cabbage

Boxing Day, September 16

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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, 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, 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, October 10

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Dear John,

Lasagna is a lot to put together, I know. I’m so glad you made it last week because it was delicious. (And also, I’m glad that I told you to stop that one evening because actually eating dinner was good.) The combination of crunchy and soft noodles. The layers of flavor. The using up a lot of veggies and having leftovers.

All that said, the time commitment is substantial. And while I would like more crispy pasta soon, I have had the realization that maybe we could do baked pasta instead of full on lasagna? I’m definitely partial to Smitten Kitchen for these–I think I imprinted on Deb’s mushroom marsala pasta bake our first winter with this CSA. Perhaps using that gluten free ravioli you found for a skillet chard-ravioli (with broil time). I bet the broccoli rabe could be switched for any number of heavy duty greens. If you’d rather make it a mostly pantry meal, tomato sauce + pasta +cheese sounds pretty good; though, I bet you could reference this recipe too and add roasted veggies to use up whatever we have on hand.

So polish up your bechamel skills and figure out a favorite tomato sauce. It’s cool enough to turn on the oven and bake that pasta.

PS This recipe for pesto stuffed pasta shells in squash sauce sounds delicious. Stuffing is more work. We aren’t having you do that.

Today’s Box

  • Jonagold Apples
  • Yellow Bartlett Pears
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Ginger
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Green Savoy Cabbage
  • Sweet Onions

Things in the fridge

  • Apples
  • Plums
  • Pears
  • Asian pears
  • Lemongrass
  • Tomatoes
  • Fennel
  • Greens: Chard, lettuce, cabbage
  • Radish
  • Squash: Acorn
  • Yummy peppers
  • Poblano peppers
  • Hot peppers

In the Garden

  • Habaneros, jalapenos, fish peppers, other peppers, still getting peppers
  • Dried beans
  • Edamame
  • Beets
  • Parsley if we want (we should pop some on the dehydrator)
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Dahlias and cosmos and gomphrena for the table

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
  • Pickled kale stems
  • Pickled fennel stems
  • Radish kimchi
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Tomatillo salsa
  • Cran-kin kraut
  • Cranapple chutney
  • Watermelon rind dill pickles
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Non-pasta meals to make me happy

  • Quick note. Last year our ginger went moldy before we used most of it. We can mince it, freeze it, and have ginger handy for smoothies/stirfries/soups.
  • The roasted apple salad from Pulp was delicious. More of that please.
  • And try to remember to add radish and turnip to salads when appropriate.
  • Do you want to save the cabbage for slaw or do a cabbage and glass noodle stirfry?
  • Stuff those peppers! Rice and beans and tomatoes and spices.
  • The beets have been hanging around for a while. Maybe time to roast, puree, freeze. And use for all the beet yogurt dips and beet hummus dips I want a whim.
  • Speaking of beet yogurt. I’ve been making an open faced sandwich recently with almond butter, beet yogurt, and thinly sliced apple. It’s good. Feel free to mix in chevre and celery. Maybe some craisins.
  • Time to cycle through the peppers on the dehydrator. It’s amazing how much they shrink between getting halved and getting their water removed. The fridge full of peppers no longer feels obviously sufficient to make enough chili powder for everyone’s presents. We’ll just have to stretch things with one more batch of hot sauce.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, August 29

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Today’s Box


  • Fruit
     *Black Muscadine Grapes – NC
     *Little Sweetie Cantaloupe
     *Yellow Seedless Watermelon


  •  *Bicolor Sweet Corn
     *Green Beans
  •  *Mixed Yummy Peppers
     *Spaghetti Squash
     *Yellow Straightneck Squash

Things in the fridge

  • Watermelon
  • Plums
  • Peaches
  • Celery
  • Greens: Cabbage, chard
  • Green plums (might want to check on them)

In the Garden

  • Habaneros, jalapenos, fish peppers, other peppers, many peppers
  • Tomatillos
  • Tomatoes
  • Ground cherries
  • Rainbow chard
  • Dill seed
  • Parsley if we want
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos and gomphrena for the table
  • Communal figs if we want

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
  • Pickled kale stems
  • Pickled fennel stems
  • Radish kimchi
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Tomatillo salsa
  • Cran-kin kraut
  • Cranapple chutney
  • Watermelon rind dill pickles
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Garden glimpse

We are having pepper success this year! Maybe we bought more plants? (I’d have to go back to the garden journal to check.) But more importantly we have them in an area where they aren’t being overshadowed by the taller plants.

Maybe we can add eggplant to that section in the future?

Cooking things down, before we leave town

  • So, with lots of hot peppers, comes lots of hot sauce? I have a pint jar with ~cup of peppers fermenting on the table. I made a serious eats hot sauce. And we still have a five cup container of peppers in the fridge.
  • It’s a lot of green beans. I’m copying from last week. Maybe the usual way with tofu. Maybe a variation. Oh! Maybe in a curry. It’s been a while since we’ve done a curry and now I want that. Add some peppers and some squash?
  • I was wondering how to do the corn and then looked at smitten kitchen and now I know. (Though corn enchiladas sound good too.)
  • I grabbed an extra spaghetti squash. You know how I like the baked spaghetti squash bowls. Bet we could do one with chard?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, August 15

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Today’s Box

  • Italian plums
  • Yellow Seedless Watermelon
  • Athena Cantaloupe
  • Cubanelle Peppers
  • Italian Eggplant
  • Red Cabbage
  • Sungold Cherry Tomatoes
  • Yellow Wax Beans

Things in the fridge

  • Watermelon
  • Plums
  • Peaches
  • Grape tomatoes
  • Bell pepper
  • Celery
  • One lemon cucumber
  • Fennel bulb
  • Greens: Cabbage, kale, collards, chard
  • Green plums (might want to check on them)
  • Green tomatoes (starting to pink)

In the Garden

  • Neighbor’s zucchini
  • Habaneros, jalapenos, and a few more peppers
  • Tomatillos
  • Tomatoes
  • Ground cherries
  • Rainbow chard (didn’t harvest on Saturday, but it’s there)
  • Dill seed
  • Parsley
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos and gomphrena for the table
  • Communal figs if we want

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
  • Pickled kale stems
  • Pickled fennel stems
  • Radish kimchi
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Tomatillo salsa
  • Cran-kin kraut
  • Cranapple chutney
  • Watermelon rind dill pickles
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Garden glimpse

Saturday we had a garden workday–focusing our efforts on the communal areas instead of our plot. We did a quick harvest before we left. (I didn’t pick a bouquet, nevermind deadheading for the flowers.) When we got home from the garden, we weighed the produce we picked from our plot. Not quite ten pounds! The water from the tomatoes and tomatillos adds up. Good thing some of our cooking shrinks it way down.

Cooking things down, before we leave town

  • I made two types of salsa this weekend. Please note that when they are pulled from the freezer, they would both benefit from some cilantro.
  • I also made this ratatouille over the weekend. We got more eggplant today and I intend to make more ratatouille tomorrow. That should make a dent in our tomatoes and peppers and zucchini as well. Last time I added one habanero that was threatening with some bad spots. The oil was surprisingly spicy. Do it again!
  • We’re just about to finish off the last cabbage in lunchtime salads. Hurrah! Let’s do it again with this one.
  • These are the plums to dry for prunes. Because we have plenty of other fruit and enough other veggies that I’m not buying cauliflower to try out the recipe I want to test from Pulp.
  • Beans and tofu. Maybe the usual way. Maybe a variation.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, July 11

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At the beginning of the box life there are more “wait, what is this?” moments. Learning all the different greens that are given, for instance. A decade of on-and-off, but mostly on CSA–half of which we’ve also be gardening in one community or another–three of them with this particular set of farms, that feeling is pretty rare. But I saw blue hyssop on the predicted contents list this week and the only thing I could think of is “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be white as snow.”

I know the Bible is a compilation of many different types of texts, but I generally think of Psalms as the poetry/music collection. Not a cookbook.

Masterclass mastered the SEO. So…..I dunno. Use as one of our herbs of the week? Toss in a salad with the cabbage? Blend with yogurt or hummus for a dressing? Sneak into the morning smoothie?

Today’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Watermelon
  • Blue Hyssop (unless it’s mint. Or sweet basil. But it doesn’t look like either of those.)
  • Celery
  • Gold Zucchini
  • Malabar Spinach
  • Red Cabbage

Things in the fridge

  • Cherries
  • Peach
  • Red Spring Onions
  • Fennel bulb
  • Greens: Cabbage, Chard, Collard, Beet
  • Carrots, turnips, beets
  • Green plums

In the Garden

  • Rainbow chard
  • Basil leaves getting pinched with flowers
  • Dill flowers
  • Calendula flowers still getting dried by the trayful
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos bouquet

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

We hadn’t touched last week’s chard when we went by the garden this weekend. So bare minimum thinning for this week’s harvest.

In lieu of garden flowers, a picture of the new color of cosmo that popped open at home. Hello pink petals! Hello yellow center!

Meals to make to celebrate summer

  • This is the spinach that I much prefer cooked. Maybe we mix with some rice or quinoa and stuff a zucchini or two? Or involtini.
  • Celery and fennel salad.
  • ‘Tis the season for blueberry peach pie.
  • A few beet reds snuck into a smoothie and I think I liked it? Expect a repeat. After I finish my cucumber innards muesli (made with the seeds scooped out of cucumbers before making a salad last week).
  • We haven’t used those collards for too long. How about a salad?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 27

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Dear John,

The days where it rains, those are fine. We can sit on the porch and still feel a bit of space from being outside. The days when we’re sick, not great. But being inside feels appropriate then. And we can sit on the porch and feel sun on our face. (Can you tell I like having a porch?)

But these days where it’s smoky. When the haze obscures the view down the street. When we put on masks to go outside, and try to stay indoors. They get hard.

The concerns of climate change continue to mount.

We advocate for change at a structural level. We have conversations and try to model small shifts at a social level. And we do what we can to care for each other. To share abundance with it comes and to buffer blows as we are able.

Today’s Box

  • Red Seedless Watermelon
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Fava Beans
  • Green Cabbage
  • Iceberg Lettuce
  • Thumbelina Carrots
  • Sugar Snap Peas

Things in the fridge

  • Blueberries
  • Watermelon
  • Cherries
  • Radishes
  • Peas
  • Fennel bulb
  • Greens: Cabbage, Chard, Collard
  • Green plums

In the Garden

  • Rainbow chard
  • Turnips + greens
  • Beets + greens
  • Peas for the sampling–snap, snow, and shelling
  • Lettuce, when we’re ready
  • Basil leaves getting pinched with flowers
  • Dill flowers
  • Calendula flowers getting dried
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos and oregano bouquet supplemented by Black Eyed Susans someone tossed in the compost

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

We’re wrapping up the turnip and radishes from the spring plantings. They’ll be back in a couple of months. Expect we’ll be pulling the pea plants soon, so we can be a second batch of beans in the ground. (The first batch have all sprouted! And there was rain so I think we’re looking promising.)

Meals to consider and pickles to prep

  • Good news. I pickled a pint of cherries and that salad only used a cup, so we get to have the snap peas and pickled cherries salad again.
  • Last week’s watermelon rind + dill flowers + garlic have started a slow ferment down in the basement. It was so easy! The hardest part was peeling the rinds. They taste like dill pickles! Expect more experiments all summer long.
  • Toast + almond butter + chevre + cherry halves
  • I snuck a leaf of the iceberg lettuce that had fallen loose in the box. And promptly spent the whole walk home day dreaming of a wedge salad with a good blue cheese dressing. Maybe we can roast some beet lardons to be a topping instead of bacon?
  • Fava bean pistachio pasta. (Make stock with the pods?)
  • Grits ‘n greens
  • Carrot top pesto
  • We may keep using the cabbage as easy grab and go salad fixings. But if we need a heartier dinner, I’m leaning toward caramelized cabbage noodles.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 13

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Dear John,

At a party this weekend, I passed on a bag containing the last of the dahlia bulbs we thought were likely viable. To be fair, there’s still a package left to be taken to the post office. And the package to your brother is puttering around the postal system–at least now it looks like it’s in the right zip code. I am late sending my parents the last of the calendula seeds. But also thrilled to have grown things to the point of sharing no only the produce but hopefully some future plants.

Guess the next test is if any of it actually grows for anyone.

In the days when the sky is eerily orange. When the rain is too little, or far too much. When the heat keeps me inside with air conditioning (that helps me now, but maybe only makes everything worse?). When I find another dead bee as I water the plants. It’s hard not to obsess about the challenges of creation.

So we care for our flowers. And try to share a bounty of blooms. Continue the work. Share life’s glories.

Today’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Dark Sweet Cherries
  • English Peas
  • Green Cabbage
  • Green Kale
  • Red Leaf Lettuce
  • Red Chard

Things in the fridge

  • Breakfast radishes
  • Fennel stems waiting to get pickled
  • Lettuce
  • Collards
  • Zucchini
  • Green plums

In the Garden

  • Lettuce, still pretty, still with slugs. And earwigs
  • Radishes + their greens
  • Turnips + their greens
  • Beets + their greens
  • Rainbow chard
  • Calendula flowers getting dried
  • Peas for the sampling–snap, snow, and shelling
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

You found cucumber starts! We got more stakes! So there’s now a mound with bush pickle cukes where the turnips and a couple of calendula plants used to be. And a mound with a trellis and burpless cukes where the edamame was. I attempted to transplant the edamame to the center of the new bean tent. Soup beans by the thick poles, volunbeans by the thinner ones.

So….I think we’re done planting for a little bit. Time to let things grow. Hope for rain. And tend what we can in the meantime.

Meals to consider

  • So much chard getting thinned. Let’s consider the chard and PB banana wraps. They’re a curiosity to me.
  • Beet greens in the turmeric ginger rice. Radish and turnip greens and the bitter greens with chickpeas. More chard with pasta? Mix the greens, creams, and eggs?
  • The snap peas and shelling peas got shelled, zapped in the microwave. There was enough for us each to have a spoonful. We don’t have much more of the snow peas, but maybe we can add them to a stirfy.
  • Summer rolls with lettuce or chard, and all the other veggies?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, April 20

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Psst, photographer…hide the twist ties/rubber bands. Or at least make them less prominent?

Hi John,

My parents texted this morning that they’re on the road. They’ll arrive tomorrow and be here through next Tuesday, when we switch from the one-size winter box we split to the small-size summer box that’s just us.

Today’s Box

  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Cilantro
  • Green Cabbage
  • Green Dandelion
  • Orange Carrots
  • Purple Daikon Radishes
  • Red Scallions
  • Spinach

Things in the fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Purple Daikon Radishes
  • Red Radishes
  • Cilantro
  • Carrots of the rainbow
  • Sunchoke
  • Red Beet

In the Garden

  • Garlic chives
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Dahlia bulbs

Open Preserves

Dinners with visitors

  • It turns out that the parsley I picked up as a bonus last week is actually cilantro. And we got more cilantro today. And rotted cilantro is a heartbreak. So, let’s use this. Cabbage and peanut slaw with cilantro on breakfast tacos and maybe in spring rolls. Roasted beets and carrots in a Thai-inspired curry. Ginger-garlic-not-quite-pho. Note: all of these should also use up the scallions.
  • Usually we’ve cooked up dandelion greens with beans. But we have pizza dough left from earlier in the week. Dandelion greens, garlic, and goat cheese?
  • The cilantro slaw will presumably be our main salad of the week. But let’s have spinach + turnip + carrot as our go to side salad.

Sarah

Boxing Day, February 9

planorcanLeave a comment
I feel like we missed an opportunity here. If only it’d been red onions and red cabbage (aka the purple kinds). Maybe even the standard beets. Purple basil! Ah. The purple CSA box will just have to reside in my dreams.

Dear John,

The oven died and took too long to fix. I kept delaying posting until we got an appliance repair person here. Hindsight, not the most helpful way to plan.

But it is fixed and we have the next box now. So I will hit publish on this one. Thank you to the repair person and to the neighbors who passed along the phone number to text.

Today’s Box

  • All Purple Carrots
  • Chioggia Beets x2
  • Purple Daikon Radishes
  • Purple Sweet Potatoes
  • Onions
  • Parsley
  • Green Cabbage

Things in the fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Half a parsnip
  • Robins Koginut Squash
  • Black Futsu squash (from the farmers market)
  • Shallots

Open Preserves

Home meals

  • Sweet potatoes topped with celery and shallot and cheese. You know what, we have grocery store celery. We could totally make this again. It’s good. And so simple. Reminder that we could use the 8 minute sweet potato trick if we want to do this before we get the oven fixed.
  • Chioggia Beets are the pretty striped ones. They begged to be mandolined into paper thin slices for salads. Probably pair with some citrus and some of the cheese that we need for topping the sweet potatoes. Toasted hazelnuts, warm from the oven. Top with some parsley if you’re feeling fancy farm-to-table restaurant style.
  • That said, when we grow tired of raw storage beets (because, that is what these are, right?), maybe we try a beet tartare. (Totally inspired by me doing cntrl+f for beet on the menu at an old favorite farm-to-table restaurant. Their description is “avocado / radish / capers / egg.”)
  • I do tend to use the cabbage for salads. Crispy and crunchy and feeling fresh.

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, November 29

planorcanLeave a comment
Omitted, an additional pint of cranberries.

Dear John,

Last week went remarkably according to plan. Black Futsu was stuffed with artisan (gluten free) bread cubes, Gruyère, Emmenthal, four strips of bacon, thyme, garlic, pepper, nutmeg, cream. It really was, oh so good. A couple of days later Kabocha with wild rice, mushrooms, cranberries, carrots, celery, shallots, raisins, rosemary, oregano, thyme. Still delicious, if not quite as decadent feeling.

Cabbage was shredded with carrots, apple ginger dressing, and the seeds for the squash that was on the table. Later more was shredded, doused with garlic-lemon-anchovy dressing, topped with toasted hazelnuts and sourdough croutons (for those who could partake).

Those who would miss turkey, missed the turkey. Those who are mostly vegetarian, surely didn’t. Except, it would be nice to have the carcass to make broth for all the soups of the season. Ah well, that’s what the veggie stock bag is for.

Today’s Box

  • Cranberries
  • Crispin Apples
  • Fuji Apples
  • Arugula
  • January King Cabbage
  • Leeks
  • Rainbow Carrots
  • Red Radishes

Things in the fridge and counter

  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Cranberries
  • Celery
  • 1/2 a Beet
  • Carrots of the rainbow
  • Green beefsteak tomatoes, but baby-sized
  • Roma tomatoes, mix of green and reddening
  • Carnival Squash
  • Robins Koginut Squash
  • Potatoes (only the gold)
  • Onions

Open Preserves

Making the most of the greenery

  • Leek and Potato soup! More with Less has a recipe as does Good Food Cook Book. Combine those for fun.
  • We have radishes. With greens! Carrots. With greens! Arugula! And, of course, cabbage. Let’s have fun with the greens that won’t last before settling into the months of cabbage and storage greens. One more batch of carrot top pesto. Salads with arugula and pear and blue cheese. Or arugula with roasted beets and goat cheese. Breakfast of roasted potatoes, fried eggs, and sauteed radish greens.
  • I’m proud we finished the last cabbage before this one arrived. (Barely.) We did cabbage and butter pasta this weekend. May be time for okonomiyaki. Or the Polish Potato Casserole of my childhood.
  • We have some left over stuffings that’ll go in the squash. Make the Thanskgiving cooking last.
  • But, let’s work on the cranberries. I think we have ~15 cups in the refrigerator right now. (To be far, about 10 came today.) We might have to candy some or string them with popcorn. Until then, more sauce? Newtons? Make cranberry curd and freeze it? Cranapple pie?

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, November 15

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Squash snuggled into the cabbage leaves

Dear John,

The leaves have (mostly) fallen. The hard frost has arrived. And the single bronze dahlia bloom from the plant outside has been cut and brought inside.

Today’s Box

  • Cranberries
  • Goldrush Apples
  • Granny Smith Apples
  • Carnival Squash
  • Celery
  • Fennel
  • Green Cabbage
  • Onions

Things in the fridge and counter

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

Garden Finale

  • Green tomatoes! Ours and ones other people had put in the compost *gasp*
  • Basil
  • Dahlias and marigolds and cosmos (gather seeds as we go!)
  • Nasturtium
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano

Open Preserves

Strategic eating before the big meal

  • The cabbage is gorgeous. It will also keep. Let’s use the few outermost leaves that are falling off for a salad now. Stir fry?
  • Time to make some apple date chutney, adapted for the freezer bags of apple and pear cores and cranberries that had been in the fridge for far, far too long. And apple scrap jelly.
  • More of the Six Seasons celery salads. With apples! And dates! And nuts!
  • Stuff the stripetti squash this week. Top with the leftovers from the cauliflower steaks last week. (That topping was so good. I can’t wait to make it again.)

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, July 26

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Missing: peaches. But this week we got all the bread!

Hi John,

In the heat wave that’s been happening, I have not wanted you to turn on the oven. Last night, the temperature came down enough that we finally got to use the pizza dough that’s been sitting in the fridge, make those candied nuts I’ve been asking for, and refill my crouton stash.

I’m a bit nervous about how we’re going to use the produce this week. A cousin is bringing dinner tomorrow. Your parents are here this weekend. On the one hand it’s more mouths to make a dent in the burgeoning list of things in the fridge. On the other hand, I’m ceding the meal planning to all y’all and I don’t know your intentions. Letting go of control is hard, even when I desperately want to.

Supposedly in Today’s Box

  • Peaches
  • Watermelon
  • Cantaloupe
  • Carmen Peppers
  • Green Beans
  • Green Zucchini
  • Mixed Heirloom Tomatoes

Things I think are in the fridge

  • Blueberries (farmer’s market)
  • Peaches
  • Fennel
  • Cucumber (farmer’s market)
  • Cranberries
  • Lemon squash
  • Green bell pepper
  • Celery
  • Greens: Napa Cabbage, Savoy Cabbage, Kale
  • Black radishes, Purple Daikon radish
  • Sweet potato
  • Jerusalem Artichokes

Coming in from the Garden

  • Edamame
  • Basil
  • Kale
  • Tomatillas (just a few, but they’re here!)
  • Tomatoes (only two so far, but again, they’re here!)
  • Occasional ground cherries
  • Peppers? Soon?
  • Garlic? Perhaps
  • Dahlias and marigolds and nasturtium
  • Rosemary for remembrance

Open Preserves

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

Meals that probably won’t get made because of that aforementioned letting others plan the meals scheme

  • I’ve dissected the cantaloupe into its various parts. Already mixed up the muesli-like cantaloupe-pulp oats from Lindsay-Jean Hard‘s book. Seeds are drying and can be roasted the next time the oven is on. Fruit is chopped up in the fruit drawer for snacking, and freezer for a papaya-melon-dragon fruit smoothie. But…if the bounty of summer fruit overtakes us, I am very intrigued by this risotto.
  • You’re making peppers stuffed with lemon squash (adapted from the Moosewood New Classics cookbook) for dinner tonight. I’m considering the Enchanted Broccoli Forest’s green pepper and zucchini enchilada filling for later. Bet it’d go well with a tomatillo-tomato salsa.
  • Green bean and pesto potato salad season!!!
  • Keep the summer slaws coming to work through the massive cabbage from last week. Maybe to top a taco?
  • The stuffed zucchini from the Moosewood cookbook (a page before what you’re working on right now) looked really interesting. Tomato-cinnamon sauce!

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June [JULY] 19

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Missing: green peppers and cabbage that were forgotten in the backpack. (Which is one step better than the bread forgotten at the pick-up site. Memory is not our strong suit these days.)

Hi John,

The predicted contents for today’s CSA included corn, so I was all excited for the annual eating of Half Baked Harvest’s Grilled Corn and Basil Salad (with Blueberries). Then today’s email arrived and instead of corn we’re getting green bell peppers. Womp womp.

Maybe we’ll have stuffed bell peppers soon? (Help! My Apartment Has a Dining Room has a couple of recipes as do many other of the books on the shelf I’m sure.) And maybe we’ll buy corn at the market this week.

Supposedly in Today’s Box

  • Peaches
  • Blueberries
  • Celery
  • Green Bell Peppers
  • Green Kale
  • Green Savoy Cabbage
  • Malabar Spinach

Things I think are in the fridge

  • Blueberries (farmer’s market)
  • Peaches
  • Fennel
  • Cucumber
  • Cranberries
  • Lemon squash
  • Gold zucchini
  • Neighbor’s garden zucchini
  • Greens: Napa Cabbage, Kale
  • Black radishes, Purple Daikon radishes
  • Sweet potato
  • Jerusalem Artichokes

Growing in the Garden

  • Edamame
  • Basil
  • Kale
  • Tomatillas (surely ripening soon?)
  • Tomatoes should start to come in this month
  • Occasional ground cherries
  • Peppers? Soon?
  • Garlic? Perhaps
  • Dahlias and marigolds and nasturtium
  • Rosemary forever

Open Preserves

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

Meals that you can maybe make in the coming days (slash weeks)

  • Noodles with veggies! Peanut noodles + edamame and radish. Noodles with zukes.
  • We’ve somehow managed to stock up on eggs. Crustless quiche to the rescue! But maybe a veggie shakshuka is in order soon. Or maybe we should boil eggs for the snacking.
  • I’m intrigued by the popcorn on a salad idea. More purposes for that corn we’ll buy…
  • Continue with the beans and greens. (But maybe freeze some of the beans we cooked last night.) Also consider bean salad (compare to bean salad recipe in Simply in Season).
  • Cabbage summer slaws
  • A care package came with some maple-rosemary-almonds. Now I want more candied nuts.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, April 14

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

Dear John,

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

In This Week’s Box

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

Still in the Fridge

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

Open Preserves

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

Meals for now, meals for later

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

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, February 17

planorcanLeave a comment
We took mushrooms last week and left beets and turnips this week. Sharing!

Hi John,

We have not made the shepherd’s pie, yet. So it feels like a lot of last week’s veggies are still hanging around. But! I did use the spaghetti squash (from October?). The seeds inside had almost universally started sprouting and the whole thing tasted bitter. Maybe it shouldn’t be stored for months and months at room temperature? (And we should probably prioritize that butternut squash too. Pizza with goat cheese?)

We also, finally, made the sunchoke veggie burgers and used up the Jerusalem Artichokes. I know. Those have been sitting in the back of the fridge since before I started keeping track of what’s still in the fridge. So of course this week’s box replenishes our supply.

I’m excited about it though. Despite what one might think from them being our lingering food, I’ve found I like sunchokes. Those veggie burgers are amazing! (They take a while to make. But the serving size on that post is way off. I made a half recipe and we got 6 normal size patties and 1 small one. And they freeze well! Once a batch is made it’s easy to make into a meal.) I like putting thin slices on a pizza. I liked Bryant Terry’s sunchoke cream for when we’re cooking a creamy vegan dish (though would use real cream if I wasn’t trying to serve a vegan meal). I like artichoke relish when we have sausage in the summer. And smashed sunchokes with siracha mayo.

All to say, there are plenty of ways we can use the new ‘chokes. I think one of them might need to be looking for eyes on the tubers we got and putting them in a five-gallon bucket. I don’t want to curse anyone, including ourselves, with a plant they can’t get rid of. And the tubers have a reputation of proliferating. So contain. And then see what happens.

In This Week’s Box

  • Collards
  • Garnet Sweet Potatoes
  • Green Cabbage
  • Jerusalem Artichokes
  • Purple Carrots
  • Red Onions

Still in the Fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Greens: Red Cabbage
  • Kohlrabi
  • Carrots
  • Parsnip
  • Black radishes, Red radishes, Winter radishes
  • Turnips
  • Squash: Butternut
  • Potatoes: Sweet, Purple

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

Dishes to dine on (that aren’t mentioned above)

  • We’ll cook up the collards. How’s the peanut and greens stew sound? It uses sweet potato too!
  • While I was looking for that recipe, I saw a coconut carrot curry soup. I think I’m intrigued. I haven’t tended to try these before because I didn’t like cooked carrots when I was a kid. But we’ve got carrots accumulating, so now is the time. And this recipe also uses a sweet potato! (Which means we will either use two of our sweet potatoes OR we will weigh a potato and use half of it in each recipe.)
  • Cabbage + carrots + onion does sound like we might make okonomiyaki again. Check Scraps, Wilts, and Weeds for recipe guidance.
  • And please, let’s make that shepherd’s pie. We have all the ingredients! Just need to decide to do it on a cooler day instead of one where we’re feeling the warmth of spring.

Sarah

Boxing Day, January 20 aka So many boxes II

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We don’t have a great place to take photos of food at the moment. What with our coffee table being a pile of boxes and all.

Hi John,

Our CSA doesn’t do small boxes in winter, and we’d gotten behind enough in consumption that we very nearly didn’t participate for the season. Then someone asked the listserv about splitting a box. So now, we have a box every other week.

Meanwhile, we have very, very many boxes in the house. Someday, we’ll retrieve our car from the shop and head to a store in search of some extra kitchen storage. Until then, the dining room will be a jumble of boxes and piles of plastic containers and pictures that haven’t yet been hung on the walls. Someday, we’ll find a dresser that suits me and then there will not be a stack of boxes holding clothes in the other bedroom. Someday, we will decide which bookshelves need replacing and, maybe, which books we no longer need. Of course, plenty of boxes are unpacked and collapsed and waiting for someone to respond to our Freecycle post. It’s just that moving is a process and it still feels

In This Week’s Box

  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Black Radishes
  • Green Kale
  • Parsnips
  • Red Beets
  • Red Cabbage
  • White Mushrooms
  • Yellow Popcorn

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: last of the season
  • Cranberries
  • Greens: Mustard greens, parsley
  • Celery
  • Carrots
  • Red beets
  • Squash: Spaghetti, Butternut
  • Potatoes: Sweet, Purple
  • 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
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Dishes that will hopefully yield leftovers so we have fewer cooking days

  • Earlier this week you made the peas and the rice for the Hoppin’ John Pilaf in Cool Beans. One day we will actually make the pilaf. And that day we will cook up the mustard greens.
  • Kale and mushroom lasagna from Six Seasons. I’m so excited that we get to try this again!
  • Parsnip soup with celery leaf relish, also from Six Seasons
  • We’ve been eating sweet potato on pizza with last summer’s pepperonata pulled from the freezer. That can be repeated another time or two. Maybe another round of the sweet potatoes stacked with chevre and celery. (I’m not certain how much celery we have though.) Maybe baked and stuffed with black beans, or as filling for enfrijoladas?
  • Red cabbage shredded into salads. One with craisins and carrots. Another with sesame or peanuts and ginger.
  • Oh gosh, we need to use beets and I am just not in a beet mood recently. Maybe try that beet and pear salad but with apples instead of pears. Beet gnocci? Roasted beet and citrus salad (adapting from Six Seasons)? Beet risotto to dehydrate for future camping trips? I dunno. I expect these will be with us a while.
  • I’m similarly uncertain about the black radishes. After the winter of radishes (Was that 2016 or 2017?), I actually enjoy radishes. Black radishes are my least favorite though–I don’t love the sharper flavor or the rougher exterior texture. Maybe that’s a reason to try pickling them? I don’t think I’ve tried pickling black radishes before. And I do like a pickled radish for tacos.

Here’s hoping that by the time I write again the kitchen will be more functional and the boxes will be a bit fewer!

Sarah

So many boxes

planorcanLeave a comment
Missing an apple that I ate on the walk home and cranberries that are still waiting to be eaten.
Cranberries off screen.
Too tired. You took the photo instead. Thank you!

Hi John,

It’s been a busy month, and the next few weeks are forecast to be even more chaotic. Holidays, and conferences, and packing, and travel, and cleaning, and testing, and vaccines, and exhaustion, and ickiness, and packing, and laundry, and painting, and chores. And…well…we’re taking this week off of the delivery, but I’m still not sure we’ll catch up on the vegetable consumption.

Rather than see what was in the boxes, let’s just review what we have available to work with over the next week.

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: Many apples, many types
  • Asian Pears, Bosc Pears
  • Cranberries
  • Greens: Cabbage, Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Celery
  • Peppers: Bell
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Carrots
  • Red beets
  • Squash: Spaghetti, Butternut
  • Potatoes: Sweet
  • 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

See what I mean? I think it’s more than we’re actually going to eat. (Especially if my hunch is right and we end up with take-out for a meal or three.) The lettuce is only enough for one or two more side salads. And we have a plan for the peppers. Honestly, half the trick is excavating the fruit from the bottom of the drawer instead of the most recently added apples on top. The good news is most of these are the hardy fall vegetables that will keep lasting in the fridge. (Though really, we should use the sunchokes some day. Make the burgers whenever!)

Tabs I have open so we remember what we ate

Quick things to prepare when we sneak off work

  • Squash lentil salad looks good. Though we’re close to out of greens for it.
  • The cranberry curd tart is so pretty. I’m not sure it’s for us right now, but it is what I want to use the cranberries for. Maybe we should toss the cranberries in the freezer until we’re ready for them.
  • Fried rice with lots of peppers and some turnips and carrots
  • Have a few more squash ribbons to put on a pizza. Out of ricotta though.
  • Really, the big question is how we should use the cabbage. (Translation: what form of cabbage sounds most likely to be eaten?) Probably the braised cabbage noodle favorite. But maybe we do Singapore noodles to mix it up? (And to not necessitate a trip to buy more glass noodles.)
  • I’d love to make sweet potato gnocci. But this is not the week with the energy or the time for that mission. Perhaps after the move? If not, the potatoes will keep until the new year. Probably.

Let’s do this!

Sarah

Boxing Day, October 14

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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, October 7

planorcanLeave a comment
Cabbage is playing peek-a-boo.

Hi John,

This week I curled up with a storybook. Layers of tales, echoing past each other. Before the hardback was returned to the library, I’d downloaded the audio reading.

The next book I picked up is for book club. It is not a book for Sarahs. At least not yet. We discuss it in a week and I’m thinking there’s a good chance I won’t finish it.

That switch, from the story that I want to rehear over and again to the story that I struggle to get in, is so familiar. I think it’s why the beloved stories are treasured so. Their power to imagine a world that I want to experience, to explain a part of existence, to create the actions required.

In This Week’s Box

  • Bartlett Pears
  • Empire Apples
  • All Blue Potatoes
  • Collards
  • Edamame
  • Green Beans
  • Green Cabbage
  • Mixed Yummy Peppers
  • Spaghetti Squash
  • Sungold Cherry Tomatoes

Garden Potential

  • Starfish pepper
  • Deciding how long to wait on the final jalapenos
  • Lombok peppers if we want them
  • Few tomatillos, hopefully
  • Volunbeans
  • Maybe a tomato?
  • Dahlias

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: Honeycrisp?, Gala
  • Greens: NONE. We ate them all.
  • Herbs: Fennel tops
  • Peppers: Yummy, Lombok, Starfish
  • Squash: Delicata, Red Kabocha, Carnival
  • Sweet onions
  • Garlic
  • Fingerling Potatoes
  • Celery
  • Sunchokes

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled cucumber skins
  • Lacto-fermented & Lacto-fermenting 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 butter
  • Quince jelly
  • Veggie stock
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Garden Update

I pulled up the cucumber a few weeks ago. Then you helped turn the compost and rescued some volunteer greens.

They tried, but they didn’t survive.

We took out a basil and a tomato that were done. Stopped by the store to get some seeds.

And now we have sprouts!

Radishes. Carrots. Spinach. Stir-fry mix of greens.

I’m not sure what will make it. The soup beans we planted mid-summer are dying instead of climbing. I put a second batch of radishes in the center of their tent-poles. Willing the roots down deep.

I’ve been thinking about Rachel Held Evans’ posts on Madeline L’Engle’s reflections on planting onions. L’Engle was talking about planting onions in the spring being an act of faith in the future when she was afraid for our planet. But I’m considering planting them this fall, and the faith it requires that we will come through winter to more growth. (Confession: I did not heed the warnings in the emails and did not reserve shallot bulbs. Maybe we see if we can plant from the garlic the CSA sent last week? Maybe we let it go for this season.)

I’m trying to save seeds, even though we can’t do the isolated crops that are recommended. Beans are obvious, easy. Just don’t eat them all. Cilantro was straightforward. Basil’s proving fiddly to separate, since we don’t have a screen. I’m currently fermenting seeds from our volunteer cherry tomato. Doing the action that faith calls forth.

Faith-filled Meals During Changing Seasons

  • Dessert first! There’s enough pears to make baked pears with balsamic and goat cheese and so we will do that.
  • Our first taste of sungolds this season! So late. Still will use the “stuff my face” method of consumption.
  • The roasted potatoes and green beans with pine nut vinaigrette the other week was good stuff. Let’s consider that for our fall green beans recipe.
  • Edamame as a side
  • I’ve held off on decreeing it soup season. But consider making a sweet potato, peanut, and kale soup only with squash instead of sweet potato and collards instead of kale.
  • Similarly, is it risotto season? Because a squash risotto is always yummy. Can use Six Seasons recipe, but be mindful about the fat if we want to dehydrate for backpacking meals.
  • Cabbage season is starting up again I see. Using the cabbage is low priority, it’ll keep. But consider the braised glass noodles when we do.
  • It might be time to quickle the fennel stems. Though maybe that’s next week’s project. There are still a few fronds to adorn salads.

~s

Boxing Day, July 8

planorcanLeave a comment
Lots of green veggies, with hints of yellows and golds. And then there’s the blueberries.

Hi John,

This weekend we took our picnic to the local fireworks display. We found a spot on the grass, spread out a blanket, unloaded our bikes, and took off our masks. In a crowd. It felt normal and weird and like the kind of thing that shouldn’t be noteworthy but it absolutely is. I felt mostly safe? Mostly because we were outside. And because blankets make easy boundaries and everyone was still giving each other a bit more space than we would have two years ago.

It was a better viewing experience than two years ago, when we tried watching from the apartment’s roof. And better than last year when we watched the show as reflected in the windows of the grocery store across the street while eating sausage with Jerusalem Artichoke Relish by our window.

I confess to mixed feelings about fireworks. They’re pretty and can be fun to watch. They’re loud and keep me up and we don’t even have pets or small children or PTSD to have extra reasons to hate them. The environmentalist side of me will be glad when they’re gone and not adding to fire risk or traumatizing birds. And there’s still the awesomeness of sitting with your group, part of a larger crowd, all looking up together and saying, “Wow.”

In This Week’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Celery
  • Dill
  • Fennel
  • Green Savoy Cabbage
  • Green Zucchini
  • Pickling Cucumbers
  • White Spring Onions
  • Yellow Wax Beans

Garden Potential

  • Occasional ground cherry
  • Red onions
  • Basil! Thai or lime or purple or Italian
  • Some apricots and blackberries from the communal area (I even snuck some into the photo.)

Still in the Fridge

  • Cherries
  • Herbs: Fennel, Dill
  • Greens: Dandelion, Cabbage, Lacinato Kale
  • Radish: Red and French Breakfast
  • Baby Hakurei Turnip
  • Onions: white and red
  • Gold Zucchini
  • Beets
  • Sunchokes

Considering the options

  • Pickling cucumbers + dill = Probably time to try making pickles. There’s just three cucumbers, so I pulled out Joy of Cooking and went with a recipe from there. They’ll be curing in the fridge, ready to eat in a week’s time.
  • Dandelion greens and white beans from Cool Beans. They’ve been here for two weeks. They need to get used. If we don’t feel like eating the dish, I bet it’d be a good one for dehydrating for a future backpacking trip.
  • I expect we’ll do more of the Six Seasons celery salads. They’re quick and don’t require heat and right now both of those are winning propositions.
  • Peanut, tofu, and wax beans! That’s my first thought. But then I’m also remembering the Smitten Kitchen salad with green beans and fennel and red onions. And wouldn’t you know that I tossed the last of the garden plot’s inherited onions in the brine yesterday. We’ll get more green beans for the tofu dish in a week or two. I spied some on our volunbeans earlier today.
  • Zucchini pasta? The zucchini pie/pizza/quiche thing from Simply in Season?
  • Do we want to make more of the sunchoke burgers? Or use them on pizza with the zucchini?
Flower and baby pepper!

I’m not sure what I’m feeling with the cabbage and kale right now. They feel mostly too heavy for the salads I want right now (though it hasn’t stopped their appearing with chickpeas and parm for a meal or two over the past week). I don’t really want the soups that I associate with them. Maybe spring rolls? Maybe in a stir-fry? Maybe I should think more about grain bowls? I bet that beet yogurt would be pretty on a bowl.

~s