Celery Soup and Pickled Beets

This is the time of year when you should just slice your CSA tomatoes, put a leaf of basil on top, add mozzarella if you must, and consider how lucky you are to be presented with such bounty.

That's what we did for dinner.

But after dinner, we got down to the serious business: using up the less-loved CSA vegetables filling up our crisper.

Jack put three bunches of celery (two from the CSA and a purchased package of celery hearts) to use in a celery soup. (It appears to be part of a whole celery menu, eek. And here's another, beautifully photographed creamy celery soup.)

The resulting thin, refined, cool soup was an elegant lunch for the unexpectedly well-dressed crew that circumstance brought to our table today. It belies Jack's hours laboring over a hot stove with a blender, food mill, colander, and cheesecloth. I have from a good source that he came to bed late with the scent of celery in his hair.

Meanwhile, I made these super-easy beet pickles. Erica had already boiled and diced the three weeks worth of beets we'd collected (heroic, considering she doesn't even like beets), so I substituted them for the sliced raw beets in the recipe.

We didn't have the mustard seeds called for, so I used Trader Joe's Everyday Seasoning (pictured and raved about here), which contains mustard seeds and made awfully pretty brine.

They'll be ready for tasting tomorrow. (Yes, I already tried some. Pickly!)

Mark Bittman's website offers quick pickles the wrong way, a sort of vinegar-marinated cooked veggies, which I'll probably try with the beets that didn't fit in the jar.

And should you also be suffering a surfeit of beets (or own your own Erica), the New York Times claims it has five beet recipes even a beet hater can love.