kale

Boxing Day, September 2

planorcanLeave a comment
Confession: The cherry tomato box was half-filled from our garden before the CSA’s topped it off.

Dear John,

It’s been another week. Another food pantry distribution date. Another protest to stand in solidarity.

Another game night. Another book club. Another small group meeting.

Another tour. Another storm. Another meal to feed body and nurture soul.

In This Week’s Box

  • Bartlett Pears
  • Red Seedless Watermelon
  • Artisan Mixed Cherry Tomatoes
  • Cubanelle Peppers
  • Green Beans
  • Green Kale
  • Jalapeno Peppers
  • Mixed Sweet Peppers
  • Orange Carrots
  • Yellow Tomatoes

Garden Potential

  • Ground cherry
  • Few tomatillos
  • Volunbeans
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Roma tomatoes (The Amish paste plant is doing better than the San Marazano)
  • Sad-ish eggplant
  • Jalapenos as we want them
  • Bell pepper
  • A final cucumber (or two?)

Still in the Fridge

  • Blueberries
  • Figs
  • Canary Melon
  • Green Chard
  • Centercut Squash
  • Kohlrabi
  • Herbs: Fennel
  • Onions: white and red
  • Celery
  • Sunchokes
  • Spaghetti squash

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Dill pickle
  • Lacto-fermenting green cherry tomatoes
  • Pickled red onion
  • Radish kimchi
  • Plenty of others that I just haven’t inventoried

Make something with it all.

  • Red curry with tofu and green beans and cherry tomatoes adapted from Dinner (but online version here)
  • Pickled jalapenos? Just a question of doing it in vinegar or lacto-fermenting them. Maybe some more peperonata with the cubanelles. The batch from last week was delightful on corn mush and on eggs.
  • Carrot greens! Let’s do the carrot top walnut pesto from Scraps, Wilts, and Weeds. (Just because the granita took us forever to use up last time. It was good though.) Carrots themselves are being saved for your birthday cake.
  • Spaghetti with cherry tomatoes for a sauce! Six Seasons has a recipe.
  • Speaking of, do we have enough tomatoes to make a sauce? Do we want to make a sauce? A salsa? (My tomatillo salsa verde last week was too little for the blender, so I’m waiting for more tomatillos than what we have so far.)
  • Gonna roast that eggplant and blend it up. Baba ganoush style? Hard to be too sad with roasted eggplant.
  • Some of the centercut squash from last week got roasted for tacos. Repeat of something like that? Or roast it with zaatar and serve with hummus?
  • Kale starts feeling like we might be heading toward salad possibilities again. Let’s try cooking some of the dried volun-beans to go with it.
  • I picked three figs from the community tree. Pair them with pears for a tart. It’s that or make a fancy looking cheese tray with some of the pickles to round out the meal.

Love,

~Sarah

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 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

Boxing Day, June 10

planorcanLeave a comment

Hi John,

It’s CSA delivery day. It wasn’t too bad when I walked to pick things up, but the walk home was getting hot and humid. And then I hopped on the bike and went back for the bread and eggs that wouldn’t fit in my first bags. Still prefer that to your errand experience in this afternoon’s rainstorm. Even if we both arrived home dripping wet.

In This Week’s Box

  • Blueberries
  • Yellow Peaches
  • White Kohlrabi
  • Broccoli
  • Head Lettuce
  • Lacinato Kale
  • Slicing Cucumbers
  • Sugar Snap Peas
  • Vidalia Onions
  • White Scallions

Still in the Fridge

  • Herbs: Parsley, Fennel, Green Onions
  • Greens: Escarole, Spinach, Lettuce
  • Radish, Red and French Breakfast
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Kohlrabi
  • Parsnips
  • Sunchokes

Brainstorming Some Meals

  • Peas on bread with the garlic chive cream cheese I made last week!
  • Roasted broccoli with feta and lemon
  • Pizza! With broccoli and feta? With radish and chevre? With spinach and sunchokes (Again? But it was so good…)
  • We have kale AND kohlrabi! So we can make the kale and kohlrabi salad that I like.
  • Clearly we need to make more salad. Maybe a cucumber, onion, and yogurt salad? Maybe maybe lettuce with cucumber, blueberries, and poppyseed dressing?
  • Betsy texted a recipe for lettuce soup that she made. We might be at the point where we need to try that. Or the stir-fried lettuce we made last year. Or lettuce wraps, though I’m not sure what I want to put in them. The spring rolls from a few weeks ago
  • We have blueberries and peaches. Do we go ahead and make the pie now? It feels early for it and I might rather get more mulberries for another cobbler first….

We really should prioritize using up the escarole–I was hoping to repeat the salad we made last year with escarole, roasted beets and rhubarb, goat cheese, toasted hazelnuts, and mustard dressing. But it’s been three weeks and we haven’t gotten beets. Maybe try with turnips, even though they’re not as sweet as beets.

I think I’m going to try to eat the peas early too. It feels like a meal I want on bread more than toast. And using some of the broccoli for dinner tonight because it is bulky and sometimes you don’t want to give things all the fridge space.

Other than that, I don’t see any obvious priorities. Eat and enjoy!

~s