Menu a la Week: 8/17/08 - 8/22/08

Let's just skip what happened the last few days.Thursday, Friday, Saturday...they came and went and the only thing we made in the kitchen was coffee. But what is summer for anyway, if not to enjoy with friends, eating out, and enjoying oneself in general--rotting vegetables be damned!

Part of this weekend's revelry was spent in the Highlands of New Jersey and lower Hudson Valley, New York. If you're ever in Warwick, New York, visit the Warwick Valley Winery for some great cafe-type food at Pane Cafe (I still haven't learned how to make accents aigu in Blogger, so just pretend that the e's at the end of both Pane and Cafe have accents. Thanks). The chef at the winery's cafe attended the Culinary Institute of America (I saw her bakery course certificates hanging on the wall).

My friend and I ordered salads with grilled chicken; both were excellent. Mine was topped with apples, pears, and grapes from the winery's orchards. "Bob" had a pizza that he deemed just "okay", which is understandable; as natives of New Jersey's workingclass town's and cities, we know from good pizza. And, yeah, New Jersey has good pizza. Brooklyn is not the only place Earth with pizza--or Italians, for that matter. My friend's fiance had a nice rib-eye sandwich. While you're there, try the large selection of wines, ciders, and liquers ($5 for 6 samples).

So, I still must answer the question: What will we eat this week? We got a lot of new produce from the CSA plus we had some leftover veg from the week before. This is what we have to work with:

2 squash
1 large bunch of basil
2 peppers +3 peppers from last week
4 ears of corn
1 tomato
1 fennel
1 bunch of carrots
2 cucumbers +2 cukes that I missed last week
1 lb beans

Add to that:
2 kohlrabi from last week
1/4 head of red leaf from last week
2 beets overlooked from last week
1 head of cabbage from last week
6 potatoes from last week

The best I could come up with is this:

Menu 8/17/08 - 8/22/08
Sunday August 17, 2008
Farmer’s Market Salad with Spiced Goat Cheese Rounds

Monday August 18, 2008
Zucchini Basil Soup
Kohlrabi and carrots

Tuesday August 19, 2008
Cabbage, fresh fennel, and carrot slaw (add peppers as suggested by one reviewer)
Corn on the cob with lime butter

Wednesday August 20, 2008
Stir fry peppers, green beans, ginger, scallions, and whatever else over brown rice
Beet and carrot salad

Thursday August 21, 2008
Kohlrabi saute

Friday August 22, 2008
What's left over? Corn? Peppers?

Snacks:
Refrigerator pickles

Menu a la Week: 8/10/08 - 8/15/08

So many vegetables to eat through, so little time This coming week we're reluctant vegetarians again (largely because we have leftover veg from last week). We'll have to bring salads to work to ensure that we get through the lettuce. If we don't get to the latest batch of green beans by Thursday, I may either blanch and freeze them (I think that's the best way to preserve them) or maybe make a soup. I plan to make refrigerator pickles out of the two small cucumbers we have.

After a bunch of evening plans derailed last week's menu, we have dinner plans for tonight too. So the menu really doesn't start until tomorrow night.

Menu 8/10/08 - 8/15/08
Sunday August 11, 2008
Dinner with the folks

Monday August 12, 2008
Green beans with garlic with the neverending summer squash side dish

Tuesday August 13, 2008
Stir fry cabbage with green peppers and a salad on the side

Wednesday August 14, 2008
Carrot and beet salad with kohlrabi saute
(there's also some nice kohlrabi recipes here, especially one for a traditional kohlrabi in bechamel sauce with nutmeg)

Thursday August 15, 2008
Kohlrabi and carrots and whatever else happens to be laying around