carrot tops

Boxing Day, June 3

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Dear John,

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

Today’s Box

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

Things in the fridge

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

In the Garden

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

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

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

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

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

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, May 27

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

Dear John,

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

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

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

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

Today’s Box

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

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Rhubarb
  • Green Garlic

In the Garden

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

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

  • Also still to be done.

Making the most of our garden rearrangements, erm, harvest

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

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 25

planorcan1 Comment

Dear John,

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

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

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

Today’s Box

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

Things in the fridge

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

In the Garden

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

Open Preserves

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

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

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

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, 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