2013 CSA Week 16

From our farm to your table this week…

Item	How to Store it	How long will it last?
Basil	DO NOT WASH; store in an UNCLOSED CONTAINER in fridge OR snip the bottom of the stalks & immerse in water as you would with fresh cut flowers	1-2 weeks
Green Beans	unwashed in fridge	3-4 days
Melon	room temperature	1 week
Spaghetti squash	room temperature	2-4 weeks
Sweet corn – non-organic	shucked (my preference) or with husks on in the coldest part of your fridge (usually the bottom vegetable crisper)	Enjoy as soon as possible – fresh corn is much sweeter when fresh than when stored
Tomatoes   Yellow squash or zucchini	at room temp   unwashed in fridge	~1 week   ~1-2 weeks

 

Tips for storing and enjoying the produce in your weekly share

 

You have many summer favorites once again: green beans, melons, corn, tomatoes and yellow squash or zucchini.  You also have one summer favorite that you haven’t seen in a while – fresh basil, along with a winter squash, so I’ll share a few tips for those items this week.

 

Basil

Fresh basil is real a treat to savor now before the first frost (probably just over 1 month away) puts the basil plants to rest until next summer.  If your tastes have already shifted to fall flavors, you can always dry the basil and save the dried leaves for winter soups, stews, and pasta dishes.  Here’s a link to an old post on our blog about drying and storing basil: Storing Basil.

 

Spaghetti Squash

Just this week I realized that we sent your first spaghetti squash of the season a couple weeks ago without any recipes for this new item!  Ooops!  The good news is there are LOTS of great recipes out there and you probably already found some.  …but just in case, I’ll direct you to a few good resources for spaghetti squash.  Over the years I’ve learned that there seem to be two broad categories of recipes for spaghetti squash: the “make it like spaghetti” versions and “this is NOT spaghetti” varieties.  I enjoy both approaches.  One of my favorite recipe websites, the Tasty Kitchen, has a great list of recipes for this veggie so first I’ll direct you to that list HERE, and then I’d like to point out three specific recipes from the list.

Creamy, cheesy, Spaghetti Squash Gratin gets great reviews and looks like an excellent option.  Another recipe, Creamy Spaghetti Squash with Fresh Tomato Sauce is a more traditional pasta-like preparation and it’s a great way to use the fresh tomatoes and basil in your share for the week, just replace the grape tomatoes in the recipe with the regular ones in your share.  You could also easily add finely diced yellow squash if you want to add one more veggie to this dish. 

Lastly, because it’s fun to make dishes that have a surprise vegetable tucked inside, I’ll direct you to a recipe for pancakes made with spaghetti squash!  If you’re feeling adventurous, or if you don’t particularly like spaghetti squash, try Spaghetti Squash Pancakes.  It will be fun and you’ll hardly even know the spaghetti squash is in there!  …but you’ll feel so healthy!