sweet potatoes

Boxing Day, February 9

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I feel like we missed an opportunity here. If only it’d been red onions and red cabbage (aka the purple kinds). Maybe even the standard beets. Purple basil! Ah. The purple CSA box will just have to reside in my dreams.

Dear John,

The oven died and took too long to fix. I kept delaying posting until we got an appliance repair person here. Hindsight, not the most helpful way to plan.

But it is fixed and we have the next box now. So I will hit publish on this one. Thank you to the repair person and to the neighbors who passed along the phone number to text.

Today’s Box

  • All Purple Carrots
  • Chioggia Beets x2
  • Purple Daikon Radishes
  • Purple Sweet Potatoes
  • Onions
  • Parsley
  • Green Cabbage

Things in the fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Half a parsnip
  • Robins Koginut Squash
  • Black Futsu squash (from the farmers market)
  • Shallots

Open Preserves

Home meals

  • Sweet potatoes topped with celery and shallot and cheese. You know what, we have grocery store celery. We could totally make this again. It’s good. And so simple. Reminder that we could use the 8 minute sweet potato trick if we want to do this before we get the oven fixed.
  • Chioggia Beets are the pretty striped ones. They begged to be mandolined into paper thin slices for salads. Probably pair with some citrus and some of the cheese that we need for topping the sweet potatoes. Toasted hazelnuts, warm from the oven. Top with some parsley if you’re feeling fancy farm-to-table restaurant style.
  • That said, when we grow tired of raw storage beets (because, that is what these are, right?), maybe we try a beet tartare. (Totally inspired by me doing cntrl+f for beet on the menu at an old favorite farm-to-table restaurant. Their description is “avocado / radish / capers / egg.”)
  • I do tend to use the cabbage for salads. Crispy and crunchy and feeling fresh.

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, January 26

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Our box. Minus the black turnips. Plus extra sweet potatoes and parsnips.

Dear John,

Last week, someone on the neighborhood listserv started a thread sharing lifehacks. The first responses were about grocery lists and meal planning. Bulk cooking sauces and dressings on weekends to prepare for the week ahead. Making meals large enough that leftovers get packed in lunchboxes. Having regularly occurring menus. Which a reminder that, I can still tell you that growing up Saturday morning is pancakes, Saturday dinner is pizza, Sunday morning eggs, Sunday lunch spaghetti, and Sunday dinner hot dogs and popcorn.

I contributed using a melon baller to core an apple. Truly it works quickly, and then you have a half ball of core to toss in the apple core bag in the freezer.

Because, the apple core bag, is definitely one of our more recent tricks. Apple and pear cores (and other fruit), tossed in a bag in the freezer until you have enough to make jelly and mostarda or chutney. I opted not to put that one the listserv though. It feels a bit of an advanced cooking to reduce waste move. I’ll share with you, here, though.

It led to a fun discussion of our other hacks:

  • Freezer scrap bags: In addition to the apple cores, we have kale and green stems that become pesto, veggie peels become stock, and one day I might figure out the secret of saving Parmesan rinds for stock
  • Second curtain rod over the far side of the shower for hanging washcloths to dry
  • Family account on one password with shared passwords
  • Cryptomator + shared drive for secure file sharing across computers
  • When mood is bad, eat something, drink water, and go for a walk and talk.
  • This blog for sharing the menu planning process

Speaking of….

Today’s Box

  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Black Radishes
  • Celery
  • Parsnips
  • Rainbow Chard
  • Robins Koginut Squash
  • Scarlet Turnips
  • Shallots

Things in the fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Rutabaga (picked up from last week’s swap box leftovers)
  • Black Futsu squash (from the farmers market)

Open Preserves

Home meals

  • Sweet potatoes topped with celery and shallot and cheese. This recipe is a better fit for this box than I remembered!
  • If we want something salad-y, I think the turnips are the first thing to try. I don’t know scarlet turnips! Maybe shave them and some apples and do a mustard dressing? We can also try grating the rutabaga.
  • Two weeks ago, we made the parsnip soup with celery relish from Six Seasons. Honestly, it’s worth a repeat.
  • Oh, root vegetable tangine sounds really fun. Aka it would do exactly as titled and mix up our routine. And we have preserved lemon waiting to be used!
  • That blog had an older post that reminds me we can make gnocci with the root veg. We’re out of our sweet potato gnocci, so that’s tempting. But maybe one of the four pounds of rutabaga goes to that? We already have grocery store potatoes on hand.
  • Last week, I used the last fall squash in a winter chili adapted from Simply in Season. This one looks like it’d be fun to stuff, but maybe play on that theme? Beans and cheese and some canned tomatoes and spices with heat.
  • I was debating how to use the chard–it’s not quite a salad green but I wanted to get the crunchy freshness of barely cooked greens. I think returning to the pandemic winter favorite of turmeric rice with greens is the way to go. (You know if it came a week we had cilantro, I’d be making that soup.)

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, October 4

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Autumnal colors of reds and greens and browns

Heya John,

The cold arrived last week. We’re searching for sweaters and sweatshirts. Pulling out the pants and quilts. We made two different lentil squash soups last week. Autumn is arriving and we’re almost prepared!

Today’s Box

  • Asian Pears
  • Gala Apples
  • Yellow Bartlett Pears
  • Beauregard Sweet Potatoes
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Red Butterhead Lettuce
  • White Cauliflower

Things I think are in the fridge

  • Plums
  • Kiwiberries
  • Pears
  • Apples
  • Green tomatoes
  • Squash (half)
  • Beets + beet greens
  • Ginger
  • Cranberries
  • Spaghetti squash

Coming in from the Garden

  • Basil
  • Tomatillos
  • Roma tomatoes
  • Occasional ground cherries
  • Peppers?
  • Dahlias and marigolds and cosmos
  • Papalo when we want it
  • Rosemary

Open Preserves

Some ideas to keep us going

  • If I had looked at the predicted contents, I would not have made aloo mater yesterday. I should’ve made Priya’s aloo gobi today. Instead, we’ll try this one and be sad about missing the roasted goodness. (And oil. I’m still sad about missing oil.)
  • Cabbage in Singapore Noodles?
  • Squash and tomato pasta sauce
  • Roasted squash + lettuce + apples + dates + craisins + chickpea croutons + curry yogurt dressing
  • Sliced beet + lettuce + tomatoes + chickpea croutons + curry yogurt dressing

Love you,

Sarah

Boxing Day, March 31

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Last week we got purple daikon radishes from our CSA share splitters. This week we left them the green cabbage.

Hi John,

This week the house’s internal network is being rewired, we’re getting quotes for replacing the lead service line, and we’ve reached out to a couple of companies for advice about whether to get quotes for solar panels before or after we replace the roof. Home ownership is fun?

[Edited to add that the one of the plumbers who we gave a quote for the service line advertised discounts on additional services done at the same time. And our home inspector did say that we should replace the water heater soon. So, we have also been researching the merits of electric tank vs electric tankless vs heat pump aka hybrid water heaters. All the contractors are pro-gas tankless, but anti-electric tankless. The hybrid is more expensive up-front, but our calculations show that the energy cost savings should be substantial. And the warranty is four years longer.]

In This Week’s Box

  • Cremini Mushrooms
  • Garnet Sweet Potatoes
  • Green Garlic
  • Mixed Specialty Lettuce
  • Red Radishes
  • Red Russian Kale
  • Rutabaga (not turnip like you think)

Still in the Fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Celery
  • Greens: Green Cabbage
  • Carrots
  • Parsnip
  • Black radishes, Purple Daikon radishes
  • Turnips
  • Potatoes: Sweet
  • 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
  • Cranberry orange marmalade-ish
  • Probably still more uninventoried

Successful meals we’ve made

I’m late posting this week, which has the benefit of knowing what we actually ate. (If not the help of figuring out what we could eat.)

  • Salad greens + radish + avocado + grapes + toasted walnuts + goat cheese + either balsamic dressing or simply rosemary olive oil = a happy salad (It would’ve been great if there was still broccoli for it, but that has already been finished in twice baked potatoes.)
  • Kale + pinto beans + radish + carrots + sweet and spicy vinegary dressing = a solid salad
  • Spinach + quick cook sweet potato + black beans + radish + homemade ranch = the salad I kept eating last week.
  • Sunchoke burgers used half the mushrooms
  • Spaghetti with mushroom marinara use the other half. (And honestly would’ve been better with more mushrooms, but we were out. Need to go to the Asian market and stock up on dried mushrooms too.)

Less success

  • Rutabaga rosti. I’d seen a video that talked up potato rosti the week before. So when I looked for ideas with rutabaga and saw a post about rosti it sounded like it’d fill a craving I hadn’t known I’d had. But cooking in the cast iron skillet and otherwise trying to follow the video, well, it was a less successful dish. I kept burning the bottom layer and it never really stuck all together. Next time, let’s consider going closer to latkes. They can still get topped with sour cream and the green garlic.

Yet to come

  • More sweet potato! (This time at least we only got a single three pounder.) I’ve been going through our frozen gnocci stockpiles, so maybe more there? More roasted on tacos and salads? Thai curry with radish greens?
  • Actually make that root vegetable lasagna that I posted last time.
  • Finish off the cabbage. More of the shaved salad with lemon garlic parmesan dressing?
  • Eventually, I really should try to pickle those black radishes.

Love,

Sarah

Boxing Day, March 3

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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, February 17

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We took mushrooms last week and left beets and turnips this week. Sharing!

Hi John,

We have not made the shepherd’s pie, yet. So it feels like a lot of last week’s veggies are still hanging around. But! I did use the spaghetti squash (from October?). The seeds inside had almost universally started sprouting and the whole thing tasted bitter. Maybe it shouldn’t be stored for months and months at room temperature? (And we should probably prioritize that butternut squash too. Pizza with goat cheese?)

We also, finally, made the sunchoke veggie burgers and used up the Jerusalem Artichokes. I know. Those have been sitting in the back of the fridge since before I started keeping track of what’s still in the fridge. So of course this week’s box replenishes our supply.

I’m excited about it though. Despite what one might think from them being our lingering food, I’ve found I like sunchokes. Those veggie burgers are amazing! (They take a while to make. But the serving size on that post is way off. I made a half recipe and we got 6 normal size patties and 1 small one. And they freeze well! Once a batch is made it’s easy to make into a meal.) I like putting thin slices on a pizza. I liked Bryant Terry’s sunchoke cream for when we’re cooking a creamy vegan dish (though would use real cream if I wasn’t trying to serve a vegan meal). I like artichoke relish when we have sausage in the summer. And smashed sunchokes with siracha mayo.

All to say, there are plenty of ways we can use the new ‘chokes. I think one of them might need to be looking for eyes on the tubers we got and putting them in a five-gallon bucket. I don’t want to curse anyone, including ourselves, with a plant they can’t get rid of. And the tubers have a reputation of proliferating. So contain. And then see what happens.

In This Week’s Box

  • Collards
  • Garnet Sweet Potatoes
  • Green Cabbage
  • Jerusalem Artichokes
  • Purple Carrots
  • Red Onions

Still in the Fridge

  • Cranberries
  • Greens: Red Cabbage
  • Kohlrabi
  • Carrots
  • Parsnip
  • Black radishes, Red radishes, Winter radishes
  • Turnips
  • Squash: Butternut
  • Potatoes: Sweet, Purple

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

Dishes to dine on (that aren’t mentioned above)

  • We’ll cook up the collards. How’s the peanut and greens stew sound? It uses sweet potato too!
  • While I was looking for that recipe, I saw a coconut carrot curry soup. I think I’m intrigued. I haven’t tended to try these before because I didn’t like cooked carrots when I was a kid. But we’ve got carrots accumulating, so now is the time. And this recipe also uses a sweet potato! (Which means we will either use two of our sweet potatoes OR we will weigh a potato and use half of it in each recipe.)
  • Cabbage + carrots + onion does sound like we might make okonomiyaki again. Check Scraps, Wilts, and Weeds for recipe guidance.
  • And please, let’s make that shepherd’s pie. We have all the ingredients! Just need to decide to do it on a cooler day instead of one where we’re feeling the warmth of spring.

Sarah

Boxing Day, January 20 aka So many boxes II

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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