CSA Basket and Menu Planning

I haven't done a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) basket post in awhile, and we're transitioning from summer to winter produce, which means different recipes (though I know that transition isn't as severe here in southern California as it is elsewhere in the country), so I thought I'd blog our last basket and last two weeks' menu plans that came from it.

Here's all the produce in the basket:

Wow. Our baskets just get so . . . green, come winter.

I'm sure it's good for us.

And here it is, spread out on our counter:

Here's what was in the basket:

-green beans

-cilantro

-three heads of lettuce

-cucumbers

-parsley

-basil

-chard

-carrots

-avocado

-winter squash

-broccoli

-eggplant

-peppers

-garlic

-grapes

-oranges

-grapefruit

-apples

-nectarines

And here are the dishes we got out of that:

-pasta with basil, peas and Parmesan

-tenderloin with broccoli (this actually became chicken with broccoli on the side, I think)

-cilantro chicken with brown rice (so good!)

-frittata with green beans, served with salsa and biscuits (Our oven was on the fritz for a long time, but my husband fixed it - the stud! - and now I can make frittata again! This meal was all about celebrating the return of the oven in our house. The green beans were chopped small and added to the frittata itself, adding a nice juicy crunch to the dish.)

-meatball and chard soup

-squash and apple soup (it's terrible, but I made this and we didn't eat it. We had ice cream for dinner instead. Oh well. It was just that sort of day.)

The fruit became snacks. The parsley got chopped up and thrown into pasta for lunch. The avocado was made into guacamole for snacks by my husband. The lettuce and cucumber were also snacks (as salad and crudites) throughout the week.

And we just got our next basket, which looked pretty similar, but also had a pumpkin, a bunch of purple bell peppers, some plums, tomatoes, leeks and kale.

I made the basil into pesto last night, and I'm thinking about making Potato-Leek Flatbread with the leeks, and possibly picnic caviar (a family favorite) with the peppers. I might also give kale chips another go, since I have an oven and all. Hopefully this time I won't burn them! (Kale chips take careful watching, since they're so thin and thus burn easily.)  And we've got tons of chard, so I'm planning on using some of it in a crustless quiche tonight (good recipe, btw, but you can use about half the amount of cheese they suggest, and twice the amount of chard).

Anyone else out there enjoying some fall produce?

-Jess