Hoarding

Last winter and early spring, after my first year with a CSA, I determined that my goal for the upcoming growing season was to put a concentrated effort into food preservation. I felt a little overwhelmed by the amount of food we were given at each pickup, and having absolutely no previous knowledge of canning, freezing and drying food, each week was a kind of trial by fire with researching, buying freezer bags, trying to remember what needed to be blanched, what should be shredded, what couldn't be jarred, etc. That, on top of my eyes being larger than my family's collective bellies (sure, we can eat two pounds of greens, sixteen tomatoes a bunch of basil and a twelve summer squash in six days!), meant that a little bit too much of our bounty ended up as compost fodder.

I had tried my hand at canning a jar of tomatoes the previous summer, mostly as an experiment, but it was enough to instill confidence that I could do it on a larger scale. I also knew from previous experience, that during the height of growing season, when I'd be bringing home gobs and gobs of veggies from Blooming Glen on top of harvesting our own garden, I needed to leave my pickup day open. Taking a couple hours on that day to sort through the produce, make a decision as to what I'd be likely to use before the next week and immediately preserving the rest was something that I'd have to commit to, as well.

Overall, I'd say I did pretty well. I had several canning days at my dads, during which we canned straight-up-'maters, spaghetti sauce, salsa and applesauce. I committed to memory what veggies didn't need blanching and would therefore be the quickest to get into the freezer. I I learned how to dry herbs. I stocked up on freezer bags and even received a FoodSaver as an early birthday gift, making preservation that much easier.

Yes, last season, I was a produce-preserving queen. How I loved stacking jars of tomatoes and applesauce on the cellar shelves, lining them up like little soldiers, their brass rings gleaming like a sergeant's stars. Putting onions and potatoes to bed, covered with cloth and tucked into a quiet corner. I'll even admit to "checking in" my preserved veggies and fruit, opening the freezer door simply to admire the piles of vacuum-packed bags, each filled with bright green broccoli, vibrant red peppers and glowing orange butternut squash. As one might imagine, this attachment to preserved food has a predictable downside: I don't actually want to use anything.

I realize this is a problem, especially now, on the cusp of a new CSA and garden season. I've begun to force myself to plan meals around the food we have stocked. Most recently, I added some spicy vegan sausage to a sauce made with the tomatoes, thyme, basil, onions and peppers pictured above, and served it with rice. The meal was fresh and fabulous -- a fact that I'm hoping to parlay into more using of the preserved food in my house. Fingers crossed!

> Cross-posted at www.farmtophilly.com.

OLS dinner 2007 10

Ta da! One Local Summer 2007 has been successfully completed!


One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 10

• Homemade whole wheat pizza (McGeary Organics/Annville Flouring Mill - 94 miles) with tomatoes, onion, yellow and red bell peppers, garlic (all from Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles), basil (Bux-Mont Hydroponics - 5 miles), white sweet corn (Lancaster - 84 miles) and cherry bomb hot peppers (our garden - 0 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: yeast, olive oil, salt
• Red and yellow watermelon (Blooming Glen) and peach (New Jersey - 40 miles) fruit salad.
  
• Proprietors Reserve red wine (Chaddsford Winery - 48 miles)

I absolutely considered going all out with several recipes for the last meal, but thought this simple meal was much more representative of the spirit of OLS. Simplicity in making big changes with little effort. Simplicity too, in finding joy in small things; like cutting open a watermelon and discovering buttercup-yellow flesh instead of the expected pink.

Hm. Actually, now that I think about it, this dinner wasn't exactly simple. I'd never made pizza dough before. Not that it was complex, but there's a little bit of a learning curve to work into the math there :)

And that's what OLS has been for me these past ten weeks: doing things that I never before had an excuse to do. Making pizza dough and tortillas, going to the Skippack farmers' market and discovering artichokes, finding several local vegan protein sources - shit, me just purchasing flour to bake was an unthinkable prospect before this summer. I mean, really... I look at this and am just plain surprised with myself:

As much as I love to cook, and love local foods, I can truly say that never would've made a pizza from scratch had is not been for the challenge of OLS. Nor would I have considered using corn as a topping. But! These were all good decisions!

Thank you, Liz! You are amazing and inspiring and fun.

With the the picture-taking, planning, deadlines and posting, I'm happy to have a short break from these meals each week , but I'm sure local-specific meals will maintain a somewhat regular appearance here until OLS 2008. I'm interested to see what I can some up with say, in February. Stay tuned!

> Cross-posted at www.farmtophilly.com.

OLS dinner 2007 08

One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 08

• Homemade whole wheat flour tortilla tower (McGeary Organics/Annville Flouring Mill - 94 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: baking soda, salt, canola oil.
• First layer is lettuce (Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles) and marinated and baked tempeh (Cricklewood Soyfoods - 28 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: tamari, liquid smoke.
• Second layer is sauteed yellow squash brought home from Rhode Island (Fisherman's farmers market - o miles), red pepper (Blooming Glen) and onion (Lancaster - 83 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, salt, cumin.
• Third layer is sauteed corn, green bell peppers (both from Blooming Glen) and onion (Lancaster). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, salt, cumin.
• Topped with raw tomatoes (Blooming Glen and our garden - 0 miles).
  
• And drizzled with Jason's homemade hot sauce (peppers from Blooming Glen and our garden). Nonlocal ingredients used: vinegar, cumin.
• A chilled salad of raw lettuce, blanched string beans, raw onion (all from Blooming Glen) and raw tomatoes (from Blooming Glen and our garden).
• Watermelon (Blooming Glen).
• Whirlwind Witbier (Victory Brewing Company - 45 miles).
  

This was by far the most time-consuming, though absolutely the most delicious, OLS meal I've done. From the time I started mixing the batter for the tortillas until we sat down to eat, over four hours passed. Because we've been away, I had lots of random veggies both from RI and from the crop share to use up. It felt good to be in the kitchen after a couple weeks away from home, though I can't say I was thrilled to be spending such a large part of my Saturday cooking one meal.

I was trying to come up with a clever way to utilize the variety of produce when I started making the tortillas. This time, I borrowed my dad's pasta maker to roll them out. It worked beautifully, creating rectangular, uniform pieces of dough that I quickly realized would lend themselves wonderfully to a tortilla tower theme - perfect for incorporating my many vegetables!

While I diced and chopped and stir fried and rolled, Jase decided to try his hand at homemade hot sauce. I must say, it was super-nice hanging out and creating this week's meal together.


My next OLS meal will for sure be much lower maintenance. Cereal is sounding very good right about now :)

White hot flower lovin'

The ginormous hibiscus in my white flower garden finally bloomed. I saw the other white flowers taking bets as to whether it was going to bloom before it was being devoured by Japanese beetles. Fuckers. (The beetles, I mean, not the other white flowers.)


This photo and some others have been added to my flick'r album. I especially like this little guy:


Reminds me of fireworks :) Pretty, pretty, pretty!

My white and bleeding heart

I have a thing for white flowers. I love them for their contrast against their greens, for their crisp style, for their starkness and honesty, for their simple elegance, for their light.

It's interesting because elsewhere in my life, white does not play much of a role. I'm inclined to wear black and earth tones, I've painted my home in bold colors and I famously inject brightly-colored veggies into my (already vibrant green) guacamole.

But white flowers, especially little ones, just get to me. And it hasn't always been that way; only in the past year or so. I seek them out, and one of my three gardens is white flowers only. Is that peculiar? It wasn't planned, it just kind of happened, almost without my knowing.


I mean, who knew I was such an elitist?

Looking back, I think it may have begun with the purchase and subsequent repainting of the house. Black had always been my favorite, but it's certainly not useful when considering room and trim colors. With the bright color palate I chose, and trim and baseboards well beyond refinishing to original wood, white seemed to be the solitary paint chip left. Maybe that's where white began worming its way into my visions?

I suppose it started slowly, this favoritism with white flowers, as most habits and crushes do. This seems different though, as I am a very conscious person. I combat my inner Virgo perfectionist by deliberately, but slyly making a decision, then quietly integrating new priorities into my daily life. Otherwise, I get so caught up in the organizing and planning and plotting and mapping, that I never actually do what I had intended in the first place, as it all gets too overwhelming and seemingly impossible.

Oddly, I didn't make an aware decision to plant white flowers, I just found myself doing it, and on trips to nurseries, dismissing suggestions of plants that produced other-colored petals. The two plants at the top of my list? A white rhododendron and a white bleeding heart.


(I know moms aren't supposed to have a favorite, the obviously, the bleeding heart has a special place in my - er, heart.)

Which brings me here, now. Clearly with an objective to surround myself with pretty white flowers, but also with a "how did I get here" question on my face. And what does any clever do when pondering the meanings and subtleties of life? Turn to the internet, of course!

In my searches, I found this insanely creative and fun website about colors, http://www.mariaclaudiacortes.com/#. Please do investigate :)

Other tidbits upon which I stumbled:

White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity. It is considered to be the color of perfection. White means safety, purity, and cleanliness. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. White can represent a successful beginning. In heraldry, white depicts faith and purity. --http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html

Strictly speaking, white is not a color, but the manifestation of the presence of all color - the complete energy of light. It stands for wholeness and completion. In many cultures it represents openness and truth. White has a cold quality. It can provide clarity as its energy is complete. White has purification vibrations and can be used to clear blocks from your path. It holds the potential to move toward every other color and this makes it a good choice for new beginnings, and development in any direction.
Put some white in your life when you want: * to clear clutter and obstacles away * to start a fresh beginning * to bring about mental clarity * purification of thoughts or actions
-- http://crystal-cure.com/white.html

Meaning of the color white: How the color white effects us mentally and physically * aids mental clarity * encourages us to clear clutter or obstacles * evokes purification of thoughts or actions * enables fresh beginnings -- http://www.sensationalcolor.com/content/view/1063/144/

Compost bin blues

My compost bin took a hit a couple months ago, and this week, one of three sides fell completely over.

I built the bin from left over fencing last spring (http://jamhome.blogspot.com/2006/03/i-like-dirt.html), and damn... I was so proud of it! It was a real compost bin (as opposed to the compost *pile* we had to make do with over the previous fall and winter), made from reclaimed building materials, and the best part was that I built it all by myself. When I was constructing it, I remembered reading somewhere that you should add a floor in order to not loose nutrients from the compost into the ground, so I even managed to find some cinder slabs that I carefully and levelly set into the ground.

I built the U-shaped bin right next to the back fence, bordering the alley, where it sat, happily composting our coffee grounds, veggie scraps, fruit peels and occasional paper towels for over a year. I noticed a couple months ago that it looked a bit skewed, as if someone had backed into it's alley-facing corner, and figured I straighten it out once I removed most of the compost into the vegetable garden bed this spring. A couple days ago, I saw that the entire side had come undone and was laying in the alley; avocado shells and coffee filters were oozing out onto the gravel from atop the cinder slabs, splintered fence pickets were jutting up from the ground. So sad.

It's too soon to completely assess the damage. I just leaned the fallen wall onto the compost for now. Hopefully that's enough to keep everything in place until I can move the pile into the garden and do a little "remodeling." Any tips for when I do so? I was thinking of building a half-height fourth wall for added stability, but was worried about accessibility. I have a few weeks to think on it, but any advice is welcome :)

Yes, I took a photograph of my garbage. From the compost bowl on the kitchen counter: On top, that's some houseplant trimmings, dead flower heads from a bouquet, a couple napkins and a clemantine skin, all on their way to the broken compost bin.

Smashed potatoes + kale

Don't you hate when you've talked a dish up? Maybe you mention it early in the day, kind of arbitrarily, perhaps prompted by an image in a newspaper or in a commercial; something like, "Oooh, wouldn't that be good?"

All intentions were that the person to whom you were speaking would say, "Oh, yeah... yum," to which you could get some points by saying half assed-ly (yes, it's a word. I looked it up. Not really.) mentioning that you had a bunch of potatoes at home and that you could make them as soon as we got home, knowing full well that it'd be hours before you actually got home, and chances were that by the time that happened, he would forgot about it? Did that ever happen? Except that it kind of stuck? And, two and four and five hours later, you were still talking about it?

Yeah. That was me and mashed potatoes and Jason today. I can't even remember where Jase and I saw the potatoes, but it was early. All day we talked about them.

Dood. We left the bar so that I could go home and make them.

Seriously. Look:


That's boiled and smashed Blooming Glen red and white potatoes; mixed with chopped and sauteed BG leeks, thyme, cilantro and sage our own rosemary; a bit of veggie broth and butternut squash soup (again, it's what was in the fridge), salt and pepper. To the left is steamed purple kale. My dish is served with hot sauce, Jason's had horseradish sauce.

I don't know if it's just because I'm from Rhode Island or what. But me and kale? We get along when it's just the three of us: me, kale and vinegar. Yeah, man. Chop it, steam it for a few (four? five?) minutes, spill a few drops of vinegar on it and serve it with some starchy goodness. Perfect.

By the way. The hot sauce? I heart the Louisiana bred Crystal hot sauce for its flavor. It's not the hottest sauce, but it's the sauciest, if you know what I mean. Nothing against Cholula's mind you, but the only reason why we have it on tap, is because Crystal is still suffering from Hurricane Katrina. It's been produced in New Orleans since 1928, and is determined to stay there. They've had to identify a new location, as their pre-Katrina one was destroyed, and have plans to re-open any minute. If you have a moment, would you send some good hot-sauce loving vibes to the company and it's families? I know it's just one company in one city, but dang... trust me when I say that the whole world will be a much better place when this particular one is back up and running :)

Veg*n Lasagna even Garfield would love!

Oh, yumminess comfort food :)

Veg*n Lasagna
Serves 12!

olive oil
1 chopped onion
3 cloves chopped garlic (we always use more)
1 cup chopped tomatoes
2 cups chopped fresh seasonal (local) vegetables
1 jar or can of tomato paste
1 jar of tomato sauce (homemade if you got it!)
1 - 2 cups TVP, depending on how thick you you like your sauce
2 boxes of organic whole wheat lasagna noodles (I used Hodgson Mill's)
2 containers of extra firm tofu, pressed and drained
1 - 2 handfuls of chopped fresh garden herbs (this time, I used basil, chives, cilantro, rosemary)
2 packages of shredded veggie cheese (mozzarella and/or cheddar)
salt
pepper

Sauce:
Chop and saute onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil, until onions are translucent and soft. Add veggies and stir fry/steam until soft (about 10 minutes). Stir in tomato sauce, tomato paste and TVP. Lightly simmer, covered, about 10 to 30 minutes, adding water as needed.

Noodles:
Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions. I usually cook them about 3 or 4 minutes less than the box instructions so they they hold up better while baking.

Filling:
Combine tofu with fresh herbs, one package of shredded cheese and salt and pepper to taste. I use my hands to smoosh everything together. I suppose you could use a food processor, but that'll just leave you with more dishes to wash :) Add salt and pepper to taste.

Assembly:
Place a layer of noodles in the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish, add one-third of the sauce, another layer of noodles, then half of the cheese mixture. Repeat. Finish with a layer of noodles and sauce on top.

Here, you can either refrigerate or freeze for future use (or for giving to the neighbors who just had a baby/surgery/breakdown), or bake it for immediate consumption :)

Bake:
Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Uncover, spread remaining package of shredded cheese on top of lasagna and bake until melted (5 to 10 minutes).

Roasted Veggie Macaroni

A rain cancelled football practice last week meant that we had some time to actually cook dinner - and together, to boot!

Now... what to cook?

Of course, we had on hand plenty of fresh local vegetables. We also had some time to cook, but only about an hour. And, we wanted to make a dish that we could all create together. This is the lovely local (from Blooming Glen and our own garden) and organic produce we had on hand:

Cafe Cyan's CSA newsletter listed a Roasted Vegetable Pasta dish that I had bookmarked earlier in the week and it seemed like a perfect fit :) Thanks Crystal and Ryan (and your CSA farm)!

Fresh Tomato Sauce

1 (6-oz.) can tomato paste
1/2 cup chopped onion
Salt and pepper
3 cups chopped tomatoes (any variety)
3 or more cloves fresh garlic, chopped
Herbs such as oregano, thyme, parsley and basil, to taste
Splash of balsamic vinegar
Honey or other sweetener as desired

Add tomatoes and garlic. Simmer until sauce reaches desired consistency, about 20 minutes. Sauté onions in 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until onions are translucent. Add tomato paste at the end, along with herbs and vinegar. If sauce is too tart, add a spoonful of sweetener. Lightly simmer 10 minutes longer to let flavors meld together.

Roasted Vegetables
1 large green pepper, chopped
1 large red pepper, chopped
1 eggplant, diced
1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic,
sliced Fresh herbs such as basil, thyme, oregano, parsley, sage and rosemary
1 yellow squash
1 zucchini 1 jalapeno
Olive oil to coat

Mix vegetables, herbs, garlic, and onion in a bowl and lightly coat mixture with olive oil, salt and pepper. Place in a large (or a couple large) roasting pans coated with olive oil. Roast for 20 minutes at 400 degrees or until veggies are soft, but not burned. Toss vegetables occasionally as needed. Combine the Fresh Tomato Sauce and Roasted Vegetables and serve over pasta.

Avery and I chooped the veggies we had on hand (carrots, yellow sweet pepper, skinny red sweet pepper, OKRA!, jalepeno) and roasted them while Jason made the sauce. We cooked some whole wheat macaroni and sliced some yellow watermellon from the previous week's Bloomin Glen crop share for dessert :)





























Garnished with our own garden rosemary. Yummm, yummm!

Breakfast Fave

My new breakfast fave is 99% local, 99% vegan and 100% dang good!

And yes, I'm still working on that rating system :P

So, over there you see Bakers on Broad complet bread toasted and spread with just a bit of Earth Balance, a phenomenally delicious Blooming Glen tomato, fresh Blooming Glen green onions and basil, and our own garden chives.

Drool.

JAM*stir fry

I think I'll rename this blog to JAM*stir fry. Seems like that's all we've been eating these days. It's never the same stir fry, not even close. In fact I don't know that I've ever made the same stir fry twice, but still... I'm kind of getting bored with cooking the same type of dish.

Besides being quick, healthy and appealing to all three of us, stir fries have been the perfect way to use up veggies before we pick up our crop share each week.

Although I'm dying to get in the kitchen to preserve some more produce for the winter, our share each week (which we split with my sister) combined with the harvest from our little garden really doesn't justify preservation. Unless of course, I wanted to preserve one jar at a time. Seems like the embodied energy of one jar of tomatoes or string beans just wouldn't reconcile, you know?

So, stir fries usually win. And seriously. What else could I have possibly made with a package of seitan and this?:
This is what we had in the fridge and on the counter. A handul of this, one of that, two of these. It's not enough to do a whole meal with just a couple ingredients - we need to use up a few of these. Stir fries are good like that :)

Last night's stir fry included some of the above, with the Blooming Glen long red sweet peppers and our own garden green string beans co-starring. Like I said, I've been getting bored with stir fries, and in order to compensate for that, I've been doing little things like cutting up the veggies in unsuspecting ways.

While I lightly fried some purple onion and the above green onion in a couple drops of olive oil, I cut the peppers and string beans into disc shapes. Once the onions were tender, I added torn up seitan strips and fried for seven or eight minutes, until the seitan was just starting to crisp on the edges.

I removed the seitan from the pan, added the pepper, beans, broccoli and some water, covered the pan and steamed everything for five or six minutes. Meanwhile, I pricked the potatoes with a fork, microwaved them for a few minutes (until tender, but not baked, so they could hold up in the pan) and diced them. I diced tomatoes as well, then added them with the potatoes, a bit more water, fresh chopped basil, some nutritional yeast and the cooked onions and seitan to the pan, covered and let simmer for a couple minutes.










Now, usually Jason eats the veg*n meals I cook exactly as they are. However, there is the rare occasion that he wants to make additions or adjustments. Such was the case for this meal. He wanted scallops. How does an omnivore and a veggiesauraus both get what they want? Like this:Separate, but together. See how we did that? :)

Jase seared his scallops in some earth balance, green onions and hot banana peppers from our garden. Once they were done, I scooped some of the veggie and seitan mix into his pan and he mixed it all together.

Tolerance, people. It's always a good lesson :)

Ott's!

One of the most fabulous benefits of living in this area is Ott's Exotic Plant and Nursery. What is Ott's, you say? Well, it's a plant place.

That has a rain forest.

And two ponds with fish, turtles and frogs.

And a mountain that blooms pansies in the spring and mums in the fall.

It houses fruit trees, exotic plant species, and when went today, we saw a hummingbird and a swallowtail butterfly inside one of the greenhouses.

I'll stop talking now, just look :D Clicking a photograph will open a larger version in a different window. Check out the purple passion flower. To. Die. For.

Oh, and when you're done looking, go see everything - and much more! - for yourself (853 Gravel Pike, Schwenksville, PA 19473).