cucumber

Boxing Day, August 1

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Dear John,

It’s counterintuitive that after having all the guests over the past week we have more lingering produce than usual. But between buying extra veggies for lunch nibbles and pre-preparing dinners, there wasn’t as much focus on using up the CSA and garden food. Some chard stems and green tomatoes made a chutney that was offered on the potato bar. Cooked chard leaves were offered with the pasta sauce. Tomatillos were chopped with lime juice and a pepper to top tacos. That was about it for three days?

Now I’m having the post-visit energy collapse. It feels entirely possible that we’ll order takeout an extra day this week. Possibly pull out a freezer meal without freezing a new one. All to say, watch out. Next week may get to overwhelming amounts of produce needing to be used if we’re not intentional.

Today’s Box

  • Donut Peaches
  • Nectarines
  • Centercut Squash
  • Green Beans
  • Green Bell Peppers
  • Mixed Heirloom Tomatoes
  • Sweet Onions
  • Cinnamon Basil

Things in the fridge

  • Plums
  • Watermelon
  • Sweet corn
  • Banana peppers
  • Celery
  • Cucumber and lemon cucumber
  • Red Spring Onions
  • Fennel bulb
  • Greens: Cabbage
  • Turnips?
  • Red Potatoes
  • Green plums
  • Green tomatoes (starting to pink)

In the Garden

  • The first cucumber!
  • Early peppers. Think Cochiti but maybe Fish.
  • A couple tomatillos
  • More tomatoes. Both ours and from the neighbors.
  • A few ground cherries
  • Rainbow chard (but gave half to the neighbors)
  • All the Genovese basil
  • Flowering dill if inspired
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos and gomphrena if we want another bouquet
  • Communal blackberries and figs

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

Sad news this week. Our basil looks not great. I’m not sure if the browning is due to stress from heat and lack of hydration or a fungus.

I fear the fungus.

One plant was totally dead. I pulled it and another two that were browning. One last batch of pesto for us. And not planting basil in the same section next year out of an abundance of caution.

Team Empty The Fridge

  • Chop tomatillos + tomatos + pepper + salt + lime for the tacos that were dinner.
  • The potato green bean pesto salad
  • Cinnamon basil and lime cookies.
  • Need to pickle the banana peppers. (Just as we finished off last year’s batch.)
  • These bell peppers look good for making stuffed bell peppers. I’ve had this tab open for long enough that I forgot it existed. Calls for lamb, so we might not go that direction though!
  • I want panzanella and the spot that I picked up lunch from today didn’t have any. So expect to make that one of these days while you’re at the office.
  • I want pizza. Can we pizza? It’s hot, but not as hot as it’s been. (These are the weeks I miss apartment complexes gas grills.) Squash and red sauce and cheese and garlic. Corn and tomatoes and pesto and feta.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, July 25

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Also grabbed a savoy cabbage and some banana peppers from the swap box.

Dear John,

It’s a week of visitors. We’ve got plans for a pasta bar night, a taco bar night, and a potato bar night. Dips and crackers and veggies for lunches. And letting the hotels cover continental breakfasts.

We’ve got a red sauce and a green sauce (pesto from the basil above). Squash and corn taco filling. Black beans cooked up. Chard sauteed. Hummus hummed and dips ready to blitz.

Today’s Box

  • Athena Cantaloupe
  • Little Baby Flower Watermelon
  • Plums
  • Bicolor Sweet Corn
  • Gold Grape Tomatoes
  • Lemon Cucumbers
  • New Red Potatoes
  • Sweet Basil

Things in the fridge

  • Herbs: Hyssop?, basil
  • Celery
  • Cucumber
  • Red Spring Onions
  • Fennel bulb
  • Greens: Cabbage, Kale,
  • Turnips?
  • Green plums
  • Green tomatoes

In the Garden

  • First of the tomatoes!!
  • Maybe a couple of ground cherries
  • Rainbow chard
  • Basil leaves getting pinched with flowers
  • Flowering dill if inspired
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos and gomphrena bouquet
  • Communal blackberries

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

Dahilas and mint from a neighbor. Mixing up our bouquet.

I picked the first of our tomatoes, the Oaxacan Jewel. They weren’t beefsteak size, but they are a pretty gold.

Meals between visitors

  • Melon + cucumber + chickpea salad from Pulp
  • Spiced tomato + white bean and onions + yogurt herby cucumbers salad from Six Seasons
  • Raw corn + tomato + herbs salad from Six Seasons

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, September 23

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Welcome to fall. The watermelon have disappeared and the squash have arrived.

So John,

On Monday evening, I told a friend there was a 30% chance we’d end up buying a house by the end of the year. After a tour on Tuesday, I had our odds up to 50%–pretty likely actually. At least until we talked to our agent again today and decided not to write up an offer after all. Even in this market, 18% annual interest is a lot. Especially when it was just bought two years ago.

I’m thankful for working with an expert who tells us not to buy a place that’s overpriced. Or another place that will be awful to try to sell. Or that has more deferred maintenance than the price suggests.

I’m thankful that we have the flexibility to stay. Even if I never expected the housing search to take a year. Or if it did it was because we were losing bids. Not that we weren’t putting in offers. Nevermind winning bids and then failing inspections.

For now, I’m putting our chances of 2021 homebuying at 29%. The listings posted today weren’t inspiring. That’s okay. We’ll keep looking.

In This Week’s Box

  • Honeycrisp Apples
  • Kiwiberries
  • Arugula
  • Butternut Squash
  • Cilantro
  • Fennel
  • Mixed Yummy Peppers
  • Purple Fingerling Potatoes
  • Sweet Onions
  • Habanada Peppers

Garden Potential

  • Starfish pepper
  • Paprika
  • Jalapenos
  • Lombok peppers if we want them
  • Few tomatillos
  • Volunbeans (let ’em dry!)
  • Last of the Roma tomatoes?
  • Vorlon tomato
  • Dahlias

Still in the Fridge

  • Cucumber
  • Figs
  • Greens: Butterhead Lettuce
  • Peppers: Banana
  • Squash: Delicata, Red Kabocha, Acorn
  • Sweet Potatoes
  • Fingerling Potatoes
  • Herbs: None
  • Celery
  • Sunchokes

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Quince jelly
  • Dill pickle
  • Lacto-fermented & Lacto-fermenting green cherry tomatoes
  • Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
  • Pickled red onion
  • Radish kimchi
  • Sunchoke relish
  • Quince jelly
  • Kicky cranapple chutney
  • Peach jam
  • Apple butter
  • Quince jelly
  • Veggie stock
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Starting points

  • I’d forgotten the cucumber. We should use the cucumber! It’s the last cucumber from the garden. Classic cucumber, onion, and yogurt side?
  • Squash + cilantro = we can do the mole verde butternut squash. Or acorn squash. Or Kabocha squash…
  • Other cilantro + tomatillos + jalapeno for another green salsa.
  • Apple fennel salad. Because this fennel cannot last as long as the previous one did.
  • I want something light for the lettuce. Tomato and sweet pepper with a sweet vinaigrette.
  • Whereas, I thin the arugula can go loud. Blue cheese and honeycrisp and roasted sweet potato with a balsamic.

~s

Boxing Days, July 29 + August 5

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July 29: Purple peppers and cucumber disguised as a very ripe mango.

Dear John,

This August is our month of summer adventures in the time of covid. Hosting family who it has been far too long since we’ve seen. Backpacking in the hills. Visiting friends with kids who are at ridiculously different life stages than when we last saw them. Attending the burial for the funeral we tried to livestream months ago. Paddling in our local rivers. Looking for parts for bicycles*. Finally, meeting our plot neighbors at the garden.

A couple of weeks back I realized I probably wasn’t going to be comfortable with the plans to eat indoors during our travels**. We talked it over, set a threshold for case rates where we’d push through the discomfort and take the risk. Then, we checked the numbers for the county in question and went on a dehydrating spree. It worked for clearing the leftovers out of the fridge at least. And for keeping us from eating in situations where we don’t feel safe. Somedays it feels like enough.

Off-camera, an extra cantaloupe and bonus bunch of beets bequeathed by the guy picking up his veggies at the same time as me.

In This Week’s Box

  • Athena Cantaloupe
  • Nectarines
  • Orange Seedless Watermelon
  • Anaheim Peppers
  • Bicolor Sweet Corn
  • Fairytale Eggplants
  • Mixed Heirloom Tomatoes
  • Purplette Onions
  • Red Beets
  • Red Grape Tomatoes

Garden Potential

  • Ground cherries!
  • Volunbeans–Yesterday, I harvested the two bean pods I was letting dry. Now we get to cook nine beans and see what we think.
  • Cherry tomatoes!
  • Cucumber
  • Tomatillos, haven’t been picked yet. I think they’re still growing.
  • Basil! Thai or lime or purple or Italian
  • Cilantro/Green coriander
  • Figs from the community tree

In Last Week’s Box

* = In the fridge right now

  • Athena Cantaloupe
  • Donut Peaches
  • Little Baby Flower Watermelon
  • *Indian Cucumbers
  • *Islander Pepper
  • *Italian Parsley
  • *Red Potatoes
  • Red Tomatoes
  • *Sweet Onions
  • Yellow Straightneck Squash
  • *Jalapeno Peppers

Still in the Fridge

  • Blackberries
  • Peaches
  • Blueberries
  • Herbs: Fennel, Dill
  • Onions: white, red, sweet
  • Kohlrabi
  • Sunchokes

Meals for now (and maybe then)

  • Raw corn salads. Picnics using each of the corn salad recipes in Six Seasons. One with tomatoes and one with walnuts and peppers. Both with all the herbs.
  • Cold soups! Gazpacho from Simply in Season and maybe another chilled cucumber number
  • Cucumber noodles? Or eggplant noodles?
  • Or pickled eggplant?
  • Potato tacos
  • Beet greens in a red curry with the remaining half block of tofu
  • Blackberry white chocolate mousse from the Chocolate cookbook
  • Cherry tomato sage pasta, inspired by this favorite
  • Cantaloupe jelly from Food in Jars cookbook
  • Watermelon salsa

While I’m writing this, you’re working on the letter to friends who will look after our garden plot. I confess, I’m a little jealous of the produce they’ll get. The eggplant might ripen! And the jalapenos! And the paprika! They’re just starting to blush.

But, I know there will be more when we return. And besides, food is better when it’s shared.

~s

* A different bike than last week!

** And that Olive Garden at the mall wasn’t going to be the place that does outdoor dining. Though there is take-out.

Boxing Day, July 22

planorcanLeave a comment
One watermelon. Two cucumbers. Three peaches. Three eggplant. Three peppers. Three onions. Three kohlrabi. And many, many beans.

Happy Saturday John!

I started planning for this week on Wednesday, after we received the predicted contents email. Thursday I was focused on doing the things in the kitchen. Yesterday, as you just reminded me, I was too busy looking up bike parts for you.*

So here we are, easing into the weekend. Me planning meals and you debating which dessert we should make for tonight. Later we’ll go kayaking and bike to an open house. Sometimes, having three bikes actually feels reasonable.

In This Week’s Box

  • Apricot
  • Little Baby Flower Watermelon
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Fresh Sweet Onions
  • Green Beans
  • Malabar Spinach
  • Mixed Cherry Tomatoes
  • Mixed Specialty Eggplant
  • Purple Bell Peppers
  • Purple Kohlrabi
  • Slicing Cucumbers

Garden Potential

  • Ground cherries, sometime soon I expect them to be coming in for real. Not just one at a time.
  • Volunbeans–let’s keep picking as they come. Except for the ones closer to the rosemary. Those I still want to see how they cook up as shellies and how they dry.
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Cucumber surprised me last Sunday. Two appeared seemingly overnight. I didn’t notice any yesterday, but five days from now? Who knows
  • Tomatillos, maybe before next week. Probably not. But maybe.
  • Basil! Thai or lime or purple or Italian
  • Cilantro/Green coriander
  • Blackberries from the communal briar patch

Still in the Fridge

  • Blackberries
  • Peaches
  • Blueberries
  • Herbs: Fennel, Dill
  • Greens: Savoy Cabbage, Lacinato Kale
  • Onions: white, red, sweet
  • Carmen Peppers
  • Asian Cucumbers
  • Zucchini (only half a zuke left. But half a zucchini left)
  • Centercut Squash
  • Celery
  • New Red Potatoes
  • Beet
  • Sunchokes

And now for some bean sprouts

Last week we stopped by the garden store and picked up a packet of dried soup beans. Our first intentionally planted beans in this plot! The packet said 7-10 days to germinate, and here they are.

The carrots, planted on the same day, have not yet appeared. But we’ll keep trying to plant those every few weeks until frost is nigh.

Meals for now…and for later

  • You just said that the apricot pistachio squares look interesting. Though we may still do a peach tart from Flavor Flours or Baking. That is, if I can remember what I baked when Kathy stayed with us two years ago.
  • The smashed cucumber salad was a hit last week. We did not try the other cucumber salad recipes. And I do believe we are going to be eating it again.
  • Slicing cucumbers are the ones we’ll use to actually go back for the celery and cucumber salad in Six Seasons
  • More green bean pesto potato salad! Or the green bean fennel salad!
  • Purple bell peppers, huh? I think the idea of stuffing them is the right idea. I’m not as big a fan of bell peppers, so I don’t know what to do with them beyond top salads or pizza or stirfy. Especially when we don’t yet have tomatoes. There is the roasted pepper panzanella in Six Seasons that would use some pepper and red onion and some oregano. Which may make it enough of a winner right there.
  • My memory of the malabar spinach is I didn’t love it raw. Let’s cook it with some rice and beans and use it to stuff the bell peppers. Maybe with some roasted centercut squash.
  • Oh! I bet we can dehydrate zucchini for backpacking. For a pasta recipe. Maybe something like this or a peanut noodle dish? Actually, maybe we toss the rest of the cabbage in the dehydrator while we’re at it. I’m sure we could use it in a stirfry this week, but maybe let it be a backcountry experiment. [Edit: dehydration complete!]
  • Especially since we can slice the kohlrabi for another salad this week. Saute the last of the kale and you’ve got my old favorite.
  • Speaking of the kohlrabi, see all those leaves in the picture? I cooked them up with some lentils, garlic, onions, and spices. Squeeze of lemon, handful of raisins. Served on rice for dinner on Thursday. Leftovers are already dehydrated for us to use as a cold soak salad for a backpacking lunch.
  • Our other dehydrator experiment this week was a smoothie. Yogurt + peach + a little bit of banana + frozen mango + some fresh ginger = My delicious breakfast this week. Poured into the dehydrator the fruit leather it turned into was yummy. Crumbled into the spice grinder and turned into a powder that smells divine. We’ll see next month how rehydrating on the trail actually fares.
  • The eggplant is beautiful. Dining In has a recipe for fried eggplant with harissa and dill and honestly, that sounds like it could be amazing. And we have dill that needs to be used.
  • If we buy an avocado, we could probably make a green gazpacho pretty easily
  • Watermelon by itself. Watermelon with feta and pickled red onions and basil. Mmmmmm watermelon.

I have no plans for the cherry tomatoes. They are already half eaten. They are summer’s gift and my belly is happy.

~s

Baby cuke do dooo do do do doot

* It is a sign of how much Covid messed up supply chains that the bike shop told you that they don’t expect to get the part for you bike for a year. My internet sleuthing suggests they might be overly optimistic–the supplier’s website says the inventory system is wrong and that they expect more of this $30 part in 2023.

Boxing Day, July 15

planorcanLeave a comment
There are six ears of corn hiding in the back.

Hi John,

I’m hoping that the maintenance team is successful with today’s dishwasher repair. I was hoping to be baking a pie right now (unless I was collapsed taking a nap), but with a team of three in the kitchen, I think we’re going to wait another day.

I know today is a minor inconvenience. But it does convince me more that I don’t want to buy a house where we anticipate a kitchen renovation. I’m happy to live with dated cabinets, and changing out hardware is no big deal. Appliances that are halfway through their lifecycle, well, I’d rather get five years out of the dishwasher than have it disposed prematurely. To the extent that we can avoid a remodel though, that’s not a project I’d like to take on.

In This Week’s Box

  • Blackberries
  • Yellow Peaches
  • Asian Cucumbers
  • Bicolor Sweet Corn
  • Carmen Peppers
  • Centercut Squash
  • Green Kale
  • New Red Potatoes
  • Sweet Fresh Onions
  • Sweet Thai Basil

Garden Potential

  • Occasional ground cherry
  • Volunbeans–I thought they were green beans when I picked six on Monday. I went back today and they looked like they might be a shelling bean. At least the ones I picked had more like beans inside and I wouldn’t have thought that it’d been long enough for them to be overgrown.
  • Tomato? You picked three cherry tomatoes from the volunteer yesterday!
  • Basil! Thai or lime or purple or Italian
  • Cilantro

Still in the Fridge

  • Cherries
  • Peaches
  • Blueberries
  • Herbs: Fennel, Dill
  • Greens: Dandelion, Savoy Cabbage, Lacinato Kale
  • Onions: white and red
  • Zucchini
  • Celery
  • Beet
  • Sunchokes
A different type of baby pepper. Think this is the paprika.

Considering the options

  • If we get enough green beans, then I want to make the green bean potato salad (I even bought potatoes before we heard we were getting them in the box in anticipation of this). But if we decide not to treat them as green beans then maybe not.
  • The corn and blueberry salad from Halfbaked Harvest. Need to buy an avocado for this! Soon! Before too many of the corn sugars have converted to starch.
  • Maybe we roast the peppers with a corn and rice stuffing. Or maybe we roast them and freeze.
  • We have the long cucumber and the pickled radish and the seaweed and rice to make gimbap. Especially if we use matchsticks of zucchini instead of carrots. Flavor substitute, not at all. But veggie switcharoo that might really work. Perhaps served with another Korean cucumber side?
  • Or this smashed cucumber salad
  • Or the Chinese Pickled Cucumbers from Woks of Life
  • Or the cucumber and celery salad from Six Seasons that we ate at the picnic on the 4th of July
  • More kale in my morning smoothies, I think. I don’t love the flavor, but it does help us get through the greens. I bought some extra bananas for me to consider while doing this.
  • Kale and chickpeas. What doesn’t get eaten to be dehydrated.
  • Squash and basil and parm. My dad made a side dish back in the day. Panfry/steam the squash. Add the basil near the end. Sprinkle with parm from a jar when serving. I wonder if actual cheese will replicate the taste of memory.

There are several cucumbers, so we can probably do two or three of those cucumber options. Once we can get in the kitchen again, I’m going to cook up the kale and beans in the hopes of clearing out some space. Otherwise, we probably want to focus on dishes that will help us consume the CSA basil early on. All the more reason to grab an avocado from the store to make that corn salad ASAP.

~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