CSA Weeks 11, 12, and 13: Potatoes and power outages.

Week 11 looks to have been a bust, since I evidently forgot to take a photo. Sorry about that. I’m guessing we didn’t make anything too special with it, either, because I only have this one meal photo:

And honestly, I think those were Week 10’s potatoes that we made a nice little pan of hash browns out of. Look at those beautiful matchstick potatoes—Red is a magician with the mandoline. The peppers, onions, and mushrooms were a great mix. I wanted to toss them with the potatoes, but someone likes his potatoes separate. And covered in ketchup.

Week 12 was much better:

Most photogenic peach ever.

Doesn’t all that stuff look fabulous? And we scored it all during the quickest-ever trip to the market, because Hurricane Irene was coming to visit. Luckily, she didn’t stay long and didn’t make too much of a mess, but we did lose power for two days. This was not impressive to me, because thanks to Hurricane Isabel in 2003, my personal best for rocking out sans electricity and hot water is six days. It was not as terrible as you might imagine, either. Bottom line, I was immune to the panic-shopping and hoarding of bread/water/toilet paper that heralded Irene.

(My poor husband. He hates extreme weather. But he tolerated it well and I am very proud of him.)

Cool thing number approximately one million about being vegan: When the power goes out, your food spoils much more slowly than your omni friends’. Soymilk? Fine! Produce? A little wilty, but totally edible. Ice cream? We ate it all as soon as the freezer crapped out. We lost a container of hummus and that was it. And, let’s face it, that hummus might have been fine, because it tends to smell kind of weird anyway, but I didn’t want to roll the dice on it.

A few weeks back, we had picked up an American Flatbread Vegan Harvest frozen pizza on a whim, so we slapped that baby on the grill:

It was okay. I mean, it was a frozen pizza. Vegan or non-, they are only so titillating.

We also had leftover spaghetti and un-chicken seitan cutlets in the fridge, so we heated all that up on the grill too for a fabulous dinner:


Aside from that, we just chilled. We read a lot, and snuggled Lucy, and took naps with the windows wide open to feel the breeze. I barely missed the Internet, and you know I love all of you very much.

We got the biggest sweet potato I have ever seen during Week 13:

That sucker must have weighed three pounds. Seriously, it felt so wrong to cut it up, like the biggest knife we have wasn’t sufficient. I needed a sweet potato butcher to do my dirty work for me, which was fine because Red was there. He slew the beast, and we roasted it with ginger and a drizzle of maple syrup. It tasted like fall, and I was happy.

Red had a birthday that weekend, so for breakfast, we roasted potatoes and made another pepper-and-onion hash. Here’s his plate, with the demon ketchup:

(I don’t mind ketchup, actually, but I wouldn’t be sorry to never eat it again. A little vinegar on my fries? Yes please. Ketchup? Away with you.)

Fall continued to creep up on us with the season’s first winter squash. I roasted this lovely spaghetti squash simply, and it was very warm and comforting. Of course, we’re still having 80-degree days here, but not long ago the temperature was topping 100, so it’s starting to feel rather autumnal indeed.

I’ll be back soon with more bloggy goodness. My summer class ends in two weeks, so feel free to poke me about getting back on a regular schedule, my darlings.