Hottest Summer on Record?

Here's what I've been doing:

Sitting around staring at my Cold Brewed Coffee (seriously, I've had it sitting there for like five days, too tired to strain it and clean up!) and pondering the hottest summer on record. 

I've also been trying to use up my CSA boxes without turning on my oven or using my stove top burners.  Last CSA box I put up here was from 7/11/12, so here are the rest of them:

CSA 2012, Week #8 (7/18/12).  White onions (10+), zucchs (4), basil, garlic, Swiss chard, beets (4), one melon, one garlic head.We started getting onions on July 3rd (three lovely fresh ones with the tops attached).  I thought that was fine, but it's been like a HUGE bag of about a dozen onions every week since then, white ones, red ones, yellow ones, so we made an Organic Onion Stock on 7/22.  Also, on 7/18, I finally had to start cheating on my CSA with the Farmer's Market because we don't get any fruit (except for a small melon here and there, as you see above, and that one half-pint container of blueberries in June and the PYO strawberries) and still hadn't gotten tomatoes yet.  So, the peaches & tomatoes (and green peppers!) above are from the Westmont Farmer's Market.  Not organic, but oh well, they are New Jersey Specials!

CSA 2012, Week #9 (7/25/12). Finally, tomatoes!  Slicing tomatoes (5), a pint of cherry tomatoes, bunch of (tiny leaved!) basil, interestingly a bunch of cilantro (so hot, I have no idea how we got cilantro at the end of July), first eggplant, 2 little purple cabbages (delish!), 3 zucchs, 2 corns (my kiddo ate both ears, I just steamed them quickly and they were gone!), another small melon, and about a dozen more onions (!).  I made fresh tomato sauce (sometimes known as Pasta Primavera) with the tomatoes, onions & garlic from the week prior, a beautiful Asian Cabbage Slaw (pictured below), Basil/Cilantro Pesto cubes, and just ate the melon as-is.

Look at those cabbages! 

Here's the slaw:

CSA cabbage, basil, onion, organic carrot (non-CSA), and organic tofu with a simple dressing of sesame oil (2 T, I think) and 1 tsp of Hot Chili Oil, and salt to taste.  

Basil from Week #9 (7/25):

Basil from Week #10 (8/1/12):

Basil/Pesto Cube Station Set-up:

Purple Basil Cubes! Want to make them? Here's how.

I also cheated again that week (Week #9, 7/25) with the Farmer's Market:

Peaches & Nects from the Farmer's Market.  It's on my way from the CSA pick up!

CSA 2012 Week #10 (8/1/12).  Tons of potatoes, more (yes more!) white onions, shallots the size of your head (pictured below), zucchs (3), eggplants (4), tomatoes (5), purple basil, one melon, a bouquet of organic flowers, and I think a garlic head I already put away.  

Shallots the size of your head! I love shallots, but boy, this is a lot of shallots!

Flowers:

They were a little droopy but totally perked up with my magic flower water concoction (organic sugar and a tiny bit of bleach) after a few hours.

And, finally, this week's box:

CSA 2012, Week #11 (8/8/12): zucchs (5), slicing tomatoes (only 2, due to the super hot weather), small not quite pint of cherry tomatoes, peppers (2), potatoes (a lot), head-sized shallots (a lot!), eggplants (3), scallions (a huge bunch) and a head of garlic.  And my cat.  I've done next to nothing with this box since Wednesday, I am really tired and the heat has been relentless.  I think I ate a green pepper and some of the cherry tomatoes.

I've also been making ice cream.  This Peaches & Cream one was one of my favorites:

Peach Ice Cream (base from Hannah's book) with Farmer's Market NJ Peaches, Organic Coconut Milk, and Organic Vanilla Sandwich Cookies added (Country Choice Organic brand, they are vegan!), it was amazing.  

That's about it, folks.  I really need to filter that cold brewed coffee now.

What have you guys been making in this (fast becoming the) hottest summer on record?  

Saturday Salad: Kale and Friends

We had a great time today with some friends at the Fall Festival in our town.  We let the kids play on the playground and took turns going into town for vittles and to visit A Taste of Olive.  My friends came back to our picnic table with two delicious salads, one was a sweet potato salad and the other was a kale salad.  Even though I didn't have a fork (it wasn't supposed to be my salad!) I stole some of it with my plastic knife and almost fell off the bench.

This is my version, recipe below!

Kale salad (the kale was raw) was amazing! It had what looked like couscous mixed in (though was supposed to be quinoa, I didn't think it was).  Kale, grains, sliced almonds and dried cranberries with what I guessed was a citrus (fresh lemon juice) and olive oil dressing.

When we got home, I was like, I AM MAKING THAT SALAD.  I foraged the fridge and I had day-old brown rice leftover from Chinese food (the medium box, not the huge box), and I knew I definitely had dried cranberries and sliced almonds.  My husband saw me foraging around and he asked what I was making. I said, "That kale salad! But I don't have any kale."  And he was like, "Yes, you do."  And, lo and behold, I had JUST bought fresh, organic kale only two days ago (to make more kale chips, or so I thought).  YES.

Here's the recipe, it is very loose, but you get the idea:

I reconstituted the brown rice (probably about 2 cups cooked rice) in about 3/4 of a cup of liquid dressing: some water, that amazing Kali olive oil, fresh organic lime juice because I wanted lime and not lemon, salt and white wine.  I whisked that up in my large, four-cup Pyrex measuring cup and then stirred in the rice and the cranberries.  I microwaved it for a minute at a time until the rice was reconstituted, soft and nice and hot.

In between microwaving, I prepped the rest of the salad.  I finely chopped about 1/2 a bunch of kale leaves (de-ribbed) and two organic scallions and dressed them with a little of the oil, more fresh lime juice and some salt (no pepper, I don't like pepper in absolutely everything, most of the time, I just like salt and olive oil. So does Rafael Nadal, btw :-) That went into a big bowl.

Then I added the hot, cooked rice to the kale leaves and mixed it gently to slightly cook the kale.  I garnished it with slivered almonds and organic grape halves.

This was amazing.  I almost ate the whole bowl (I had to stop myself, I didn't know what would happen if I ate too much raw kale :-)

What did you guys eat today?