: I love my Oxo potato masher, with the handle on top. It’s easy to get enough pressure behind it, and the way it’s designed lets you mash things right in the pot and get to the corners, etc.) Devour with buttery sourdough toast.

I considered frying an egg, but decided to skip it and make popcorn for dessert, instead. I ate the whole bowl while watching CSI reruns and feeling less sorry for myself than I usually do when I am on my own for a few days!

BTW, just in case you’re interested, here’s a slide show of the vegetables from the summer share, from June through October, plus the winter share. If you’re in the Boston area and you’re interested in a great CSA, get on Stone Soup’s mailing list now so you can try to get in on the 2010 action!

Here’s an easy one to try out when you’re feeling autumnal! When we worked at the farm a few weeks ago, Jarrett gave me a couple pounds of shallots, including some that were “seconds” missing too much skin to keep well and get distributed. I needed to use the seconds up sooner rather than later, and I also had a handful of little cipollini onions in the pantry, so I decided to try roasting them up with a couple delicata squash from the farm.

The joy of delicata (aside from the delicious, not-too-sweet flavor and great texture) is that you can eat the skin, which is thin and gets tender once it’s cooked. I cut two in half, seeded them, and then sliced them into little half moons to roast.

When I was scooping out the seeds I found THE weirdest thing: One seed had somehow SPROUTED inside the squash!! Crazy.

I peeled the skin (and sometimes the outer layer) off the cipollini, and peeled and halved the shallots.

Olive oil, salt, pepper.
(Meanwhile the oven was preheating to 375 or so.)

Ben was at a meeting and running late, so I hedged a bit on cooking–everything stayed in the oven a bit too long, but you probably need 45 minutes to an hour to get the onions really caramelized and delicious. After half an hour or so, I drizzled on some inexpensive balsamic vinegar, as an experiment. Tossed everything around and then put it back in the oven to finish cooking.

I made israeli couscous and dressed that with olive oil and more of the vinegar, and grilled sausages for a bit of protein. Great combo–sweet squash and onions, all with different textures, and a different sweetness/slight tang from the balsamic.

My really genius move was saving a handful of squash and shallots for pizza topping later in the week! It made an amazing white pie with fresh local ricotta and mozzarella.