Abundance

Alternate titles: What to do with all of these lovely vegetables!


Farley and Zeke checking out the CSA boxes and bag.


Zeke is mostly interested in the box itself.

Carrots, acorn squash, and cabbages topping off this box.

It has been a few weeks now since we received this, our first distribution of the bounty from the Shared Harvest CSA Winter Share.

To give you some scale, my two feline helpers are big boys, so these boxes are huge!

Delicious apples!

To get my head straight and get myself organized about what we had, how and where to store it and how quickly we'd need to use it, I first had to explore the boxes and get everything out on the counters. It took up my whole little kitchen. But, casting my eyes over it all at once, pouring myself a cup of tea and getting out the notepad was exactly what was called for to integrate all of this into our kitchen and food storage.

Gretta Anderson, the mistress of ceremonies and organizer extraordinaire for the Shared Harvest CSA had kindly offered up references for how to store vegetables as well as some wonderful recipe links. Two incredibly useful services when faced with vegetables to last well into the winter including some new and unfamiliar items.

Brimming counter-tops. Let the games begin!

Once I had everything spread out, I began to list items on my notepad and indicate where it was stored with a hypothetical expiration date...(use by this Wednesday, use by first of November, etc.). I had my trusty instructions for how to store and got to work bagging in our reusable miraculous green bags, to stow in the fridge, laying out on trays for basement storage and planning our first few meals.

Since then, we've been enjoying lots of wonderful meals, including the delicious Three Sister's Soup, and Mexican Casserole from Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair; Broiled Beet Slices with Maple Teryaki from the Shared Harvest Recipe Wiki, Kohlrabi stir-fry, sauted Kale and mushroom topped pizza, oven roasted potatoes and more. We have two more shares of the winter CSA coming our way, one this weekend and one in December and I am determined that with good planning, nothing will go to waste and we'll be well-nourished through the Winter.

We also picked up our share of delicious sustainably raised pork, our usual supply of organic eggs, and a Capon and stew birds from Pete and Jen's Backyard Birds, so we are really fully stocked with the chest freezer topped up.

This wonderful, locally grown and raised food, carefully organized and stored has been one of my greatest weapons against the continuing economic news, job stress and flu-season worries. All of this and a stocked pantry of healthy canned and drygoods (oatmeal, tomatoes, beans, honey, etc) are better to me than money in the bank. This is piece of mind, and a different kind of health insurance.

So, if you haven't joined a CSA, or grown food to put by for the Winter, or you don't feel like you have the space... give it some thought. Supporting local farmers, having good food tucked away in your own home, knowing where you food comes from... it's good medicine!

First Frost and graham crackers

Well, it came. The first frost of Fall. We've been watching for it and trying to gauge when to clear out the last of the green tomatoes and eggplants. And luckily we got them out and into the kitchen just in time. Our first frost came on Tuesday evening, and we awoke to 29° F at 5:30 on Wednesday morning. Brrr! We're trying to hold off a little longer before turning on the furnace, for both environmental and economical reasons. Time for layers in the house!

Meanwhile, this adoption waiting has been sitting heavily with both of us. We've passed our 11 months of officially waiting and soon we'll need to update our home study. We know that the average wait with our agency is a year, but had hoped (and heard encouraging words from the agency) that it might have been sooner. I know that when you think of all the stories of people waiting years, this doesn't sound like that long...but it sure is feeling long right now.

The blue funk we've both been in called for a little extra attention (chocolate). On my way home from work the other day, Michael let me know that we were critically low on chocolate, and that some was needed. Meanwhile, I'd been fantasizing about lovely english whole wheat biscuits coated with chocolate ( I think they were called Hobnobs or something), or even the dark chocolate dipped graham crackers from Starbucks. Things we try not to eat, since we try to stick with good wholesome foods from home. But we were clearly hankering for a chocolate treat.

So, after stopping to replenish our supply of organic dark chocolate from Trader Joe's, I found a recipe for honey graham crackers in the MaryJane's Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook changed the brown sugar to sucanat, and commenced to baking. I used a jar as a cutter, since I had round cookies in my head. The outcome, crispy, wheaty, delicious and so I took the next step. Melting a few organic chocolate chips on each round at the end of the baking and then quickly sandwiching two together. Oh, glory be! They totally scratched my itch. And made for a delicious and only moderately decadent treat. Good for what ailed us.

I highly recommend this book for inspiration and recipes for a homestead kind of life. The photography is beautiful and the recipes I've made, delicious!

And the humble graham cracker has been elevated in status at our house to a new fav.

A few days behind and weekend updates

Hard to believe that it is already Wednesday evening! Yikes, where has the weekend gone??? It was a busy weekend (and week!) so here are a few pictures...

Sunny, freshly picked calendula blossoms drying on a thrifted railroad plate in the window before becoming the main ingredient in a bottle of calendula oil. Great for dry, irritated skin.



My first attempt at lacto-fermented pickles. I found the recipe in Sally Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions. A very easy process using yogurt whey, salt, herbs and water. This fermentation method is supposed to maintain and promote lots of beneficial probiotics. Good for overall health and easy to make. Read more about it at the Weston Price Foundation. The jury, however, is still out on the taste tests. Tastes a bit like old-fashioned deli style dill pickles but, too early to tell for sure.


Some fresh dill for the jars...



Some of the dried dill seed heads from the garden, harvested when I was out getting the fresh sprigs. I'm thinking with the number of seeds I'm harvesting, I'll have plenty to top my home-made crackers and still be ahead of the game for next year's planting.





I made a big batch of sourdough pizza dough. The humid weather was just right for rising!



And my finger is finally fit enough for a bit of knitting so I thought I'd start on the beautiful sock yarn that Michael gave me for Valentines Day...Malabrigo Sock Yarn called "Chocolate Amargo" or as my bilingual friend translated..."bitter chocolate" mmmm nice. I'm using the free Jaywalker pattern from Ravelry. Should be just the ticket for a nice new pair of socks for Fall.

And a tardy but well-meaning update for the IDC challenge...

Plant Something:
buckwheat and clover

Harvest Something:
Eggplants, cucumbers, dill, calendula, beans, radishes, a couple of carrots and potatoes

Preserve Something:
Calendula oil, dried dill, made sourdough pizza dough and lacto-fermented pickles

Waste Not:
Just the usual

Want Not:
bought a few more homeopathic remedies for the medicine cabinet and picked up two books on foraging for wild food and medicine plants

Build Community:
Met with the organizer for the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project about providing the music for their annual harvest festival. Looking forward to singing in that beautiful field!

Eat the Food:
Sourdough pizza dough for our weekly za, granola, yogurt and radish green and local sausage fritatta

Hope you're having a good week!

Some baking and the latest Independence Days Challenge Update

I came home from the farm on Saturday loaded down with fresh eggs and greens and a nice big bunch of rhubarb. We only got a small yield from our plants this year since they are still young. So, I thought I'd take advantage of the local bounty to get a little more of this delicious tangy vegetable. (Treated as a fruit in this household).

Armed with a great recipe from Farmer's Almanac for rhubarb cake, I undertook some afternoon baking. I healthied it up with a few substitutions, organic whole wheat flour, sucanat and honey instead of sugar and made a double batch to get four mini loaves (one pictured above) as well as a dozen muffins. Really tasty!

Since the oven was on, I took advantage of the heat and energy and threw in a couple of loaves of honey banana bread, to use up our seven smooshiest bananas. Now the freezer is backed with goodies and we're set for a little while.




So far, we've only gotten a few ripe strawberries, but any day now there'll be a nice big harvest so I'm getting my shortcake mojo on for sometime in the next week. Can't wait!!!



Meanwhile here's our update for the IDC for this week:

Plant Something:
Planted eggplant, squash, and cucumber seedlings and direct seeded some sunflowers and nasturtiums

Harvest Something:
Picked the first few strawberries and a little lettuce and oregano.

Preserve Something:
Put up some oregano for drying, froze some rhubarb from the local farm.


Reduce Waste:
Attended a lecture regarding the local watershed, water conservation and restoration of the local river. Attended a river blessing for the Concord River.


Preparation and Storage:
Purchased some bulk dehydrated black beans and whole wheat biscuit mix both organic from maryjanesfarm.com for food storage.


Build Community Food Systems:
Shared four bean salad and home baked banana bread at a luncheon before the River blessing. Bought fresh eggs, greens and rhubarb from the local farm.

Eat the Food:
Baked rhubarb coffee cake and muffins, some to eat now, some to share and some to freeze for a rainy day, baked banana bread with whole wheat flower, local honey and lots of old bananas to share at a luncheon and freeze for later. Made from storage, more four bean salad and some delicious spaghetti sauce with dried mushrooms and fresh herbs from the garden.

Hope you're having a good week!

Sweet on a snowy day

What better on a snowy day than a warm bright kitchen and some good homey treats.

When we were little, my mother always baked when it snowed. I think some people around these parts even refer to it as "baking snow". I just couldn't resist with the white stuff piling up outside the window and me at home with time on my hands.

When we were feeling a bit pooky as kids, or needed a sweet little something, my mother would open up the cupboard, take out the ingredients and whip up lovely little vanilla egg custards in small custard cups. They made the kitchen smell heavenly, and with the hot water bath around the dishes in the oven, the kitchen got nice and steamy. ( A great place to give those sore winter noses and sinuses a break!) Well, since Michael had to work and was battling a bit of a cold, I hunted down this recipe so he'd have something nice to come home to. My mother's version used evaporated skim milk and I've replaced it with fresh whole milk.

Vanilla Egg Custard

serves 6

Ingredients:
2 Cups whole milk (we use organic)
3 Large eggs
1/2 brown sugar (or Turbinado)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
cinnamon sugar for sprinkling (we use evap. cane juice instead of ultra refined sugar)

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease 6 custard cups with butter (or cold-pressed organic coconut oil) and set aside.

Whisk all ingredients together in medium bowl. Make sure you've broken up all the egg white and yolk. Mixture should be light lemon yellow and frothy.

Divide evenly into custard cups. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar (optional). Place in 13" x 9" baking pan or other to hold all custard cups. Place on center rack of the oven and pour hot water into pan 3/4 of the way up sides of custard cups to make a steam bath for the little dishes.

Bake until custards are just set. About 40 minutes. Remove from water bath and cool or rack. Serve warm or chilled. Will last up to 4 days in the fridge if covered.

Yum!!!


And since we couldn't just focus on dessert...

I pulled some of our own sourdough pizza dough out of the freezer, and we had this yummy calamata olive spread, carmelized onion, spinach and goat cheese pizza for supper. Nice!