Sunday, July 27, 2008

One Local Summer, Week 8: Potatoes

Much to my delight, this week's CSA box contained red-skinned potatoes. I am a staunch believer that potatoes benefit from the freshness factor. Granted they have a long shelf-life, and I love them for that too. But a potato newly plucked from the earth is a different animal (or vegetable) than one that's languished in storage. So to celebrate the kick-off of potato season I sliced ours, drizzled them with oil and seasoned them with salt, pepper and some springs of our own-grown rosemary. Then I wrapped them in foil and cooked them on the grill. Delicious.



To accompany our taters I defrosted some Cape May scallops from the freezer. In the early weeks of the OLS challenge I came across some at our local Whole Foods. Knowing you can never have too much of a good thing, I bought extra for freezing. I browned some butter, added some sage from the garden then seared the scallops until they were caramel-colored on all sides. Also delicious. We served them with CSA beets, another favorite in this household.


And if that wasn't enough, in an effort make good use of some of our other CSA goodies, the Mister whipped up some gazpacho. Tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic and green pepper pureed perfectly into soup. I enjoyed a bowl almost every day this week. Freshness personified. So crisp and cool and such a welcome antidote to the steamy weather. That's a dollop of Pennsylvania-made yogurt on top, sprinkled with our own chives.

No comments: