cherries

Boxing Day, July 4

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Dear John,

The fireworks are echoing down the street. I’m wiped from watching parade in the summer heat. You’re in the kitchen making everything neat.

Today’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Dark Sweet Cherries
  • White Peaches
  • Fennel
  • Red Beets
  • Red Spring Onions
  • Slicing Cucumbers
  • Yellow Patty Pan Squash

Things in the fridge

  • Cherries
  • Watermelon
  • Peaches
  • Fennel bulb
  • Greens: Cabbage, Chard, Collard
  • Carrots
  • Green plums

In the Garden

  • Green beans from neighbors
  • Rainbow chard
  • Turnips + greens
  • Radish + greens
  • Beets + reds, beet + greens
  • Sad looking ending the pea season
  • All the lettuce (17 slugs, 1 earwig)
  • Basil leaves getting pinched with flowers
  • Dill flowers
  • Garlic chives weeding forever
  • Calendula flowers getting dried by the trayful
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos bouquet

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

We pulled the peas, and planted beans to take over the tent. Two volunbeans, four from the soup pack. Harvested the last of the spring planted radish and turnips. I’m debating if we plant something else short there, or wait for the cucumber and strawberry to spread as they grow.

The beans we planted (two weeks ago?), have all popped up. The chard keeps getting thinned, so even though it’s growing, I feel like we might not be totally overwhelmed. Nevermind how loaded the bike was before we left.

I checked the internet’s horticulture wisdom and realized we needed to prune all of our tomatoes – it’s an indeterminate year.

Meals to make to celebrate summer

  • Internet browsing brought me to a newsletter with a series from Pandemic Part I. There’s this salad that looks great for cleaning out bits and ends. I made it last week and it was a hit. Not sure it’s calling me again so soon, but wanting to save.
  • It’s been so long since we made smashed cucumber salad. I miss it. We are making it this week. (I spied the first baby cucumber fruiting today. Maybe we’ll have some of our own to harvest.)
  • And the patty pan squash means it’s time for my annual making of the roasted squash and herbed chickpeas from chocolate & zucchini.
  • Green beans and tofu?
  • We just tossed fennel pesto that had gone moldy. So we can make some again. But learn from our mistakes and FREEZE it. Also, toss fennel on a salad of lettuces + peaches + toasted pecans.
  • How to use this week’s beet greens? (The beets will keep. Fine dice and roasted. Sliced on pizza. I’m not worried about them.) And what about the supply of chard? Last week brought a quiche with a mix of parm, cheddar, and gouda. Another quiche, but this time with chevre sounds potential. Honestly, it’s been a bit since we had pizza. That sounds kinda good. So does having it with pasta in a tomato sauce.
  • Last thought, if we have extra cucumbers, maybe this salad but with fennel.

Love,

Sarah

PS The wedge salad was as good as I dreamed and makes me want to get iceberg lettuce again. The toppings we used–roasted beets, toasted nuts, green onions, parsley, blue cheese dressing–feel so similar to my autumnal salads. But those are served with kale and that makes all the difference.

Boxing Day, June 20

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Dear John,

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

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

Today’s Box

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

Things in the fridge

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

In the Garden

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

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

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

Meals to consider and pickles to prep

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

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 6

planorcanLeave a comment

Dear John,

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

Today’s Box

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

Things in the fridge

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

In the Garden

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

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

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

Meals to consider

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

Love,

Sarah