broccoli

Boxing Day, December 2 (and anticipating December 9)

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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!

Boxing Day, October 14

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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, 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, 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

Boxing Day, June 11

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

We’re sneaking back to this routine. I’ll write more later. For now, let’s brainstorm some meals for the week ahead so we know what to shop for at the grocery store tomorrow.

Today’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Rhubarb
  • Broccoli
  • Fennel
  • Mini Purplette Onions
  • Kohlrabi
  • Yellow Straightneck Squash

Things in the fridge

  • Rhubarb
  • Greens: Red leaf lettuce, Cabbage
  • Roots: Beets, Radish, Turnip
  • Fennel
  • Alliums: Scallions, Garlic scapes, Green garlic

In the Garden

  • Collards
  • Herbs: Dill, Basil (as needed), Zatar, Rosemary, Oregano
  • Calendula and Cosmos
  • Community raspberries
  • Neighbor’s mint

Open Preserves

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

I hope they’re easy meals vs slow to assemble salads

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 20

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Dear John,

Summer means interns. And this year, interns in residence (vs remote). So for the first time since March 2020, we have five days a week working separately. I was so stressed out when work-from -home began. Too much together time! This side I was anxious about the time time apart. What can I say? Change is scary.

Spoiler: It’s been fine. We need to make sure you take salads to the office so we don’t get too much of a backlog of produce. Buying your favorite of carrots and celery is just too much with the CSA and garden plot producing.

Today’s Box

  • Dark Sweet Cherries
  • Mini Watermelon Seedless
  • Broccoli
  • Green Zucchini
  • Red Romaine Lettuce
  • Sugar Snap Peas

Things in the fridge

  • Blueberries
  • Breakfast radishes
  • Fennel + stems still waiting to get pickled
  • Lettuce
  • Greens: Cabbage, Chard, Collards, Kale, Lettuce
  • Zucchini
  • Green plums

In the Garden

  • Rainbow chard
  • Radishes + their greens
  • Peas for the sampling–snap, snow, and shelling
  • Lettuce, when we’re ready
  • Basil leaves getting pinched
  • Calendula flowers getting dried
  • Beets if we want them
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos and oregano flowering for a wild bunch of a bouquet

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

As I type this part, on Wednesday, the window is open to the porch and the cool breeze that accompanies rain is teasing round my shoulders. We need the rain. The plants were doing better than I expected when I last got by to water them with the hose. But spigot is not the same as a good, daylong sprinkle.

Meals to consider and pickles to prep

  • Between the CSA and the garden, I think we’ve tipped the line to a chard bounty this year. We’re pickling some stems. I asked some friends for their favorites to add some variety and got suggestions for green shakshuka and quesadillas on the stove to maximize crispiness. I saw a recommendation for a chard salad a la the kale salad that Joshua McFaddan popularized. There’s also chard hummus, but I wasn’t especially impressed with the white bean and beet green dip last week, so maybe we save that for later in the year.
  • This week’s zucchini looks young and tender. Perfect for eating in a salad where it’s mandolined, salted, and dressed. Use the basil flowers that I pinched at the garden.
  • And we could combine the chard and the zukes if there’s time for a more involved cooking project.
  • A mix-up meant that we didn’t get our cherries last week. So we got a special delivery of two weeks worth of cherries this week. We could devour them by the handful, no problem. But I’m excited for the excuse to try the snap peas and pickled cherries salad.
  • While we’re mixing the pickling brine, go ahead and make a batch of radishes. They’ll be great on tacos later.
  • Maybe time for the oven roasted broccoli with lemon and feta? Though, tossing it all in a blender again is still a quick and easy way to consume a lot, fast.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 6

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Dear John,

Happy Birthday! It was around this time two years ago that we got our garden box built and filled with the starts we got from the neighborhood seedling shop. Which makes me feel better about not yet having gotten a cucumber start yet this year (hopefully we’ll find one soon!). Or bought poles for this year’s bean tent. Nevermind, plant the beans around the tent. We do however have peas coming up around their tent. So, y’know, there’s plenty going on.

Today’s Box

  • Cherries
  • Mini Red Seedless Watermelon
  • Strawberries
  • Broccoli
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Green Zucchini
  • Green Chard

Things in the fridge

  • Breakfast radishes
  • Fennel (I think just the tops)
  • Some bitter greens from the neighbors
  • Red Lettuce
  • Collards
  • Scallions, Green Garlic, Garlic Scape. Honestly not sure what all is in the green alliums bag
  • Green plums

In the Garden

  • Lettuce, so pretty, so many slugs
  • Radishes + their greens
  • Turnips + their greens
  • Baby rainbow chard
  • Calendula flowers gracing our table
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

The peas flowered! And they formed pods! We might get to eat some! Maybe!! Not many mind you. But any is still exciting.

Meals to consider

  • Chard + chevre omelettes
  • Chard spaghetti a la Six Seasons. And with the goal of having enough leftovers to make the frittata.
  • Fennel salad dressing to go on salads of lettuce and turnips. Perhaps with some diced watermelon tossed on top.
  • I see the zucchini and the Six Seasons tuna melt is gonna happen. So many other good things to do, but that one is calling.
  • Meanwhile, I’m not immediately yearning for one broccoli recipe or another. It’s the time of year when I’ve often done the velvety broccoli and feta pasta. So maybe that that’s the way.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, November 8

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Fractal greens!

Dear John,

Meals, so often, don’t actually turn out the way I expect them to. Inspiration and actualization shift during the week. Different things come in from the garden, or the farmers market. Or time constraints get realized. Or what we’re in the mood for shifts with the weather and moods.

Last Wednesday, I took my sister to the garden plot to show off the dahlias. (After all, she gave us the tubers.) I was getting the shears to harvest some basil when another gardener approached with a veritable handful of basil (no space in hands for any more!) and asked if we could use it. Sure, here’s my bag. Oh, yeah, I can take your scrawny green peppers. Yes please, I’ll use your tiny eggplant nubs. Why not take your green tomatoes too? I sent them home with dahlias and best wishes for their international move two days later.

So I made green tomato chutney with green bell peppers from not our plot and Kung Pao peppers from my sister’s plot. We all ate omelettes with fresh basil as the greens and chevre that tasted of decadence. The honeynut squash pizzas were made with pesto (the squash was mostly there for color, turns out basil is strong when you use a lot of it). And there’s basil frozen in olive oil for some summer brightness (fall color?) in the depths of winter.

It took until last night for us to make the radicchio beet cranberry salad. I know why we didn’t make it when we had company, but if we wouldn’t serve it to my sister I’m not sure who we’ll break out this experiment of a meal for. Eating it, I remembered my impression from the first time, that this was my fanciest salad. The thing that I have cooked most likely to end up on a restaurant menu. Because who’s serving radicchio and cranberries at home on a Tuesday night? And at a (pretentious) farm to table place, because that is where you get the beets and hazelnuts and chèvre on a salad. It’s so good. Maybe next time we’ll share with company. (Or maybe we’ll eat it all ourselves.)

Today’s Box

  • Bosc Pears
  • Jonagold Apples
  • Green Kale Hearts Swapped for Celery
  • Purple Broccoli
  • Romanesco Cauliflower
  • Stripetti Squash

Things I think are in the fridge or on the counter

  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Beets (but not their greens)
  • Cranberries
  • Carrot (but not their greens)
  • Radicchio
  • Lettuce
  • Green beefsteak tomatoes, but baby-sized
  • Roma tomatoes, mix of green and reddening
  • Eggplant
  • Sweet Dumpling Squash
  • Potatoes (purple and gold)

Straggling in from the Garden

  • Basil
  • Dahlias and marigolds and cosmos (gather seeds as we go!)
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano

Open Preserves

Just us meals for a justice week

  • More radicchio salad!
  • I wanted to swap the kale for the celery because 1) we’ve had a lot of kale already and 2) the apple, celery, date, and parm salad sounded so good in my mind. Adapt from Six Seasons.
  • While Six Seasons is out, flip over to cauliflower. Let’s try the cauliflower steaks with provolone and pickled peppers please.
  • Debating about the broccoli. I recently remembered Friday nights 15 years ago, cooking up Mollie Katzen’s peanut-butter molasses broccoli tofu stirfry (Enchanted Broccoli Forest), and am craving it. But we made that with frozen broccoli and this looks so good for the roasting. Maybe in a soup?
  • Seeing the eggplant has me craving eggplant with soba noodles. You can’t eat soba noodles. This should be my lunch on the day you go to the office.
  • The internet says stripetti is a cross between spaghetti squash and delicata squash. I vote we use it the same as we would spaghetti squash and bake them as bowls.

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, March 17

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We had enough sweet potato from the last box. We gave our fellow share splitters the sweet potatoes from this week.

Hi John,

Friday afternoon I was curled up in your office, just starting the next book for bookclub, when you answered a phone call from my dad. Everything’s fine. But they were on the road home from visiting my sister and realized that the weather for the weekend wasn’t conducive for travel. With three hours notice, we managed to prepare for our for guests since we moved–slightly organize the moving chaos, wash the towels, and make dinner.

We’ve done minimal hosting these past two years. Occasional picnics with friends. Two visits from my sister, once where we had my cousin come over for dinner the day after he moved to town. Sometimes taking a dish over to a friends’ house. I think that’s it.

So it was reassuring to realize that we could still cook for more people (than just us). We had turnip fried rice, butternut and bean soup (using the volunbeans!), shaved cabbage salad with a lemon-garlic dressing, baked oatmeal, and wood ear mushroom congee. Successful hosting! Without intentionally stocking up for the visit! Or running to the grocery store! (To be fair, we have been able to keep a stocked fridge and pantry. And, while I’m trying to stockpile fewer dry goods than I was at this point of 2020, we still try to keep food on hand so that we could quarantine for two weeks.)

In This Week’s Box

  • Broccoli
  • Cilantro
  • Flat Leaf Spinach
  • Jerusalem Artichokes
  • Orange Carrots
  • Purple Topped Turnips
  • White Scallions

Still in the Fridge

  • Cup of cooked volunbeans
  • Cranberries
  • Broccoli
  • Mushrooms
  • Celery
  • Greens: Green Cabbage
  • Carrots
  • Parsnip
  • Black radishes, Red radishes, Breakfast 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

Meals for now (and maybe later)

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, March 3

planorcanLeave a comment
End of day photo means the greens look a bit wilty. It’s okay. Water will perk them up.

Heya John,

After two years of pandemic, a flood, a rebuilding, a death, and I don’t even remember what else, we made the trip to visit your parents at their home. The snow was timed perfectly for us to be able to go skiing. (Though my rental skis resisted sliding so it was somewhere between skiing and snow-shoeing in long, narrow shoes.) You provided tech support. We both considered which furniture might be worth making the cross-country move. And, we mostly let your mom do the cooking.

There are more unused veggies this week than sometimes. I think we’re making a dent in them, but it might be time to make some meals to freeze.

In This Week’s Box

  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Broccoli
  • Celery
  • French Breakfast Radishes
  • Italian Parsley
  • Purple Top Turnips
  • White Mushrooms
  • Green Kale Hearts

Still in the Fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Greens: Red Cabbage, Green Cabbage
  • Kohlrabi
  • Carrots
  • Parsnip
  • Black radishes, Red radishes, Winter radishes
  • Turnips
  • Squash: Butternut
  • Potatoes: Sweet, Purple
  • 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
  • Cranapple
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Can we talk about that sweet potato?

That is seven pounds + nine point two ounces.

In the back of the veggie pile, the potato looks large. But then you actually see pick it up and realize that is closer to the size of my head than a baby’s head.

It’s a lot of sweet potato.

My plan is to wash it, prick it, and then put it in the instant pot for, oh, let’s start with an hour. It should go quicker if I cut it up first. But it looks a bit unwieldy for the cutting.

Anyway, later today we should have much sweet potato mash. Once it’s cooled, I’ll put it in the freezer. We can use it for sweet potato waffles/kofkas/crème brûlée/whatever. Presumably for quite a while. (Especially considering we have other sweet potatoes to use between now and then.)

Meal-spiration

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, November 11

planorcanLeave a comment
Yes, the sweet potatoes are larger than the broccoli and the cauliflower.

Happy Veteran’s Day John,

We biked the trail along the river to a restaurant we visited in the first month of living here, and hadn’t been back to since. We’ve done takeout, but this was our first dining out locally since February 28, 2020. Outdoor patio. Masked when we weren’t eating. It was familiar and delicious and so, so foreign. Maybe that’s what everything feels like these days. The return of beloved experiences that were familiar. But with the edge of awareness of different risk tolerances, different boundaries.

Sometimes I manage to be intentional about the small interactions. Asking the Dad if he wants a picture of both of them after he’s posed his kid and snapped a shot. Complementing the woman on her coordinating blues from glasses to shirt to shoes. Bigger conversations still feel awkward, but I can practice bit by bit. Maybe someday it will just feel familiar.

In This Week’s Box

  • Bosc Pears
  • Honeycrisp Apples
  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Bok Choy
  • Purple Broccoli
  • Pink Celery
  • Romanesco Cauliflower

Garden Potential

  • Last volunbeans
  • Few more starfish pepper
  • Radishes

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: Many apples
  • Bartlett Pears, Asian Pears, Bosc Pears
  • Greens: Savoy Cabbage
  • Tomatoes
  • Leeks
  • Celery
  • Peppers: Yummy, Lombok, Starfish, Banana, Jalapeno, Carmen, Cubanelle
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Carrots
  • Red beets
  • Squash: Red Kabocha, Spaghetti, Robins Koginut, Acorn
  • Garlic
  • Sweet onions
  • Potatoes: Blue, Sweet
  • Ginger
  • Sunchokes

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
  • Sour cherry chutney
  • Freedom berry jam
  • Apple butter
  • Quince jelly
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Meal thoughts

  • Soup nomination: knock-off pho. Aka rice noodles in garlic-ginger broth with bok choy. Add some dried mushrooms, soft tofu. Top with lime, jalapeno. We’re out of basil, alas. And the cilantro isn’t quite established enough to want to pick its leaves. (It might die before we get there. That’s okay.)
  • Aloo gobi! I think this is the recipe we used for virtual Indian Friendsgiving. It feels weird to make it with the different cauliflower and blue potatoes. I bet it still tastes delicious.
  • Roast the broccoli? Serve with lemon juice and pasta and feta/chevre?
  • Celery salad with dates and parm + apples. Expand the recipe in Six Seasons.

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, October 14

planorcanLeave a comment
It is not that the squash is that small. It is that the apples are that big.

Dear John,

We returned to the apple orchard on Monday. It’s the first time this year, and the first to this orchard. But we missed 2020, because, well, 2020. I’ve been finishing off the last of our 2019 apple butter and apple sauce in anticipation of new jars being put up. That might have been a mistake

I’m going to pause here to say that, although we did not have the excess of apples obtained from trips to pick many, many apples, in the past couple of years I have extended the trick of my veggie stock back to also include an apple stock bag. When I cut an apple (or pear) in half, I’ll core it with a melon baller. Drop that core in a bag that lives in the freezer. When it’s full, they all get cooked down and I make a jelly or a mostarda or a chutney. I might not have made applesauce or apple butter in two years, but had many successful cannings of apples. So it’s a bit of a surprise that my attempts this week have been disappointing.

First attempt, I was multitasking with the laundry and ended up burning the bottom of the applesauce pot. The bitterness from the burnt flavored everything, so I added sugar and spices and cooked it in the crock pot until it was thick. I think the caramelization process of making apple butter succeeded in muting the badness. And yet, it’s underspiced compared to the 2019 version. I must have been too nervous about already having ruined it?

Second attempt, I decided not to use the pot that I’d failed with the day before. Cooking everything in the crock pot from the start and avoiding burning things. But that is a slow way to get apples to turn to mush and by the time I processed it, the sauce was well on the way to thickening. To be clear, it’s not the flavor of apple butter. But it’s also not the consistency of applesauce.

We’re going to stick with those though. There are more apples, but they can go in tarte tartin, apple crisp, and apple ginger squash soup.

In This Week’s Box

  • Asian Pears
  • Jonagold Apples
  • Banana Peppers
  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Broccoli
  • Green Kale
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Green Savoy Cabbage
  • Orange Carrots
  • Robins Koginut Squash

Garden Potential

  • Starfish pepper
  • Deciding how long to wait on the final jalapenos
  • Lombok peppers if we want them
  • Few tomatillos, hopefully
  • Volunbeans for drying
  • Maybe a tomato? Maybe another few weeks. Probably some cherry tomatoes.
  • Dahlias

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: Gala, Empire, U-pick
  • Bartlett Pears
  • Greens: 1/2 a cabbage, 1/2 bunch collards
  • Herbs: Fennel tops
  • Sungold cherry tomatoes
  • Tomatillos
  • Celery
  • Edamame
  • Green Beans
  • Peppers: Bell, Yummy, Lombok, Starfish
  • Squash: Delicata, Red Kabocha, Spaghetti
  • Sweet onions
  • Garlic
  • Potatoes: Fingerling, Blue
  • Sunchokes

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled cucumber skin
  • Lacto-fermented green cherry tomatoes
  • Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
  • Lacto-fermenting habanda jalapeno hot sauce
  • Pickled red onion
  • Pickled banana peppers with oregano, basil, and black pepper
  • Plain pickled banana peppers
  • Radish kimchi
  • Sunchoke relish
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Sour cherry chutney
  • Blueberry peach jam
  • Apple sauce
  • Apple butter
  • Quince jelly
  • Veggie stock
  • Probably still more uninventoried

What to do with the food

  • Super Side Salad! Use peppers liberally. Add carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes, broccoli as you wish.
  • First instinct is to make the carrot top pesto from Scraps, Wilts, and Weeds that I really like. But there’s a salsa verde on the same page that uses pickle juice and the dill pickles are pretty much consumed. Just a cucumber skin, a sprig of dill, and the garlic in brine. Let’s try this recipe to use both the juice and the carrot tops!
  • Simply in Season has a recipe for Sweet Potato salad that would use up our celery and make a dent in the peppers. I’m not sure how excited I am about it, but it’s on page 191 if you want to try.
  • Apple cabbage slaw. I thought I had a recipe saved from years and years ago. I do not see it in my bookmarks. RIP Delicious that was beyond the 1,000 that were exported?
  • Curdito if we feel like we have excess carrots. But don’t use the savoy cabbage for it. Green cabbage.
  • Now that we have broken into soup season, I anticipate the fridge continually having a jar of one leftover or another. (Currently it’s the squash-collards-peanut combo I suggested last week.) I have so many tabs open with soup recipes from threads where people share their go-to faves. It may be time to follow the crowds to Roberto.

~s

Boxing Day, June 24

planorcanLeave a comment

Hi John,

You’ve been busy with conference this week, so haven’t been keeping tabs on the kitchen or seeing the garden. So you didn’t know that we actually finished off our stock of lettuces at lunch yesterday. After a month or two of getting multiple varieties of lettuce each week, I think we’re shifting seasons. Appropriate, since it’s post solstice.

When I went to water on Tuesday, there were happy surprises. Our first ground cherries were ready! And our dill was too. We’ve read that dill is a good companion for tomatoes,but that mature dill isn’t. But I’m not sure what qualifies as mature dill. Guessing that it’s when the plant flowers, I pulled up what we have. It’s too early to use it for pickles, but perfect timing for your family tradition of dill dip.

In This Week’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Dark Sweet Cherries
  • Patty Pan Squash
  • Broccoli
  • Green Cabbage
  • Green Dandelion
  • Green Kale
  • Red Butterhead Lettuce
  • Red Tomatoes
  • Spring Onions

Garden Potential

  • Occasional ground cherry
  • Raspberries for sharing
  • Thai Basil
  • Oregano
  • Rosemary

Still in the Fridge

  • Yellow Peaches
  • Herbs: Parsley, Fennel, Dill, Cilantro
  • Greens: Red Kale, Swiss Chard, Beet Greens
  • Fava beans
  • Broccoli
  • Radish, Red and French Breakfast
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Cucumber
  • Kohlrabi
  • Beets
  • Parsnip
  • Sunchokes
Two green tomatoes hiding behind a stem
Our first baby tomatoes!

Meals to Maybe Make

  • Tomato + lettuce = BLT time. I know it’s a classic, but it’s hard to get the good tomatoes in before the lettuce is disappointing. Here’s to trying anyway.
  • Dinner tonight is going to be the fava beans with potatoes and cilantro (picked from the herb plot at the garden) in a tomato sauce from Six Seasons. It looks like a play on shakshuka or eggs in purgatory and I’m so looking forward to it. Just yesterday was using garden goodies to make raspberry cheesecake and dill dip.
  • We have so much broccoli. And it’s very pretty broccoli. I may be leaning towards roasting it up with lemon and feta again. Munching on the stalks with the dill dip. Six Seasons has a pasta with broccoli and sausage that looks tempting if we want more meat.
  • If we can get more cilantro and it’s not too hot, maybe make this swiss chard soup? Include the beet greens too. And if not cilantro, we could try it with some of the remaining dill.
  • Patty pan squash with chickpeas
  • We can roast the beets to make beet yogurt. And we can keep shredding them to go on salads.
  • If we do pizza, let’s do the kale and sunchoke combo again. We don’t have a gluten free crust at the ready though, so I’m guessing no pizza.

The cherries need to be used ASAP. As amazing as that pie was, I’m not sure I want to make another one. If only because I want to eat the cheesecake first.

Last week’s greens weren’t stored the best while we went camping, so they should be cooked up sooner rather than later. We can consider whether we want to put the dandelions in with them or add to a salad.

The radish, turnips, and kohlrabi have been here fore several weeks. They’re getting used in salads and storing just fine. We’ve already cut into the cucumber, so we’ll want to keep using it up. When the salad fits.

We’re down to one parsnip lingering in the bottom of the box. Maybe we should roast it up at the same time as the beets just to get it done.

The cabbage will keep. I expect we’ll use it in a slaw sometime soon. Perhaps with leftover broccoli…

~s

Boxing Day, June 17

planorcanLeave a comment

Hi John,

So trying to pack for a camping trip and buying a house and meal planning all at once was not a success. We did not forget anything necessary for the camping trip! We got the offer in on the house! We got a contract on the house. We got earnest money deposited for the house. We did the home inspection. We walked on our contract for the house. Meals happened.

In This Last Week’s Box

  • Cherry plums
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Broccoli
  • Red Beets with Greens
  • Green Zucchini
  • English Peas
  • Fava Beans
  • Rainbow Chard
  • Red Kale
  • Sweet Basil

Still in the Fridge

  • Herbs: Parsley, Fennel, Green Onions
  • Greens: Spinach, Lettuce
  • Radish, Red and French Breakfast
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Kohlrabi
  • Parsnips
  • Sunchokes

What We Ate

  • Cherry pie using four types of foraged sweet cherries and a combination of multiple recipes
  • Campfire pocket stew with carrot and parsnip and potato and cherry tomatoes. Yours was fine. Mine got burnt.
  • Quinoa salad with turnip and raw zucchini and carrot and creamy ginger dressing
  • Pizza with pesto and mozz and lemon slices and broccoli and zucchini and feta
  • Tuna melt zucchini bake from Six Seasons
  • Peas Pasta Carbonara from Six Seasons. The gluten free pasta didn’t result in a sauce so much as a broth, but still good.

I’ll try to be back tomorrow with actual plans in advance.

~s

Boxing Day, June 10

planorcanLeave a comment

Hi John,

It’s CSA delivery day. It wasn’t too bad when I walked to pick things up, but the walk home was getting hot and humid. And then I hopped on the bike and went back for the bread and eggs that wouldn’t fit in my first bags. Still prefer that to your errand experience in this afternoon’s rainstorm. Even if we both arrived home dripping wet.

In This Week’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Yellow Peaches
  • White Kohlrabi
  • Broccoli
  • Head Lettuce
  • Lacinato Kale
  • Slicing Cucumbers
  • Sugar Snap Peas
  • Vidalia Onions
  • White Scallions

Still in the Fridge

  • Herbs: Parsley, Fennel, Green Onions
  • Greens: Escarole, Spinach, Lettuce
  • Radish, Red and French Breakfast
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Kohlrabi
  • Parsnips
  • Sunchokes

Brainstorming Some Meals

  • Peas on bread with the garlic chive cream cheese I made last week!
  • Roasted broccoli with feta and lemon
  • Pizza! With broccoli and feta? With radish and chevre? With spinach and sunchokes (Again? But it was so good…)
  • We have kale AND kohlrabi! So we can make the kale and kohlrabi salad that I like.
  • Clearly we need to make more salad. Maybe a cucumber, onion, and yogurt salad? Maybe maybe lettuce with cucumber, blueberries, and poppyseed dressing?
  • Betsy texted a recipe for lettuce soup that she made. We might be at the point where we need to try that. Or the stir-fried lettuce we made last year. Or lettuce wraps, though I’m not sure what I want to put in them. The spring rolls from a few weeks ago
  • We have blueberries and peaches. Do we go ahead and make the pie now? It feels early for it and I might rather get more mulberries for another cobbler first….

We really should prioritize using up the escarole–I was hoping to repeat the salad we made last year with escarole, roasted beets and rhubarb, goat cheese, toasted hazelnuts, and mustard dressing. But it’s been three weeks and we haven’t gotten beets. Maybe try with turnips, even though they’re not as sweet as beets.

I think I’m going to try to eat the peas early too. It feels like a meal I want on bread more than toast. And using some of the broccoli for dinner tonight because it is bulky and sometimes you don’t want to give things all the fridge space.

Other than that, I don’t see any obvious priorities. Eat and enjoy!

~s