peppers

Boxing Day, September 23

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Dear John,

We made it to the garden! It has not (yet) died. We need to do some more service hours, attend a workday. But I am feeling reasonably confident that we won’t get kicked out/will be allowed to return next year. Which is the main goal. Truly, the longer we care for the garden plot, the more grateful I am that we do not rely on our own luck and skill to provide our food.

But we do rely on our own skill to prepare most of our food. Shall we dive in?

Today’s Box

  • Bartlett Pears
  • Kiwiberries
  • Green Beans
  • Green Romaine Lettuce (Swapped one head for Golden Beets)
  • Leeks
  • Red Tomatoes

Community Produce

  • Week off

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Muscadines
  • Green tomato, heirloom tomato
  • Wax beans
  • Peppers
  • Fennel stems
  • Greens: Lettuce, Bok Choy, Kale
  • Onions
  • Peaches
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Oranges
  • Kiwiberries
  • Fingerling potatoes, potatoes

In the Garden

  • Collards
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • The season’s last ground cherries
  • Tomatillos enough for one batch of salsa
  • Parsley
  • Eggplant. Some shiny. Some the yellow of overripe.
  • Assorted peppers (including jalapenos? rescued from the compost pile)
  • So Many Dahlias
  • A bit of rosemary to go with the potatoes
  • A bit of Thai basil from the communal plot to go in a curry

Open Preserves

  • Fridge still organized!
  • Fridge still not inventoried!
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Pickled peach
  • Fermenting curdito again

Pantry Beans

  • Yellow Split Pea
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Black Caviar Lentil
  • Garbanzo Bean
  • Buckeye Bean
  • Black Calypso
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Pinto Bean
  • Christmas Lima
  • California Corona
  • Royal Corona
  • And maybe one more on the shelf?

Cook something. Somehow. Somewhen. Again.

  • Review last week’s post. Half of those plans have not been attempted.
  • I needed fridge space for the beets and beans. Chopped up almost all of our remaining peppers and cooked up a batch of peperonata. Let’s serve it with grits and a fried egg. (And freeze some too.)
  • Pumpkin and maple season at Trader Joe’s! I grabbed our favorite gluten free pumpkin ravoli. Cooked it up for dinner with a blue cheese bechamel and kale. Reminiscent of this recipe with next to no actual overlap.
  • Green curry with eggplant and peppers. And tofu? And tofu!
  • Do I want wax/green beans in the above curry? Maybe not. Maybe go for our standard green bean and peanut stirfry? Maybe try fermenting? Miso butter and poached egg might be quicker option.
  • I made a pear-mustard-vinaigrette earlier when I realized there was a pear getting bruised by your bananas in the fruit bowl. It was mushy, but blended up just fine. Let’s put it on salad with some slices of fresh pear. Maybe lentils. Maybe chèvre. Maybe some roasted beets. Maybe some roasted nuts.
  • We have a sweet potato, already cooked, ready to mash. I’m tempted to do the sweet potato + kale + quinoa fritters. But those aren’t good for instant eating upon walking in the door. Sweet potato crème brûlée is tempting and I do not have the time for it in this season. Sweet potato hummus or enchiladas maybe is more reasonable.
  • Potato leek soup. Right?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, October 17

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Dear John,

The clover we put down as a cover crop hadn’t taken off the last time we stopped by the garden. We scattered more seed. We’ll see whether it takes. Great if it does, and, ah well if it doesn’t.

This weekend we’ll put in one more hour of community service at the garden, and then we’ll have fulfilled our requirements to be invited back next year. Which means it was a success of a season! Truly, whenever I start obsessing about how to maximize our garden production, or worrying about something going bad before we consumed/processed it, I remind myself that we knew going in that this would be a busy season of our life and the goal is to not fail out. All the tomatoes and peppers and tomatillos and greens and beans and flowers and ground cherries and basil and parsley and radishes and turnip and beets are great; I’m pretty proud of our success this season. And I’m very grateful that other people are better farmers than we are and that we get to eat the fruit (and veg) of their labor.

Today’s Box

  • Asian Pears
  • Fuyu Persimmon
  • Granny Smith Apples
  • Collards
  • Green Bell Peppers
  • Red Butterhead Lettuce
  • Red Napa Cabbage
  • Spaghetti Squash

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
  • Watermelon rind dill pickles
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Keep eating the produce

  • You know what to do with spaghetti squash.
  • And we should consider the cabbage situation. Time to make more sauerkraut? Or wait until the cranberries and squash come in too? Glass noodles seem more promising this week. Polish potato casserole from More with Less also sounds promising.
  • I think it’s the season where we could cool the Lee Brother’s Collard Greens. And make a grilled cheese sandwich. That gets dipped in tomato soup. Or tomato pumpkin bisque. Oooooh, this is going to be good. Only problem is we have one bunch of collards, not four.
  • I’m loving the roasted apple salad. Maybe we should add a lentil apple salad to the mix too though. Maybe.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, August 29

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Today’s Box


  • Fruit
     *Black Muscadine Grapes – NC
     *Little Sweetie Cantaloupe
     *Yellow Seedless Watermelon


  •  *Bicolor Sweet Corn
     *Green Beans
  •  *Mixed Yummy Peppers
     *Spaghetti Squash
     *Yellow Straightneck Squash

Things in the fridge

  • Watermelon
  • Plums
  • Peaches
  • Celery
  • Greens: Cabbage, chard
  • Green plums (might want to check on them)

In the Garden

  • Habaneros, jalapenos, fish peppers, other peppers, many peppers
  • Tomatillos
  • Tomatoes
  • Ground cherries
  • Rainbow chard
  • Dill seed
  • Parsley if we want
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos and gomphrena for the table
  • Communal figs if we want

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

Garden glimpse

We are having pepper success this year! Maybe we bought more plants? (I’d have to go back to the garden journal to check.) But more importantly we have them in an area where they aren’t being overshadowed by the taller plants.

Maybe we can add eggplant to that section in the future?

Cooking things down, before we leave town

  • So, with lots of hot peppers, comes lots of hot sauce? I have a pint jar with ~cup of peppers fermenting on the table. I made a serious eats hot sauce. And we still have a five cup container of peppers in the fridge.
  • It’s a lot of green beans. I’m copying from last week. Maybe the usual way with tofu. Maybe a variation. Oh! Maybe in a curry. It’s been a while since we’ve done a curry and now I want that. Add some peppers and some squash?
  • I was wondering how to do the corn and then looked at smitten kitchen and now I know. (Though corn enchiladas sound good too.)
  • I grabbed an extra spaghetti squash. You know how I like the baked spaghetti squash bowls. Bet we could do one with chard?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, August 15

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Today’s Box

  • Italian plums
  • Yellow Seedless Watermelon
  • Athena Cantaloupe
  • Cubanelle Peppers
  • Italian Eggplant
  • Red Cabbage
  • Sungold Cherry Tomatoes
  • Yellow Wax Beans

Things in the fridge

  • Watermelon
  • Plums
  • Peaches
  • Grape tomatoes
  • Bell pepper
  • Celery
  • One lemon cucumber
  • Fennel bulb
  • Greens: Cabbage, kale, collards, chard
  • Green plums (might want to check on them)
  • Green tomatoes (starting to pink)

In the Garden

  • Neighbor’s zucchini
  • Habaneros, jalapenos, and a few more peppers
  • Tomatillos
  • Tomatoes
  • Ground cherries
  • Rainbow chard (didn’t harvest on Saturday, but it’s there)
  • Dill seed
  • Parsley
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos and gomphrena for the table
  • Communal figs if we want

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

Garden glimpse

Saturday we had a garden workday–focusing our efforts on the communal areas instead of our plot. We did a quick harvest before we left. (I didn’t pick a bouquet, nevermind deadheading for the flowers.) When we got home from the garden, we weighed the produce we picked from our plot. Not quite ten pounds! The water from the tomatoes and tomatillos adds up. Good thing some of our cooking shrinks it way down.

Cooking things down, before we leave town

  • I made two types of salsa this weekend. Please note that when they are pulled from the freezer, they would both benefit from some cilantro.
  • I also made this ratatouille over the weekend. We got more eggplant today and I intend to make more ratatouille tomorrow. That should make a dent in our tomatoes and peppers and zucchini as well. Last time I added one habanero that was threatening with some bad spots. The oil was surprisingly spicy. Do it again!
  • We’re just about to finish off the last cabbage in lunchtime salads. Hurrah! Let’s do it again with this one.
  • These are the plums to dry for prunes. Because we have plenty of other fruit and enough other veggies that I’m not buying cauliflower to try out the recipe I want to test from Pulp.
  • Beans and tofu. Maybe the usual way. Maybe a variation.

Love,

Sarah

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

Boxing Day, October 21

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Offcamera, frustration at the squash that had been on display and is now rotting. Oooops.

Hi John,

It’s Wednesday and I am walking for my errands. I’ve wandered through to the next neighborhood over, because it is my favorite place to listen to episodes of a favorite podcast, and I am thinking about things I love.

I love Little Free Libraries, and pop-up protest art, and the Little Free Art Gallery that make each walk a hunt for treasure.

I love the sparrow splashing in the bird bath in the front lawn.

I love the feel of sunlight through green-brown leaves, and the shelf of fungus around the tree trunk.

I love all the different ways that parents are carting their kids on bicycles, from the dad walking his bike with his little in the seat clinging on the handlebars, to the full-on cargo bikes, to the back-wheel kiddo racks.

I love the way this neighborhood throws itself into holiday decorations and being a quaint little town, despite it’s actual location centered in the metropolis. I love the house that has become a pirate ship and the garden boxes crawling with spiders and the robotic raven that squawks whenever anyone walks by. I love the scarecrows and pumpkins and my memory of the chute that people built last year to deliver candy.

I love not knowing what the fruit is on the trees on the center of the boulevard, asking the guy who is also waiting for the light to change if he does, and the camaraderie of shared curiosity.

And you.

In This Week’s Box

  • Bosc Pears
  • Granny Smith Apples
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Jalapeno Peppers
  • Leeks
  • Mixed Carmen Italian Peppers
  • Red Dandelion Greens
  • Red Leaf Lettuce
  • Thumbelina Carrots
  • White Cauliflower

Garden Potential

  • Starfish pepper
  • Deciding how long to wait on the final jalapenos
  • Lombok peppers if we want them
  • Last of the tomatillos, hopefully
  • Volunbeans for drying
  • Maybe a tomato? Maybe?
  • Dahlias
  • Radish sprouts when we thin them

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: Gala, Empire, Jonagold U-pick
  • Bartlett Pears, Asian Pears
  • Greens: 1/2 a cabbage, 1/2 bunch collards, Savoy Cabbage, Romain lettuce
  • Herbs: Fennel tops
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Tomatillos
  • Broccoli
  • Edamame
  • Peppers: Yummy, Lombok, Starfish, Banana
  • 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
  • Blueberry peach jam
  • Apple sauce
  • Apple butter
  • Quince jelly
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Things we may enjoy eating

  • Soup of the week: Curried apple soup from Enchanted Broccoli Forest looks interesting. And can help keep our fruit drawer manageable.
  • The edamame’s been around too long wanting for the right moment. We gotta just boil it and snack on it. It is time.
  • It’s still looking like side salad season. Though greens + turnips + granny smith apples + blue cheese + vinaigrette = meal
  • Volunbeans and dandelion greens and fennel and miso! Basically follow the recipe from Cool Beans.
  • Time to roast up the last of the tomatillos, some onion, a few of those jalapenos for one last salsa verde. Freeze what we won’t eat immediately. It’ll be gone soon.
  • Broccoli should be tossed in salads or roasted or stir-fried. I don’t know how we want to use it, just that we really should.
  • Are the pomegranates looking good in the grocery store? My notes for the roasted cauliflower and hazelnut salad say to make again when the pomegranates are in season.
  • I think I’m going to hold onto the leeks for one week, in case we get potatoes next week (and make potato-leek soup). Or chard (and try to adapt the wheat berries & swiss chard with pomegranate molasses from Jerusalem).

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, October 7

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Cabbage is playing peek-a-boo.

Hi John,

This week I curled up with a storybook. Layers of tales, echoing past each other. Before the hardback was returned to the library, I’d downloaded the audio reading.

The next book I picked up is for book club. It is not a book for Sarahs. At least not yet. We discuss it in a week and I’m thinking there’s a good chance I won’t finish it.

That switch, from the story that I want to rehear over and again to the story that I struggle to get in, is so familiar. I think it’s why the beloved stories are treasured so. Their power to imagine a world that I want to experience, to explain a part of existence, to create the actions required.

In This Week’s Box

  • Bartlett Pears
  • Empire Apples
  • All Blue Potatoes
  • Collards
  • Edamame
  • Green Beans
  • Green Cabbage
  • Mixed Yummy Peppers
  • Spaghetti Squash
  • Sungold Cherry Tomatoes

Garden Potential

  • Starfish pepper
  • Deciding how long to wait on the final jalapenos
  • Lombok peppers if we want them
  • Few tomatillos, hopefully
  • Volunbeans
  • Maybe a tomato?
  • Dahlias

Still in the Fridge

  • Apples: Honeycrisp?, Gala
  • Greens: NONE. We ate them all.
  • Herbs: Fennel tops
  • Peppers: Yummy, Lombok, Starfish
  • Squash: Delicata, Red Kabocha, Carnival
  • Sweet onions
  • Garlic
  • Fingerling Potatoes
  • Celery
  • Sunchokes

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled cucumber skins
  • Lacto-fermented & Lacto-fermenting green cherry tomatoes
  • Lacto-fermented blueberry jalapeno hot sauce
  • Lacto-fermenting 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
  • Blueberry peach jam
  • Apple butter
  • Quince jelly
  • Veggie stock
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Garden Update

I pulled up the cucumber a few weeks ago. Then you helped turn the compost and rescued some volunteer greens.

They tried, but they didn’t survive.

We took out a basil and a tomato that were done. Stopped by the store to get some seeds.

And now we have sprouts!

Radishes. Carrots. Spinach. Stir-fry mix of greens.

I’m not sure what will make it. The soup beans we planted mid-summer are dying instead of climbing. I put a second batch of radishes in the center of their tent-poles. Willing the roots down deep.

I’ve been thinking about Rachel Held Evans’ posts on Madeline L’Engle’s reflections on planting onions. L’Engle was talking about planting onions in the spring being an act of faith in the future when she was afraid for our planet. But I’m considering planting them this fall, and the faith it requires that we will come through winter to more growth. (Confession: I did not heed the warnings in the emails and did not reserve shallot bulbs. Maybe we see if we can plant from the garlic the CSA sent last week? Maybe we let it go for this season.)

I’m trying to save seeds, even though we can’t do the isolated crops that are recommended. Beans are obvious, easy. Just don’t eat them all. Cilantro was straightforward. Basil’s proving fiddly to separate, since we don’t have a screen. I’m currently fermenting seeds from our volunteer cherry tomato. Doing the action that faith calls forth.

Faith-filled Meals During Changing Seasons

  • Dessert first! There’s enough pears to make baked pears with balsamic and goat cheese and so we will do that.
  • Our first taste of sungolds this season! So late. Still will use the “stuff my face” method of consumption.
  • The roasted potatoes and green beans with pine nut vinaigrette the other week was good stuff. Let’s consider that for our fall green beans recipe.
  • Edamame as a side
  • I’ve held off on decreeing it soup season. But consider making a sweet potato, peanut, and kale soup only with squash instead of sweet potato and collards instead of kale.
  • Similarly, is it risotto season? Because a squash risotto is always yummy. Can use Six Seasons recipe, but be mindful about the fat if we want to dehydrate for backpacking meals.
  • Cabbage season is starting up again I see. Using the cabbage is low priority, it’ll keep. But consider the braised glass noodles when we do.
  • It might be time to quickle the fennel stems. Though maybe that’s next week’s project. There are still a few fronds to adorn salads.

~s

Boxing Day, September 16

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Peppers pale, peppers dark, and peppers bright.

Hi John,

Last week, was not a week when sitting down and considering ingredients actually happened. Instead we learned about iNaturalist (fun for identifying plants/critters AND the data can be used by scientists). We rode our bikes up a long hill, and later whizzed back down. We (yes, both of us) worked on a white paper about open source software licenses. (To be clear, you wrote. I revised.) Food was cooked and consumed, my only prepared food orders were pastries and bagels. It just wasn’t planned.

In The Box

  • Kiwiberries
  • Stanley Plums
  • Celery
  • Green Acorn Squash
  • Green Butterhead Lettuce
  • Mixed Bell Peppers
  • Mixed Cherry Tomatoes
  • Mixed Cornito Peppers
  • Rattlesnake Beans
  • Russian Banana Fingerling Potatoes

What We Ate

  • Spaghetti squash was stuffed with kale stem pesto, cherry tomatoes, and a gluten free white sauce.
  • Carrot cake from Flavor Flours. I tried to make Stella’s cream cheese frosting, but did not read the comments and ended up with soup. I am still baffled that mixing cream and cream cheese could end up with a texture closer to cream than cream cheese. It was just so thin!
  • The failed frosting did turn into a success though. Made a crust with pistachios, oatmeal, brown sugar, and butter. Patted into the bottom of a 8×8 pan and prebaked it. Frosting got blended extra goat cheese and a couple of eggs. Poured it into the crust and baked at 325 for a while. Topping with slices of figs from the garden. I’d probably try the drizzle of honey on top, but it’s already on the sweet side from all the sugar in the frosting.
  • I did a pepper cleanout by making a big pot of pepperonata. Some of it’s been frozen. Some went on a grits bowl. Some has teamed up with sliced delicata squash to top a pizza.
  • Variations of celery salad with chickpeas. My favorite was making a recipe from Six Seasons and adding chickpeas.
  • I wasn’t sure if the rattlesnake beans would be better served as shelled beans or string beans. Started shelling, then decided that was the wrong choice. Ended up roasting them in the oven along with potatoes (and once a hot pepper and chopped tomato). Topped with a soft boiled egg and the pine nut vinaigrette from Six Seasons.
  • Popped the plums on the dehydrator to make our very own prunes. I’m eating them so much quicker this way!

Garden Update

The rosemary’s flowering. And the basils, all going to seed. Peppers feel like they’re just getting going. The volunbeans are spreading everywhere, pulling down any pole they can reach. And, wow, does it feel like they can reach every pole.

I pulled up the cucumber plant one day. A few days later, you turned the compost and tried to rescue some kale volunteers. Placing them where the cucumber was. I was doubtful on Tuesday. But on Thursday, three of them had a sturdy-ish leaf. Wait, water, and see.

I’ve scattered carrot seed (it all fell out of the packet and just adds to the crumbly dust at the bottom of the garden bag). The are sprouts where I tried. Maybe carrot sprouts? Maybe weeds? Who can say when it’s the first two leaves.

Some of our fall beans are already producing, tiny as they are. Alas, the one that was the largest looked extra sad yesterday. We’ll see. Even if we only eat seven of its bright red beans, it’s still a miracle. I only planted three.

The tomatoes are slowing down. It may be time to pull most of them and make a green tomato chutney. Visit the local shop and see what Brassica starts they have for fall. Consider garlic bulbs or shallots or onions. Radishes or beets. We signed up for a smaller CSA share for fall so we shouldn’t be overtaken by the produce. Which means we can plant even more!

~Sarah

Boxing Day, September 2

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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, August 25

planorcanLeave a comment
The melons and the squash are the same yellow. The tomatoes and the peppers are the same red.

Hi John,

A week ago, we pulled over at a rest area for our final meal of the vacation. You pulled out the pocket knife to slice an apple. I unburied the last of the cheese and celery from the cooler, found the peanut butter and crackers in the food box. We took in views from the shade and then climbed back in the car for the rest of the drive. Home again, home again. To indoor plumbing, clean clothes, and freshly cooked meals.

But first, the garden…

The garden plot is even better at rooting us in community than I would’ve hoped. We don’t see our actual neighbors all that often, but there’s one family where the dad’s seen me headed to the garden a couple of times. The next time we ran into the mom, she asked about it and we encouraged them to go ahead and sign up for the waitlist.

When we were writing a note with the email address of the garden, I realized we could ask them to look after our plot while we’re gone. We haven’t seen them yet, but the thank you card they left convinces me that they appreciated doing us the favor.

The volun-beans are taking over whatever they can reach. We’re cutting them back to give the peppers and eggplant more light. I really hope that the tripod design for the soup beans works better. Dahlia looks like it’s budding. (But then it looked like it was budding two weeks ago and I don’t see any blooms.) The basil mostly went to flower while we were gone. We’ll have to decide whether we let it go to seed from here or try to cut it back.

In This Week’s Box

  • Canary Melon
  • Red Seedless Watermelon
  • Centercut Squash
  • Green Beans
  • Green Chard
  • Italian Eggplant
  • Lemon Verbena
  • Red Carmen Italian Peppers
  • Red Tomatoes
  • Spaghetti Squash

Garden Potential

  • Ground cherry
  • Few tomatillos
  • Volunbeans
  • Cherry tomatoes for days
  • Roma tomato if we want
  • A couple of lombok hot peppers
  • Jalapeno or three
  • Bell pepper or two
  • Maybe a cuke

Still in the Fridge

  • Blueberries
  • Carmen Pepper
  • Herbs: Fennel
  • Onions: white and red
  • Celery
  • Sunchokes

Open Preserves

  • Preserved eggplant
  • Dill pickle
  • Pickled red onion
  • Radish kimchi
  • Plenty of others that I just haven’t inventoried

Considering the options

  • I think I’m feeling cheesy eggplant tomato instead of a roasted eggplant dip. It’s a debate between the eggplant tomato towers from Simply in Season or eggplant parmesan.
  • Though there is ratatouille.
  • Half Baked Harvest’s approach to stuffing spaghetti squash and then baking it was my best success with the vegetable last year. Maybe pop cherry tomatoes in whole and let them pop til they sauce? Maybe cook up the chard to a green sauce?
  • Lemon verbena to tea now. And maybe straight to the dehydrator for tea later.
  • There are some potatoes remaining from when I bought at the store before the CSA delivered more. So green bean potato salad. Maybe something more vinegary this time.
  • We should do something with the peppers before they start to pile up too much. Peperonata from Six Seasons?
  • Before we left, I ended up blending half the watermelon with mint and basil. Poured into yogurt containers and popped in the freezer. Letting them spend a morning thawing, before blending again has been a lovely agua fresca. Bet we’re doing more of that.
  • There are some green cherry tomatoes on the stems I cut back. Time to try lacto-fermentation with the special lids you gave me for my birthday!
  • Smoothie of the moment: bit of coconut milk, splash of oj, handful of frozen cantaloupe (from before we left), and a bit less of frozen papaya. Served with whole blueberries.

~s

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