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 KaleSwapped 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
Planning Inside The Box 