green garlic

Boxing Day, May 9 (and 2)

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Today’s Box

  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Green Garlic
  • Green Kale
  • Green Leaf Lettuce
  • Rhubarb

Things in the fridge (from last week and beyond)

  • Cranberries
  • Cilantro
  • French Breakfast Radishes
  • Scallions
  • Green Garlic
  • Jerusalem Artichokes
  • Daikon Radish
  • Sunchoke

In the Garden

  • Radishes
  • Turnips
  • Green plums from the thinning
  • Garlic chives
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Dahlia bulbs

Open Preserves

Meanwhile at the garden

It looks like the bunnies left the nest. A neighbor gardener caught some pictures at the end of last week. They looked so cute! And they didn’t even damage our radishes, at least as far as I can tell.

(The photo was less blurry when I saw it on his phone, silly texting downsampling so as to not use all the data.)

Schemes and dreams for nourishment now and later

  • Two years ago, back when we first joined the garden, I picked plums from the ground and pickled them. Last weekend, we went to help thin the plums. Most went to the compost, but I brought some home. So maybe we play with that again.
  • Radish and garlic chive butter on ever so slightly toasted bread. Top with fancy salt.
  • I saw a mulberry tree dropping fruit on my way to pick up bread. I want to make the mulbarb jam. But realistically, that’s a lower priority canning job these days. Another rhubarb custard pie? Or a rhubarb rosemary crisp? Ice cream with whichever it is!
  • I picked up two extra bags of sunchokes. So all the sunchoke things need to actually happen.
  • Last weekend, I went to make shakshuka only to discover we didn’t have canned tomatoes. Green shakshuka with the kale and radish and turnip greens?

Sarah

Boxing Day, April 25

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Seasonal shift to the smaller boxes.

Dear John,

The visit was good, and I am, predictably, exhausted. We’ll have some easy meals of leftovers the next few days while you finish your conference. (Because making enough for everyone to have leftovers is more of a trick than I know how to do.) And maybe some other of our go-to easy meals. I’m optimistic that by the weekend I’ll be cooking to restock our freezer. Turn the accumulated apple cores into a chutney and a jelly. Fill the space with one last round of sunchoke burgers.

Today’s Box

  • Green Garlic
  • Jerusalem Artichokes
  • Red Radishes
  • Spinach

Things in the fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Cilantro
  • Scallions
  • Carrots of the rainbow
  • Daikon Radishes
  • Turnips
  • Sunchoke

In the Garden

  • Garlic chives
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Dahlia bulbs

Open Preserves

Meanwhile at the garden

Baby bunnies that another gardener spotted in our plot.
Hello Peter and siblings.

Here’s hoping that we have done a proper Mr. McGregor and discouraged them from staying.

Dinners for just us

  • You know what I’m thinking? This is probably our best opportunity to make a major dent in our produce stash. Smaller box (I’m ignoring the more frequent detail). Our produce isn’t coming in yet. Nevermind that I didn’t plant more last time I was there. Figured the bunnies had enough to chew.
  • I’m back to simple side salads with the spinach and carrots and turnips and red radishes. Dressed up with beans if we need it to be the meal.
  • With the sunchokes going to burgers (and maybe a relish), really the thing that’s left is the daikon. I looked at some turnip cake recipes to use them, but honestly, pizza and stirfry seem straightforward uses.

Sarah

Boxing Day, April 26

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Spring is green indeed. All the leaves blended together, so went artsy for the photo.

Hi John,

It’s a new CSA season! We’re at a new site, picking up on Tuesdays (after a pandemics worth of Thursday pickups). We’re back to getting a small box every week instead of splitting every other week.

Meanwhile, we’re getting back to the garden plot. Despite our rapid abandonment of the plot once we were under contract, some plants survived the winter. We have some spinach that’s finally mature enough to start picking. The cilantro that I started from seed, survived the transplanting and the season, and is thriving. The carrot seeds that never took off last fall, are actually growing this spring. The garlic that we planted at the end of fall, looks to be coming up. The dahlia returned, despite not harvesting the tuber for safer preservation over the winter. And of course the rosemary and oregano are thriving.

We’ve planted short rows of radishes. Spattering of a mix of stir-fryable greens. A bean tent with a variety of peas. Dill, though I’m not sure if what’s coming up is volunteers or from our seeds. A half border of nasturtium. Planning on buying starts for the basil and tomatoes and tomatillos and peppers and maybe a cucumber or three. Hoping the ground cherries have self-sown, as promised/threatened. We’ll see what the season truly brings.

In This Week’s Box

  • Green Garlic
  • Green Kale
  • Red Butterhead Lettuce
  • Red Chard

Still in the Fridge

  • Strawberries (farmer’s market)
  • Cranberries
  • Mushrooms
  • Greens: Lettuce, Cabbage, Microgreens
  • Black radishes, Purple Daikon radishes, Winter Radishes
  • Potatoes: Sweet
  • Jerusalem Artichokes

Growing in the Garden

  • Spinach
  • Radish sprouts as we thin them
  • Radishes
  • Cilantro (as we want)
  • Weedy wild onions (if we trust our nose)

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Dill pickle juice
  • 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
  • Sunchoke relish
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Applesauce
  • Cranberry orange marmalade-ish
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Meals for now, meals for later

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, March 31

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Last week we got purple daikon radishes from our CSA share splitters. This week we left them the green cabbage.

Hi John,

This week the house’s internal network is being rewired, we’re getting quotes for replacing the lead service line, and we’ve reached out to a couple of companies for advice about whether to get quotes for solar panels before or after we replace the roof. Home ownership is fun?

[Edited to add that the one of the plumbers who we gave a quote for the service line advertised discounts on additional services done at the same time. And our home inspector did say that we should replace the water heater soon. So, we have also been researching the merits of electric tank vs electric tankless vs heat pump aka hybrid water heaters. All the contractors are pro-gas tankless, but anti-electric tankless. The hybrid is more expensive up-front, but our calculations show that the energy cost savings should be substantial. And the warranty is four years longer.]

In This Week’s Box

  • Cremini Mushrooms
  • Garnet Sweet Potatoes
  • Green Garlic
  • Mixed Specialty Lettuce
  • Red Radishes
  • Red Russian Kale
  • Rutabaga (not turnip like you think)

Still in the Fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Celery
  • Greens: Green Cabbage
  • Carrots
  • Parsnip
  • Black radishes, Purple Daikon radishes
  • Turnips
  • Potatoes: Sweet
  • 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
  • Cranberry orange marmalade-ish
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Successful meals we’ve made

I’m late posting this week, which has the benefit of knowing what we actually ate. (If not the help of figuring out what we could eat.)

  • Salad greens + radish + avocado + grapes + toasted walnuts + goat cheese + either balsamic dressing or simply rosemary olive oil = a happy salad (It would’ve been great if there was still broccoli for it, but that has already been finished in twice baked potatoes.)
  • Kale + pinto beans + radish + carrots + sweet and spicy vinegary dressing = a solid salad
  • Spinach + quick cook sweet potato + black beans + radish + homemade ranch = the salad I kept eating last week.
  • Sunchoke burgers used half the mushrooms
  • Spaghetti with mushroom marinara use the other half. (And honestly would’ve been better with more mushrooms, but we were out. Need to go to the Asian market and stock up on dried mushrooms too.)

Less success

  • Rutabaga rosti. I’d seen a video that talked up potato rosti the week before. So when I looked for ideas with rutabaga and saw a post about rosti it sounded like it’d fill a craving I hadn’t known I’d had. But cooking in the cast iron skillet and otherwise trying to follow the video, well, it was a less successful dish. I kept burning the bottom layer and it never really stuck all together. Next time, let’s consider going closer to latkes. They can still get topped with sour cream and the green garlic.

Yet to come

  • More sweet potato! (This time at least we only got a single three pounder.) I’ve been going through our frozen gnocci stockpiles, so maybe more there? More roasted on tacos and salads? Thai curry with radish greens?
  • Actually make that root vegetable lasagna that I posted last time.
  • Finish off the cabbage. More of the shaved salad with lemon garlic parmesan dressing?
  • Eventually, I really should try to pickle those black radishes.

Love,

Sarah