8/29/13 CSA SHARE- what we got and what I am going to do with it

POST #967
Without my blog, yesterday seems so long ago! I mean it! I’m so happy to be back on-line!

WHAT WE GOT
Yellow Potatoes – 1 qt
Scallions – 1 bun
Green Bell Peppers – 2 pcs
Garlic – 1 pc
Tomatoes – 6 lbs
Zucchini – 2 pcs

Somehow, I came away with 3 bunches of scallions and 3 pcs of garlic, and a thing of chard (what do you call a “thing of chard”? Thank heavens for the word “thing”)

I chatted with some interesting ladies at the share distribution (one on the volunteer side of the table, and the other right up next to me, bagging her boxed goodies (I gave her one of my Ziploc bags) Promised to send them some fermenting recipes (should I start a mailing list on these things? I’ll have to look into that!) I expect this weekend is going to be about fermenting – I have some cabbage, all those tomatoes, and, I hope some of last week’s cucumbers have survived)

I decided to keep the potatoes. All of the raw food “experts” are now saying that they are actually eating cooked food. I haven’t done that in a long while (I had the power company cut off the gas a good while back, when the last room-mate left, because I haven’t cooked food in 30 years or so). I do have a rice cooker , a coffee-maker, and a microwave, left by a former room-mate, so I am going to experiment with cooking the potatoes and making a real potato salad (with such raw entries as onions and bell pepper). We’ll see how that goes. (We’re talking: I’m dirt poor right now, and I live off what comes in the box, so, at least, this week, I am going to bend and see what all the hoopla of going off 100% raw is about — okay, folks! I’ve been telling you I am 95% raw, even though I have been 100% raw – this is where that comes in! I am finally going to do something you can point at). I’ll let you know how that goes (I’m feeling kind of sheepish. I mean, how do you cook potatoes without boiling or baking them? I guess I can find the info on the Internet somewhere. Somewhere somebody has put information about how to get boiled-like potatoes in a microwave or a rice cooker — if you know, I’d be grateful if you’d tell me – I’m thinking rice cooker)

So, anyway – I’m going to make a fermented salsa with most, if not all, of the tomatoes. Ferments last longer, and I can combine a fermented salsa with all sorts of things. I am probably going to take one tomato and make a fresh “pasta” with one of the zucchini.

An aside – I am kind of bummed that I won’t be able to go to the September meet-up of “NYC Ferments” – they are doing “fermented fruit” this time, and I was planning to take a fermented squash salsa  (check it out on meetup.com), because I have work that night (yea, work! helps pay the rent)

Stay tuned! I’m back! Yea! (thank you WordPress, and thank you, Lord!)

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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!

MORE SPROUTS

POST #817
I started up a new jar of lentil sprouts last night.  Although I am famous for not liking to chew (which is why I don’t like lettuce, or anything you have to bite and chew at for any length of time, which is why my food processor is my best friend), I find that I am willing to gobble lentil sprouts by the handful or the bowlful.

Last night’s dinner was the last bowlful of lentil sprouts mixed with the last of the fermented salsa.  I added a little extra virgin olive oil to the mix, and basically gobbled it all up in record time (yes, I chewed! I should have taken a picture to prove it!)

I sure hope these lentils grow as fast as that last batch did (I would sure like to eat more lentils soon).

9/14/12 CSA SHARE: What we got and what I took home

POST #808
What we actually got and what I took home:

Spaghetti Squash – 1 pc…traded for dumpling squash
Green Beans – 1 lb
Leeks – 1 bun
Broccoli – 1 hd
Fingerling potatoes ……traded for 3 big tomatoes
Red Tomatoes – 4 med
Batavian Lettuce – 1 hd

Once again, I couldn’t beat the super-cadger – this older fellow always seems to get there before anyone else (I can’t really complain, because people probably say the same thing about me), and raids the trade box before I can.  Fortunately, he didn’t want the tomatoes, but he did get the green beans before I could.

I have these big leeks.  I don’t normally eat leeks – I’ve tried, but they’re just not me.  Still, I saw a recipe for fermented leeks somewhere, and I’m going to try to find it again, and try it out.

This week, I will probably eat cream of broccoli soup, made with cashews.  I’m not sure about the squash yet – maybe a squash soup with cashews and Thai green curry paste, or maybe a pasta.

I guess I’ll be eating a salad or two, as well.

POST #776
This is what they said, and what we got:

 GOT                                               TRADED FOR

Swiss Chard – 1 bun……………….1 hd cabbage

Red Potatoes – 3 lb bag…………….5 cucumbers

Cucumbers – 3-4 pcs

Genovese Basil – 1 bun

Green Cabbage – 1 hd

Fresh Yellow Onions – 1 bun

Sungold Cherry Tomatoes

Green Beans – 1 bag

Red Tomatoes – 3 lb

 As I mentioned in my last post, I was in a serious time-squeeze this afternoon.  I was working with a private student until 4pm – fortunately, she didn’t have any extra questions right at the end.  I flew out of the building by 4:05, made it to the subway station at @4:10, and, fortunately, a train pulled in right after I had reached my standing spot.  Made it to the community center where we pick up by 4:45.  (Play the Lone Ranger Suite).  Got my box, looked inside, went over to the trade box, saw the cabbage, grabbed it, went back to my box to get the chard, and back to the trade box to deposit it. Back to my box, baggy-ing everything as I took it out of the box (as I always do – makes it easier when I get home) Switched out the small cabbage for a larger one, and traded the potatoes for 5 cucumbers. 

All that took me about 15 minutes, and then I was on the run to my apartment, drop off the goods.  Made it to the apartment in 5, dropped the bags in the kitchen, changed clothes, and was back out on the way to the subway by 4:15.  YES!!!

Ate all of the cherry tomatoes on the train back to work.

That basil is pretty interesting looking.  The leaves are about as big as baby spinach leaves.

The cucumbers are quite large.  I’ve got about 10.  I can eat some of them, but I’m thinking of cutting up maybe half of them and trying out a raw sour pickle recipe.

With the cabbage, I’m going to make up a garlic dill jar, and then maybe a “kimchee flavor” jar (using kimchee spices with regular cabbage). 

The tomatoes?  Well, it’s summer… Mix some with cucumbers and onions for a salad, chop up some more and mix them into whatever piques my fancy (I’m still low on fancy and eating desire – got into those coral silk pants I bought 2 years ago, at last!)

I do want to get up to Fairway and pick up some cashews and almonds so I can make up some pates. 

 I’m thinking of making up a couple of batches of crackers, since I seem to be on a “fast food” diet tangent.  If I have crackers, I can put stuff on top of them and eat easy.

 

TOMATO SAUCE TONIGHT! Goo-oo-ood!

Tonight’s tomato sauce was goo-ooo-oood!

I made it with 6 tomatoes that were about to go over, 4 big cloves of garlic (from my share), a liberal sprinkling of the organic no-salt seasoning I found at Costco, black pepper, 2 kalamata olives, approximately 1/8 t of agave syrup (I usually use a raisin, but I did not have one), about a T of extra virgin olive oil, a dash of Tabasco, and about 1 T of my vegan Worcestershire sauce.  All went into the food processor, then onto spiralized squash.

Yumm!

IT’S POSSIBLE TO EAT TOO MANY TOMATOES

I am almost done with dehydrating the tomatoes. I’ve lost a few because of the weather — it’s been very humid, so the dehydration hasn’t gone as fast as I would have liked, and I have other food in the refrigerator.

While I have been  processing these tomatoes every which way, I have been eating more tomatoes than I probably ever have in my life (I do love tomatoes and I don’t get them that often!)  I have eaten one or two tomato sandwiches most days in the past two weeks, I have made zucchini pasta with tomato sauce, raviolis with tomato sauce, and I have drunk 4 tomatoes worth of tomato juice at least 7 mornings.

Now, I will admit that, ever since I was a kid, I have known that tomatoes can precipitate migraines, but… since I went migraine-free when I started eating raw, I had not thought about that — probably because I have only ever had about one tomato to eat per week.  Now I know why I should not have forgotten.  More interesting than that, for the entire day before the migraine hit, I learned a new reason to eat tomatoes sparingly.   I have never eaten so many tomatoes in such a short time,  so I am guessing that what happened was because of tomato overdose (although we were warned to wash the tomatoes carefully because they had been sprayed with copper to prevent fungus).    All I can tell you is that yesterday, the tomatoes did not spend much time in my body, nor did they get processed very well.  It was a busy day for me.

From now on, I am going to avoid consuming more than two tomatoes in one day ever again.  That means, if I have some fresh tomato juice, it will be a small glass-worth.  If I have sauce, it will only be a little.  I promise.

TOMATO FACTORY

I’m still dehydrating tomatoes. It is really humid here, so it takes longer to make the “sundried tomatoes”. I hope I can make a few more 2 gallon bags of them before I have to give up and make “flakes”, by food-processing tomatoes to pulp and dehydrating the “sauce”. That is always the last step, but, with this humidity, I fear it may come sooner than I had hoped.
I’m off to slice more tomatoes now!

Meanwhile, I am enjoying delicious tomato juice every morning!

NIBBLES – what I did with the leftovers

Last night, I made spaghetti with zucchini pasta and a tomato/onion/red bell pepper/almond sauce. My sauce came out thick, but I like it that way.

After dinner, I looked at the leftover sauce and just knew I was not oing to eat it this week.  I had a leftover zucchini so I sliced it on the mandonline and then put a spoonful of sauce on each slice and everything in the dehydrator overnight.  This morning, I was amazed at how small the zucchini slices had shrunk, but I was very pleased with the taste of these little bites. My room-mate says they taste like pizza.  Next time, though, I am going to slice the zucchini thicker.

10/09/08 CSA SHARE: What I got

I could not report on what we were going to get because the farm would not tell us.  This is what I did get:

RED BATAVIA LETTUCE….1 hd
TOMATOES…………………2 pc
LEEKS……………………….2 pc
BUTTERNUT SQUASH…….1 pc
ACORN SQUASH………….1 pc
BABY BOK CHOI…………..2 hd
SAVOY CABBAGE…………1 hd
CAULIFLOWER……………1 hd
CARROTS………………….1 bunch

I also got a small bag of mixed apples and pears.