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If the cold snap wasn’t enough of a sign, my bag last week was. The end of CSA season is upon us.

I knew it was close (as evidenced by my headline last week), but what really gave it away was the choice of tofu in my bag. The folks at Rolling Prairie are great in many ways but one of them is that if there’s not enough to go around, they supplement with “prepared” items. Usually, this happens at the very beginning or the very end of the growing season and will often include choices like pesto, mushroom pate, honey and tofu. They’re all products produced by or affiliated with the farms and farmers who supply my CSA.

I suppose that rather than giving us added-value products to choose from, the farmers could just say “three bunches of radishes for you!” or “sorry, only three items today” or something like that. I love that they keep the number of items we take home each week up, rather than letting them dwindle into radish salad.

So, last week, when we got a choice of tofu, I knew that this growing season really had been horrible. And along with the tofu (which is lovely, don’t get me wrong!), came a message: Oct. 15 will be the last pickup. Which was yesterday. Which makes me sad.

Honestly, I love getting my bag every week, and it totally blows when the bag ends for many reasons, but the two most hard-hitting are:

1. No more surprise veggies each Monday… (BOO)

2. To quote Ned Stark, “Winter is coming”… (Double BOO)

So, after next week I’ll be back to blogging about random foodie subjects instead of just about how the heck to use all those goodies in your CSA box or bag. If you have any particular subject you want me to cover, feel free to chime in. Otherwise, I’ll probably keep sticking to local foods, healthy eating and feeding kiddos.

OK, so, what did we do with said tofu and other goodies this week? Well, we decided to start with the tofu and go from there. The other goodies in our bag were Swiss chard, sweet and hot peppers, sweet potatoes, radishes and salad mix.

Working from the tofu outward, I decided to try something a bit different. I found a recipe on one of my favorite sites that included both the tofu and the Swiss chard, plus it was pretty easy and didn’t take so long, so WIN WIN WIN.

The idea is basically to make an eggless frittata, using the tofu for the egg. The Swiss chard adds some color and flavor and I bet that you could probably use any other hardy green in its place depending on what’s in your crisper (kale, collards and even spinach would be good). We served it over baby spinach doused with balsamic vinegar and had a side of CSA sweet potatoes, done tropical style.

The resulting dinner was nice and hearty and made perfect leftovers.

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Swiss Chard Frittata (recipe by from www.theppk.com)

1 tablespoon olive oil

6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 bunch of red chard, rough stems removed, chopped well (about 4 cups)

2 teaspoons dried oregano

1 pound firm or extra firm tofu

1 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce (use tamari if gluten free)

1 teaspoon wet mustard (dijon or yellow, whatever you got)

1/4 teaspoon tumeric

Several dashes fresh black pepper

1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes

Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Preheat a large heavy bottomed pan over low-medium heat. Add the oil and the garlic and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. What you’re doing here is “blonding” the garlic, it’s ready when it’s turned a light amber color.

Add the chard, oregano and and turn the heat up to medium high. Sauté for about 5 minutes, until chard is completely wilted/ Add splashes of water if needed to get the chard to cook down. Turn the heat off.

While the chard is cooking, prepare your frittata base. Give the tofu a squeeze over the sink to remove a little of the water. Use your hands to crumble and squeeze it in a large mixing bowl, until it has the consistency of ricotta cheese (about 3 minutes). Add the remaining ingredients to the tofu and mix well. When your chard is ready, incorporate it into the tofu. Be sure to get all of the garlic, but if there is any moisture in the pan try to avoid adding it to the tofu. Taste for salt.

Lightly grease an 8-inch pie plate (I used a 9-inch one) and firmly press in your frittata mixture. Bake for 20 minutes, until firm lightly browned on top. Let cool for about 3 minutes, then invert onto a plate and serve.

What’d we get during our final week? Swiss chard, sweet potatoes, apples, turnips (including black ones!), salad greens and green peppers.

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