By Julia

I am super-pleased with nature lately; the weather has improved and so has the diversity of our share boxes.

Asian cucumber, collards, slicing tomatoes, some limp water spinach, lettuce, radishes, green onions, green peppers, summer squash, zucchini, cherry tomatoes and corrrrrrrn.

Friends, I have to admit I am sort of reaching for something innovative to show you. Most of these veggies went into salads, which I ate at work and did not photograph, or my summer standbys of greens-n’-pasta soup, stir-fries and tacos with fresh salsa. I did make one new recipe this week, adapted from Smitten Kitchen‘s adaptation of a recipe from Gourmet, for a white bean and ham stew/soup. Stoup?

I had some white beans pre-cooked and waiting in the fridge. That Swiss chard didn’t come in the box; I bought it at the farmstand store, along with the beautiful Vermont-cured ham and the baguette that you see. The recipe that I linked only calls for ham, beans, canned tomatoes and greens, but I am always looking for ways to use corn, so I added some. I also cut down the olive oil to 2T and added lots of freshly grated black pepper and paprika to the finished dish.

It was delicious, if a little hearty for August. Mine came out more soupy than stew-y; if I were to make it again I’d leave out the chicken stock completely. I would also make six or seven loaves worth of those little croutons as they disappeared in an instant. Nutrition information, as prepared by me, without toasts: Calories 275, Fat 9g, Carbohydrates 37g, Fiber 9g, Protein 18g for a big heaping bowl.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Blogs, What's In the Box. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.