The final week of the 412 Rescue Ugly CSA:

• 1 spaghetti squash
• 1 large cucumber
• 5 medium-large yams
• 1 large tomato
• 8 Bosc pears
• 3 heads garlic

Weight: about 10.5 pounds.

Definitely all stuff I can use! Winter squashes and root veggies are my favorite season.

The end-of-season survey included a question about interest in a winter share. Winter shares are uncommon, but the one my previous CSA did (before they shut it down) was very nice. I'd be happy to join one this year.

• 1 large green cabbage
• 1 large bunch kale
• 2 medium-large tomatoes
• 1 butternut squash
• 4 Crimson Crisp apples
• a dozen small red potatoes

Weight: about 10.5 pounds.

Yay, more squash!

The cabbage weighs about 4 pounds. Some of it will become cabbage soup (beef). Some will probably become coleslaw. That won't account for all of it unless I make a big batch of soup and freeze some. Which I might.

I hadn't heard of that apple variety before. The wisdom of the Internet suggests it's a good one to eat straight and doesn't talk about cooking with it. I can do that.

The folks running the CSA have kindly agreed to an alternate pickup day for those of us who can't pick up next Wednesday, Yom Kippur. Good; I was hoping to not have to miss the final share.

• 2 bell peppers, 1 medium green and 1 very large half-orange (hoping it'll keep going)
• 1 zucchino
• 1 large acorn squash
• 1 medium red onion
• 8 medium Bartlet pears
• 7 medium-large Macintosh? apples

Weight: about 9 pounds.

I like fall squashes -- butternut, acorn, delicata, all good! I would be happy to get more of those. (And I wouldn't say no to more onions; a singleton surprised me a little.)

The manifest said Macintosh apples. Most images I found are redder than these, but maybe that's an effect of when they were picked.

Last week's apples were very good as apple crisp. I might do more of that, or make applesauce, or maybe it's time to dry some. (I like dried fruit, but last time I made it I had a working dehydrator. Time to learn how to do that in an oven.)

• large head leaf lettuce (email said red leaf but this is green, so not sure what variety it is)
• 12 medium (on average) Yukon gold potatoes
• 1 enormous tomato (more than a pound!)
• 2 medium red beets
• 10 medium-large carrots, about 2.5 pounds
• about half a pound of green beans

About 7.5 pounds.

I roast root vegetables a lot when they're in season, so that's easy. (Some are in the oven now for tonight's dinner.) The tomato needs time to ripen, but I have some other tomatoes to go into salads with the lettuce. There might be some carrot-raisin salad. There might also be stew, though that's usually for colder weather than we have at the moment.

• a bunch of kale
• 5 Ginger Gold apples (they're more green than gold)
• 4 medium yams (the perfect size to have one of as a side dish)
• 12 banana peppers, mostly large, in various stages from green-yellow to almost-complete red
• 1 cucumber
• 1 head garlic

8.5 pounds.

Last week I said I hoped the balance between fruit and veggies would shift some; this week it sure did. (That's good, because I still have pears and apples from last week.) That's a lot of banana peppers, so I'm going to pickle some tonight and then distribute the rest among various meals (stuffed, on pizza or in pasta, not sure what else). Some of the kale and one of the peppers went into a curry tonight along with other veggies and some Thai basil that desperately needed to be pruned.

Fruit is good, but I do hope the balance shifts a little more toward the vegetable end of the spectrum next week! (For this purpose, we can count tomatoes as vegetables.)

• 3 small and 3 medium Bartlet pears
• 5 Gala apples
• 3 nectarines (not yet ripe)
• 1 large tomato
• 2 medium green peppers (here's hoping they'll ripen)
• 1 head of romaine lettuce

Weight: about five pounds.

I also harvested my second red pepper tonight. (It was delicious in a stir-fry.) There are eight more full-grown ones on the plant in various stages in the journey from green to red. I lost one in a storm. For a long time it's looked like that was going to be it -- 11 peppers -- but in the last few days some new ones have started. I count seven, and there might be an eighth in a hard-to-see place. They're in the rapid-growth phase, so it should become clear soon. Nice -- a second round!

• 3 ears corn
• 2 largish tomatoes
• 1 large red onion
• 1 large zucchini (zucchinus?)
• 2 peaches
• 9 Bartlett pears

Total weight about 7.5 pounds.

Two peaches aren't enough to make cobbler; we'll just have to eat them straight, or grilled -- so not a hardship! That's a lot of pears; I should look for a pie recipe or make pearsauce, maybe. (Are Bartletts good in pies? I think I've usually baked with Bosc, though I don't have a ton of experience either way.)

Earlier this summer I found out about 412 Food Rescue, a local non-profit that tries to mitigate food waste by collecting what would otherwise be thrown away (e.g. by caterers) and distributing it to people in need. That's a worthy cause on its own and they'll go onto my year-end-donations list, but I also noticed that they run an "ugly CSA" -- food that local farmers can't sell to grocery stores. (They note that there is non-ugly produce too; it's a CSA, working with local farms, but they'll explicitly take the unsellable stuff first.) It was too late to join this year's, but I signed up for the waiting list for next year.

A couple weeks ago I got email that there were new spots in this year's and would I like to join for the rest of the season? Why yes, I said; this is an easy way to check it out at a slightly lower cost, and then I can decide about next year. Their site says to expect 10-15 pounds of fresh fruits and veggies each week.

Today was my first share. It included:
- a pound of green beans
- one giant tomato (about 12oz)
- three large ears of corn (had some tonight - tasty!)
- one large cucumber
- three nectarines
- one large and two humongous green bell peppers (oh well - can't win 'em all)

The humongous peppers weigh about a pound each, so while I didn't weigh the entire bag, this probably isn't far off from the low end of the predicted volume.

The peppers I'm growing are finally starting to turn red, so in a few more days I should be able to use a home-grown red pepper and the smallest green pepper to make stuffed peppers for us. (He doesn't mind green peppers; I do.) We had two of the ears of corn tonight and we'll split the other one soon. Aside from the remaining green peppers, I know things I can do with all of this.