Quite Enough of a Good Thing

For 14 weeks every spring I pick up way too many vegetables for any one person from my local farmer at Ambrose Farm.  It's wonderful.  I have learned to do formerly unthinkable things with greens of all kinds and even with turnips.


I can make soups like nobody's business.  I put them in plastic containers and freeze them, and I have magnificent soups all year round.


It's week 12, and this is what I brought home:

I have a system.  Each week I make a list of all my veggies, adding to it anything left from the prior week, so I don't have any beautiful fresh veggies getting moldy in the fridge.  Too good to waste.

This week my list looked like this:

tomatoes

lettuce

scallions

jalapenos - 2

3 yellow squash

cukes - 1 1/2

green beans

corn

2 zucchini

potatoes

eggplant

carrots

beets

turnips

cilantro

melon

figs

blueberries

To be honest, and I am tickled to admit, the figs and zucchini came from my very own yard.  As well as a couple of tomatoes -- they don't look that good, but I keep trying.  And the cherry tomatoes are fine this year.

Anyway, the next step is to sketch in what I plan on doing with all the goodies.  Creamy beet soup and this amazing cilantro soup I just discovered.  Cream of vegetable soup.  A zucchini and scallion spread.  Cuke-bean soup and green beans with tomatoes and mozzarella.  Finally finished the turnips and carrots with a cream of vegetable soup that calls for blending lots of root vegetables right in with rice.

I have been trying to just enjoy the tomatoes all on their own, popping a cherry tomato in my mouth when I walk by, a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich, and I even broke down and cooked up a BLT.  But I couldn't let the season go by without some kind of tomato pie, and diet or not (not) it was worth it.

I don't ever have enough corn to share with any recipe, so I just have an ear a night for a couple of nights.  The first night when it's most fresh it tastes wonderful without salt or butter, but I have been giving in on nights two and three; how often do you get to eat a totally fresh ear of corn?

I stir fried the bok choy last night, and I am going to cook up a cilantro tomato squash thingy tomorrow.

The figs, after I have eaten all I want, get tossed in a bag and put in the freezer.  As did most of the blueberries, leaving more than enough to toss on my cereal in the morning.

That leaves me with an eggplant.  And then Wednesday I go to the farm and do it all over again.

I truly love it.  But about this time in the season, I have to keep reminding myself that it will be over soon, and soon I will be missing it.

Because after I have made enough for a meal, the rest goes in the freezer.  And so the problem is this: