radishes

Boxing Day, December 2 (and anticipating December 9)

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Dear John,

We skipped produce pickups while we were out of town. We ate radishes and peppers and carrots dipped in ranch fun dip on the road. We took squash and sweet potatoes and parsley and peppers to family and friends. But sick weeks followed by travel weeks meant we ended up with some very sad foods in the fridge. Some got tossed in the compost (applesauce that molded weirdly quickly), some got sauced (lettuce into a cream dip), some is destined for soup (chard once the Royal Coronas finish cooking).

The chill is finally in the air. I want to curl around casserole dishes and soup bowls. I also want to be able to eat soon after coming in the door and not after the oven has preheated and the casserole has baked for an hour. So, um, things to consider.

CSA Box

  • Braeburn Apples
  • Goldrush Apples
  • Gala Apples
  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Lacinato Kale
  • Purple Carrots
  • Red Veined Arugula
  • Stripetti Squash
  • *Arkansas Black Apples
  • *Cranberries
  • *Fuji Apples
  • *Broccoli
  • *Carnival Squash
  • *French Breakfast Radishes
  • *Green Chard
  • *Purple Gold Potatoes

*Items are predicted for next week since I was not actually able to sit down and do this properly until Sunday.

Community Produce

  • Onions
  • Potatoes
  • Carrots
  • Apples
  • Oranges
  • Cucumbers
  • Zucchini
  • Green Pepper

Things in the fridge and on the counter

  • Asian pears
  • Apples
  • Reddening cherry tomatoes
  • Celery
  • Greens: Lettuce
  • Chard
  • Beets with greens
  • Sweet potatoes
  • Leeks
  • Sunchokes

Picked at the Garden

  • Closed for the season? At least I haven’t stopped by
  • Though we should try to do a final clean up of our plot
  • Maybe there’s some more parsley? Or collards?

Open Preserves

  • Fridge still organized!
  • Fridge still not inventoried!
  • Fig jam
  • Preserved eggplant
  • Pickled banana peppers
  • Pickled fennel
  • Pickled peach
  • Curdito
  • Fermenting green cherry tomatoes

Pantry Beans

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

Cozy meals

  • We walked in the door at 5:15. We considered ordering delivery, but that requires it’s own decision tree. I made the chickpeas and pasta while you unloaded the rental car. Solid meal from the pantry, yes please. Since then we’ve made dragon noodles with carrots and the remaining leaves of cauliflower or broccoli. Crispy potatoes with the aforementioned lettuce cream sauce.
  • We have three pumpkins and another three squash currently serving as decor. They are overdue for being eaten. Chop one, roast, and serve with the tahini yogurt sauce a la Ottolenghi and Tamimi. Pumpkin Parmesan from the Good Food Cook Book? A curry with tofu? I’m trying to think what else I want to eat that will be better with whole pumpkin/squash chopped than puree and kinda thinking puree for the freezer/muffins/soups/pies/pasta sauce sounds reasonable. But then make puree in either oven or instant pot or crock pot. (I should use the better squash for puree for the cheesecake that looks so tempting.)
  • At Thanksgiving, you saw a kid’s magazine with a spread of cucumbers topped with cream cheese and pretzels or pickles or berries. We should put the cucumber to use.
  • I was trying to remember what baked rice dish surprised me last year with how well it worked. Remembered correctly that I’d texted it to a friend–not as a link but photo from a cookbook and found the Golden Carrot Bake in Simply in Season. Wouldn’t you know it, we have plenty of carrots right now. Also saw the kimchi rice bake, which is probably better for a rushed weeknight.
  • Zucchini feels harder to deal with when there’s snow in the air. Zucchini and pepper and some beans for a chili? A zucchini dal? Or with the royal coronas in a pizza beans set-up? I think the pizza beans if we have time, but the dal if I want to come home to an already made meal. The trick of cooking the rice and the dal at the same time seems worth trying at least once!
  • Speaking of the instant pot, we are at the time of year where I switch to oatmeal breakfast. Definitely going to be tossing a handful of cranberries into the pot with the oats and water. As a reminder, 1 cup of oats + 2.5 cups water + 15-20 minutes at pressure.

Love,

Sarah

PS If the swap box has cabbage, take it so we can make cran-kin-kraut!

Boxing Day, June 3

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Dear John,

AHCK! I thought we were doing good keeping up with the produce and then we got knocked out with colds (and weren’t cooking as much) and I discovered some store bought asparagus at the back of the drawer gone slimy and the mushrooms that you picked up the other week were on the way to sadness. And then we add two more giant, gorgeous heads of lettuce to the mix? I’m not saying no to them. But I am hoping we can eat a lot of salad with friends before we bop out of town. Or that we can take lettuce to family? I know; I know; the car isn’t that big.

Today’s Box

  • Broccoli
  • Fennel
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Green Kale Swapped for Fava Beans
  • Red Leaf Lettuce

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Rhubarb
  • Green Garlic
  • Lettuce
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Scallions
  • Radishes
  • Carrots

In the Garden

  • A handful of peas
  • Radishes
  • Carrot tops. Carrot bottoms
  • Calendula
  • Black raspberries

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

  • Jumbo Peruvian Lima Bean
  • Mayocoba Bean
  • Split Red Lentil
  • Good Mother Stallard
  • Rio Zape
  • And more tucked on other shelves…

Okay. Deep Breaths. Priorities and how to eat them.

  • I’m writing this on Thursday. We used the fava beans and fennel stems in a pesto and pasta dish for dinner. It was a delicious. And means that the fava beans were enjoyed before they turned sad. SUCCESS!
  • Carrot bottoms are going to be grated and turned into carrot cake on Saturday. For eating on Sunday. And celebrating on Monday.
  • Carrot tops. Okay, these need to be taken care of tomorrow. I think our options are the carrot top + nut + cheese salad thing; the carrot tops blended with pickle juice thing (which we could put in the freezer, but I don’t want to put stuff in the freezer unless we think we’d take it out); the freeze with sugar and lemon juice and then eat with ice cream thing; blanching them and making a different salad thing; attempting a tabbouleh thing. Currently leaning toward a blend of options first and last. Try our normal salad but add quinoa instead of the nuts. Perhaps add the mushrooms I roasted earlier in the week. I bet we could serve that to friends!
  • Peas. Look, it’s just a handful. Really, all we have to do is remember to pull them out at lunch. And maybe add ranch dressing (or some other creamy dip) to the grocery list. Do we think that would be enough to get us to eat the broccoli too?
  • Lettuce. I think we should make spring roll dinner and see if that gets us to eat more lettuce. Baked tofu. Noodles. Can mandolin some radishes. Get out a dipping sauce.
  • It feels like every other dinner the past week has been me putting one thing or another into the blender and making a green sauce. (We’ve done the fennel pesto at least twice, the carrot top pickles once, all the greens including pea shoots was made once and we still have sauce left.)
    I love this strategy because cooking pasta and adding a sauce is a relatively quick meal and blending things is relatively straightforward. Even when they need to be blanched first. Or blended for longer than I expect. I might also be getting tired of green pasta? Anyway, I think we should blend the garlic scapes. Perhaps extend them with radish greens. Potentially we should freeze this. I somehow have more faith in it getting used than the carrot top pickle blend.
  • Fennel bulb. I’m hoping this will last until we’re home again. Cause I don’t have a great plan before then. Same for everything else.
  • When we do get back, let’s look at the radishes with tonnato and sunflower seeds recipe from Six Seasons. Our notes from last year are positive and I think we’ll be pulling more radishes from the garden next visit.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, May 27

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Thank you for taking the photo. Next time, can you take the netting off the berries so we can see the prettiness?

Dear John,

We had a low-key weekend planned. Not much beyond procuring seed starts and getting them in the ground. I’m writing this on Sunday night and am very grateful that tomorrow is a holiday so we can go back to the garden tomorrow to get the last of the starts in the ground. Well, the last of the purchased starts. Tomatillos were out of stock, so we’ll go back for them later.

This year we have a variety of cherry tomatoes and one or two larger; sweet peppers because we still have hot sauce in the freezer and I didn’t see jalapenos; a bunch of eggplant that who knows whether they’ll do better but the sound fun; a single cucumber; another attempt at ground cherries. We have more basil and parsley than I know where it will fit. Undoubtedly some will end up at the house. Something might end up in the community herb plot. Worst case, maybe we leave something on the porch of one of those neighbors who has a curbside herb plot?

As the tomatoes and peppers and eggplant went in the ground, I had to remind myself that it was okay to pull up plants we had. The peas were always expected to be pulled when the tomatoes went in. The radishes are being poked in the ground wherever in part because they’re quick growing and if they get yoinked out early, it doesn’t feel like a disappointment. I didn’t expect to need to pull the greens, and may well plant some more soon. Perhaps we try to transplant a calendula or two to our house and put in some chard or collards down there? Or give up on the dream of strawberries in favor of beets? They both stain fingers pink!

Regardless part of me feels disappointed that we’re unlikely to have much to harvest the next few trips to the garden. I type, blatantly ignoring the carrots that will need to be harvested when the tomatillos come. And the peas that are remaining between the tomatoes for a bit. And the radishes that did not get pulled yet. And the fact that we’re already getting blooms for a tabletop posy. And that the raspberries in the community brambles were beginning to pinken. It’s our fifth year planting in this plot and I’m hoping for some fun surprises.

Today’s Box

  • Green Kale Swapped for Beets
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Red Scallions
  • Strawberries

Things in the fridge

  • Sunchokes
  • Rhubarb
  • Green Garlic

In the Garden

  • Peas and their plants
  • Radishes, ready to pick
  • Baby Radish Greens
  • Two baby beets and their leaves
  • Carrots + so many greens
  • Chard, Collards, Mustard?
  • Calendula

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done.

Pantry Beans

  • Also still to be done.

Making the most of our garden rearrangements, erm, harvest

  • At this point we have a handful of peas (not overwhelmed by the thirty some odd plants I planted). Enough for snacking but I’m not feeling the need to do more than eat them raw.
  • I am, however, experimenting with eating the pea leaves. They’re most just chewy enough that I don’t want them in a salad. Feel like it’s either stir-fry them, pesto/sauce them, or put them in an all the greens curry.
  • Well, all the greens except the carrot greens. Those have been getting chopped and mixed with nuts and cheese for the carrot top pesto for weeks now. Put it on a cracker/toast. Add some more cheese. Call it lunch. Tonight I also made a carrot top salsa verde with a back of the fridge pickle juice and some cashews. Think it’ll be yummy on eggs or a grain bowl. Maybe hummus/white bean dip bowl?
  • The mustard greens aren’t quite enough to make me want to curry them. So probably putting in a stirfry thing. Maybe as simple as getting into a fried rice. Maybe it’s the turmeric coconut rice. Something was eating the chard, so we have more stems than greens. Those can be tossed in whatever too.
  • I swapped out the kale for a pack of beets. I’m not sure which of the Six Seasons beet salads to make. Pistachio butter and grated beets? Roast and add avocado and sunflower seeds? Or the end of the citrus and olives? Honestly, probably the last one because there’s some lingering grapefruit that should really be consumed.
  • We’re getting lots of supermarket strawberries these days. I’m taking the tops and macerating them and tossing on lettuce dressed with vinegar. Chevre is a bonus. Radishes were a fun addition.
  • Which will leave the Napa cabbage as the lingering green vegetable. I’m already thinking about the gingery slaw that might be sent to work in your lunchbox. Or okonomiyaki for dinner. Or probably both of those and then a half dozen other dishes because it is cabbage after all.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, May 13

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Green to white ombré.

Dear John,

We hosted. Success! We reset, at least a little. We home maintained–getting both HVAC and plumbing professionals out to diagnose leaks. We came down with colds and have had soup for three of the past four meals. Here’s some things I’m thinking about if we get to feeling better. Perhaps to serve to our next guest who arrives in…40 hours or so. Hopefully we’re feeling better by then!

Today’s Box

  • Baby Hakurei Turnips
  • Collards Fennel
  • Green Garlic
  • Green Romaine Lettuce
  • White Scallions

Things in the fridge

  • Asparagus ends
  • Sunchokes
  • Rhubarb
  • Radish
  • Lettuce

In the Garden

  • Radishes
  • Carrots
  • Hardy Greens Mix (Kale/Collards/Mustard)

Open Preserves

  • Still to be done. Though we did use a vinaigrette on a celery and chickpea salad we took to a picnic with friends this weekend. One fewer jar!

Sniffling through springtime
(still dreaming of the celebrations though)

  • Despite the lack of rhubarb in our first box, I had plenty to work with when it was delivered from a visitor’s yard. I made a rosemary rhubarb crisp and two rhubarb custard pies. And then we got more delivered in last week’s box. Another custard pie is tempting. But so is rhubarb vanilla jam. Or rhubarb mulberry jam. Nevermind that I haven’t spotted mulberries yet.
  • It’s spring allium season. I think it might be time for triple threat galette. We didn’t make it for Easter this year, but we can still celebrate.
  • I picked up the fennel from the swap box (and left collards) thinking of the fennel sardine pasta. Looking at my search bar history, I’m tempted to try the fennel fritters again. But fennel and white beans sounds yummy too. Perhaps in another soup? Or maybe make the cassoulet?
  • The soup we are making in the next day or two is one more round of the asparagus ends soup. Use the leftover potato peels instead of oats!
  • How do we want to use the turnip tops this week? I’m tempted to go beans and greens route and cook up the kale and collards from the garden at the same time. (Coming soon: an inventory of our beans so that we can better consider which beans might integrate into our menu each week.)
  • Turnip bottoms into the Six Seasons turnips and yogurt salad.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, June 20

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Dear John,

Summer means interns. And this year, interns in residence (vs remote). So for the first time since March 2020, we have five days a week working separately. I was so stressed out when work-from -home began. Too much together time! This side I was anxious about the time time apart. What can I say? Change is scary.

Spoiler: It’s been fine. We need to make sure you take salads to the office so we don’t get too much of a backlog of produce. Buying your favorite of carrots and celery is just too much with the CSA and garden plot producing.

Today’s Box

  • Dark Sweet Cherries
  • Mini Watermelon Seedless
  • Broccoli
  • Green Zucchini
  • Red Romaine Lettuce
  • Sugar Snap Peas

Things in the fridge

  • Blueberries
  • Breakfast radishes
  • Fennel + stems still waiting to get pickled
  • Lettuce
  • Greens: Cabbage, Chard, Collards, Kale, Lettuce
  • Zucchini
  • Green plums

In the Garden

  • Rainbow chard
  • Radishes + their greens
  • Peas for the sampling–snap, snow, and shelling
  • Lettuce, when we’re ready
  • Basil leaves getting pinched
  • Calendula flowers getting dried
  • Beets if we want them
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Calendula and cosmos and oregano flowering for a wild bunch of a bouquet

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

As I type this part, on Wednesday, the window is open to the porch and the cool breeze that accompanies rain is teasing round my shoulders. We need the rain. The plants were doing better than I expected when I last got by to water them with the hose. But spigot is not the same as a good, daylong sprinkle.

Meals to consider and pickles to prep

  • Between the CSA and the garden, I think we’ve tipped the line to a chard bounty this year. We’re pickling some stems. I asked some friends for their favorites to add some variety and got suggestions for green shakshuka and quesadillas on the stove to maximize crispiness. I saw a recommendation for a chard salad a la the kale salad that Joshua McFaddan popularized. There’s also chard hummus, but I wasn’t especially impressed with the white bean and beet green dip last week, so maybe we save that for later in the year.
  • This week’s zucchini looks young and tender. Perfect for eating in a salad where it’s mandolined, salted, and dressed. Use the basil flowers that I pinched at the garden.
  • And we could combine the chard and the zukes if there’s time for a more involved cooking project.
  • A mix-up meant that we didn’t get our cherries last week. So we got a special delivery of two weeks worth of cherries this week. We could devour them by the handful, no problem. But I’m excited for the excuse to try the snap peas and pickled cherries salad.
  • While we’re mixing the pickling brine, go ahead and make a batch of radishes. They’ll be great on tacos later.
  • Maybe time for the oven roasted broccoli with lemon and feta? Though, tossing it all in a blender again is still a quick and easy way to consume a lot, fast.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, May 30

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Dear John,

I know we need more canning lids.

We may need more jars.

Sometime last week, I took the fennel stems, chopped them up, and put them in brine with a few sprigs of rosemary, replenishing our fridge supply of pickled fennel. On Memorial Day, I pulled out our apple stock bag from the freezer, tossed in the cherry pits we’d stashed in there too. Ended up with one batch of apple scrap jelly from the juice. Then I took the solids, pulled the cranberries from the back of the fridge, and now we have a chutney. Last night, I made Artichoke Relish that I’m labeling “Relish the Sun ’23.” That (plus a giant batch of sunchoke burgers assembled last week, now stocking the freezer) used up our sunchokes for the season.

Today’s Box

  • Baby Fennel (+ bonus from the swap box)
  • Collards
  • French Breakfast Radishes
  • Red Romaine Lettuce
  • Red Scallions

Things in the fridge

  • Strawberries
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Bok Choy
  • Fennel
  • Some bitter greens from the neighbors
  • Red Leaf Lettuce, More greens from the neighbors
  • Scallions, Green Garlic
  • Hakurei Turnips
  • Green plums

In the Garden

  • Lettuce, gorgeous lettuce
  • Radishes + their greens
  • Turnips + their greens
  • Calendula leaves, from the thinning
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Dahlia bulbs

Open Preserves

Garden glimpse

New Saturday. New starts. We’ve added Gomphrena flowers and parsley and dill. Brought the cilantro home. Pulled some more calendula and passed them to another gardener to transplant. (By the way, the ones we transplanted to our house look great now that we’ve gotten some rain. I mean, look at that picture. Don’t you agree?) We came home and made a lunch of lettuce and turnips and thinned rainbow chard that were freshly picked.

Meals to consider

  • Keeping lettuce soup on the list. Ditto the fennel casserole.
  • I made a fennel pesto from the fronds that we ate on our sunchoke burgers. It was good. And worked really well thinned with yogurt and lemon juice as a salad dressing. Since we’re looking at a lot of lettuce and turnip and radish salads, maybe try making more of that.
  • Collards, huh. I kinda want to make the Lee Brother’s collard grilled cheese sandwich, but their recipe calls for way more collards than we have. Still, I might end up going that way with them.
  • Though, alternatively, I keep having a sense memory of a dish that involved some sort of greens rolled up. Spirals of greens. I think, maybe, it might possibly be the shanu chaats from Hut-K in Ann Arbor. Described as “Spiced crushed chickpeas rolled in colocasia leaves surrounded w/ mixture of baked multigrain papdi, topped w/ mixture of potatoes, peas & chickpea, hut-k special sauces & garnished w/ chickpea flour savories. Allergy information: contains wheat, chickpeas. Vegan.” (The restaurant is closed. I do not trust the internet to save this information for me.) I’m wondering how I can go from that to a collards dish.
  • STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS UPDATE! I searched for colocasia and got a recipe for colocasia pinwheels. Which is getting absurdly close to my spiraly memory. Maybe this can happen after all.
  • Otherwise, we need to cook some of these greens down. Serve with beans and be done for a day.
  • Not a meal! But, I do want to try collecting and drying some of our calendula this season. Especially from in front of the house, it should be easy to get to. We have Resina Calendula, which is especially high in resin which is good for making the salves and oils and what have you. Apparently.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, May 23 (and 16)

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Dear John,

A week ago, not long after we’d picked up our lettuce and bok choy for the week, some neighborhood friends texted. They’d gotten a CSA and now had a fridge full of greens that would surely go bad before they ate them all. Would we like some?

So, I came back home with a bag full of chard and kale and fennel and I don’t even remember what else. I suggested asking around to find someone to split the share for the rest of the season. And also sent an email with a few of our favorite ways to cook up greens, when salad won’t go through them quickly enough. I have a feeling we’ll be needing these in the coming weeks, so for easier searching.

  1. Instant pot Indian Curry – Can switch out potatoes for chickpeas pretty easily.
  2. Coconut turmeric rice with greens – What I made for dinner that night. Toss a can of beans in it to round out the meal.
  3. Beans and greens pasta – Classic.
  4. Braised beans and greens – Also classic.
  5. Green shakshuka – Kale and eggs! Maybe another way?
  6. Turmeric black pepper stir fry – Okay, not vegetarian as written. We sub the chicken for tofu and asparagus for greens. or green beans.
  7. Braised cabbage and glass noodles – They have some other cabbage and glass noodle recipes that we also use. Dried mushrooms are a kitchen staple for us now. Also, this is one that we haven’t tried with other greens.
  8. Steamed greens and tofu in a glaze – In case you have a health struggles and suddenly go on extra low-fat watch, but are still allowed sugar. But really, I’ve used this one for years. Usually with brown rice.
  9. Sweet potato, kale, and quinoa fritters – Maybe more in the fall when sweet potatoes are in abundance. definitely served on top of salad, using even more greens 😉
  10. Tacos! – Cannot vouch for this recipe. I read the list above to you and you said tacos were missing.
  11. Enfrijodlas – Ooooh. I do like this recipe though. And would totally stuff them like enchiladas, but with wilted greens
  12. When all else fails, Greens Jam – Legit good. Tips on how to use it here. Great for picnics!

Today’s Box

  • Garlic Scapes
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Red Leaf Lettuce
  • Strawberries

Things in the fridge (from last week and beyond)

  • Cranberries
  • Red Butterhead Lettuce
  • Bok Choy
  • Fennel
  • Some bitter greens from the neighbors
  • More greens from the neighbors
  • Scallions, Green Garlic
  • Hakurei Turnips
  • Orange Carrots
  • Sunchoke
  • Green plums

In the Garden

  • Lettuce, if we’d like
  • Radishes + their greens
  • Turnips + their greens
  • Calendula leaves, from the thinning
  • Rosemary
  • Oregano
  • Dahlia bulbs

Open Preserves

And when we peek at the garden

We bought starts on Saturday. Put them in the ground on Sunday. When we arrived, I was surprised at how green our plot already was. The radishes and turnips (pictured) were thriving–we left with a shopping bag full. The lettuce was actually forming. The calendula row from last year was quickly becoming thick with plants, so we’ve thinned and tried replanting at home. One edamame was actually recognizable. The peas were tall enough to think about training them on their tent poles. I think we have cosmos volunteering, but who knows, maybe those sprouts are actually weeds.

Beyond the greens

  • Look, I picked up extra fennel from the swap box before we got fennel from the neighbors. We’ve already had fennel with braised lentils. Twice. And turnip yogurt poppy salad with fennel fronds as our herb. I’m eyeing this fennel and bean casserole. Planning to pickle up some stems (because we’ve actually used up the previous jars). Contemplating a fennel pesto vs fennel fritter.
  • We have yet to make lettuce soup, but it has been mentioned previously. This might be the week for it. (Especially since the lettuce from yesterday’s box hasn’t made it to the refrigerator yet….)
  • If we don’t feel like fried ricing it, salad from the cabbage?

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, November 29

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Omitted, an additional pint of cranberries.

Dear John,

Last week went remarkably according to plan. Black Futsu was stuffed with artisan (gluten free) bread cubes, Gruyère, Emmenthal, four strips of bacon, thyme, garlic, pepper, nutmeg, cream. It really was, oh so good. A couple of days later Kabocha with wild rice, mushrooms, cranberries, carrots, celery, shallots, raisins, rosemary, oregano, thyme. Still delicious, if not quite as decadent feeling.

Cabbage was shredded with carrots, apple ginger dressing, and the seeds for the squash that was on the table. Later more was shredded, doused with garlic-lemon-anchovy dressing, topped with toasted hazelnuts and sourdough croutons (for those who could partake).

Those who would miss turkey, missed the turkey. Those who are mostly vegetarian, surely didn’t. Except, it would be nice to have the carcass to make broth for all the soups of the season. Ah well, that’s what the veggie stock bag is for.

Today’s Box

  • Cranberries
  • Crispin Apples
  • Fuji Apples
  • Arugula
  • January King Cabbage
  • Leeks
  • Rainbow Carrots
  • Red Radishes

Things in the fridge and counter

  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Cranberries
  • Celery
  • 1/2 a Beet
  • Carrots of the rainbow
  • Green beefsteak tomatoes, but baby-sized
  • Roma tomatoes, mix of green and reddening
  • Carnival Squash
  • Robins Koginut Squash
  • Potatoes (only the gold)
  • Onions

Open Preserves

Making the most of the greenery

  • Leek and Potato soup! More with Less has a recipe as does Good Food Cook Book. Combine those for fun.
  • We have radishes. With greens! Carrots. With greens! Arugula! And, of course, cabbage. Let’s have fun with the greens that won’t last before settling into the months of cabbage and storage greens. One more batch of carrot top pesto. Salads with arugula and pear and blue cheese. Or arugula with roasted beets and goat cheese. Breakfast of roasted potatoes, fried eggs, and sauteed radish greens.
  • I’m proud we finished the last cabbage before this one arrived. (Barely.) We did cabbage and butter pasta this weekend. May be time for okonomiyaki. Or the Polish Potato Casserole of my childhood.
  • We have some left over stuffings that’ll go in the squash. Make the Thanskgiving cooking last.
  • But, let’s work on the cranberries. I think we have ~15 cups in the refrigerator right now. (To be far, about 10 came today.) We might have to candy some or string them with popcorn. Until then, more sauce? Newtons? Make cranberry curd and freeze it? Cranapple pie?

Love you,

Sarah

Catching up

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From the box: Broccoli and Bok Choy. Lettuce and asparagus.

Dear John,

The past month has brought lots of heartburn and plenty of fatigue. Meal planning has been sparse at best, partly because it’s hard to know what I’m going to be up to eating.

I think we went three weeks between garden visits at one point? The radishes came! The spinach bolted! The cilantro is off to seed! The mixed stirfry greens have filled many grocery bags with their leaves already! The peas didn’t take off, but the nasturtium are looking pretty leafy. The dahlia that we neglected to dig up last fall has already started blooming.

We bought starts for peppers and tomatoes and tomatillos and ground cherries and herbs. They’re in the ground in the garden and in pots at the house. The sunchokes are in giant pots and earlier today I thought I saw the barest beginnings of a sprout. (The potato that had sprouted went mouldy before we got it in a pot. It is in the compost instead.)

At the house, the lead service line is finally replaced. Without having done any soil testing of our yard, I don’t want to plant edibles there. Flowers sound lovely. A couple more dahlia bulbs. Seed bomb from a friend’s CSA. Extra zinnias and nasturtium. Why not? We can see what wins out in the rocky, bricky, soil + weeds underneath the mulch.

In The Most Recent Box

  • Asparagus
  • Bok Choy
  • Broccoli
  • Head Lettuce

Still in the Fridge

  • Strawberries (farmer’s market)
  • Cranberries
  • Greens: Kale
  • Alliums: Green Garlic, Garlic Scapes, White Scallions, Red Scallions
  • Black radishes, Purple Daikon radishes, Rainbow radishes
  • Turnips
  • Potatoes: Sweet
  • Jerusalem Artichokes

Growing in the Garden

  • Radishes
  • Stirfry greens
  • Nasturtium leaves (as we thin the plants)

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 that use the greens when heartburn makes things tricky

  • Still trying to eat salads. This week was greens + potatoes + hard boiled eggs + radishes or turnips + parm + mustard vinaigrette. Also arugula or other greens + strawberries + turnips + chevre + almonds + rosemary infusing olive oil. (It’s a new batch and the rosemary flavor isn’t strong yet.)
  • Omelettes. Scrambled eggs with greens. Breakfast tacos with greens. We haven’t made a quiche yet, so I think that’s coming soon.
  • Twice baked potatoes.
  • Risotto with turnips and their greens.
  • Pad see ew with stirfry greens
  • Summer rolls (aka salad you can eat with your hands) with peanut butter dipping sauce
  • Coconut turmeric rice (if coconut milk is available. *sighs at supply chains and decades old planting decisions and climate change and sighs*) with added beans and greens.
  • Saag aloo, nearly omitting the peppers. Womp womp. But it meant I could sleep at night.
  • Do not make pizza. Even if it’s kale stem pesto instead of tomato sauce and has plenty of cheese. It took a couple of days to recover an appetite after that single meal.

Hoping the heartburn dissipates soon!

Sarah