Month: April 2022

Boxing Day, April 26

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Spring is green indeed. All the leaves blended together, so went artsy for the photo.

Hi John,

It’s a new CSA season! We’re at a new site, picking up on Tuesdays (after a pandemics worth of Thursday pickups). We’re back to getting a small box every week instead of splitting every other week.

Meanwhile, we’re getting back to the garden plot. Despite our rapid abandonment of the plot once we were under contract, some plants survived the winter. We have some spinach that’s finally mature enough to start picking. The cilantro that I started from seed, survived the transplanting and the season, and is thriving. The carrot seeds that never took off last fall, are actually growing this spring. The garlic that we planted at the end of fall, looks to be coming up. The dahlia returned, despite not harvesting the tuber for safer preservation over the winter. And of course the rosemary and oregano are thriving.

We’ve planted short rows of radishes. Spattering of a mix of stir-fryable greens. A bean tent with a variety of peas. Dill, though I’m not sure if what’s coming up is volunteers or from our seeds. A half border of nasturtium. Planning on buying starts for the basil and tomatoes and tomatillos and peppers and maybe a cucumber or three. Hoping the ground cherries have self-sown, as promised/threatened. We’ll see what the season truly brings.

In This Week’s Box

  • Green Garlic
  • Green Kale
  • Red Butterhead Lettuce
  • Red Chard

Still in the Fridge

  • Strawberries (farmer’s market)
  • Cranberries
  • Mushrooms
  • Greens: Lettuce, Cabbage, Microgreens
  • Black radishes, Purple Daikon radishes, Winter Radishes
  • Potatoes: Sweet
  • Jerusalem Artichokes

Growing in the Garden

  • Spinach
  • Radish sprouts as we thin them
  • Radishes
  • Cilantro (as we want)
  • Weedy wild onions (if we trust our nose)

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Dill pickle juice
  • Lacto-fermented green cherry tomatoes
  • Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
  • Pickled banana peppers with oregano, basil, and black pepper
  • Plain pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel stems with orange
  • Spicy pickled fennel stems
  • Radish kimchi
  • Sunchoke relish
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Applesauce
  • Cranberry orange marmalade-ish
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Meals for now, meals for later

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, April 14

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So many greens! (All the more so because we gave up this week’s sweet potatoes. We got dandelion greens and lettuce last week.)

Dear John,

Happy Easter! We walked to the cemetery this morning for Sunrise Service. As we snuck out of our house, a neighbor was across the street scattering eggs for a hunt. (Kid is two, you don’t really hide them yet.) The sign at a church we passed illuminated a “Happy New Year!” message, and while I know it hasn’t changed in months, spring really does feel like a resetting of the calendar. We found our place in the gathering crowd. The trees had confettied the graves with pink petals–a celebration of life in the midst of death. The promise that life continues, beyond all our fears.

In This Week’s Box

  • Cilantro
  • Green Cabbage
  • Green Kale
  • Green Romain Lettuce
  • Mixed Winter Radishes
  • Red Scallions
  • Rainbow Chard

Still in the Fridge

  • Asparagus (farmer’s market)
  • Strawberries (farmer’s market)
  • Cranberries
  • Celery
  • Greens: Dandelion, radish, kale
  • Black radishes, Purple Daikon radishes
  • Turnips
  • Potatoes: Sweet
  • Jerusalem Artichokes

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Dill pickle juice
  • Lacto-fermented green cherry tomatoes
  • Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
  • Pickled banana peppers with oregano, basil, and black pepper
  • Plain pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel stems with orange
  • Spicy pickled fennel stems
  • Radish kimchi
  • Sunchoke relish
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Applesauce
  • Cranberry orange marmalade-ish
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Meals for now, meals for later

  • As soon as I post this, I’m heading to the kitchen to start a galette of onions and scallions and goodness. (Goodness=cheese.)
  • I bought asparagus and strawberries at the farmers market and will probably be buying more strawberries. We’ve made the asparagus lemon pasta from Simply in Season, which needs to be done at least annually. Maybe easiest to roast the rest? Maybe use on flatbread/pizza? Maybe a quiche?
  • We used up the last cabbage in okonmiyaki. And, while it feels weird to do the same thing immediately, it was a successful enough meal series that I’m absolutely okay with a repeat.
  • Beans and greens. Let’s do the dandelion + miso + beans from Cool Beans. And maybe also a version of the Hoppin’ John Pilaf.
  • I tempted to try a preserved daikon radish recipe. I didn’t buy any on my latest run to Hmart, but I did get goji berries and the recipe uses them both with congee.
  • Debating the favorite chard and cilantro soup. It’s known and good and I have plenty of stale bread at the moment. May be convinced to switch to a lentil version though.
  • We got some potatoes from the store. Twice bake’em, stuffed with kale and scallions and cheese?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, March 31

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Last week we got purple daikon radishes from our CSA share splitters. This week we left them the green cabbage.

Hi John,

This week the house’s internal network is being rewired, we’re getting quotes for replacing the lead service line, and we’ve reached out to a couple of companies for advice about whether to get quotes for solar panels before or after we replace the roof. Home ownership is fun?

[Edited to add that the one of the plumbers who we gave a quote for the service line advertised discounts on additional services done at the same time. And our home inspector did say that we should replace the water heater soon. So, we have also been researching the merits of electric tank vs electric tankless vs heat pump aka hybrid water heaters. All the contractors are pro-gas tankless, but anti-electric tankless. The hybrid is more expensive up-front, but our calculations show that the energy cost savings should be substantial. And the warranty is four years longer.]

In This Week’s Box

  • Cremini Mushrooms
  • Garnet Sweet Potatoes
  • Green Garlic
  • Mixed Specialty Lettuce
  • Red Radishes
  • Red Russian Kale
  • Rutabaga (not turnip like you think)

Still in the Fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Celery
  • Greens: Green Cabbage
  • Carrots
  • Parsnip
  • Black radishes, Purple Daikon radishes
  • Turnips
  • Potatoes: Sweet
  • Onions
  • Jerusalem Artichokes

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Dill pickle juice
  • Lacto-fermented green cherry tomatoes
  • Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
  • Lacto-fermented habanda jalapeno hot sauce
  • Pickled red onion
  • Pickled banana peppers with oregano, basil, and black pepper
  • Plain pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel stems with orange
  • Spicy pickled fennel stems
  • Radish kimchi
  • Sunchoke relish
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Freedom berry jam
  • Cranberry orange marmalade-ish
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Successful meals we’ve made

I’m late posting this week, which has the benefit of knowing what we actually ate. (If not the help of figuring out what we could eat.)

  • Salad greens + radish + avocado + grapes + toasted walnuts + goat cheese + either balsamic dressing or simply rosemary olive oil = a happy salad (It would’ve been great if there was still broccoli for it, but that has already been finished in twice baked potatoes.)
  • Kale + pinto beans + radish + carrots + sweet and spicy vinegary dressing = a solid salad
  • Spinach + quick cook sweet potato + black beans + radish + homemade ranch = the salad I kept eating last week.
  • Sunchoke burgers used half the mushrooms
  • Spaghetti with mushroom marinara use the other half. (And honestly would’ve been better with more mushrooms, but we were out. Need to go to the Asian market and stock up on dried mushrooms too.)

Less success

  • Rutabaga rosti. I’d seen a video that talked up potato rosti the week before. So when I looked for ideas with rutabaga and saw a post about rosti it sounded like it’d fill a craving I hadn’t known I’d had. But cooking in the cast iron skillet and otherwise trying to follow the video, well, it was a less successful dish. I kept burning the bottom layer and it never really stuck all together. Next time, let’s consider going closer to latkes. They can still get topped with sour cream and the green garlic.

Yet to come

  • More sweet potato! (This time at least we only got a single three pounder.) I’ve been going through our frozen gnocci stockpiles, so maybe more there? More roasted on tacos and salads? Thai curry with radish greens?
  • Actually make that root vegetable lasagna that I posted last time.
  • Finish off the cabbage. More of the shaved salad with lemon garlic parmesan dressing?
  • Eventually, I really should try to pickle those black radishes.

Love,

Sarah