Week Eleven CSA and the Panic Hits

Last Thursday, I picked up week eleven of our CSA share, and while I am as pleased as punch, I’m also up to my eyeballs in veggies.

For real, it is veggie madness around here and completely out of control.

Our most recent share included two patty pan squash, green bell peppers, small cherry tomatoes, three big beefsteak tomatoes, green beans, red potatoes, shallots, six ears of corn and another watermelon.

And since my friends and coworkers are so kind and know how much I like to cook, they also gave me their green bell peppers from weeks past (I had five bell peppers on hand last Thursday) and some jalapeno peppers from their gardens. I don’t mean one or two hot peppers either; I mean like thirty fiery little wenches (dance ladies dance). That’s a hell of a lot of heat. In addition to the above, I just might also happen to have asparagus, carrots, a head of cauliflower, cucumber, hungarian sweet peppers, lettuce, and radishes on hand. And that’s just what’ in my fridge; don’t even get me started on the pantry, although it’s becoming harder and harder to swing the Lazy Susan (Giddy up; I’m making Ms. Susan work). Can you say “Holy Shit Ton of Food Batman,” especially since I’m only feeding two. Eek, anyone want to come over for dinner?

Every so often, my brain will get the best of me, and I’ll start to panic thinking about all the produce we have on hand, especially since I have no Fricken (with a capital F) idea how the Hubby and I are going to cook, much less eat it all before it spoils. Then I tell my brain to pipe down (with a few more expletives) and just take it one day at a time. Although I am concerned the veggies will band together and form a giant produce monster (equivalent to the State Puff Marshmallow Man from Ghost Busters) whose goal is to overtake me. Have no fear; I will not surrender. Unless they tempt me with sparkly things. If sparkly things are involved, I cannot be held accountable for my actions.

Since this past weekend was pretty much wide open and sparkly free, I tried my best to maximize my efforts. The goal was to use as many vegetables as possible in a single meal, so I set out to make Veggie Kabobs. It’s summertime, I haven’t grilled in a while and my kitchen is rife with vegetables.

One day I will learn to hold my camera straight. Today is not that day.

I chopped up my veggies (onions and peppers) and then parboiled some red skin potatoes and one of the patty pan squash for ten minutes, so when it came time to grill everything, they would cook evenly with everything else.

I made a simple garlic marinade, which I borrowed from the Food Network. God bless the internet…and unicorns because they are cool and do exist. And then I let it all marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Marinade:

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup lemon or lime juice
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Since I’m such a nice wife, I may have also marinated a chicken breast in a separate container for the Hubby’s kabobs. After a few hours of soaked up juicy loving, I maybe assembled our kabobs and threw them on the grill, or I might have gently set them down (semantics).

And then I possibly could have eaten both my kabobs, alongside my leftover saffron flavored couscous from dinner on Friday night.

And perhaps I put down a slice of cookie pie for dessert.

Odds are good, these things actually happened (in light of the photographic evidence) and also were not too shabby.

Finally, did I mention I am now a princess. Look, they even gave me a crown. I shall wear it while gallivanting on my unicorn (escapism is a common side effect of panicking).

How do you deal with an overabundance of veggies? What did you make this weekend? Do you believe in unicorns too?