Happy New Year John!

Last weekend we took another round of Covid tests to reassure ourselves that the cold we’d had all week was not that particular virus. And then we revived my traditional cookie party. We kept it small (peoples wise) and long (time wise). Windows cracked to increase ventilation. But, ah, it filled my heart. Thumbprints. Biscotti. Sugar cookies that spread everywhere. Rugelach with blueberry jam from last year’s fruit share. So many crumbs and so many nubbly nibbles all week long.

I think that’s going to be emblematic of my goal for us this year. Still being extra attentive to sickness and caution. Trying to find ways to socialize little bit by little bit more. We’ve made lots of progress outside, and I want to continue that. We can mask when we go to known crowds (ahem, or the grocery store). But maybe we don’t need to aim for indoor dining quite yet. Hearing the stories of long covid continues to justify our current way of life.

Home meals

• Cilantro! And squash! We can make the mole verde that got skipped this fall because seeds are too much fat for that diet. Hooray! (Belated realization that could’ve made the cranberry salsa. But happier for the mole verde.) Serve with squash. Then sweet potato. Sides of rice, beans, and tortillas.
• I have sausage in the fridge from the hoppin’ john. Potato because we’re in the season where it’s good to have potato on hand. Let’s make kale potato soup.
• Roasted sweet potatoes, sauteed greens (our turnips have greens!), and eggs for breakfast.
• Sunchoke pizza is too similar to the dahlia bulb pizza we had earlier this week (with the bulbs that got sacrificed to the shovel when we dug up the plants for the winter). Burger time it is.
• Cabbage + turnip + apple + peanut ginger dressing = lunchting salad
• That leaves parsnip. I’m defaulting to maple parsnip soup.

Love you,

Sarah

PS I published the drafts of the last two posts rather than let them linger. Let’s be honest, whatever meals were made and we’re moving on the new year, new foods. And I don’t remember what all got eaten in between.

Dear John,

What a year. Today marks the anniversary of moving into our house. There are still boxes left to unpack (there are always boxes left to unpack), but it really is feeling like home. Stockings are hung from the stairs. Mary, Joseph, and the donkey are passing the shepherd and sheep on their journey to the stable. And I have brand new teas to choose from once the kettle reaches its boil.

We’ll travel for Christmas–visiting my family and yours. No reason not to make some soup and make sure the fridge is ready with a dinner to warm when we return.

Home meals

• These are not starchy potatoes. So while soup sounds great during the coming cold,I
• Kimchi soup! Use daikon to make stock. Use the kimchi in the fridge. Doesn’t use that many CSA veggies, but does feel yum.

Love you,

Sarah

Meal Plans

• Vegetarian Cassoulet. (That’s different than what we made on Sunday night. But uses the same beans!)
• Oknomiyaki. And, now that my digestive track is cooperative, we can use the pickled fennel.
• We didn’t make the Thai carrot sweet potato soup last week, so we will this week.
• We’ve had winters dominated by sweet potatoes and winters rolling in radishes. We got both this week and I’m so curious what the coming season will bring. (I bet the farm already has a good guess based on what they have in storage.)

Love you,

Sarah

Dear John,

It’s a oven-baking evening. I turned it on for dinner inspired by the book I’m reading. A character was making a tahini-yogurt dressing to go on roasted butternut squash and red onion and I realized we hadn’t had the roasted squash and onion from Jerusalem yet this season. And we had 2/3 of the last squash hanging out in the refrigerator. The oven stayed hot to roast chickpeas (I cooked a pound of beans yesterday just for this). And while the oven was on we might as well toast up the squash seeds. And let’s take advantage of a hot oven to cook up your next batch of granola.

The kitchen is warm. You’re up to your elbows in dishes. There are lots of nibbles. My heart is happy.

Meal Plans

• Fried rice with leek greens and Napa cabbage
• Roasted Brussels sprouts (not a meal. But let’s be honest about what I’m going to do with these.)
• Kale salad with pomegranate and blue cheese and apple slices
• Kale salad with roasted cranberries and cheddar and that last bit of roasted squash
• Carrot lentil soup? Or carrot sweet potato curry soup? We do still have sweet potato in the freezer…
• Dragon noodles with carrot and cabbage

Let’s talk cranberries

On Saturday, I made cranberry carrot steel cut oatmeal for breakfast. (Added maple syrup and apple cider for sweetness. Totally forgot spices beyond a dash of salt. It was delicious. Still working my way through the leftovers.) At lunch, we ate leftover squash stuffed with various things, including cranberries. For dinner, arugula salad with roasted beets and cranberries and pear-mustard dressing. Dessert, apple-cranberry crisp.

On the center of the table we have a half gallon jar filled with last week’s cabbage, the missing third of the squash that was tonight’s dinner, and more cranberries. I’m so curious how this sauerkraut will turn out. I see bubbles. Right now! They’re floating up as I type! Fermentation is weird and cool and I feel like a newbie in my fascination. (Do not think too hard about what we will do with this half gallon of cran-kin kraut. I have already decided that we should actually cook meat for one meal to pair with it. We may need to source “rye bread” for you for sandwiches. Erm….something something potatoes.)

My mom’s offered to freeze some (in anticipation of her cranberry relish next year?), but I’d rather use them now. An internet friend made cranberry salsa (they use less sugar than this recipe, maybe more cilantro). There’s this cheesecake that is all the more tempting because we did not have the cheesecakes of summer this year. And maybe we need some refrigerator pickles for the fanciest cheese plates in the coming year.

The less than perfect cranberries end up in the freezer stock bag with the apple cores. We already have a cranberry-apple chutney and cranberry-apple syrup (shhh…..the jelly didn’t set, next time do the plate test!) that can top pancakes and be mixed into drinks. Maybe we’ll manage a proper cranberry jam.

So while the fridge currently feels overtaken, this is the reminder to myself (and, I suppose to you) that we really are using a lot of cranberries right now. I have bought frozen cranberries explicitly for the purpose of smoothies before, so the fact that we already have some in our freezer is a good move. There’s only two weeks of fruit share left and then I’ll be missing all the cranberries quickly.

Love you,

Sarah

PS I know you can’t eat it, and it used dried cranberries instead of fresh, but I’m putting the cranberry-chocolate-walnut brickle on the cookie party list.