CSA Box

Clockwise from bottom left: peppers, carrots, kale, lettuce, parsley, nappa cabbage, tomatoes and chilis, onions, eggs, and red kuri squash, apples and eggplant in the mush pot.

I feel compelled to admit that I left chard, beets and another head of lettuce behind, but took an extra nappa cabbage. I sauteed a head of nappa cabbage last night in butter, then stirred in a bit of sour cream at the end and ate the whole thing for dinner. It was yummy.

I also preserved some quince earlier this week (sans photos.) It was a recipe form the Joy of Cooking that was obviously an old one; it had me “pare” the quince (I peeled it, but discarded the cores, since they were all riddled with insects) then boil the parings with a lemon and an orange and strain out the (pectin-rich) liquid. Then I sliced the rest of the quince and cooked it in the liquid with an equal weight of sugar until tender, then strained those slices out of the syrup and boiled the syrup down to pour over the cooked slices. No added pectin, because quince has so very much of it. I was a bit disappointed that I achieved neither the beautiful rose color nor the incomparable floral aroma I remember from previous experiences, but then today I saw a very timely article in the LA Times that told me I need to have tree-ripened fruit for those things. I picked these quince at Amie’s house about a month ago; the were falling off the tree, but still green. Next time, I’ll wait a bit.