Caprese Salad - A CSA Box Recipe

Caprese Salad

Tomatoes, sliced
Olive oil
Salt
Fresh mozarella cheese
Fresh basil leaves, chiffonade (about 10-15 leaves)
Balsamic glaze

Arrange tomato slices on a plate or platter.  Drizzle olive oil over the slices.  Lightly salt all the tomatoes.  Arrange the cheese pieces and basil leaves over the tomatoes.  Drizzle balsamic glaze over all.

This is a great way to use up the late summer tomato explosion, and it's quick and easy to make.   

My Fifth CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Box - What I Got

Here's this week's haul from Teter Organic Farm!

Slicing tomatoes, onions, assorted sweet peppers, carrots, cherry tomatoes (traded for an additional slicer), and (wait for it)...NEW POTATOES!

I am SO EXCITED for the potatoes!  I will probably do something wonderful with them tomorrow - maybe roasted...YUM.

I still have so many onions that I'm going to chop them all up and freeze them.  I use a lot of chopped onions when I cook, but right now, I'm not cooking much because it's hot outside, and raw onions and I don't see eye to eye most of the time.  So, they will be chopped up and put in cold storage.  Sounds like Mafia hit to me.

I also have an abundance of tomatoes from my CSA boxes, PLUS my backyard tomato plants are on the verge of ripening.  There are boatloads of huge green tomatoes, but three of them have started to get a little blush to them.

You know what that means.

Soon those plants will bury me in mountains of tomato-ey goodness.  I've already been eating tomato sandwiches and Caprese salads (watch for them to be featured on upcoming Wednesdays), but I won't be able to keep up just by doing that.

Most of them will end up canned.  Tomatoes are easy to can, and they are pretty in the jars - like red jewels on the shelf.  I sometimes have a hard time bringing myself to open them because it seems such a shame to spoil the display, but I manage to overcome my aesthetic sense, raid the larder, and actually USE THEM.

I'll give some away, too.  I've already had a couple of requests, so...!

How do you use up a bumper crop of tomatoes?  Let me know in the Comments!

My Fourth CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Box - What I Got

And another CSA box from Teter Organic Farm!

This week we received tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, onions, carrots, and (drum roll please) a WATERMELON!  I am so excited about the watermelon!

There were two containers of cherry tomatoes, but I traded them for some extra slicing tomatoes.  I have a really nice basil plant in my garden, so I'm looking forward to making several Caprese salads - YUM.  They're so simple and yet so special, too.

That watermelon, though.  I'm going to cut it up and put it in storage boxes so it will be ready to eat any time the urge hits.  I'll probably have to contend with That Man over it.  He's a watermelon junkie!