Author: planorcan

Beginning again. Boxing Day, April 2

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

We started with our CSA before the pandemic. Is that right? We had another CSA, once upon a time. But their pickup venue went chaos and, according to my search of our email, we started picking up boxes on January 23, 2020. Just enough time to get used to the routine of breaking down boxes to leave at the porch before everything happened. And our home filled with boxes from the weeks turned to months turned to years of no box left behind. Now that branding shows up in closets and on shelves all around our house.

A few months after that initial sign-up, I emailed another farm asking if they would be doing their CSA in our neighborhood in 2020. We didn’t make it to their CSA then–details of delivery days and times and who knows what else–but we did get on their email list. And when I look at the past six years of newsletters, it looks like I opened most of them. Telling the story of a farm is a talent. Teaching me about the local foodways is a gift.

So we’re switching CSAs! To another farm, a sister farm of the always opened newsletter. This week we’re auditioning the small share. Maybe we try the medium box in a week or two before we place our order for the season? It looks more straightforward to skip weeks with this CSA, which maybe will help us avoid the overwhelm of summer. (Though, I want all the produce! It’s so good!) There are farm days where we can go and visit, or do an Easter Egg hunt. It’s woman owned and operated. It’s Black Farms Matter. It is regenerative and holistic and buzzy buzzwords and I can only assume buzzy bees.

CSA Box

  • Honeycrisp apples
  • Turnips
  • Spinach
  • Salad Mix
  • Beets
  • Curly Kale

Community Produce still in the fridge

  • Cabbage
  • Potato

Other Lingering Produce

  • Sunchoke
  • I think that’s it? We made so much progress!

Freezer Items in Focus

  • Corn stock
  • Fennel pesto
  • Beet puree
  • Roasted jalapeños
  • Hot peppers
  • Frozen beans
  • Summer stock bag

Garden

  • Sunchokes harvested
  • Dahlia tubers downstairs too
  • Weeds coming in. We should get our soil tested before eating too many of them.

Open Preserves

  • Fridge still organized!
  • Fridge still not inventoried!
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Pickled peach
  • Curdito
  • Cran-kin-kraut
  • Fermented green cherry tomatoes

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Pinto Bean
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • Large White Lima
  • Midnight Black Bean
  • Rojo De Suelo
  • Zipper Cream Field Pea
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Good Eating

  • Earlier this week I roasted beets, cooked lentils, and made something kin to my fanciest farm to table salad and another salad. Only we didn’t have bitter greens or herbs, so I went out front. Dandelion greens instead of arugula or escarole. Wild onions, bee balm tops, dead nettle instead of herbs. Mustard vinagreete and blue cheese. It was good. I would not be disappointed if we roast these beets and do it again.
  • It’s been a bit since we did the coconut rice with greens. Let’s. Spinach? Turnip tops? Beet greens?
  • Curly kale is making me feel like doing the massaged kale salad. Or grits and greens with an egg on top.

Love,

Sarah

The Space Between Boxes

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

It’s been approximately a month since we picked up our last produce box of 2025. Tomorrow, we pick up our first box of 2026. For the next bit, we’ll just have the community produce box. Approximately every other week, but maybe a little bit less.

The CSA we’ve done for the past several years offers a winter box. We decided to take some time off to catch up on using what we have. (Knowing that we’d be getting the community produce. And that we can go to the grocery store. And that we could even sign up mid-season if we change our minds.)

It is a bit of a relief to not be deciding how best to consume ALL the produce each week. Instead puzzling through how to use up bits and pieces of the odds and ends. This week collard stems got chopped, sauteed, and mixed into a pasta bake. The vegetable scrap bag was made into stock–only for me to decide that, no, I wasn’t make sweet potato soup; it was chili. The bean liquor quickly becoming the liquid for rice and the base for another soup. (The stock is still waiting to be used.)

Your mom made a comment that our way of cooking is harder. It’s true that there are times I’m jealous of the auto populating meal plan routines/calendars–like the pizza, spaghetti, and hot dogs that I knew to expect most weekends of my childhood. When I wish we could have the quick and easy dinner ready to go without the guilty background concern about whether the lettuce or tomatoes or whatever will still be good when we get to a day with enough ease to prepare them.

But there is also an ease to not needing to think about what’s in season, because it’s already in front of us. The fun of figuring out how to use a less familiar ingredient (or alternatively, an excessively familiar ingredient). I’m not making decisions about what to buy at the farmers market. I’m making decisions about how to use what we already bought.

With that said, here’s some things we’ve already bought.

Community Produce

  • Coming tomorrow!

Lingering Produce

  • Leek
  • Red cabbage
  • Pumpkin
  • Honeynut squash
  • Potatoes
  • Onions
  • Beets
  • Daikon radish
  • Carrots
  • Sunchoke

Freezer Items in Focus

  • Corn stock
  • Fennel pesto
  • Beet puree
  • Chopped celery
  • Chopped green peppers
  • Roasted jalapeños
  • Hot peppers
  • Homemade gnocci
  • Frozen beans
  • Cooked collards for grilled cheese sandwich
  • Summer stock bag
  • Frozen fruit for pies

Garden

  • Sleeping
  • Though we do have some sunchokes to dig out when the weather allows.

Open Preserves

  • Fridge still organized!
  • Fridge still not inventoried!
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Pickled peach
  • Curdito
  • Fermenting green cherry tomatoes

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Pinto Bean
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Cozy meals

  • I’ve been trying out having a rotating cookbook on the table to thumb through at breakfast. That’s actually where I got the recipe for bean liquor and roasted sweet potato soup. And the idea for crepes with marscapone and fruit. (Thank you for Grist.) Sohla has a note of a recipe of a squash and miso soup that I want to make soon.
  • Okonomiyaki (use the sweet potato skins left in the fridge)
  • Red curry with squash

Love,

Sarah

PS If the swap box has cabbage, take it so we can make cran-kin-kraut!

Boxing Day, December 2 (and anticipating December 9)

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

We skipped produce pickups while we were out of town. We ate radishes and peppers and carrots dipped in ranch fun dip on the road. We took squash and sweet potatoes and parsley and peppers to family and friends. But sick weeks followed by travel weeks meant we ended up with some very sad foods in the fridge. Some got tossed in the compost (applesauce that molded weirdly quickly), some got sauced (lettuce into a cream dip), some is destined for soup (chard once the Royal Coronas finish cooking).

The chill is finally in the air. I want to curl around casserole dishes and soup bowls. I also want to be able to eat soon after coming in the door and not after the oven has preheated and the casserole has baked for an hour. So, um, things to consider.

CSA Box

  • Braeburn Apples
  • Goldrush Apples
  • Gala Apples
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Lacinato Kale
  • Purple Carrots
  • Red Veined Arugula
  • Stripetti Squash
  • *Arkansas Black Apples
  • *Cranberries
  • *Fuji Apples
  • *Broccoli
  • *Carnival Squash
  • *French Breakfast Radishes
  • *Green Chard
  • *Purple Gold Potatoes

*Items are predicted for next week since I was not actually able to sit down and do this properly until Sunday.

Community Produce

  • Onions
  • Potatoes
  • Carrots
  • Apples
  • Oranges
  • Cucumbers
  • Zucchini
  • Green Pepper

Things in the fridge and on the counter

  • Asian pears
  • Apples
  • Reddening cherry tomatoes
  • Celery
  • Greens: Lettuce
  • Chard
  • Beets with greens
  • Sweet potatoes
  • Leeks
  • Sunchokes

Picked at the Garden

  • Closed for the season? At least I haven’t stopped by
  • Though we should try to do a final clean up of our plot
  • Maybe there’s some more parsley? Or collards?

Open Preserves

  • Fridge still organized!
  • Fridge still not inventoried!
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Pickled peach
  • Curdito
  • Fermenting green cherry tomatoes

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Pinto Bean
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Cozy meals

  • We walked in the door at 5:15. We considered ordering delivery, but that requires it’s own decision tree. I made the chickpeas and pasta while you unloaded the rental car. Solid meal from the pantry, yes please. Since then we’ve made dragon noodles with carrots and the remaining leaves of cauliflower or broccoli. Crispy potatoes with the aforementioned lettuce cream sauce.
  • We have three pumpkins and another three squash currently serving as decor. They are overdue for being eaten. Chop one, roast, and serve with the tahini yogurt sauce a la Ottolenghi and Tamimi. Pumpkin Parmesan from the Good Food Cook Book? A curry with tofu? I’m trying to think what else I want to eat that will be better with whole pumpkin/squash chopped than puree and kinda thinking puree for the freezer/muffins/soups/pies/pasta sauce sounds reasonable. But then make puree in either oven or instant pot or crock pot. (I should use the better squash for puree for the cheesecake that looks so tempting.)
  • At Thanksgiving, you saw a kid’s magazine with a spread of cucumbers topped with cream cheese and pretzels or pickles or berries. We should put the cucumber to use.
  • I was trying to remember what baked rice dish surprised me last year with how well it worked. Remembered correctly that I’d texted it to a friend–not as a link but photo from a cookbook and found the Golden Carrot Bake in Simply in Season. Wouldn’t you know it, we have plenty of carrots right now. Also saw the kimchi rice bake, which is probably better for a rushed weeknight.
  • Zucchini feels harder to deal with when there’s snow in the air. Zucchini and pepper and some beans for a chili? A zucchini dal? Or with the royal coronas in a pizza beans set-up? I think the pizza beans if we have time, but the dal if I want to come home to an already made meal. The trick of cooking the rice and the dal at the same time seems worth trying at least once!
  • Speaking of the instant pot, we are at the time of year where I switch to oatmeal breakfast. Definitely going to be tossing a handful of cranberries into the pot with the oats and water. As a reminder, 1 cup of oats + 2.5 cups water + 15-20 minutes at pressure.

Love,

Sarah

PS If the swap box has cabbage, take it so we can make cran-kin-kraut!

Who cares about the box when we’re sick? November 4 & 11

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

I’m writing at the end of the workday, closing out two (work) weeks of sickness. It’s been 50-some odd hours since we’ve had to run to the bathroom, and I really, really, really hope we’re on the other side.

At some point, after a friend had dropped off Gatorade and bananas, I sent you to the store. We came up with a list. To save us the trouble of finding it in the Notes app the next time we need it, I’m putting my updated version here, broken out by category of foods that are usually being used around the kitchen, the food lives on the sick food shelf established early 2020, and food that we don’t eat often enough to keep on hand. I’m including both the food for the clear liquid and BRAT diet phase and making sure there are ingredients for a few meals once we’re truly on the mend.

Probably on Hand

  • Bananas
  • Apple
  • Lemon
  • Ginger
  • Garlic
  • Onions
  • Carrot
  • Celery
  • Potatoes
  • Jasmine rice
  • Noodles
  • Bread
  • Water crackers
  • Peppermint tea
  • Apple juice
  • Yogurt
  • Cheddar cheese
  • Milk
  • Eggs

Sick Food Pantry

  • Jello
  • Applesauce
  • Coconut water
  • Gatorade/Pedialyte
  • Chicken stock (frozen)

Buy Now

  • Chicken
  • Saltines

Later in the week, well after the Zofran script was necessary, when I was tired of gatorade and jello and bananas and applesauce on toast, I made another batch of Instant Pot congee and sent out the call to friends, besides Chicken Noodle Soup, what foods do you make when recovering from sickness?

Barely beyond BRAT

  • Yogurt with a spoonful of applesauce
  • Yogurt with a sliced banana
  • Toast with applesauce, maybe even sprinkled with cinnamon
  • Smoothie of yogurt + coconut water + banana. Maybe even sprinkled with nutmeg.

From the vegans, food great for upper respiratory infections, if not for the GI days.

Variations on Chicken Soup

  • Start with a chicken stock. (Or start with the congee and then use the bones from that chicken to make a stock.)
  • I make chicken/ginger/lemon broth to drink – it’s great for nausea after anesthesia. Juice the lemon at the end so it tastes fresh. I freeze the broth in 8oz mason jars so I can easily thaw single servings.
  • The congee I listed above is excellent in it’s flexibility. My first batch was garlic, ginger, rice, salt, water, and chicken. My second I put dried mushrooms through the spice grinder before adding them to the water. If someone is healthy, they can use the fun toppings.
  • Perhaps the “Chicken and Wild Rice” soup I get from the store
  • Tomato Ginger Chicken and Rice soup
  • Creamy chicken noodle soup with potatoes
  • Avgolemono Chicken Soup With Gnocchi . Without having tried this, my instinct is to do it as written if we have gnocchi on hand and do traditional rice if we don’t.
  • Chicken and dumplings (Recipe found online when I pointed out that dumplings normally have gluten, so not tested. As an aside, this blog has an idea for a dinner party that feels so church lady fun that I want to attend one.)
  • Then there’s my standby miso soup with (gluten) dumplings. Frozen potstickers. Covered with boiling water. Cook. When done put a spoonful of miso in a bowl, dissolve into some of the not-quite-boiling-anymore water. Pour into the pot. Then serve.
  • Mine is more of a soup my mom made a million times, but is very simple. Most importantly, you cook the orzo (always orzo) separately and top with pecorino cheese
  • What about a Sancocho? I’ve never made it but I know my MIL swore by it when she was sick her whole pregnancy with [husband]
  • One of our cold weather faves is ebbeh. I just tried to find a recipe and couldn’t find a simple one, but you basically just boil up a lot of cassava and sweet potato, add lots of onion, garlic and pepper and smoked fish. Really hearty and comforting.
  • I’m going to link the the NPR healing soups mini–series, even though most of these recipes call for something we don’t have.

Variations on Noodles

  • Ramen from Trader Joe’s
  • We get white chicken flavored ramen from the Japanese grocery store and eat that, and add eggs and veggies as we feel better.
  • Butter noodles
  • Mac and cheese

Topping a carb

  • Baked potato topped with herb yogurt (I had a yogurt sauce of wild onion + tahini + yogurt in the fridge, when that was done I made one with garden parsley + tahini +yogurt); Later in the week, I made chicken stock. When I filtered the stock, I pulled aside the chopped carrots and little bits of meat. Added them to a potato with some cheddar and the parsley sauce. Honestly, a trick to try again.)
  • Pancakes with applesauce (we did this, only I was so done with applesauce that we made the instant pot apple topping)
  • French toast (with more of the apple topping)

Eggs

  • Egg Hash
  • Steamed egg

Tonight I’m making quiche to ease some more fibrous vegetables into the diet. Here’s hoping we get to return to our regularly scheduled menu planning soon!

In sickness and in health,

Sarah

Boxing Day, October 14

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

The fridge was not empty.

Then we picked >$50 worth of apples at the orchard this weekend.

And then today I went to the garden, picked up the CSA, and got our community produce box.

I have passed on some of the bounty to friends. I am asking other friends what they can use. I am pickling peppers and cucumbers to make space. We will consider the freezer our friend and wish we had a larger one.

CSA Box

  • Asian Pears
  • Golden Delicious Apples
  • Pink Lady Apples
  • Poblano Peppers
  • Purple Broccoli
  • Purple Gold Potatoes
  • Red Butterhead Lettuce
  • White Cauliflower

Community Produce

  • Pears
  • Lemons
  • Beets
  • Seven! Pounds! of! Celery!
  • Eggplant
  • Corn

Things in the fridge

  • Pears
  • Asian pears
  • Apples
  • Oranges
  • Kiwiberries
  • Cauliflower
  • Zucchini
  • Heirloom tomato, red tomato
  • Cucumber
  • Peppers: Banana, Habanada
  • Fennel
  • Greens: Lettuce
  • Onions
  • Beets
  • Sweet potatoes
  • Sunchokes

Picked at the Garden

  • Collards
  • A snackful of cherry tomatoes
  • The last of the tomatillos
  • Assorted non-spicy peppers
  • Pile of green cherry tomatoes from the compost pile
  • More bunches of Dahlias

Open Preserves

  • Fridge still organized!
  • Fridge still not inventoried!
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Pickled peach
  • Curdito
  • Fermenting green cherry tomatoes

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Pinto Bean
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • Royal Corona
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Cook. A lot. Not sure in what time.

  • I bought cauliflower this weekend to make that dip. We have a bit of it left and we’re getting more and I’m so excited to make the cauliflower steaks.
  • I still want to make focaccia, and you’ll be in the office more this week. Hoping for some potatoes. But if not, I’ll make it with zucchini and tomatoes.
  • Fennel apple casserole
  • Oooh. Looking for an online version of that recipe, I found an apple orchard recipe blog.
  • Dinner tonight is stuffed acorn squash. Stuffed with apple filling? Apple cheese filling? We don’t have cottage cheese though. Apple rice filling and putting cottage cheese on the shopping list so we’re ready the next time we get a squash.
  • Poblano peppers make me think roasted or stuffed. Rice and bean filling? Enchilada sauce? Maybe filled with a zucchini-bean-mixture? We should make more salsa verde with the tomatillos. Note! These should freeze decently well.
  • What about the broccoli? Roasted? Maybe with chickpeas?
  • Let the green tomatoes ripen or turn into chutney?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, September 30 & October 7

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

I’m posting the plans for the past two weeks, and then going to figure out what to make for dinner tonight by planning for the coming week. Whirlwind time indeed!

Currently here

  • Bartlett Pears
  • Kiwiberries
  • Banana Peppers
  • Broccoli Rabe
  • Green Acorn Squash
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • White Cauliflower

Expecting soon

  • Asian Pears
  • Empire Apples
  • Kiwiberries
  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Fennel
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Green Zucchini
  • Habanada Peppers

Community Produce

  • Sweet potatoes
  • Potatoes
  • Zucchini
  • Onion
  • Pears
  • Oranges

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Muscadines
  • Heirloom tomato, red tomato
  • Cucumber
  • Peppers
  • Fennel stems
  • Greens: Lettuce, Bok Choy
  • Leeks
  • Onions
  • Beets
  • Peaches
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Oranges
  • Kiwiberries

Expected at the Garden

  • Collards
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Tomatillos enough for one batch of salsa
  • Parsley that should be left for the swallowtails
  • Eggplant
  • Radish
  • Assorted non-spicy peppers
  • Hoping for Bundles of Dahlias

Open Preserves

  • Fridge still organized!
  • Fridge still not inventoried!
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Pickled peach
  • Fermenting curdito again

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Black Calypso
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Pinto Bean
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • Royal Corona
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Cook something. Somehow. Somewhen. Again.

  • I bought pomegranate from the grocery store so we can make the roasted cauliflower and pomegranate dish from Ottolenghini.
  • Okay, but also, I’m cooking the calypso beans and there’s a recipe in the Q1 Rancho Gordo Newsletter for Calypso Beans and Caulifower. Hmmm… maybe freeze some beans? Maybe buy some frozen cauliflower?
  • We still need to make the leek soup. Maybe try this one with the calypso beans?
  • Remember the brussel sprouts roasted with grapes that the one friend of a friend introduced us to back when we lived in the apartment? I’m thinking of that, but finishing off the muscadines and using the broccoli rabe.
  • Sweet potato with celery salad!
  • Pickle the banana peppers! Use them the next time we have cauliflower.
  • I’m getting better about making a quick salad for dinner. If the dressing is premade and toppings prepped, washing the lettuce when we’re home is the biggest step. Let’s keep that going.
  • Feel like I’d love to use the zucchini and potatoes together. Smitten’s focaccia is tempting! And poison for you. (BUT THE TEMPTATION.) No? This isn’t time with your travel? Fine. Can we buy the fancy cheeses and make this project of a meal? (Or maybe I make the focaccia for my lunches.)
  • Not sure how we want to use the habanadas this go round.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, September 23

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

We made it to the garden! It has not (yet) died. We need to do some more service hours, attend a workday. But I am feeling reasonably confident that we won’t get kicked out/will be allowed to return next year. Which is the main goal. Truly, the longer we care for the garden plot, the more grateful I am that we do not rely on our own luck and skill to provide our food.

But we do rely on our own skill to prepare most of our food. Shall we dive in?

Today’s Box

  • Bartlett Pears
  • Kiwiberries
  • Green Beans
  • Green Romaine Lettuce (Swapped one head for Golden Beets)
  • Leeks
  • Red Tomatoes

Community Produce

  • Week off

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Muscadines
  • Green tomato, heirloom tomato
  • Wax beans
  • Peppers
  • Fennel stems
  • Greens: Lettuce, Bok Choy, Kale
  • Onions
  • Peaches
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Oranges
  • Kiwiberries
  • Fingerling potatoes, potatoes

In the Garden

  • Collards
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • The season’s last ground cherries
  • Tomatillos enough for one batch of salsa
  • Parsley
  • Eggplant. Some shiny. Some the yellow of overripe.
  • Assorted peppers (including jalapenos? rescued from the compost pile)
  • So Many Dahlias
  • A bit of rosemary to go with the potatoes
  • A bit of Thai basil from the communal plot to go in a curry

Open Preserves

  • Fridge still organized!
  • Fridge still not inventoried!
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Pickled peach
  • Fermenting curdito again

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Black Calypso
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Pinto Bean
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • Royal Corona
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Cook something. Somehow. Somewhen. Again.

  • Review last week’s post. Half of those plans have not been attempted.
  • I needed fridge space for the beets and beans. Chopped up almost all of our remaining peppers and cooked up a batch of peperonata. Let’s serve it with grits and a fried egg. (And freeze some too.)
  • Pumpkin and maple season at Trader Joe’s! I grabbed our favorite gluten free pumpkin ravoli. Cooked it up for dinner with a blue cheese bechamel and kale. Reminiscent of this recipe with next to no actual overlap.
  • Green curry with eggplant and peppers. And tofu? And tofu!
  • Do I want wax/green beans in the above curry? Maybe not. Maybe go for our standard green bean and peanut stirfry? Maybe try fermenting? Miso butter and poached egg might be quicker option.
  • I made a pear-mustard-vinaigrette earlier when I realized there was a pear getting bruised by your bananas in the fruit bowl. It was mushy, but blended up just fine. Let’s put it on salad with some slices of fresh pear. Maybe lentils. Maybe chèvre. Maybe some roasted beets. Maybe some roasted nuts.
  • We have a sweet potato, already cooked, ready to mash. I’m tempted to do the sweet potato + kale + quinoa fritters. But those aren’t good for instant eating upon walking in the door. Sweet potato crème brûlée is tempting and I do not have the time for it in this season. Sweet potato hummus or enchiladas maybe is more reasonable.
  • Potato leek soup. Right?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, September 16

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

I’m talking good game about meal prepping on weekends, about eating leftovers, about using the instant pot for rice pilafs, the slow cooker for soups, about scrambling eggs. But I still don’t know how to have dinner on the table ten minutes after walking in the door on a routine basis. And I think that’s what life needs right now. It’s a yet another shift to how we approach meals to adapt to our shifting needs.

I feel like I used to have a small arsenal of meals that I could quickly deploy. I remember stocking up on the Taste of Thai noodle boxes, basically a side shuffle away from ramen. Which, honestly, maybe something to consider if there’s a version that fits the other diet constraints. I’m afraid it’s meal prepping sauce or flavoring packets or full jars ourselves the weekend before. (And now I miss the fancy ramen restaurant across the street from where I lived once upon a time.)

Please share if you have specific inspiration for gluten free, allergen adaptable, vegetable forward meals that are super fast, make leftovers all week, or cook while we’re out of the house.

Today’s Box

  • Bartlett Pears
  • Honeycrisp Apples
  • Kiwiberries
  • Baby Green Bok Choy
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Lacinato Kale
  • Mixed Heirloom Tomatoes
  • Yellow Wax Beans

Community Produce

  • Green bell peppers
  • Onions
  • Potatoes
  • Sweet potatoes
  • Apples
  • Oranges

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Muscadines
  • Green tomato
  • Peppers
  • Fennel stems
  • Greens: Lettuce, Red Cabbage, Green Cabbage
  • Onions
  • Peaches
  • Pears
  • Watermelon
  • Fingerling potatoes

In the Garden

  • Who knows! We’re overdue for a visit
  • Probably collards, dahlias
  • If we’re lucky cherry tomatoes, ground cherries, tomatillos

Open Preserves

  • Fridge still organized!
  • Fridge still not inventoried!
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Curdito–just a little left

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Black Calypso
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Pinto Bean
  • Flor De Junio
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • Royal Corona
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Cook something. Somehow. Somewhen. Again.

  • First, buy carrots. Second, make more curdito!
  • These tomatoes look gorgeous and should be put to yummy use. The Six Seasons tomatoes and chickpea and za’atar and yogurt dish? We haven’t make it yet this year. This weekend!’
  • I do think Taco Tuesdays. Taco Thursdays. Taco Wednesdays, Mondays, Fridays, might be our new life. Cause we can have rice and beans ready to go. We can roast a veggie (still have beets and butternut squash in the fridge and a cilantro sauce to top). Those can be microwaved while the tortillas warm on griddle. Or maybe we skip the tortillas and go the burrito bowl route.
  • Pasta is also quick. More than ten minutes from door to table because we have to turn the water on to boil. I’m eyeing the fennel stems as a pesto-yogurt sauce that could be made in advance.
  • Use the kale or collards or even the bok choy to make these tofu bowls. (Is bowls our new lifestyle?)
  • Wax beans and hopefully cherry tomatoes in a red curry. I think that’d make yummy leftovers.
  • Bok choy noodle soup. In the slow cooker?
  • The recipe card suggested a southwest sweet potato salad. Maybe try that. Maybe just chop the sweet potato, roast, and have on hand for salads or tacos or bowls of other varieties.
  • Stuffed bell peppers in the slow cooker? This seems very doable. And could let our beans and rice feel different for a day.
  • You know what. Microwave baked potatoes don’t take that long. And are a yummy non-rice canvas for toppings. Maybe we experiment. Or stick with chopping, roasting, serve as hash.

Love,

Sarah

PS We learned yesterday that we are eligible for a community food distribution program. I asked if our participation makes the program stronger or stretches resources for others. And now we have a bonus box of produce coming in. I am glad I had already started thinking about food to make before the influx of produce to avoid being overwhelmed. We should think about what donations we make with the money we aren’t spending on food. Local food bank? World Central Kitchen? Other Food for Gaza efforts?

Boxing Day, September 9

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Dear John,

I pressed publish on last week’s post. Then peeked at the predicted contents and went right on meal planning.

Today’s Box

  • Bartlett Pears
  • Mini Red Seedless Watermelon
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Butternut Squash
  • Green Beans
  • Green Cabbage
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Russian Banana Fingerling Potatoes

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Muscadines
  • Peppers
  • Beets
  • Fennel stems
  • Cabbage: Red Cabbage, Green Cabbage
  • Onions
  • Peaches
  • Pears
  • Cantaloupe

In the Garden

  • Handful of basil
  • Parsley that turns out to have swallowtails growing on it
  • Pint of cherry tomatoes and ground cherries
  • Another pepper
  • Few tomatillos
  • Green tomatoes
  • Sunflowers! Dahlias!

Open Preserves

  • I organized the fridge.
  • But have not inventoried
  • So off the top of my head
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Curdito

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Black Calypso
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Pinto Bean
  • Flor De Junio
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • Royal Corona
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Cook something. Somehow. Somewhen. Again.

  • Green beans and potatoes means I want to make the Smitten Recipe. Do we have the time for it in the middle of the week? What if we use pesto from the freezer?
  • Butternut squash! I wish we had the cilantro from last week to make mole verde. Do I remember some in the freezer? Or are the leftovers? Any case, I’m thinking roasting and taco-ing.
  • On second thought, yes roast. And save some of it to go on salads! With the lettuce! And pears! Toss in some nuts! Chevre! Dried cherries or cranberries. Salad season returns!
  • Ha! More cabbage. Swap this if there’s something interesting in the box. Otherwise, let’s see how those fridge salad approach is working for us.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, September 2

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Dear John,

I’m stressed. Last week was hopeful excitement of new routines. This week is the exhausted anxiety of disruption.

Admittedly, hormones probably don’t help. And national politics definitely don’t help. The implications of those politics on personal and local affairs don’t help. The news covering the implications of those politics on the global scale is even more horrifying. It’s hard to stop the spiraling.

The disrupted routine makes it feel like there’s no time to plan. Less time to cook when I expected more. Less time to rest and reset.

I think we need to lean into the super-quick meals. Or meal prepping the night before. Or over the weekend. I also have no idea what that looks like with our actual dietary needs and produce usage.

I don’t know. Please share your ideas.

Today’s Box

  • Bartlett Pears
  • Moon & Stars Watermelon
  • Little Sweetie Cantaloupe
  • Fennel
  • Green Kale Shishito Peppers
  • Red Carmen Italian Peppers
  • Yellow Onions
  • Cilantro

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Muscadines
  • Pepper
  • Beets
  • Cabbage: Red Cabbage, Green Cabbage
  • Peaches
  • Pears

In the Garden

  • Handful of basil
  • Parsley that turns out to have swallowtails growing on it
  • Pint of cherry tomatoes and ground cherries
  • Another pepper
  • Few tomatillos
  • Green tomatoes
  • Sunflowers! Dahlias!

Open Preserves

  • I organized the fridge.
  • But have not inventoried
  • So off the top of my head
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Curdito

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Black Calypso
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Pinto Bean
  • Flor De Junio
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • Royal Corona
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Cook something. Somehow. Somewhen.

  • Pasta with sardines and fennel
  • Smashed beets with green sauce from Six Seasons
  • Roast the shishito peppers. Serve as a side with, uh, stirfry? Cabbage salad?
  • It’s an assortment of other peppers. Maybe we make pepperonata? But also, the Six Seasons recipe calls for four pounds and it’s not nearly that much. Nor do we have the tomatoes for it.
  • You picked several green tomatoes. Do we want to see how long it takes to ripen? Make green tomato chutney?
  • I don’t know when we make more curdito with the cabbage. Maybe it should be used in stirfry? Or maybe it’s make a big fridge salad and eat on it all week long?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, August 19

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A garden bounty this week.

Dear John,

Beach day. Swimming pool. Garden time. Church. Faire.

Pesto. Fig jam. Preserved eggplant.

It was an exhausting weekend. It was wonderful.

Today’s Box

  • Nectarines
  • Red Seedless Watermelon
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Mixed Carmen Italian Peppers
  • Mixed Heirloom Tomatoes
  • Orange Carrots
  • Italian Eggplant
  • Yellow Straightneck Squash

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Roma tomatoes
  • Cabbage: Red Cabbage, Green Cabbage,
  • Nectarines, Plums, Pears

In the Garden

  • Basil by the bundle
  • Parsley
  • Mitsuba yanked from the ground because I saw the flowers and thought weed before I remembered it was intentional planting. Ooops
  • Handful of cherry tomatoes and ground cherries
  • Figs
  • Few peppers that I don’t remember anything about
  • One eggplant
  • One radish
  • One tomatillo
  • Collards
  • Sunflower! Dahlia! Basil Flowers! Zinnias! Feverfew! Okay, some of those are from the yard. Pretties!

Open Preserves

  • One day we might organize the cabinet.
  • Another day we might organize the fridge.
  • Then we might know.
  • Fig jam

Pantry Beans

  • Split Red Lentil
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Rio Zape
  • And more tucked on other shelves…

Can we cook this week? Maybe!

  • Ratatouille! It’s happening! The temperature is cooler and we can turn on the oven for three hours. If we can find a day where chopping and then stirring every so often over three hours is reasonable. Plus side, ideally it will use a surplus of veggies, be yummy, and freeze well. I’m hearing the siren call of a polenta/grits base.
  • Bacon, Basil, and Tomato sandwiches using the basil leaves that are as large as lettuce leaves. Small lettuce leaves, but still.
  • While the oven can be on, I want to make pizza too. Pesto pizza? Maybe. Tomato sauce pizza? Not opposed.
  • Also while the oven is on, roast eggplant and make a baba ganoush. Or the eggplant dip from the Indian cookbook.
  • I keep looking at the parsley vase and thinking of soba eggplant noodles topped with parsley. Or tabbouleh made with fonio.
  • The plums that haven’t been eaten should just go on the dehydrator. She says as if the processing step is easier. (It is not.)
  • More curdito. It’s been delicious on tacos and quesadillas and crackers. And hey, we just got carrots and we still have cabbage.

Love,

Sarah

PS Freeze more pesto.

Boxing Day, July 22

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Dear John,

Our current CSA is the combined efforts of dozens of farms. Which means we often don’t have an overwhelming amount of a vegetable in a season. I think the last was the fall and winter of large sweet potatoes. (I’m still waiting for the month of watermelon this year.) Though, I think we also started getting smaller boxes after that and maybe that is a contributing factor?

I finally used the last leaves of the Napa cabbage. Which means with this delivery we have three heads of cabbage, all different varieties, in the fridge. Clearly we are not making enough slaws. Or okonomiyaki. Or balsamic cabbage noodles.

I think it’s time to ferment. Saurkraut here we come. ‘Tis the wrong season to make cran-kin-kraut. But we have new carrots. Let’s make curtido! Maybe one day we’ll make pupusas to go with them.

Today’s Box

  • Shiro Plums
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Athena Cantaloupe
  • Gold Zucchini
  • Orange Carrots
  • Pink Chard
  • Red Cabbage
  • Red Tomatoes

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Lettuce
  • Cabbage: Napa Cabbage, Green Cabbage,
  • Onion, Garlic
  • Peaches, blueberries

In the Garden

  • Basil by the bundle
  • Pinches of parsley
  • A few cherry tomatoes
  • One eggplant, that was still on the green side, oops
  • Collards
  • Blackberries enough for a cobbler
  • Sunflower! Dahlia! Calendula!

Open Preserves

  • One day we might organize the cabinet.
  • Another day we might organize the fridge.
  • Then we might know.

Pantry Beans

  • Split Red Lentil
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Rio Zape
  • And more tucked on other shelves…

Keep the meals coming

  • I wish I knew what our tomato harvest was going to look like. Right now, I’m feeling pessimistic. Let’s savor these tomatoes in slices on BLTs; with pesto and mozz; maybe on grilled cheese though I’m not sure I want even that little heat applied to them. Later in the month, I bet I’ll go for salads. By September, maybe, I’d choose to cook these to the tomato risotto. Now, I want the burst juices of red sunshine.
  • It’s not a year to make pie. I want pie. The crust is work though and storebought doesn’t have the top crust and it’s not a year to make pie. We made a blackberry cobbler–batter 50/50 rice and buckwheat flours. Had some for breakfast with yogurt. Would repeat. First though, let’s try a blueberry-peach crisp.
  • We have so much basil coming in. I think that means we have to use the chard in the peanut butter + basil + banana + chard wrap. As weird as it sounds. I remember it being good? Also, make more pesto. And then more pesto.

Love,

Sarah

PS Freeze the pesto.

Boxing Day, July 1

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Beebalm blooming in our yard. Because I just needed the vegetables put away.

Dear John,

The cabinet is fixed! The kitchen is still in chaos!

I have been coughing far too much since I last wrote (and sleeping far too little).

The weather is hot. The pool is a delight.

I finally made it to the garden and watered. Hours later a thunderstorm actually arrived. I’m sure it did a better job watering the plants than I did. If I’d trusted it was coming, maybe I would have spent the time staking the tomatoes or deadheading the dahlia. On the other hand, I needed the water splashes and bet the plants still benefit from the extra hydration.

The past week had minimal cooking, as expected. Hopefully, we keep getting things back towards order and health. And maybe don’t get too overwhelmed by the produce coming in?

Today’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Celery
  • Collards Swapped for Lettuce
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Red Beets
  • Sweet Fresh Onions
  • Green Zucchini

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Cucumbers
  • Fennel
  • Green Garlic
  • Greens: Lettuce, Napa Cabbage, Green Cabbage
  • Broccoli
  • Radishes

In the Garden

  • Three radish
  • Peas dried on the vine. Ready to be planted in the fall?
  • Garlic from a neighbor
  • Handful of blackberries that made me cough
  • Flowers if I had stopped to pick them. Dahlias and calendula both. And carrot.
  • Basil if we need it but I didn’t pick more than a few flowers that got pinched

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

  • Jumbo Peruvian Lima Bean
  • Mayocoba Bean
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Rio Zape
  • And more tucked on other shelves…

Don’t get too overwhelmed! Just get fed.

  • We made the taco filling with last week’s squash (on the one night when it was cool enough to brave turning on the oven). And the tuna melt with some of the zucchini was dinner tonight. I think the zucchini spaghetti might be next?
  • When I saw we were getting celery, I mentally set aside some of the cucumber for the celery, cucumber, apricot salad. Our cookbook notes remind me we had it for the Fourth years ago. I think we might have it this Friday. Not sure if that’s our contribution to a lunch after the parade or a party later in the day. Maybe let’s plan on another slaw for whichever celebration doesn’t get this one.
  • And continuing the Six Seasons theme, I’m eyeing the beet slaw on pistachio butter. We should probably put pistachios on the grocery list.
  • I’m tending toward beet and radish greens in the coconut turmeric rice as a meal that will make leftovers. Requires cooking, but not too much time laboring over the heat.
  • Should probably pesto the garlic scapes. Just to make sure we use them!

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 24

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Dear John,

It is hot. Too hot. And feeling hotter. Boiling water to cook noodles or, maybe, presoaked beans is about all the heat I want to add to the kitchen.

Speaking of the kitchen. Since I last wrote, we had a rumble, crash, shatter as the cabinet that holds our dishes detached from the wall and fell to the floor. I am so grateful that we didn’t need to go to the hospital with injuries (though I don’t think your arm would agree that you are unharmed). Hopefully we’ll meet with contractors soon and start figuring out what our next steps are.

In the meantime, let’s think through foods that are easy prep, few dishes, and minimal heat.

Today’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Cherry Plums
  • Broccoli
  • Green Cabbage
  • Red Butterhead Lettuce
  • Yellow Straightneck Squash

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Cucumbers
  • Fennel
  • Green Garlic
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Broccoli
  • Radishes

In the Garden

  • Hopefully something comes after the heat. Poor plants.

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

  • Jumbo Peruvian Lima Bean
  • Mayocoba Bean
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Rio Zape
  • And more tucked on other shelves…

Quick and Cold. Or at least cool.

  • Veggies in a dip. Hummus. Ranch. Elote dip. Yogurt sauce. I don’t know what I’m thinking most, but that is how we consumed broccoli last week and I think we should be prepared to do it again.
  • Do we have a cabbage salad with black beans? Cumin dressing? Is this something my dad served? Maybe I’ll ask him. I am assuming we’re going to be shaving the cabbage for salads and slaws.
  • The squash is what I would normally turn the oven on for. The tuna casserole is our standard! The taco filling is a favorite! I might just cook them down in butter and serve on grain bowls? Maybe add some to some eggs and do an instant pot frittata dish?
  • Maybe it’s time to check out Grains for Every Season and see if there’s some particular inspiration for grain bowl salads. I cooked quinoa today, so we have that on hand. Maybe try amaranth soon? It’s more of a porridge. Sounds like something I’d fry an egg on? Maybe? This is why I should look at recipes! In the meantime, I’m going to try to channel the fast casual salad bar places and prep different bits to mix and match. Today’s lunch was quinoa + leftover Indian curry + feta + radishes + raisins. And I liked it. So, room to experiment for sure.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 17

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Dear John,

The beauty of travel is being inspired by other places and people. A magic of visiting friends and family is getting peeks at how other people live. In that vein, a few ideas of things that I liked on our recent trip:

  1. The front yard turned wildflower meadow. I know, we are working on it despite the lack of full sun. The bee balm is blooming right now! And I’m not going full wildflower because I also want the cut flowers–dahlias and zinnias both.
  2. The scissors and sign inviting people to snip flowers. The focus of this blog is our food, but the flowers are lovely and there’s a reason I include them in the harvesting list. Give us Bread, but give us Roses.
  3. A ceramic soap dish that drains into the sink. Because glazing holes is a trick and a half.
  4. I love the berries at the garden. I fantasize about berries at home. Let’s research raspberries in containers before we dig up some from friends though.
  5. On the one hand we have many other things to do that aren’t getting done. On the other hand, sitting down with a puzzle for an hour was a delight.

Today’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Sugar Plums
  • Broccoli
  • Romaine Hearts
  • Slicing Cucumbers
  • Snow Peas

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Fennel
  • Green Garlic
  • Lettuce
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Broccoli

In the Garden

  • Who knows? We need to check on it! Probably some radishes and calendula and maybe even cosmos and basil. Raspberries or blueberries if they’re still left on the bushes?

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

  • Jumbo Peruvian Lima Bean
  • Mayocoba Bean
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Rio Zape
  • And more tucked on other shelves…

Meals to make. Maybe.

  • Debated how to use the peas and decided on a cacio e pepe e peas. Bit of Smitten. Bit of Six Seasons. I know they say it’s not a dish for leftovers. Let’s frittata any that are.
  • I left the lettuce in an empty swap box. Here’s hoping we regret the decision. Salad with fennel and cheese and fruit and nut. Salad with broccoli and blueberries and cucumber and poppy seed dressing. Salad of napa cabbage and dressing. Salad!
  • I’m debating between saucy tofu with noodles or bean salad to use the cucumber. I think I’m leaning tofu. But I bet it’d be good with those lima beans.
  • Do we want to turn on the oven to roast broccoli? Or make pizza with broccoli florets? Or should I go with the current favorite blitz to sauce and put on pasta? I do love the lemon feta velvety pasta and we haven’t had that yet this season.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 3

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Dear John,

AHCK! I thought we were doing good keeping up with the produce and then we got knocked out with colds (and weren’t cooking as much) and I discovered some store bought asparagus at the back of the drawer gone slimy and the mushrooms that you picked up the other week were on the way to sadness. And then we add two more giant, gorgeous heads of lettuce to the mix? I’m not saying no to them. But I am hoping we can eat a lot of salad with friends before we bop out of town. Or that we can take lettuce to family? I know; I know; the car isn’t that big.

Today’s Box

  • Broccoli
  • Fennel
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Green Kale Swapped for Fava Beans
  • Red Leaf Lettuce

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Rhubarb
  • Green Garlic
  • Lettuce
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Scallions
  • Radishes
  • Carrots

In the Garden

  • A handful of peas
  • Radishes
  • Carrot tops. Carrot bottoms
  • Calendula
  • Black raspberries

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

  • Jumbo Peruvian Lima Bean
  • Mayocoba Bean
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Rio Zape
  • And more tucked on other shelves…

Okay. Deep Breaths. Priorities and how to eat them.

  • I’m writing this on Thursday. We used the fava beans and fennel stems in a pesto and pasta dish for dinner. It was a delicious. And means that the fava beans were enjoyed before they turned sad. SUCCESS!
  • Carrot bottoms are going to be grated and turned into carrot cake on Saturday. For eating on Sunday. And celebrating on Monday.
  • Carrot tops. Okay, these need to be taken care of tomorrow. I think our options are the carrot top + nut + cheese salad thing; the carrot tops blended with pickle juice thing (which we could put in the freezer, but I don’t want to put stuff in the freezer unless we think we’d take it out); the freeze with sugar and lemon juice and then eat with ice cream thing; blanching them and making a different salad thing; attempting a tabbouleh thing. Currently leaning toward a blend of options first and last. Try our normal salad but add quinoa instead of the nuts. Perhaps add the mushrooms I roasted earlier in the week. I bet we could serve that to friends!
  • Peas. Look, it’s just a handful. Really, all we have to do is remember to pull them out at lunch. And maybe add ranch dressing (or some other creamy dip) to the grocery list. Do we think that would be enough to get us to eat the broccoli too?
  • Lettuce. I think we should make spring roll dinner and see if that gets us to eat more lettuce. Baked tofu. Noodles. Can mandolin some radishes. Get out a dipping sauce.
  • It feels like every other dinner the past week has been me putting one thing or another into the blender and making a green sauce. (We’ve done the fennel pesto at least twice, the carrot top pickles once, all the greens including pea shoots was made once and we still have sauce left.)
    I love this strategy because cooking pasta and adding a sauce is a relatively quick meal and blending things is relatively straightforward. Even when they need to be blanched first. Or blended for longer than I expect. I might also be getting tired of green pasta? Anyway, I think we should blend the garlic scapes. Perhaps extend them with radish greens. Potentially we should freeze this. I somehow have more faith in it getting used than the carrot top pickle blend.
  • Fennel bulb. I’m hoping this will last until we’re home again. Cause I don’t have a great plan before then. Same for everything else.
  • When we do get back, let’s look at the radishes with tonnato and sunflower seeds recipe from Six Seasons. Our notes from last year are positive and I think we’ll be pulling more radishes from the garden next visit.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, May 27

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Thank you for taking the photo. Next time, can you take the netting off the berries so we can see the prettiness?

Dear John,

We had a low-key weekend planned. Not much beyond procuring seed starts and getting them in the ground. I’m writing this on Sunday night and am very grateful that tomorrow is a holiday so we can go back to the garden tomorrow to get the last of the starts in the ground. Well, the last of the purchased starts. Tomatillos were out of stock, so we’ll go back for them later.

This year we have a variety of cherry tomatoes and one or two larger; sweet peppers because we still have hot sauce in the freezer and I didn’t see jalapenos; a bunch of eggplant that who knows whether they’ll do better but the sound fun; a single cucumber; another attempt at ground cherries. We have more basil and parsley than I know where it will fit. Undoubtedly some will end up at the house. Something might end up in the community herb plot. Worst case, maybe we leave something on the porch of one of those neighbors who has a curbside herb plot?

As the tomatoes and peppers and eggplant went in the ground, I had to remind myself that it was okay to pull up plants we had. The peas were always expected to be pulled when the tomatoes went in. The radishes are being poked in the ground wherever in part because they’re quick growing and if they get yoinked out early, it doesn’t feel like a disappointment. I didn’t expect to need to pull the greens, and may well plant some more soon. Perhaps we try to transplant a calendula or two to our house and put in some chard or collards down there? Or give up on the dream of strawberries in favor of beets? They both stain fingers pink!

Regardless part of me feels disappointed that we’re unlikely to have much to harvest the next few trips to the garden. I type, blatantly ignoring the carrots that will need to be harvested when the tomatillos come. And the peas that are remaining between the tomatoes for a bit. And the radishes that did not get pulled yet. And the fact that we’re already getting blooms for a tabletop posy. And that the raspberries in the community brambles were beginning to pinken. It’s our fifth year planting in this plot and I’m hoping for some fun surprises.

Today’s Box

  • Green Kale Swapped for Beets
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Red Scallions
  • Strawberries

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Rhubarb
  • Green Garlic

In the Garden

  • Peas and their plants
  • Radishes, ready to pick
  • Baby Radish Greens
  • Two baby beets and their leaves
  • Carrots + so many greens
  • Chard, Collards, Mustard?
  • Calendula

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

  • Also still to be done.

Making the most of our garden rearrangements, erm, harvest

  • At this point we have a handful of peas (not overwhelmed by the thirty some odd plants I planted). Enough for snacking but I’m not feeling the need to do more than eat them raw.
  • I am, however, experimenting with eating the pea leaves. They’re most just chewy enough that I don’t want them in a salad. Feel like it’s either stir-fry them, pesto/sauce them, or put them in an all the greens curry.
  • Well, all the greens except the carrot greens. Those have been getting chopped and mixed with nuts and cheese for the carrot top pesto for weeks now. Put it on a cracker/toast. Add some more cheese. Call it lunch. Tonight I also made a carrot top salsa verde with a back of the fridge pickle juice and some cashews. Think it’ll be yummy on eggs or a grain bowl. Maybe hummus/white bean dip bowl?
  • The mustard greens aren’t quite enough to make me want to curry them. So probably putting in a stirfry thing. Maybe as simple as getting into a fried rice. Maybe it’s the turmeric coconut rice. Something was eating the chard, so we have more stems than greens. Those can be tossed in whatever too.
  • I swapped out the kale for a pack of beets. I’m not sure which of the Six Seasons beet salads to make. Pistachio butter and grated beets? Roast and add avocado and sunflower seeds? Or the end of the citrus and olives? Honestly, probably the last one because there’s some lingering grapefruit that should really be consumed.
  • We’re getting lots of supermarket strawberries these days. I’m taking the tops and macerating them and tossing on lettuce dressed with vinegar. Chevre is a bonus. Radishes were a fun addition.
  • Which will leave the Napa cabbage as the lingering green vegetable. I’m already thinking about the gingery slaw that might be sent to work in your lunchbox. Or okonomiyaki for dinner. Or probably both of those and then a half dozen other dishes because it is cabbage after all.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, May 20

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Dear John,

Writing a headnote did not happen this week. Ooops.

Today’s Box

  • Baby Green Bok Choy
  • Green Chard Fennel
  • Green Garlic
  • Red Scallions
  • Rhubarb

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Rhubarb
  • Lettuce

In the Garden

  • Radishes
  • Carrots
  • Chard
  • Peas

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

  • Also till to be done.

Food dreams

  • Mulberries are on the sidewalks! Maybe this is the year to make mulbarb jam again.
  • It’s spring allium season. I think it might be time for triple threat galette. We didn’t make it for Easter this year, but we can still celebrate.
  • So it’s mostly a question of how to use bok choy this week. Honestly, I like the veggie but I might swap it if there’s something else in the box.

    *breaks to look for inspiration*

    I’VE GOT IT! Let’s try Hetty McKinnon’s sheet pan gnocci with bok choy and scallions! And one of these days let’s check out her cookbooks from the library. Her dumpling salad is one of my quick and easy lunches when you’re not at home.
  • First chard of the season. And I expect more. (Cause there are a couple of plants coming up in our garden.) Peeping over at an earlier post about favorite ways of using greens. First thought that comes to mind is that peanut butter, banana, chard wrap. We don’t have basil yet, but I might be musing in that direction,
  • Nevermind. We swapped the CSA chard for fennel. Another casserole?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, May 13

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Green to white ombré.

Dear John,

We hosted. Success! We reset, at least a little. We home maintained–getting both HVAC and plumbing professionals out to diagnose leaks. We came down with colds and have had soup for three of the past four meals. Here’s some things I’m thinking about if we get to feeling better. Perhaps to serve to our next guest who arrives in…40 hours or so. Hopefully we’re feeling better by then!

Today’s Box

  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Collards Fennel
  • Green Garlic
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • White Scallions

Things in the fridge

  • Asparagus ends
  • Sunchokes
  • Rhubarb
  • Radish
  • Lettuce

In the Garden

  • Radishes
  • Carrots
  • Hardy Greens Mix (Kale/Collards/Mustard)

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done. Though we did use a vinaigrette on a celery and chickpea salad we took to a picnic with friends this weekend. One fewer jar!

Sniffling through springtime
(still dreaming of the celebrations though)

  • Despite the lack of rhubarb in our first box, I had plenty to work with when it was delivered from a visitor’s yard. I made a rosemary rhubarb crisp and two rhubarb custard pies. And then we got more delivered in last week’s box. Another custard pie is tempting. But so is rhubarb vanilla jam. Or rhubarb mulberry jam. Nevermind that I haven’t spotted mulberries yet.
  • It’s spring allium season. I think it might be time for triple threat galette. We didn’t make it for Easter this year, but we can still celebrate.
  • I picked up the fennel from the swap box (and left collards) thinking of the fennel sardine pasta. Looking at my search bar history, I’m tempted to try the fennel fritters again. But fennel and white beans sounds yummy too. Perhaps in another soup? Or maybe make the cassoulet?
  • The soup we are making in the next day or two is one more round of the asparagus ends soup. Use the leftover potato peels instead of oats!
  • How do we want to use the turnip tops this week? I’m tempted to go beans and greens route and cook up the kale and collards from the garden at the same time. (Coming soon: an inventory of our beans so that we can better consider which beans might integrate into our menu each week.)
  • Turnip bottoms into the Six Seasons turnips and yogurt salad.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, April 29

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Dear John,

We harvested our first radishes, all four of them, on Friday. The CSA returns today. We have family in town, with more on the way, for multiple celebrations. Time to think about some menu options.

Today’s Box

  • Baby Green Bok Choy
  • Green Garlic
  • Green Leaf Lettuce
  • Rhubarb Asparagus

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes

In the Garden

  • Radishes

Open Preserves

  • Ha! You think I’ve managed to inventory the preserves? I haven’t even carved the time to brainstorm a meal plan reliably over the past year. Thankfully we’ve eaten anyway.

Springtime celebration foods

  • The cranberry beans got overcooked. Yikes! Let’s try making a dip to go with the radishes. And maybe this egg pudding. Sidebar: What’s the difference between a souffle and an egg pudding? What about a gratin, which apparently it was called previously? Whatever it’s called, I bet it’ll go nicely with a very simple salad of lettuce and dressing.
  • Rhubarb custard pie. Because it’s been too long.
  • Green garlic and bok choy sure sound like stir-fry to me. Maybe sometime simple with some tofu? Or dried mushrooms? [Edit. NOPE. I went looking for my links and before I got there came up with the ginger, garlic, bok choy soup and that sounds just right on the rainy day when I’m writing.]
  • Related: We have some leftover rice. Could do our standard fried rice. Or we could do a kimchi baked rice again. Either way, plan to add in radish tops and some frozen collard stems.
  • We still have some of the sunchokes from this year’s harvest. Mostly because we didn’t make sunchoke burgers or preserves this year. Do we want to make the burgers for the company? Or maybe do smashed sunchokes on salad? Or somehow make them a side dish for the risotto we’ll make for our big meal? In any case, let’s try to use them soon before we get caught in the glories of our produce bin.

Love,

Sarah

Garden return

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Dear John,

Tomorrow is the first of the garden work days. Two weeks ago, we started poking seeds in the ground–peas and greens and carrots and radishes and turnips and johnny jump ups. Today, we spread compost over the garden plot. Yes, these steps are backward from ideal, but the compost wasn’t delivered at the time and we’re going to be putting more seeds in the ground soon anyway.

Hey! At least one fall seed has already sprouted and bloomed.

The rosemary looks like it had a rough winter. Branches were falling off. They got pruned and now our table looks like a “Millennial wedding circa 2010” in the words of the friend who came over for dinner this week.

I’m pretty sure the wedding table has fewer crumbs, and this was taken before the blooms opened, but the vibes are there.

The past few years, the garden goal has been not to fail out. This year, it’s feeling more like a working respite. It’s climate work and community building and getting grounded. It’s putting down roots and standing tall. It’s breaking down the pieces that have served their use and letting them nurture the soil again. It’s planting, and waiting for sprouts. And replanting. And planting another time. It’s dreaming of plans, doing our part to implement them, and adjusting when reality hits.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, July 9

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Dear John,

I’m trying to spend down our fridge stash. And freezer stash. And pantry stash. It goes against so much of my instinct! I don’t know why I’m like this, but I know it’s not just food. I mean, I think the pom poms in my craft tackle box are the ones originally in it when my parents gave it to me. When I was eight years old. I was saving them for….the perfect craft? Inspiration? Just admiring them? For thirty years? I don’t really know, but endeavor to use the craft stash too.

On top of that saving tendency, add in that my first out-of-college home was a half hour drive to the nearest grocery store, an hour to the better grocery, and I stocked up on foods (like more variety of yoplait yogurt flavors) when I was in a “city” with a Walmart 100+ miles away or visiting an actual city a day’s drive away. I didn’t want to run out of a favorite ingredient! Or lemon yogurt.

Then, just after a year of living with you, there was the shutdown where we tried to minimize the frequency of our shopping trips. And since then we’ve had two and half years or so of trying to stock food when we have energy in anticipation of exhaustion or sickness or life reducing our capacity for cooking another day.

Layer on the ever increasing interest in not wasting food. Plus a hobby of preserving that started when I learned to make jam in high school.

Mix it together and you have a kitchen very full of ingredients. Some prepared (the zucchini we roasted last week). Some, like the pom poms, serving as inspiration (the squash powder that I totally want to try incorporating into a pie crust). Some, also like the pom poms, taking up space they maybe shouldn’t any longer (the watermelon rind ferments that are in the back of the fridge and no longer taste quite right).

So I’m cooking with pickles. Baking cookies from dough frozen last summer. Tossing frozen cubes of cucumber guts into a smoothie. Flavoring popcorn or roasted chickpeas with the curry powder mixes that we bought to support a local spice shop. At some point, I fantasize in the near future, we should do a fridge audit and clear out the jars with just a little bit more vinaigrette that are cluttering the shelves. Nevermind the other mysteries.

Today’s Box

  • Mini Red Seedless Watermelon
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Bicolor Sweet Corn
  • Gold Grape Tomatoes
  • Green Leaf Lettuce
  • Green Zucchini

Things in the fridge

  • Apricot
  • Cauliflower
  • Greens: Lettuce, Cabbage, Kale
  • Roots: Carrots, Fingerling Sweet Potatoes
  • Alliums: Garlic scapes, Green garlic, Onions

In the Garden

  • Collards
  • Green tomatoes from pruned vines
  • Herbs: Dill, Basil (as pinched), Zatar, Rosemary, Oregano, Mint
  • Plums and grapes from the communal sections
  • Calendula and Cosmos

Open Preserves

  • Ha! We need to do a fridge check. I’m just going to leave this as a placeholder.

Summertime sustenance

  • Zucchini, tomatoes, and corn. High summer is here. (I mean, from the heat we’ve been having, it’s done been here. Now the produce tastes like it.)
  • I’m thinking of the Half Baked Harvest corn and blueberry salad. But this week doesn’t have blueberries. Let’s do a corn and tomato salad from Six Seasons instead. I think he has one recipe in the corn section and another in the tomato section. (Or, um, not. I wrote this before seeing the box and there’s aren’t that many tomatoes.)
  • Pivot to corn on the cob and a succotash salad.
  • Peach jalapeno cornbread with coconut shrimp from Pulp.
  • Is it cool enough to roast the zucchini one night? I kinda think not. In which case, we should make pasta instead.
  • Time to make another pot of beans to go with greens. So many greens.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, July 2

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Dear John,

It is late in the day. I am sleepy. No notes. Just noodling.

Today’s Box

  • Apricot
  • Red Seedless Watermelon
  • Blackberries
  • Collards
  • Purple Cauliflower
  • Red Butterhead Lettuce
  • Sweet Fresh Onions
  • Yellow Wax Beans

Things in the fridge

  • Celery
  • Sunchokes
  • Greens: Lettuce, Cabbage, Kale
  • Roots: Carrots, Fingerling Sweet Potatoes
  • Alliums: Garlic scapes, Green garlic, Onions

In the Garden

  • Collards
  • Carrots
  • Turnips
  • Herbs: Dill, Basil (as pinched), Zatar, Rosemary, Oregano, Mint
  • Calendula and Cosmos

Open Preserves

  • Ha! We need to do a fridge check. I’m just going to leave this as a placeholder.

Summertime sustenance

  • Wax beans are like green beans. And I’ve subbed blanched green beans for the pan cooked asparagus in this recipe with miso butter and a poached egg. Good for a light dinner.
  • Let’s see if the plum tree at the garden still has fruit. If so, try the roasted cauliflower + plum + sesame seed salad from Six Seasons. If not, more of the cauliflower steaks from Six Seasons. Both call for parsley which is so sad for us this year. I mean, last year’s parsley looks great for butterflies. But a flowering parsley that’s going to seed is for the bugs, not for me.
  • Smashed sunchokes + butter lettuce for a salad. Gonna have to debate what dressing to make for it though. Maybe a homemade ranch?
  • Is this the week to try the citrus collards? Perhaps as an dish we can take to a Fourth of July block party?
  • Time to finish off the celery. Maybe with the celery salad + dates + almond salad from Six Seasons. It’s like the salad version of ants on a log!
  • I know blueberry + peach is my family’s classic combination, but am very tempted to make an apricot + blackberry cobbler.

Love,

Sarah

PS Next time leave the collards in the swap box. We have enough!

Boxing Day, June 25

planorcan1 Comment

Dear John,

Two years ago, the Stir-Fry Greens mix was successful, especially the kale. Last year, we grew rainbow chard. This year, the greens of choice are collards.

I grew up in collards country. They’re a frequent side in the meat and three menu, where macaroni and cheese counts as a vegetable. But I didn’t grow up with them at home. New Year’s! Not everyday.

I do love the Lee Brother’s Four Pepper Collard Greens. Especially on a grilled cheese sandwich. And a simple sauteed side is always good, especially with a pot of beans and rice like we had for dinner tonight. Or as a topping on a greens and grits bowl. Here’s some preemptive brainstorming for other ways to use them:

Today’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Red Seedless Watermelon
  • Gold Beets
  • Gold Zucchini
  • Purplette Onions
  • Thumbelina Carrots
  • Red Kale

Things in the fridge

  • Broccoli
  • Celery
  • Cauliflower
  • Kohlrabi
  • Sunchokes
  • Greens: Lettuce, Cabbage
  • Roots: Fingerling Sweet Potatoes
  • Alliums: Garlic scapes, Green garlic, Onions

In the Garden

  • Collards
  • Herbs: Dill, Basil (as pinched), Zatar, Rosemary, Oregano, Mint
  • Calendula and Cosmos

Open Preserves

  • Ha! We need to do a fridge check. I’m just going to leave this as a placeholder.

Forever trying to keep the cooking cool during this heat. But cooler this week so maybe we can do a roasting night?

  • The beet greens ended up with some collards for dinner tonight. (Last minute plans having friends come to dinner is the life I want to live. It was not a fancy meal. But it was delicious. And, hey, rice and beans is their toddler’s favorite food!)
  • When I picked up the box, another woman was getting her veggies. She commented on the carrots and I said I’m excited for the greens. Time to pull out Scraps, Wilts, and Weeds and make carrot top pesto! I don’t have any specific plans for the little knobs of carrots though.
  • I was serious about trying the zucchini with collard greens pesto. If we can brave turning on the oven.
  • That roasted beets with avocado and sunflower seeds from Six Seasons was yummy AND made a dent in our pickled peppers. Maybe let’s do that again! Else the beet slaw with pistachio butter on the previous page.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 18

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Dear John,

It’s a heatwave week. In mid-June. I do not like climate change.

I’m a little worried about the garden plot and how it will do. We have straw down, so hopefully that will help keep roots cool, keep water in. And hopefully we will get to water a few times, despite the challenges of getting out in cooler hours.

Today’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Broccoli
  • Celery
  • Green Leaf Lettuce
  • Mixed Fingerling Sweet Potatoes
  • White Cauliflower

Things in the fridge

  • Blueberries
  • Broccoli
  • Kohlrabi
  • Yellow Straightneck Squash
  • Greens: Red leaf lettuce, Cabbage
  • Roots:
  • Fennel
  • Alliums: Scallions, Garlic scapes, Green garlic, Onions

In the Garden

  • Collards
  • Herbs: Dill, Basil (as pinched), Zatar, Rosemary, Oregano, Mint
  • Calendula and Cosmos
  • Community raspberries

Open Preserves

  • Ha! We need to do a fridge check. I’m just going to leave this as a placeholder.

Trying to keep the cooking cool

  • Recipe to evaluate if it’s worth the heat generated: Six Seasons cauliflower steaks with provolone and pickled peppers. (Working on using last year’s pickled peppers before this year’s crop comes in.)
  • And there’s a celery puttanesca style salad that we haven’t tried yet. It also uses provolone and pickled peppers. I think we have a theme.
  • Fennel and sardine pasta is yummy.
  • Kohlrabi + kale salad. On repeat.
  • I have no idea how to use sweet potatoes at this point of the year. So lets store them and contemplate.
  • Lettuce + blueberries + brocolli + lots of herbs + lemon cream dressing

Love,

Sarah