mushroom

Boxing Day, March 3

planorcanLeave a comment
End of day photo means the greens look a bit wilty. It’s okay. Water will perk them up.

Heya John,

After two years of pandemic, a flood, a rebuilding, a death, and I don’t even remember what else, we made the trip to visit your parents at their home. The snow was timed perfectly for us to be able to go skiing. (Though my rental skis resisted sliding so it was somewhere between skiing and snow-shoeing in long, narrow shoes.) You provided tech support. We both considered which furniture might be worth making the cross-country move. And, we mostly let your mom do the cooking.

There are more unused veggies this week than sometimes. I think we’re making a dent in them, but it might be time to make some meals to freeze.

In This Week’s Box

  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Broccoli
  • Celery
  • French Breakfast Radishes
  • Italian Parsley
  • Purple Top Turnips
  • White Mushrooms
  • Green Kale Hearts

Still in the Fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Greens: Red Cabbage, Green Cabbage
  • Kohlrabi
  • Carrots
  • Parsnip
  • Black radishes, Red radishes, Winter radishes
  • Turnips
  • Squash: Butternut
  • Potatoes: Sweet, Purple
  • 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
  • Cranapple
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Can we talk about that sweet potato?

That is seven pounds + nine point two ounces.

In the back of the veggie pile, the potato looks large. But then you actually see pick it up and realize that is closer to the size of my head than a baby’s head.

It’s a lot of sweet potato.

My plan is to wash it, prick it, and then put it in the instant pot for, oh, let’s start with an hour. It should go quicker if I cut it up first. But it looks a bit unwieldy for the cutting.

Anyway, later today we should have much sweet potato mash. Once it’s cooled, I’ll put it in the freezer. We can use it for sweet potato waffles/kofkas/crème brûlée/whatever. Presumably for quite a while. (Especially considering we have other sweet potatoes to use between now and then.)

Meal-spiration

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, January 20 aka So many boxes II

planorcanLeave a comment
We don’t have a great place to take photos of food at the moment. What with our coffee table being a pile of boxes and all.

Hi John,

Our CSA doesn’t do small boxes in winter, and we’d gotten behind enough in consumption that we very nearly didn’t participate for the season. Then someone asked the listserv about splitting a box. So now, we have a box every other week.

Meanwhile, we have very, very many boxes in the house. Someday, we’ll retrieve our car from the shop and head to a store in search of some extra kitchen storage. Until then, the dining room will be a jumble of boxes and piles of plastic containers and pictures that haven’t yet been hung on the walls. Someday, we’ll find a dresser that suits me and then there will not be a stack of boxes holding clothes in the other bedroom. Someday, we will decide which bookshelves need replacing and, maybe, which books we no longer need. Of course, plenty of boxes are unpacked and collapsed and waiting for someone to respond to our Freecycle post. It’s just that moving is a process and it still feels

In This Week’s Box

  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Black Radishes
  • Green Kale
  • Parsnips
  • Red Beets
  • Red Cabbage
  • White Mushrooms
  • Yellow Popcorn

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: last of the season
  • Cranberries
  • Greens: Mustard greens, parsley
  • Celery
  • Carrots
  • Red beets
  • Squash: Spaghetti, Butternut
  • Potatoes: Sweet, Purple
  • 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
  • Pickled fennel stems with orange
  • Spicy pickled fennel stems
  • Radish kimchi
  • Sunchoke relish
  • Green tomato chutney
  • Sour cherry chutney
  • Freedom berry jam
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Dishes that will hopefully yield leftovers so we have fewer cooking days

  • Earlier this week you made the peas and the rice for the Hoppin’ John Pilaf in Cool Beans. One day we will actually make the pilaf. And that day we will cook up the mustard greens.
  • Kale and mushroom lasagna from Six Seasons. I’m so excited that we get to try this again!
  • Parsnip soup with celery leaf relish, also from Six Seasons
  • We’ve been eating sweet potato on pizza with last summer’s pepperonata pulled from the freezer. That can be repeated another time or two. Maybe another round of the sweet potatoes stacked with chevre and celery. (I’m not certain how much celery we have though.) Maybe baked and stuffed with black beans, or as filling for enfrijoladas?
  • Red cabbage shredded into salads. One with craisins and carrots. Another with sesame or peanuts and ginger.
  • Oh gosh, we need to use beets and I am just not in a beet mood recently. Maybe try that beet and pear salad but with apples instead of pears. Beet gnocci? Roasted beet and citrus salad (adapting from Six Seasons)? Beet risotto to dehydrate for future camping trips? I dunno. I expect these will be with us a while.
  • I’m similarly uncertain about the black radishes. After the winter of radishes (Was that 2016 or 2017?), I actually enjoy radishes. Black radishes are my least favorite though–I don’t love the sharper flavor or the rougher exterior texture. Maybe that’s a reason to try pickling them? I don’t think I’ve tried pickling black radishes before. And I do like a pickled radish for tacos.

Here’s hoping that by the time I write again the kitchen will be more functional and the boxes will be a bit fewer!

Sarah