Our CSA vegetable share (week 6-9)

We joined the community support agriculture (CSA) program this year. We will get a box of vegetables directly from the farm for 26 weeks. Recently, I am looking forward to receiving the newsletter from the farm on Tuesday and picking up the veggies on Wednesday. I want to document what we get and how we cook these veggies. For the first 5 weeks, I was too busy to document what we got:(. 

I grow up in a small town know for growing rice in Taiwan. My mom always gets the veggies directly from the local farmers. We ate what's in season year round. Eating with the seasons is the lessons I learned from really young age. After moved to the states, since you almost can get any kind of veggies year round in supermarket, I lose my track of season on the dining table. In addition, I want to get exposed to more vegetables and new ways of cooking. Another reason is I am tired of deciding what to get and cook every week. So why not  just let the farmers make decision for me:).

Our CSA box

• Week 6

This week we get carrots( 1 bunch), beets( 1 bunch), radicchio( 1 head), zucchini( 4 pieces) scallions( 1 bunch), red Batavian lettuce( 1 head), and kohlrabi (x3).

I found a perfect recipe( root vegetable slaw with labneh) on Jerusalem to use all of the root vegetables we got from this week's share. Although we missed celery root, the slaw still tastes really good. The vinaigrette nicely covered the beets flavor I don't like. We ate it with grill salted mackerel fish as recommend by the book( It is great to serve alongside with grilled oily fish).

Will's sisters came over for a house warming party on 4th of July. We served them meatballs with spaghetti and salad with greens we got from food share. His sisters actually are not fans of salad but they gave more compliment on salad than the meatball spaghetti. We made a few times of zucchini pasta from serious eats which is quick easy and delicious recipe.

• Week 7

This week we got carrots( a bunch), cucumbers(x2), green cabbage( 1 head), basil( 1 bunch), zucchini(x4), red Batavian lettuce( a head), Romain lettuce( 1 head) and radicchio (1 head). I was wishing for cucumbers all last week and I finally got them. We thin sliced the cucumber and mix with lettuce, cranberry and nuts and dressed with our favorite vinaigrette. It's so yummy. We used the basil to make chicken mushroom pesto pasta. This is the first time Will and I tried the radicchio and both of us don't like the harsh bitter taste. Even the balsamic vinegar and maple syrup can not cover this intense flavor. william made fun of me and said as a person who likes bitter melon suppose can tolerate this veggie. 

• Week 8

This week we got  swiss chard, parsley, scallions, kohlrabi, cucumbers, beets, basil, zucchinis and a head of lettuce. It a huge box.
I feel the hot summer makes the crops grow better and faster. Before, Will and I can manage to finish our veggie shares on time. Recently, no matter how hard we tried, we still have some leftover when the new food is coming. I am seriously consider to convert to a vegetarian at this point. This week we get a lot of herbs, basil, green onion and parsley. The basil looks much nicer compare my indoor one.
We used the cabbage from last week and beets to make borscht. The recipe I used which tastes really similar to the one my advisor cooks( she is from Russia). I roasted the beets at 400F for 45 mins instead of boiling them in order to get the sweetness. My advisor said her son likes to drink it cold in summer. So we tried it cold this time and it's weird because of the butter. I think I'll replace butter with olive oil next time.
We made another dish from Jerusalem, turkey and zucchini burgers. Making one dish from it every week is becoming our tradition after moved in together. So far everything we've made from it has turned out delicious. I pick this recipe this week in order to finish our zucchini. The recipe asks for one large zucchini(200g), but the zucchinis we got is about double the size. I  guess they are extra large :P. I tried one burger when it's just out from the oven and it's the most delicious one I ever had. The bursting herb flavor makes the burger light and delicious.

Turkey and zucchini burgers from Jerusalem cookbook

• Week 9

This week we get walla walla onions (such a cute name), parsley, zucchini, cucumbers, first tomato of this season and lettuce. The food share  is lighter amount this time. According our farmer, every july they hit "lull" on their harvest. The true summer crops are not quite in yet but the earlier summer crops are ending. Actually I feel relaxed about this news. Finally, we can finish the veggies on time and don't need to convert to vegetarian. William mentioned another point to join the CSA. He said a lot of food doesn't look good ends up in dumpster since the USDA standard for food is focus on appearance of food. The interesting-shaped cucumber( second to the right) we get this week may not be sold in supermarket although it is as delicious and nutritious as the good looking one.
We made the zucchini turkey burger again since it's too delicious. We made a lot of them, put into small container and froze it. We made gazpacho. It's such a treat in a hot summer day. William use it as tortilla chips dip and it's really refreshing. We made the green sauce from serious eats and froze it. it's really useful to prepare a quick meal after work.

2015 Nike women's toronto 15k

June is a really crazy month for me. A lot of things happened, but mostly good things:) I finally passed my prelim, officially one step away from getting my PhD. Will and I had a road-trip to Canada. On June 14, We ran Nike women's Toronto 15K, which is our first road-running. Right after getting back from Canada, Will and I moved into our new apartment.

I trained with William to run the Toronto Nike women's 15km. It's such a precious experience to have a goal together and work it out. William is a great couch who always cheer me up when I was about to give up. During the training, we ran 6 mile around central park, which is one of my dream since I never knew I can run that far.  We also explored some of the local trails. I stopped my training at the end of May because of the one-week before notification for my prelim. At that time, the longest distance I can run was 8 miles. So before the race, my plan is at least run for 8 miles(12.8km) and walk for the rest.

We arrived Toronto a day before the race and picked up the package. William thought the ferry docks is the same as packet pick-up place. So we drove to the dock and wasted a little time to find the expotique before we realized we were in the wrong place. It took about ten mins walk from ferry dock to pick-up place. Since we had paid the parking for 1.5hrs, we decided to walk. The packet pickup was in a huge tent and there was no wait when we arrived. It looks like there were a lot of cool things inside the expotique but we need to go back to our car. We only had a chance to take a picture with the race map. 

Things inside my race packet

On the race day: Originally, the weather forecast said it'll be cloudy for the whole morning and rain after 1pm. However, it started raining around 9 am. Will and I wrapped our body with heat sheet but still felt really cold. We stayed in the  shield and had a small fight about when we should going to our corral. At the end William decided to stay under the tree until last minute, and I went to wait in my corral after the first wave started. I covered myself with heat sheet and only had my eyes shown. It stopped raining when wave 5 started and stayed cloudy for the rest of the race.

At the first 3km, I was basically trying to pass around people and to avoid the puddles. Then, I  ran on the Toronto city airport runway and passed the most scenic spot of this race. From there, you can see the spectacular Toronto skyline.  A lot of runners stopped and took pictures but I decided to continue. At around 6km, I saw wave 6 pacers whose finish time 1:41 is my goal, so I followed the race group for another 3km. After that, I felt I had chance to finish even faster so I left. Instead of concentrating on synchronizing my pace and following the group, I had more time to enjoy the cheerful spectators and all the interesting signs (Will and I both saw a guy hold a sign said "The sexist parade in the world", and he flashed him :p) The last 3km on the wooden boardwalk with lake view is really enjoyable. I sprint at the last 200m. I got my recovery snacks bag (no banana inside QQ) and waited for William. It started raining again at this point. After shaking and having goosebumps all over my arms for 20 minutes, I decided to get my finish necklace designed by Tiffany & co. After making an international phone call, I finally met Will in front of gear storage. He actually finished the race 10 minutes before me.

It's a really inspiring to see all the women with different fitness level, ages, but with the same goal, finishing the race. I am so happy to be one of the 10000 women participated this race. I'll keep running and plan to run a half marathon sometimes this year. Thanks William for being a good running partner. We definitely will run more race together.