What I found in my Box (a post in which our protagonist self-indulgently posts a bunch of photos of food)

I've joined CSAs in the Seattle area, Amsterdam, and most recently San Diego. It's always fascinating to me how they differ from area to area--the growing season, vegetable variety, etc. It's about culture as much as biology; for example, my Dutch CSA gave me no fewer than two varieties of cabbage every week. There were even cabbages that I don't even know the English names for, like the intimidating spitskool.

Here in California the season for certain fruits and vegetables seems to stretch on and on. We've been getting zucchinis nearly every week for months now. It's a fun challenge to try to find new uses for the items we find each week in the box. Giant reed avocados, red onions, cilantro, and tomatoes made for yet another batch of guac, which made for lovely eating watching the Bears trounce the Broncos (suck it Orton). Since the week also brought super-sweet, deliciously ripe watermelons, I made a treat we enjoyed in Istanbul - Karpuz Margaritas!!

My latest zucchini treatment appears here in a sambar. I was thrilled to stumble across an Indian grocery store here in San Diego, where we found everything from refrigerated dosa batter to mango lassis to obscure produce to oils etc. etc. etc. I love me some Indian grocery store, and since I usually don't have time to drive up to a Patel Bros when I'm back in Chicago, it was nice to find it. Reheated frozen idli and a super-easy green bean poriyal rounded out the meal, leaving it

only about 5 dishes short of what would be served for a meal in India.

Both dishes came from Chandra Padmanabhan's excellent Dakshin cookbook, which any lover of vegetarian South Indian food is bound to enjoy.

I was thrilled last week to receive two new cookbooks in the mail, along with my new Tofu Squozer, which has been getting rave reviews on blogs and veg magazines throughout the land. It's a nifty little device that squeezes the water out of tofu, saving you the trouble of doing so via the old fashioned towels and heavy objects method.

Immediately I put squozer and book to work by making a variation on the "Ying Yang salad with peanut-sesame dressing" out of the Real Food Daily cookbook. My version was a leafy green salad with carrots, red spring onions, and radishes. These were mixed with the marinated ginger baked tofu chunks and a delicious peanut dressing. I have long been a fan of the RFD restaurant in Santa Monica and am giving their cookbook tentative raves as well.

Peanut-sesame dressing and Ginger Tofu (my adaptation)

Ingredients

Ginger Tofu

1 14 ounce brick firm tofu

1/3 cup soy sauce

2 T brown rice vinegar

2 T. dark sesame oil

1 T. minced garlic

1 T. minced ginger

Dressing

2/3 c. peanut butter

1/4 c. brown rice vinegar

1/4 c. maple syrup

3 T. water

1 T. minced fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

1/4 t. crushed red pepper flakes

1 c. fresh cilantro leaves

Directions

1. Press tofu block in tofu squozer for 1 hour. Drain liquid and put the tofu aside to mix marinade inside squozing chamber.

2. In squozing chamber, mix remaining ginger marinade ingredients (soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, ginger, garlic). Throw the tofu block back in and marinate for several hours. Reserve marinade!!!

3. Bake the tofu at 400 F for 10 minutes on each side (20 min. total). Remove from the oven, cool, and store in refrigerator until ready to dice to add to salad.

4. To make dressing, strain reserved tofu marinade into blender jar, discarding ginger and garlic chunks. To the reserved liquid, add remaining dressing ingredients and blend.

Finally, I used up about 5 pounds of cucumbers making lots and lots of dill pickles. Pickles are easy and a useful way to preserve an intimidating CSA amount of cucumbers.