Week 17; Sept. 24, 2008

Sorry for the delayed posting…
On this wet weekend, you might want to make a soup with some of your veggies. We nursed ourselves through our first colds for the season (that is, the school season) with a vegetable soup made from chicken broth, green beans, spinach (kale would work too), potatoes, leeks, chopped tomatoes and basil. See below for some other cooking suggestions.

Here’s what was in this week’s share:
1 pound beans—green or yellow wax
½ pound cooking spinach
1 acorn squash
1/2 pound mild mesclun mix
bunch of leeks
1 bok choy
1 bunch of red Russian kale
red potatoes
garlic
red onion

Bok choy- well suited to stir-frying; slice leaves into ½-inch strips and thicker, wider portion towards bottom of leaves into thinner strips, about ¼-inch wide, so that it cooks at the same rate as the leafy portion

Acorn squash- not a squash well-suited to peeling; best roasted
Here’s how:
Preheat oven to 400° F and line a roasting pan or rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or foil
Slice a thin slice off both ends and then slice in half perpendicular to the ribs
Scrape out seeds
Rub cut sides and hollowed center with butter
Season with salt
Roast “bowl” side facing up until very tender when pierced with a fork, about 1 to 1 ½ hours

Kale- good braised or sautéed or chopped up in an early fall vegetable soup (see above); kale goes well with any cured meat—bacon, pancetta, ham—and garlic