Entirely Adequate

Pictured above is the haul from my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) delivery from Dennison’s Family Farm in Elora, Tennessee. Even after splitting it with a friend (save for the strawberries, which were way too ripe to last the weekend), it’s quite a collection of freshness.

Enlisting in a CSA is a little like buying a share in a farm, only you don’t have to keep the deer out of the cornfield or harvest anything (although I must point out that digging up potatoes may be the dirtiest fun you’ll ever have before dark). Every Friday for 10 weeks, I get to pick up a big box of just-picked produce (whatever is ripe), split the goods, and head home for what I have dubbed Iron Chef Huntsville.

I figure it’ll be a weekly summer adventure. Before the season is over, we’ll have, among many other things, watermelon, tomatoes, squash, corn, potatoes, beans, peas, and something called a Cape gooseberry.

Last weekend, we more or less lived off of fresh greens (Swiss chard and Yukina savoy), cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

Also, for the first time ever, I had to cook a green tomato. My grandparents had a small farm, so growing up I had access to what seemed like an unlimited supply of tomatoes. Red, ripe, juicy, delicious tomatoes. The whole fried green tomato thing never made any sense to me. Who in their right mind would pluck a tomato from the vine before it ripened? Who would batter and fry this unripened fruit instead of waiting to make it the key ingredient in a BLT?

My reaction upon tasting fried green tomatoes for the first time a few years ago: meh. I would have rather waited for a sandwich.

I’ve never been a fan of frying things, despite being an occasional fan OF fried things. So I found a reasonably professional-looking recipe for baked green tomatoes, scaled it down and sliced and coated my way to an OK side dish.

Meh. I still would have rather waited for a sandwich.

The strawberries were lagniappe, as the folks running the farm were under the impression that there would be no more strawberries after mid-June. These bonus berries were far too delicate to hang on until Monday, when I delivered half the goods to my fellow shareholder (she got the cabbage and eight-ball squash – not exactly evensies,  but we’ll work it out). These went into a batch of strawberry ice cream, a concoction that turned out to be so rich and delicious that it actually saved my oft-criticized ice cream maker from the Goodwill box.

If you have any interest in making ice cream, get Ben & Jerry’s recipe book. Just using the one recipe has convinced me to toss the other two ice cream recipe collections I have and devote my empty calorie expenditures to homemade ice cream, at least for the summer. The tasty, tasty summer.

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