9/27/12 CSA SHARE: What we got, what I took home, and what I am doing with it

POST #823
Spaghetti Squash – 1-3 pcs…….traded for .5 lb green beans
Green Beans – .5lb
Red Tomatoes – 2 beefsteak
Mixed lettuce leaves – 1 bag…..traded for 3 tomatoes
Carrots – 1 bun
Red onions – 2 tiny
Baby Arugula – 1 bag

  I was the first one to the share distribution, so I looked in the trade box and grabbed the tomatoes and green beans and promised to give back something as soon as I’d opened my box.  Someone was apparently assigned to make sure I did – she stood right in front of me as I opened my box, and didn’t leave until I had taken the bag of lettuce and the squash over to the trade box!  It was nice to have someone to chat with.

 These boxes are getting ever more parsimonious. Oh well!

Once home, I headed straight for the kitchen and pulled out all of my available mason jars, and started to work.  Washed all of the tomatoes – I had 4 that had survived since last week, too—and set them aside.  Washed all of the green beans (that bag of beans from the Chinese supermarket was about only half good – from now I will only buy green beans I can select by the onesies.

 Stood there and topped and tailed all of the green beans, and snapped the longer ones  in half (I can bear to chew for about half a green bean at a time).  This was the most time-consuming chore.  I began to think back to when my cousins and my sister and I used to sit with big bowls on the back porch at Grandmom’s and top and tail huge piles of green  beans.  Although it was a chore, it was still fun because we were together, talking and joking.  At last, I finished with the green beans and stuffed them down into 2 quart jars, along with a good amount of sliced garlic, chopped jalapeno peppers, and dill seed.  Poured on about 2 C of brine mixed with 2 caps of probiotics per jar, and lidded them.  One jar got one of my new re-usable lids (these are kind of weird – the middle part is plastic, the ring is probably rubber, and you have to put your own outside ring).

 I chopped up a large onion, more garlic, and some more jalapenos, and threw them, along with some dry cilantro, lemon juice, 2 caps of probiotic powder, and cumin powder, in the food processor to chop fine.  That done, I chopped up the tomatoes, and put as many as would fit into the food processor and chopped kind of chunky.  Then I emptied the food processor into a large bowl and processed the rest of the tomatoes, and threw them into the bowl and mixed everything very well.  I used my Champion juicer funnel to get everything into a quart jar and a pint jar.  I mashed the tomatoes down as firmly as I could, which brought up a lot of juice. Then, I lidded both, and set them over on the board I have over half the stove top, along with the green beans.

 It took me about 2-1/2 hours to do all of it.

 Along the way, at those moments when my mind strayed from the mindfulness of the job that I was working at maintaining, and I started to think about how my back and shoulders were feeling sore, I started thinking about how you just cannot get this kind of food if you don’t make it yourself.  That kept me going and helped me get back to that mindfulness thing.  Food prep as meditation.

 So, now, it’s all sitting there, waiting.  I will probably open one jar of the beans at 4 days, and leave the other one to 7 days, which will be about the same time that the first jar is empty.  That way I can decide which one tastes better.

I still have some lovely carrots, and I want to do them with garlic and gingner.  Not tonight, though.  I’m done for now.

 I need to get some more mason jars.  I looked on amazon.com, but they wanted @$22.00 for 12 (not too bad with my amazon prime, which gives me free 2-day delivery, but still it is @ $1.50 per jar.  Then I found out that you can order mason jars from Ace Hardware on-line and have them delivered to your local Ace Hardware (if they don’t carry them normally), and they are shopped to the store free. (This is even cheaper than ordering directly from the Ball/Kerr jar company website).  You just have to pick them up.  I’m looking for the Ace Hardware closest to the subway which will give me the most direct route home (12 mason jars are heavy to carry)

 Meanwhile, I’m eating a salad made with chopped baby bok choy, lentil sprouts, chopped wakame (sea weed), hijiki (seaweed), onion, garlic, a little jalapeno pepper, sesame oil, and apple cider vinegar. Yum!

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THIS WEEK’S FERMENTATIONS: results are in!

POST #810
Oh, yumm!
I’ve just opened the fermenting jars (it’s the 3^rd day, and I normally expect results on the 3^rd day with my ferments, because I use probiotics in the mix – nevertheless, with new recipes, there is always a little worry to see if my method works).

Hurray!  The salsa is fabulous! (I had started to worry when I saw a lot of liquid at the bottom, since I don’t have weights, and almost everybody recommends weights).  I opened the jar, and it was fermenting so fabulously that some of it bubbled right out of the jar – which is why I always open in the sink)  I’ve decided to leave it for another day.

I tried both jars of the green beans –liked the dill/garlic/onion mix better than the dill/pickling spice mix, but they are still both good. (I’ll probably give a big bowl of the pickling spice ones to my new neighbors as a welcoming gift, or I may get real nice and put some of both recipes on a plate to take to them.  We’ll see after I taste test tomorrow.)

I am so delighted!

GREENSPIRITLIVING.COM- another great recipe resource

POST #790
After a while, when you are hunting down recipes, the recipes keep cropping up from different authors.  That’s the way it goes.  When I find a site with a few new and different recipes, I like to share, so that is exactly what I am doing here.

GreenSpiritLiving.com has a nice collection of free recipes, with some fresh, new ideas.  Check it out.

RAW VEGAN HOT DOGS ON INDEPENDENCE DAY!

POST #761

Here’s what we did for July 4th – kind of simple, but still yummy.

RAW VEGAN HOT DOGS
http://thesunnyrawkitchen.blogspot.com/2007/10/autumn-n yummies.html
Raw whole food hot dogs
Makes 6-8
We put mustard and fresh-made sauerkraut on some of them, and mustard and cole slaw on the others. Both ways, YUMM!

1-1/2 c walnuts
¼ onion
¼ beet
½ carrot
2 clove garlic
2 T agave (to taste)
2 T soy sauce/tamari
2 t hickory smoke flavor*
1 t marjoram
½ t celery seed
½ t salt
½ t smoked paprika
sprinkle cayenne pepper

Blend till smooth in food processor.
Form dough into hot dog shapes on teflex (6-8).
Dehydrate 105 about 4 hrs.
Flip onto grid dehydrate to the texture you like. (Another hr or so.) Roll lightly into shape.
Serve warm.

*Carmella’s Notes:
~ Hickory/ liquid smoke can be found in health food store, usually alongside other savory sauces.
~ This is pretty intense stuff so I would recommend starting with less than what’s called for.

COLE SLAW

• 3/4 1-lb cabbage
• 2 T mayonnaise (more or less, depending on how soupy you like it. I don’t like soupy)
• 1/4 C finely chopped onions
• sea salt and black pepper to taste
• cayenne paper (to taste, if you choose)

 

( I also sometimes make my cole slaw with just extra virgin olive oil, instead of mayonnaise)

We also had sauerkraut (I served it as a side, but we put it on some of the hot dogs)
This was a 3-day sauerkraut, and it came out PERFECT!

WHAT WE GOT & WHAT I AM DOING WITH IT

Here’s the breakdown from Thursday’s share

Kohlrabi – 1 pc    actually we got several pieces
Fennel – 1 pce       I traded for a big kohlrabi
Carrots – 1 bun     the carrots were kind of small. I put them through the juicer
Cilantro – 1 bun    a big bunch
Escarole – 1 hd      this was a large head
Scallions – 1 bun    traded for more cilantro
Arugula – 1 bag       we got choggia beets
Green Romaine Lettuce – 1 hd    traded for more beets
Green Boston Lettuce – 1 hd

I put the carrots through the juicer and got a small juice glass of carrot juice. I froze the pulp for use in something later.

I’ve made a couple of different versions of raw ravioli, using the large kohlrabi.  I cut it in half and sliced it with my thin slicer (looks like a vegetable peeler, but it’s very wide).  I put my cashew-kale pate and cilantro in the raviolis, and I also made the “chicken pate” recipe from Ani Phyo’s first book and put it in the wraps with some cilantro.

I used the escarole in some wraps with the cashew-kale pate, onion, tomato, cilantro, and lentil sprouts.   I also made a soup with lentil sprouts by dehydrating chopped up  escarole leaves to tender, then adding garlic, olive oil, a little sea salt (!) and black pepper, cilantro, and some red pepper flakes, and dehydrating for a few hours until it was warm.

Well, the lettuce has gone into salads, duh. I also threw some of it, along with some escarole, and an apple, into the blender for a smoothie.  Yuck.  I drank it anyway.  It’s good for me, right?

The beets, you ask?  My beet salad (beets into the food processor along with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, onions, and garlic – with some cilantro!).  I also made a “slaw” with some kohlrabi, beets, apple cider vinegar, onions, extra virgin olive oil, garlic,  and – yes! cilantro! — I put the kohlrabi in the food processor first, and ground it to almost apple sauce consistency, removed it, then put the beets and everything else in, then tossed all in a bowl — the idea was to have white color, but the beets in colored the kohlrabi anyway

My room-mate and I are tentatively back on a two-day meal share plan, so I am planning some fancy kohlrabi raviolo (not sure what will go in them yet), with a sauce of some sort – likely sun-dried tomatoes with something;  a lettuce, escarole, seaweed salad with lentil or sunflower sprouts and a vinaigrette of some sort. I might make the escarole soup again, as well – I liked it, and I will have enough time on Wednesday to do all of the dehydrating.

I’m glad to be back to a one day a week meal share because it gives me a chance to use up stuff I won’t eat all of by myself (I mean, I have been eating all of my share because I have no money to buy other food, but it sure would be nice to have a helping hand, and my room-mate loves salads.)

Of course, we do expect the appearance of sauerkraut somewhere in all of this.  I still have 1/2 qt jalapeno sauerkraut.  I’ll be making more sauerkraut by week end.

REALLY GOOD DEAL ON RUSSELL JAMES’ RAW RECIPE BOOKS

POST #752

I have just found this amazing offer.

Russell James  http://therawchef.com is offering all of his ebooks at a very good discount, with an amazing offer on top of that.

I’ll be perfectly honest with you. When Russell was starting out, he offered deals, and they didn’t come through.  I felt ripped off (although they did return my money, ultimately), and I stayed away from anything he wasn’t offering for free for a very long time.

Today, since he was offering a very fair deal,  I decided that it was time to take the chance again.  Lucky for me, I have gotten the books I tried to buy from him some time ago, but couldn’t receive!

I’ve applied for an affiliate-ship, but it hasn’t come through yet.  I don’t care. I want you to know about this offer he has.  Russell is offering all of his books for either $14.95 US each,  or  $50 for all 6.  Such a deal.  Since I am pretty much broke, but still (after all our issues) want his books, I went for it, and am very happy to have the recipes I longed for a couple of years ago, in addition to other recipes I am interested in.

Go to http://www.therawchef.com/rawfood-ebook.html to see all six books he is offering for this very good price. 

LAST SHARE OF THE SEASON! What they said, what I got, what I took home, and what I’m going to do with it

Here is the reality of our last share, and how I made out

WHAT THEY SAID	WHAT I GOT/WHAT I TRADED FOR
Potatoes – 2 lbs	Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes– 5 lbs	Sweet Potatoes
Carrots – 3 lbs	Carrots
Red Kale – 1 bun	Kale
Rutabaga – 1-2 pcs	Rutabaga
Watermelon Radish – 1-3 pcs	Red Radishes/Watermelon Radishes
Cilantro – 1/8 lb	NONE!!! A nice member gave me hers
Kohlrabi – 1 pc	Kohlrabi
Butternut Squash – 1 pc	Bok Choi/ Cilantro
Broccoli – 1-2 pc	Broccoli/ Sweet Potatoes

I was slow!  Some guy went into the share box and took out about 8 rutabagas! How is that possible? Did he trade his entire box for rutabagas?
(or is it that they only watch when I pick things out of the box, to make
sure that I put a share portion in for the share portion I take out)   Oh well! Maybe he knows somebody.

I was hoping to score some extra kale, but it was not to
be.  I’ll have money for food in 2 weeks, and I’ll get some then, if they have it in the cheap market (actually, it is probably better – I’ve found that kale is not very good for me right now – I hope that will change, because I do love my kale).   This kind of kale is not very good for kale chips – it is not very “solid”… how can I say… the leaves are fingery.  It will chop well, but it is not large enough to make kale chips.

My kohlrabi is a nice size – I will make ravioli with it.  Come to think of it, those watermelon radishes might make nice ravioli, as well.

I did keep the potatoes because Mrs. Murphy, next door, seems to enjoy them (I tried to give her a mess of sweet potatoes, but she would have none of it, yet, when I offer her potatoes, she waxes ecstatic – she’s 83 – she can blow me off is she wants to – I drop by and offer her parts of my share, and she tells me what she’ll take.  Too bad we did not have a lot of potatoes this year.  She doesn’t much care for greens, which is what we mostly get).

I am really excited about the more sweet potatoes, since my
Thanksgiving sweet potato recipe turned out so well, and, yet, gave me a couple
of new ideas to try (and, fortunately, I have most of the ingredients in-house,
so I won’t have to spend much to do the new ideas)  I am also going to experiment with
some “few ingredient” recipes with them, since I have so many.

11/17/10 CSA SHARE – What we got and what I went home with and what I plan to do- BUSY WEEKEND!

Here is the breakdown of what they said we would get, what we actually got, and what I ended up taking home.

THEY SAID

Baby Spinach
Carrots
Sweet Potatoes
Baby Turnips what turnips?
Toscano Kale
Red Radishes
Batavian Lettuce traded for kale
Broccoli traded for kale

I am, of course, excited with what I made away with!  I’ve just found a recipe for spinach-cashew cheeze, as well as a new kale cracker recipe (I found it listed as kale chips, but it looks to be more like a cracker!)  Of course, I would love to make my favorite kale chips, but I really want to try these new recipes!
I’m planning a market run tomorrow afternoon to pick up cashews,  corn (this time of year, I’ll probably end up with frozen organic),  red bell peppers, onions (must have!),  and mushrooms! (I haven’t had mushrooms for months! If I can find some shiritakes, I can make “barbecue” with my Virginia barbecue sauce recipe!)  I will also need to pick up some oranges, lemons and dates for my Thanksgiving sweet potato and pumpkin recipes, and some avocados (if they have good ones!) for my traditional “avo-turkey”.
The good thing about my raw Thanksgiving recipes is that, even though they do take time, they take way less time than cooking a real turkey!

CASHEW/KALE CHEEZE ON TOMATO SLICES

CASHEW/KALE CHEEZE ON TOMATO SLICES

1 large tomato, sliced thickly
1 C cashews, soaked and rinsed
2 C kale, chopped fine
2 – 3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 C onion, chopped
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and pepper to taste

• In the food processor, process all ingredients, except tomato, to a fine consistency.
• Sprinkle sea salt and black pepper over tomato slices.
• Spread kale/cashew cheeze thickly onto tomato slices.

VEGAN WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE

VEGAN WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE

6 T water
6 T brown rice syrup or yakon syrup
1/4 C nama shoyu
2 T apple cider vinegar
1 t barley malt syrup
1 t ginger, ground
1/4 t garlic powder
1/8 t cayenne pepper
pinch cloves, ground
pinch onion powder

In a blender, combine all ingredients and process until powders are dissolved and mixture is smooth. Refrigerate in a glass jar.