ginger

Boxing Day, October 10

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Dear John,

Lasagna is a lot to put together, I know. I’m so glad you made it last week because it was delicious. (And also, I’m glad that I told you to stop that one evening because actually eating dinner was good.) The combination of crunchy and soft noodles. The layers of flavor. The using up a lot of veggies and having leftovers.

All that said, the time commitment is substantial. And while I would like more crispy pasta soon, I have had the realization that maybe we could do baked pasta instead of full on lasagna? I’m definitely partial to Smitten Kitchen for these–I think I imprinted on Deb’s mushroom marsala pasta bake our first winter with this CSA. Perhaps using that gluten free ravioli you found for a skillet chard-ravioli (with broil time). I bet the broccoli rabe could be switched for any number of heavy duty greens. If you’d rather make it a mostly pantry meal, tomato sauce + pasta +cheese sounds pretty good; though, I bet you could reference this recipe too and add roasted veggies to use up whatever we have on hand.

So polish up your bechamel skills and figure out a favorite tomato sauce. It’s cool enough to turn on the oven and bake that pasta.

PS This recipe for pesto stuffed pasta shells in squash sauce sounds delicious. Stuffing is more work. We aren’t having you do that.

Today’s Box

  • Jonagold Apples
  • Yellow Bartlett Pears
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Ginger
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Green Savoy Cabbage
  • Sweet Onions

Things in the fridge

  • Apples
  • Plums
  • Pears
  • Asian pears
  • Lemongrass
  • Tomatoes
  • Fennel
  • Greens: Chard, lettuce, cabbage
  • Radish
  • Squash: Acorn
  • Yummy peppers
  • Poblano peppers
  • Hot peppers

In the Garden

  • Habaneros, jalapenos, fish peppers, other peppers, still getting peppers
  • Dried beans
  • Edamame
  • Beets
  • Parsley if we want (we should pop some on the dehydrator)
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Dahlias and cosmos and gomphrena for the table

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

Non-pasta meals to make me happy

  • Quick note. Last year our ginger went moldy before we used most of it. We can mince it, freeze it, and have ginger handy for smoothies/stirfries/soups.
  • The roasted apple salad from Pulp was delicious. More of that please.
  • And try to remember to add radish and turnip to salads when appropriate.
  • Do you want to save the cabbage for slaw or do a cabbage and glass noodle stirfry?
  • Stuff those peppers! Rice and beans and tomatoes and spices.
  • The beets have been hanging around for a while. Maybe time to roast, puree, freeze. And use for all the beet yogurt dips and beet hummus dips I want a whim.
  • Speaking of beet yogurt. I’ve been making an open faced sandwich recently with almond butter, beet yogurt, and thinly sliced apple. It’s good. Feel free to mix in chevre and celery. Maybe some craisins.
  • Time to cycle through the peppers on the dehydrator. It’s amazing how much they shrink between getting halved and getting their water removed. The fridge full of peppers no longer feels obviously sufficient to make enough chili powder for everyone’s presents. We’ll just have to stretch things with one more batch of hot sauce.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, October 11

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I love the veins of purple in the dark green kale, and the streaks of red as the ginger changes from light yellow to green.

Dear John,

Your mom and aunt are arriving later today. They’ve got the truck loaded with a dining room set, carefully restored after the flood. The set was purchased by your great-aunt at an estate sale in the ’60’s. Tomorrow the movers will come help unload. And then, the re-settling process will begin. I’m hopeful that with this delivery we’ll be better at getting the house into more permanent feel. Less of the boxes in the corners look.

For today, I’m about to start prepping the squash to be risotto. Figure that’s a meal that we can have on the stove whenever they make it in. And getting the squash prepped for use this week seems like a good strategy!

Today’s Box

  • Butternut Squash
  • Ginger
  • Leeks
  • Red Lacinato Kale
  • Jonagold Apples
  • Yellow Bartlett Pears

Things I think are in the fridge

  • Plums
  • Pears: Bartlett and Asian
  • Apples
  • Garden tomato
  • Beet + beet greens
  • Napa cabbage
  • Ginger
  • Cranberries
  • Spaghetti squash
  • Sweet potato

Coming in from the Garden

  • Basil
  • Tomatillos, maybe
  • Roma tomatoes
  • Peppers?
  • Dahlias and marigolds and cosmos
  • Rosemary

Open Preserves

Meals to eat with company when we have our own food restrictions

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, September 27

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Beet greens blending with dandelion and kale. But the squash stands out!

Dear John,

The radishes and turnips we planted have sprouted–we should put in more the next time we go to the garden. One of the edamame plants has emerged, the others I’ll assume were eaten by birds. Beans are starting to dry on the vine. The kale that we’ve been eating all season was getting covered in enough bugs that I just harvested it all. The new greens are sprouting. The chard seeds have been put in the ground. They’re spikier than I would’ve guessed! The tomatillos won’t last much longer. The tomatoes, might hold out a bit more. The peppers are dwarfed by the dahlia and the marigold. I cut back the flowers, but not sure it’s doing the peppers much good. I put some cilantro seeds in the ground. Wondering if we’ll eat any this fall, if it will be a spring surprise, or if it will sprout at all.

Little miracles all of them. Larger miracles all of us. And yet still, so incredibly small.

Today’s Box

  • Red Kabocha Squash
  • Ginger
  • Gold Beets
  • Green Dandelion
  • Green Kale
  • Honeycrisp Apples
  • Italian plums
  • Kiwiberries

Things I think are in the fridge

  • Peach (maybe one left)
  • Pears
  • Green tomatoes
  • Tomato from the farmer’s market
  • Potatoes (also from the farmer’s market)
  • Cranberries
  • Spaghetti squash

Coming in from the Garden

  • Basil
  • Tomatillos
  • Roma tomatoes
  • Occasional ground cherries
  • A pepper! Singular. Hopefully more to come.
  • Dahlias and marigolds and cosmos
  • Papalo when we want it
  • Rosemary

Open Preserves

Some ideas to keep us going

  • Beet falafel from the library’s Clean-Eating cookbook. Served with kale as a salad instead of in pita as a sandwich.
  • Potatoes with dandelion greens. Or saute the greens and use them to top congee. Because it’s been days, well over a week, since I ate rice porridge.
  • Lentil squash soup
  • Kale + apple + red pepper from the garden + beet yogurt + chickpea croutons
  • I looked back at last winter and fall for other ideas of how to use squash with minimal fat. Really, soup is where it’s at, because the roasting wants the oil. Apple, squash, ginger soup from Simply in Season is a traditional easing in to soup season. Tomato butternut bisque (less tempting when I won’t eat grilled cheese). There’s risotto. AKA more rice porridge for me.
  • Was also reminded of the beet and pear salad with mustard vinaigrette. I think we’ll be out of greens before we’re through with salad plans this week.

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, September 6

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Really excited about the pawpaw. It’s what looks like the largest pear.

Hi John,

In the past week, one of us went to urgent care in the middle of the night and the other of us spent a birthday banished in the basement due to fever. In between the unwell periods, we managed a trip to harvest the garden and used up all of the vegetables from last week’s box. I’m impressed with us.

Today’s Box

  • Kiwiberries
  • PawPaw
  • Yellow Bartlett Pears
  • Bicolor Sweet Corn
  • Red Beets
  • Young Fresh Ginger
  • Green Okra

Things I think are in the fridge

  • Peach (maybe one left)
  • Cantaloupe (just a little bit left)
  • Pears
  • Plums
  • Roma tomatoes
  • Green tomatoes
  • Cranberries
  • Spaghetti squash

Coming in from the Garden

  • Basil
  • Kale
  • Surprise carrots!
  • Tomatillos
  • Roma tomatoes
  • Occasional ground cherries
  • More peppers?
  • Dahlias and marigolds
  • Papalo when we want it
  • Rosemary

Open Preserves

Some ideas to get us started

  • Noting for the future that this is the lima beans in tomato dill sauce recipe that I riffed on. Don’t trust the internal oven sensor. Check the thermometer so it actually cooks.
  • Avocado and cotija mean this Mexican corn kale salad isn’t as low fat as written. But it looks yummy and we can ration the fat out.
  • Despite being from the south, I don’t know how to cook okra. Let’s try this so we can use tomatoes and beans too.
  • Roast the beets. Mix with yogurt. Maybe grate some ginger in there. Have a spread for my crackers or bread. (And maybe try planting some ginger? It seems fun. Though it is harvest time and not planting time.)
  • Currently we have leftover congee and risotto in the refrigerator. If we make more rice porridge, tossing in fresh corn kernels is nice.

Love you,

Sarah

PS We need to do a grocery run to make that salad and the sheet pan recipe on hard mode requires peeling tomatoes and cooking beans. I don’t want a fourth day in a row of rice porridge. Wanna get takeout tonight?

Boxing Day, October 28

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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