Menu a la Week: 10/11/08 - 10/17/08

Today's dinner will be...nothing. We went to a surprise birthday party today (happy 4oth Glenn!) and ate our fill of burgers, fries, and cake.

Since we've been cooking like crazy and the freezer's full, it's time to empty out the backlog of dinners and make some room. The from-scratch cooking this week will be very limited. I noticed that the first six vegetables I listed from this week's CSA shipment (potatoes, celery, tomato, oregano, parsnips, and onions) suggested their very own soup! "Bob" will be making it on Monday or Tuesday.

Tomorrow I'm going to pick the last of the Roma tomatoes. There's a bunch of them and they're all green. With the frost coming and the sun not shining as long as it had, there's really no hope that they'll ever turn red, so I'll be using them in a recipe calling for green tomatoes. I'm leaning towards making a green tomato pie (the recipe I plan to use is from Everyday Citizen which is publishing a bunch of "end of the harvest" recipes). There are also recipes here: http://southernfood.about.com/od/greentomatoes/Green_Tomato_Recipes.htm

Menu 10/11/08 to 10/17/08
Saturday October 11, 2008
Birthday party food

Sunday October 12, 2008
Soup and salad

Monday October 13, 2008
Squash and potato torte

Tuesday October 14, 2008
Potato and parsnip soup and salad

Wednesday October 15, 2008
Stuffed peppers

Thursday October 16, 2008
Bob's summer squash?

Friday October 17, 2008
Pesto with pasta and salad

A Little Behind and a Big Ass...

That's how I find myself weeks after my trip to Russia and England, specifically: a little behind (on the blog) and a big ass (both figuratively, for cooking way too much last weekend, and literally, for eating too much too).

Though the blog has suffered for posts in the last few weeks, let me assure you, we’ve been picking up our produce from the CSA and cooking. Two weeks ago, "Bob" made a wonderful Kitchen Sink Soup out of everything and anything that looked like it was hanging around too long (including, homemade chicken stock from a carcasse in the freezer, carrots, onions, a can of beans, a can of diced tomatoes, a swiftly decomposing squash, some rigatoni, and some whole wheat spaghetti). Then, last Thursday (October 2) at the CSA, “Bob” took home quite a few things: carrots, radishes, escarole, butternut squash, melons (not ripe), tomatoes, romaine lettuce, some herbs (oregano and marjoram), a few small eggplants, some green peppers, and corn.

Because I was a little homesick for some home cooking, and a wee bit overambitious, we overdid it with our cooking for the weekend: stuffed peppers, lentil and turkey sausage soup with escarole, homemade butternut squash ravioli (with homemade semolina pasta), herbed crepes with tomato sauce, and eggplant caviar (from a Chocolate & Zucchini recipe). I still can’t believe I fit everything into the freezer by the time we finished on Sunday (I made a bit more room by donating our long-frozen, and none-too-popular spinach pie to Iz's dog Kiki).

I’ve also updated the “in season” list to the left. It’s like September never happened.

The Menu a la Week for October 2 through October 10 went something like this:

Menu 10/2/08 - 10/10/08
Saturday October 4, 2008
Kitchen Sink Soup

Sunday October 5, 2008
Eggplant caviar for lunch
Pasta patches leftover from ravioli making and selected butternut squash ravioli not suitable for freezing

Monday October 6, 2008
Greek-style stuffed peppers and tossed salad

Tuesday October 7, 2008
Lentil soup with Italian sausage and escarole and a tossed salad

Wednesday October 8, 2008
Herbed crepes with ricotta, green bell pepper, and spring tomato sauce and a tossed salad

Thursday October 9, 2008
Lentil soup with Italian sausage and escarole and a tossed salad

Friday October 10, 2008
Eggplant caviar (for snacks)
Lentil soup with Italian sausage and escarole and corn on the cob