celery

Boxing Day, July 1

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

Dear John,

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

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

The weather is hot. The pool is a delight.

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

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

Today’s Box

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

Things in the fridge

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

In the Garden

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

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

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

Don’t get too overwhelmed! Just get fed.

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

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 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, 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, January 26

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Our box. Minus the black turnips. Plus extra sweet potatoes and parsnips.

Dear John,

Last week, someone on the neighborhood listserv started a thread sharing lifehacks. The first responses were about grocery lists and meal planning. Bulk cooking sauces and dressings on weekends to prepare for the week ahead. Making meals large enough that leftovers get packed in lunchboxes. Having regularly occurring menus. Which a reminder that, I can still tell you that growing up Saturday morning is pancakes, Saturday dinner is pizza, Sunday morning eggs, Sunday lunch spaghetti, and Sunday dinner hot dogs and popcorn.

I contributed using a melon baller to core an apple. Truly it works quickly, and then you have a half ball of core to toss in the apple core bag in the freezer.

Because, the apple core bag, is definitely one of our more recent tricks. Apple and pear cores (and other fruit), tossed in a bag in the freezer until you have enough to make jelly and mostarda or chutney. I opted not to put that one the listserv though. It feels a bit of an advanced cooking to reduce waste move. I’ll share with you, here, though.

It led to a fun discussion of our other hacks:

  • Freezer scrap bags: In addition to the apple cores, we have kale and green stems that become pesto, veggie peels become stock, and one day I might figure out the secret of saving Parmesan rinds for stock
  • Second curtain rod over the far side of the shower for hanging washcloths to dry
  • Family account on one password with shared passwords
  • Cryptomator + shared drive for secure file sharing across computers
  • When mood is bad, eat something, drink water, and go for a walk and talk.
  • This blog for sharing the menu planning process

Speaking of….

Today’s Box

  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Black Radishes
  • Celery
  • Parsnips
  • Rainbow Chard
  • Robins Koginut Squash
  • Scarlet Turnips
  • Shallots

Things in the fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Rutabaga (picked up from last week’s swap box leftovers)
  • Black Futsu squash (from the farmers market)

Open Preserves

Home meals

  • Sweet potatoes topped with celery and shallot and cheese. This recipe is a better fit for this box than I remembered!
  • If we want something salad-y, I think the turnips are the first thing to try. I don’t know scarlet turnips! Maybe shave them and some apples and do a mustard dressing? We can also try grating the rutabaga.
  • Two weeks ago, we made the parsnip soup with celery relish from Six Seasons. Honestly, it’s worth a repeat.
  • Oh, root vegetable tangine sounds really fun. Aka it would do exactly as titled and mix up our routine. And we have preserved lemon waiting to be used!
  • That blog had an older post that reminds me we can make gnocci with the root veg. We’re out of our sweet potato gnocci, so that’s tempting. But maybe one of the four pounds of rutabaga goes to that? We already have grocery store potatoes on hand.
  • Last week, I used the last fall squash in a winter chili adapted from Simply in Season. This one looks like it’d be fun to stuff, but maybe play on that theme? Beans and cheese and some canned tomatoes and spices with heat.
  • I was debating how to use the chard–it’s not quite a salad green but I wanted to get the crunchy freshness of barely cooked greens. I think returning to the pandemic winter favorite of turmeric rice with greens is the way to go. (You know if it came a week we had cilantro, I’d be making that soup.)

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, November 22

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Twice as many cranberries as last week. We’re totally making cranberry curd soon.

Happy Thanksgiving John,

We took our Covid tests this morning, in anticipation of out of state visitors arriving this afternoon. Not quite as many as we planned for. Guess that means more leftovers.

We’re skipping the turkey in favor of a pumpkin, erm, squash stuffed with delciousness. Cranberry sauce. Cranberry relish. Cranberry relish variation two. Maybe just one pie tomorrow and another on Friday or Saturday?

Today’s Box

  • Cranberries
  • Goldrush Apples
  • Honeycrisp Apples
  • Celery
  • Onions
  • Rainbow Carrots
  • Robins Koginut Squash
  • Yukon Gold Potatoes

Things in the fridge and counter

  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Cranberries
  • Fennel
  • Celery
  • Cabbage
  • Green beefsteak tomatoes, but baby-sized
  • Roma tomatoes, mix of green and reddening
  • Sweet Dumpling Squash
  • Carnival Squash
  • Potatoes (purple and gold)
  • Onions

From the Farmer’s Market

  • Wild rice
  • Mushrooms
  • Brussel sprouts
  • Kabocha Squash
  • Black Futsu
  • Shallots

Open Preserves

Thanksgiving Dinner (that still needs cooking)!

And beyond!

  • I can eat fat now! Which includes coconut. We can make a pumpkin curry. Use red curry paste! Toss in tofu? Or mushrooms? Or cabbage? Peanuts? Cashews? The mystery peppers we gleaned from the compost pile???
  • The onions are huge. I’m tempted to make french onion soup. Need to remember what the vegetarian version that I liked was. Mushroom broth?
  • Avgolemono soup sounds good and meets the various dietary preferences we’re hosting this week. Might be worth buying greens to be able to make it. (So weird to be planning to buy produce!)
  • Something potatoes. Roasted potatoes as side dish? Potato salad? Mashed potatoes for the Thanksgiving table?
  • Need to use the fennel. Maybe roasted with apples? And beet. *seareches* Oh! Roasted with potatoes! That’ll do. Perhaps even do for tomorrow.

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, 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, 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, March 3

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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

So many boxes

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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, November 11

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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, November 4

planorcanLeave a comment
Smaller CSA share coming to you for Fall 2021.

Hi John,

Yesterday I called you from the garden. Should we try to find row cover before the forecast freeze? Went to the closest plant store, they don’t carry it. Decided that we have enough going on in the next few weeks that maybe it doesn’t make sense to put in more effort and extend our work. Sorry summer plants.

So we’re saying goodbye to the tomatoes and eggplant. Been separating basil seeds at the dinner table. We picked the first fall radish and the pink bulb feels like magic.

In This Week’s Box

  • Asian Pears
  • Empire Apples
  • Garden Gem Tomatoes
  • Green Acorn Squash
  • Mixed Carmen Italian Peppers
  • Pink Celery
  • Red Leaf Lettuce

Garden Potential

  • Starfish pepper
  • Deciding how long to wait on the final jalapenos
  • Lombok peppers
  • Volunbeans for drying
  • Final tomato, possibly to ripen on counter
  • First radish, when we want it

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: Who even is able to identify the apples filling the fruit drawer?
  • Bartlett Pears, Asian Pears, Bosc Pears
  • Greens: Savoy Cabbage, Dandelion, Spinach
  • Herbs: Fennel tops
  • Leeks
  • Celery
  • Peppers: Yummy, Lombok, Starfish, Banana, Jalapeno, Carmen, Cubanelle
  • Kohlrabi
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Carrots
  • Red beets
  • Squash: Delicata, Red Kabocha, Spaghetti, Robins Koginut
  • 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
  • Radish kimchi
  • Sunchoke relish
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Sour cherry chutney
  • Freedom berry jam
  • Apple sauce
  • Apple butter
  • Quince jelly
  • Probably still more uninventoried

New Menu Suggestions

  • Quiche? On the one hand, I like the idea of an eggy dish that has leftovers. Shredded beets and goat cheese? It’ll all be pink. Sliced tomatoes, sauteed peppers, and cheddar cheese?
  • Nominating this acorn squash for being stuffed come Thanksgiving.
  • Celery or cabbage salad with chickpeas, a garlic anchovy dressing, croutons for me
  • Celery and apple salad. (There’s a celery, apple, peanut salad in Six Seasons that we haven’t tried yet. It also uses medium-hot chilies. The star peppers could be fun.)
  • Cabbage fried rice

Reminders of Meals Already Brainstormed

  • Pizza with delicata squash slices
  • Soup: Ginger, apple, squash OR leek and potato
  • Dandelion greens with beans and fennel (I have now cooked the beans. We just have to cook the meal.)
  • Stuffed spaghetti squash
  • Kohlrabi, apple, ginger salad
  • Pickle the banana peppers already

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, October 28

planorcanLeave a comment
Offcamera, frustration at the squash that had been on display and is now rotting. Oooops.

Dear John,

It has been a whirlwind of a week. Right now I am tired and hungry-ish and don’t really know what’s in the fridge except that the only leftovers are a half-cup of macaroni noodles. Which does not a meal make. But may be enhanced into a snack? I will skip further preamble in order to peruse ingredients from the comfort of the couch.

In This Week’s Box

  • Asian Pears
  • Honeycrisp Apples
  • Celery
  • Cubanelle Peppers
  • Delicata Squash
  • Ginger
  • Red Beets
  • Spinach
  • Sweet Onions
  • White Kohlrabi

Garden Potential

  • Starfish pepper
  • Deciding how long to wait on the final jalapenos
  • Lombok peppers
  • Last of the tomatillos, for real
  • Volunbeans for drying
  • Tomato, possibly to ripen on counter

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: Gala, Empire, Jonagold, U-pick, Granny Smith
  • Bartlett Pears, Asian Pears, Bosc Pears
  • Greens: 1/2 a cabbage, 1/2 bunch collards, Savoy Cabbage, Romain lettuce, Dandelion, Red leaf lettuce
  • Herbs: Fennel tops
  • Leeks
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Tomatillos
  • Broccoli
  • Edamame
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Peppers: Yummy, Lombok, Starfish, Banana, Jalapeno, Carmen
  • Carrots
  • Squash: Delicata, Red Kabocha, Spaghetti, Robins Koginut
  • Garlic
  • Potatoes: Blue, 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
  • Radish kimchi
  • Sunchoke relish
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Sour cherry chutney
  • Freedom berry jam
  • Apple sauce
  • Apple butter
  • Quince jelly
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Things we’ve already eaten

  • Tacos! Braised collard stems with scrambled eggs and tomatilla salsa. Sweet potatoes and black beans with the fermented habanada jalapeno hot sauce. Take-out from the place near the canoe launch.
  • Tomato sauce (butter and garlic and sage and one red pepper) with macaroni noodles
  • Sweet potato and greens (mostly turnip, some spinach) gratin. Roux from here.

Things we may yet eat

  • Soup of the week: Smokey beetroot and pistachio soup from Midnight Chicken.
  • Or mix roasted beets with yogurt. Maybe adding some fresh ginger at the end?
  • Squash pizza. With the pickled peppers? With goat cheese and lemon slices? With blackberries (from the freezer)?
  • Remember a couple of weeks back when I was thinking of apple slaw. The recipe I was remembering then is kohlrabi and apple and ginger and we have all of those right now. Perhaps I will go prepare some for lunch.

Love,

Sarah

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

Boxing Day, July 1

planorcanLeave a comment
Pink celery doing the classic lie in front of the group pose

Hi John,

So…I’m still learning this platform. And was not feeling the best. And some weeks, apparently, I use the draft version to reference for meal planning all week instead of actually pressing publish. Here it is, belatedly. Who knows what edits came in when.

In This Week’s Box

  • Dark Sweet Cherries
  • Tart Cherries
  • 7082 Cucumber
  • English Peas
  • Fresh Red Onions
  • Gold Zucchini
  • Lacinato Kale
  • Pink Celery
  • Red Chard
  • Red Cylindra Beets

Garden Potential

  • Occasional ground cherry
  • Basil! Thai or lime
  • Oregano
  • Rosemary
  • Maybe a plum or three from the community tree

Still in the Fridge

  • Yellow Peaches
  • Cherries
  • Herbs: Parsley, Fennel, Dill, Cilantro
  • Greens: Swiss Chard, Beet Greens, Lettuce, Dandelion, Cabbage
  • Patty Pan Squash
  • Radish, Red and French Breakfast
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Onions
  • Beets
  • Parsnip
  • Sunchokes

Meals to Maybe Make

  • Patty pan squash with chickpeas is still on the menu
  • Peas on toast!
  • Pea risotto if the heat breaks?
  • Also if the heat breaks, zucchini tacos?
  • We could still roast beets to make beet yogurt. And we can keep shredding them to go on salads.
  • I was looking in Six Seasons for the celery salads that I like, but then saw this one for cucumber and celery and apricots. We are totally making that ASAP.
  • Cherry pie! We have tart cherries and I want to see how they work in the amazing cherry pie of goodness.
  • Greens jam! [Edit to add, I ended up dehydrating instead of cooking all the way to jam so we’ll have them for our backpacking trip)

~s