Fall Arrives

The leaves change to yellow, gold, and crimson, fall and swirl in the wind. Gloves and sweats are pulled out for the morning walk. The corn and beans are in mid-harvest. Winter squash and root vegetables show up in our CSA share, and the crowds at the Farmer’s Market thin. Piles of pumpkins and shocks of corn guard the grocery entrance. Windows and doors are closed, and the furnace comes on overnight. There’s a frost advisory for tomorrow morning. Whatever remains in the garden must be harvested or given up for the season. The fish in the pond cling to the depth, near as they can be to whatever warmth in the earth remains. We pull the quilt up from the end of the bed, firmly over our shoulders.

Zucchini Rising

Last year I foolishly planted two zucchini plants in our vegetable garden. The result was a truckload of produce that try as we might — cooking, freezing, giving away — we were defeated, and by September that quadrant of the garden was littered with the bloated bodies of dark green fruit, vaguely echoing the Matthew Brady photographs of Gettysburg. Callously, I did not bury the dead, but rather allowed them to rot where they fell.

This year we subscribed to a CSA, and decided to cut back our garden by more than half, to only a few heirloom tomato plants, some pepper plants, and a couple of basil plants, things we didn’t think we’d get from the CSA (though we have). But sometime in May, as we admired our crop of weeds in the untilled vestige of the vegetable garden, we spotted a plant that looked from its leaves to be a lot like a zucchini plant. But I’d never seen a volunteer zucchini, and thought it nothing more than a look-alike weed. And in the following month, after the yellow flowers had come and gone without bearing any fruit, we assumed it was, indeed, only a weed, though we allowed it to flourish, as in its bright green and yellow plumage was a standout in the weed-bed.

Then just this last week, rummaging under the faux-zucchini leaves for red raspberries (which had also taken up residence in the deserted garden) we discovered several zucchinis, hiding beneath the green canopy, one more than ripe — yellow, a foot-plus long, four inches across — but three that were of picking size (four to six inches) and several that should be ready for harvest in the next week or two.

I’m not sure what to make of this literal windfall (groundfall?). One thing, I’ve learned that there can be volunteer zucchini. What I’m not sure of is why the first set of flowers didn’t produce any fruit, but it’s now showing up late in the season. My guess is that our weird weather this summer (cool and wet early, warm and dry recently) kept the insects from pollinating the early flowers. Or something else. What do I know? But the gift of volunteer vegetables is the reward of past effort, a second yield this year from last year’s sowing. Of course, we now face the problem of what to do with this extra produce we don’t need. At least some of it will be allowed to rot again over the winter to sink into the soil beneath the snow and maybe reappear next summer as an uninvited but still welcomed guest.

Weenie Panini

I’ve written elsewhere that one of the pleasures of having a CSA share this summer is deciding what to make for dinner from what’s available in this week’s harvest and whatever remains from the previous week. Last night, I began with the assumption that the main vegetable we’d have would be the sweet corn that came in yesterday’s box, steamed, and lathered with the roasted garlic herbed butter I’d made last week. But what main course? One possibility was to make the sweet corn the main course, accompanied by a mixed green salad with cucumber, carrot, and tomato. But I also found some frozen “gourmet hot dogs” (oxymoron?), the last remaining item from an Omaha Steaks order three months ago. But we’re not big hot dog fans, and there weren’t any hot dog buns either. But we did have some hamburger buns, so my first idea was to grill the hot dogs, split them, and serve them on the hamburger buns. However, that seemed a rather meager disguise for what would still be a hot dog. Then it struck me that I could make a “hot dog salad” panini, a perfect companion for the corn. Here’s the resulting recipe for my “Weenie Panini”:

INGREDIENTS

4 hot dogs (“gourmet” or otherwise)
1 chili pepper (to taste/heat; I used the skinny red pepper in this week’s box — cayenne?)
2 cloves garlic
¼+ c dill pickle relish (which I made from our cucs two weeks ago)
1+ T Dijon mustard
2+ T mayo
Salt and pepper
Bread (I used hamburger buns because that’s all I had)
Mozzarella cheese (fresh)
Arugula
Tomato

METHOD

(1) This may not be necessary (the hot dogs are already cooked), but I grilled the hot dogs on my panini grill for about 5 minutes.
(2) While the hot dogs cook, pulse to a dice the chili pepper and garlic (and pickles if not already a relish) in a food processor.
(3) Cut the hot dogs into pieces, add to processor, and pulse all to a fine dice.
(4) In a medium bowl, fold the mustard and mayo (and relish if need be) into the weenie dice. Salt and pepper to taste.
(5) Spread a desired amount of the weenie dice on the bottom half of a bun. Add a clump of arugula. Add a slice of tomato. Add a slice or two of mozzarella cheese. Top with upper half of bun.
(6) Cook in a panini press for about 5 minutes on medium.

The above is what I did, based on what I had available. And it turned out surprisingly good. The weenie salad is the center of the dish, and it could obviously be used as a spread in any kind of sandwich or crostini or whatever. It’s at least a good way of disguising hot dogs if that should be your wish.

CSA Week 13

We picked up our Week 13 (just over halfway through) CSA share at the farmer’s market this morning, and we’ve moved from the early-season’s greens, asparagus, and wintered-over root vegetables to the iconic produce of the summer: This week’s box was packed with arugula, sweet corn, Caribe potatoes, broccoli, summer squash, peppers, garlic, sierra blanca onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, and sungold cherry tomatoes. Our weekly challenge continues to be coming up with menus that use as much of the produce as we can, all of it being the ultimate goal, though of course we always have holdover from the previous week or two to incorporate. There have already been a few dishes cooked and frozen to be resurrected later this fall or winter, and this last week I put up a couple of jars of pickles. On the other hand I have twice had to cut up and put half a bunch of greens that had gone bad into the compost (though that has been a small fraction of our overall share). (An additional advantage we’ve found is that next year’s compost should be quite rich with all the extra trimmings going in.) Tonight’s menu: kabobs of meatballs (with onion and pesto), squash, peppers, and onion; rice with assorted vegetables and greens; and a caprese salad:

CSA

We had our first sweet corn of the season last night, and it was as wonderfully fresh and sweet and textured as ever. The corn has been available in farmers’ parking lot stands and the co-op and grocery stores for several weeks now, but we’ve not bought any because this year we have a share in a CSA (Consumer Supported Agriculture), Grinnell Heritage Farm, and for the past ten weeks have been picking up, first bags, then boxes of fresh-harvested produce at our farmer’s market. We assumed that corn would be showing up in our box soon. But when I saw this Wednesday in the CSA newsletter our share for the week — green beans, summer savory, cabbage, winterbor kale, summer squash, green top carrots, garlic, green onions, cucumbers, and two kinds of tomatoes — I decided to go ahead and buy some sweet corn at the co-op.

When I walked into the store, Steve, the produce manager, asked what I was looking for, and I said corn. He took me over to the bin with farmer Marvin’s corn and I related to him (or rather reminded him, as I’d talked with him about it before) that we had a share in a CSA and hadn’t had any corn yet. He said that Grinnell Heritage Farm was organic (he buys a lot of organic produce from them) and that you just can’t grow corn organically — too many buggy and slimy pests. That was reassuring to hear, both that Steve got produce from Grinnell Heritage Farm and that the reason for their not growing sweet corn was organic.

We’ve been pleased with our CSA share. We’ve had a bit (only a bit) of spent produce we’ve had to throw onto the compost pile, but we’ve thankfully been able to consume or freeze in various forms at least 95% of our share (that’s for two people). And it’s also meant we’ve been eating much more produce, in a variety of ways, as we should. But most positively, we’ve had to devise new and different menus each week, sometimes using vegetables unknown to us before now. It’s sometimes challenging, always rewarding.

But we will still be supplementing our CSA share with local sweet corn for the rest of the season. Organic or not, it still defines summer in Iowa.