Drowning in produce. Specifically, melon. Send help.

Summer CSA is my favorite by far, but this week has been quite the challenge. Let's set the stage here. Normally I split my share with my friend E (and indirectly with her boyfriend J), while my roommate K8 splits her share with her friend Nick. Well, K8 and Nick are both out of town, so E and I have their share too. This alone is problematic as I have a hard time getting through my half-share if I don't plan and make some effort.

To make this somewhat more frustrating, we've been getting an usually large quantity of melons lately. It's pretty normal to get one melon per share each week over the summer. This is about the perfect amount for me. Melon's ok, but it's definitely not my favorite fruit by a long shot, so half a melon is about what I can go through before it goes bad and before we get more without being crabby. Well, apparently melon does really well in this climate (i.e. extremely hot with almost no rain), so the farm planted melon as their "back up" crop this year. And it so happens that the corn and cucumber crops haven't been so hot this year (sad face!), so we've been getting the "back up" melon in addition to what we'd normally get. So that's 4 melons for just me and E (well and Joe)! I've been eating melon with almost every breakfast and lunch since Wednesday, and am currently snacking on a melon and strawberry smoothie. If we get another 4 melons next week (K8 and Nick will still be out of town) I'm going to have to puree and freeze it for future smoothies. I don't know what else to do with it.

Aside from absurd quantities of melon, we got okra, tomatoes, tomatillos, summer squash, beets, and goat cheese (which is technically an extra CSA purchase, not included in the produce share). The beets got traded for more okra, as I despise beets (Unfortunately K8 LOVES them, while I think the smell is revolting. Fortunately K8 is an awesome roommate, and puts up with my insanity, and eats her beets first and at the opposite end of the sofa from me.) and we both utterly adore okra.

Thursday night we fried okra and made pizza. The pizza had chopped tomatoes in the homemade sauce (go us! making progress using up odds and ends in my pantry/freezer!), and was topped with mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, sliced zucchini, onions, and goat cheese. While fried isn't exactly the healthiest means of preparing okra, I'd be inclined to argue that it is the most delicious...

Before and after baking below. The rest of this herb-crusted goat cheese got put in the freezer so we can make this particular concoction again. Goat cheese pizza was totally my favorite pizza when I studied abroad in France. I didn't realize I'd missed it. :)

Friday night I had popcorn for dinner (much to J's dismay and horror) as we went to see Despicable Me (It was good, not awesome, and unlike some of the other recent animated movies released in 3-D, I wouldn't say this one was worth it.), but Saturday night we cooked up almost everything else.

The 2 1/2 pounds of tomatillos became green sauce. Delicious green sauce that went on enchiladas. We made this recipe last summer when we had tomatillos, and E and I both loved it, so we went with the same recipe. Just a warning that if you're going to make this, be super careful when adding peppers. We used jalapenos rather than serranos (jalapenos are supposed to be less spicy), and while we prepared nearly as many jalapenos as the recipe called for, it was more than spicy enough with only perhaps a third of what the sauce was meant to have! I know we're wimpy white girls, but I prefer to be able to taste and enjoy my food. Anyways, a warning that there can be a VERY wide range in pepper to pepper spiciness! We had sauteed summer squash and onions on the side.


We also made a zucchini tarte to save for later from a recipe that I found a few years ago, where I don't remember. I really like this dish, it's an excuse to use my tarte pan (which I love) and it uses up a TON of zucchini (bonus!). The crust is pretty much a savory pie crust - there's a holy ton of thyme in it. I've made this on a cookie sheet before, back in the dark days before I had a tarte pan. I love my tarte pan for 3 reasons: 1. It's cool. 2. It gives you cool ripply edges. 3. The bottom is a separate piece, so it's super easy to remove the edge of the pan, and slide your tarte off the bottom, either on to a pretty serving dish, or in our case, on to a cutting board so you can can cut it without ruining whatever you baked it on.


Here's the recipe:

Swiss Cheese Zucchini Tart

Pastry:
1 1/2 c flour
6 tsp fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
8 tbsp chilled butter
2-4 tbsp ice water

Filling:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 c sliced onions
3 c zucchini, cut in fine julienne
1 1/2 tbsp fresh basil or 1 1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp thyme
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt + pepper to taste
1 c grated swiss cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Blend flour, thyme, salt, pepper in food processor. Using on/off turns, cut in butter until pea size pieces form. With machine running add enough water by tablespoonfuls to form moist clumps. Gather dough into ball, flatten into disc. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill 1 hour or until firm.

Heat oil over medium heat on stovetop. Add butter. Once butter has melted add zucchini and onions. Cook until the onions are translucent and the juice from the zucchini has nearly evaporated, 5-8 minutes. Add basil, thyme, and garlic - stir 2 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

On a floured surface, roll dough into about 12" circle. Place in 10-12" tart pan. If you don't have a big enough pan, place on cookie sheet w/ parchment paper under it. Crimp the edges and prick the bottom with a fork about 20 times. Bake until light golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and reduce temp to 350 degrees.

Sprinkle cheese over the pastry evenly. Top with zucchini mixture. Spread evenly. Bake until well heated & cheese has melted, ~15 minutes. Garnish with fresh basil or thyme. Serves 6.

I made a black bean salad with almost all of my remaining tomatoes (just threw together a can of black beans, frozen corn, a chopped green bell pepper, and chopped tomatoes). And with that we have prepared all of the piles, and piles of produce!! Now we'll see if I actually eat this much before we get more Wednesday night... I think I might be trying to pawn some off this off on my roommate (Jen, the only one of three in town at the moment)...