Hi everyone, Jess here to bring you a recap of the 10th share box of the season! You may recall that as I was headed up to Maine on Sunday, I was missing my Monday share pickup and went for the “Sunday Opt-In”. My share box may be slightly different than what you’ve seen this week, but oh so delicious! This week I went up to Maine with my former CSA365 co-blogger Sarah and the rest of the Buck family for our annual vacation. It was great to see her and the fam again, and we got right back to our old ways by planning out our meals and taking turns with different dishes throughout the week. We kept the menus pretty simple, as these ingredients speak for themselves.
- butter & sugar corn
- Boiled and enjoyed with Amish Roll Butter
- Try Dawn’ DeMeo’s Skillet Cornbread from Cooks Illustrated or chop some into a salad like Beth L.
- Genovese basil
- Caprese Salad
- Carrot Top and Basil Pesto (frozen in cubes for the winter, and some enjoyed tossed with pasta)
- Springdell Summer Spaghetti Sauce
- slicing cucumbers
- Enjoyed as-is
- crookneck summer squash
- Boiled with zucchini squash
- zucchini squash
- Boiled with summer squash
- beefsteak tomatoes
- Caprese Salad
- Sliced on Springell cheeseburgers
- squished peaches
- Enjoyed as-is
- Tossed with lime juice and agave syrup
- Squished Peach Cobbler
- freshly dug field onions
- In storage bin for future use
- Springdell Summer Spaghetti Sauce
- yellow beans
- Blanched and enjoyed as-is
- salad cucumbers
- Sliced
- Cubed into cherry tomato salad
- kale
- Kale Pops
- Kale Caesar Salad
- Steamed with Collards and Garlic
- Green Frittata
- Collard greens
- Steamed with Kale and Garlic
- Green Frittata
Let’s take a quick tour through the week, visiting my home kitchen, the kitchen up in Maine, your kitchens, and even in Sarah’s kitchen out in Pennsylvania!
When presented with the first ripe beefsteak tomatoes of the season and a bunch of freshly cut basil, it’s kind of hard not to go with the Caprese salad. The Mozzarella House Ovoline and a savory drizzle of balsamic and olive oil really brings this one home.
Look at these Springdell patties with fresh cut cheddar! They are so incredibly juicy and delicious.
Our first meal of vacation included the succulent burgers, a jar of the season’s bread and butter pickles, farm stand lettuce, slices of tomatoes and cukes, Caprese salad and a pot of corn. 
Yes, this is vacation on a plate.
A second farm dinner included a poultry pot pie with homemade cranberry sauce, zucchini and summer squashes, a tomato and cuke salad (more on that in a minute) and another heaping helping of Caprese.
I had a check-in from fellow Springdellian Beth L. (hi, Beth!) who deviates from the traditional Caprese by cutting her tomatoes into large chunks, quartering the bocconcini, slivering the basil, and tossing the whole thing with emulsified balsamic and olive oil. Don’t forget the salt and pepper!
Beth L. also mentioned a simple salad of chunked up cukes and cherry tomatoes. I tried it with a honey mustard vinaigrette and the black krim cherries from my garden plot. Thanks for the great suggestions Beth!
This was a simple lo-fi snack from our trip out on the boat during the eclipse. I didn’t even slice the whole cucumber, but my littlest one took the entire big piece and munched it down as-is before I had the chance.
I didn’t take a picture of our blanched butter beans before they were devoured by the kids, but the kids had fun popping the beans out of the cooked pods and building them into little words and shapes. It wasn’t until my older guy said “Mommy take a picture of my bean smiley face” that I realized we had eaten them all and the smiley face was the only thing left of them.
I made an apple crisp while I was up North, but the top really didn’t cook very evenly in the camp oven, burnt in spots and near raw in others. We managed to squeak a couple of decent servings though! 
Since the campfire was going, we toasted oversized marshmallows and made apple crisp smores with white chocolate.
Do you recognize these plates? This photo is from Sarah’s house when she got back to Pennsylvania after our vacation! She had some peaches from her new CSA, and whipped up some Peach Shortbread just before vacation. Believe it or not, Sarah thawed this piece from the freezer for the photo, yes, shortbread freezes well! Try this peach shortbread recipe from Smitten Kitchen, fellow Springdellian Mandy C. tested it recently and approves! 
After vacation, my remaining squished peaches ended up in a Cobbler. The recipe is a for a southern style cobbler, made even better with northern Peaches!
It went great with a healthy scoop of Tully’s Vanilla Ice cream. This combo won’t win me any healthy awards, but I can live with that.
To make up for the succulent desserts, some steamed collards and kale are always a good bet.
I tossed the steamed greens in a frying pan with some butter and translucent onion, tossed in some beaten eggs and basil ribbons and cooked it on the stove and oven until set. This is what it looked like flipped onto a plate and sprinkled with grated Parmagiano-Reggiano.
Messy and green, just the way I like it.
Did anyone else make it to the customer appreciation weekend at Springdell? I picked up my first watermelon of the season, and despite the rough melon season, it was divine! If I had the patience I would have grilled it.
I also picked up some packages of ground sirloin, some of which ended up in this summer tomato sauce with basil, onion, and CSA garlic. What a great meal!
Basil and Carrot top pesto (supplemented from my garden plot) also made another simple dish. The unused pesto is in an ice cube tray in the freezer. Once frozen I’ll pop the cubes out into a freezer bag for later use. These are great in winter pantry dishes.
Here was my haul from the Community Garden today. I see some salsa and possibly some tomatillo salad in our future!
Photo by Dawn DeMeo
There was a Facebook buzz this week about fellow Springdellian Dawn DeMeo’s Skillet Cornbread (adapted from Cooks Illustrated). I wanted to put it out there as a wonderful alternative to the corn on the cob I’ve not yet tired of. Not sure what else to do with that corn? Try Beth L’s suggestion and chop it off the cob and into salads. Many more ideas here, and if you have one not listed, please let me know, I’m happy to add it to our Veggiescope CSA database!
I think that about does it for this week, I have more to share but let’s wait until tomorrow as this post is already pretty long. Thanks to Sarah for a great vacation and making a cameo appearance, we missed you! Thank you to all of the wonderful input, recipes, questions, and general appreciation of the blog, it really helps to keep me and it going! Thank you to our farmers from the wonderful Customer Appreciation weekend, without whom we’d shrivel, we appreciate you back! Thanks for reading everyone, and until tomorrow, sweet and savory dreams!