Day 32 – The Produce Box

Tags

acorn squash, cabbage, chard, CSA, eggplant, jalapenos, parsley, produce box, tomatoes

One of the big changes for this month is a commitment to buy the CSA produce box. It’s not too much of a sacrifice in July – what an amazing bounty of foods!

My first project is to figure out what to do with all of these veggies. Actually, the first project is to name them. I think I’m good up until the peppers. I’m so glad that I’ve been reading Daisy’s blog which has chronicled several delicious uses for jalapeno (the ones on the bottom left are jalapenos, right?)

So it appears that I have: chard, cabbage, parsley, flat-leaf parsley, 3 boxes of grape tomatoes, 3 acorn squash, 4 bell peppers, salad tomatoes, roma tomatoes, an eggplant, potatoes and a bunch of random peppers.

The chard already went into a Veggie Pancake – sauteed with onions, it was very good and bodes well for the greens to come this fall and winter.

The roma tomatoes will probably go with the 25 pound case I bought this week to freeze. The other ones we’ll just munch on.

The bell peppers will most likely be made into stuffed peppers – we had them last week and they were tasty but unphotogenic (which is why you didn’t hear about them).

I found several options for the squash involving butter, brown sugar and possibly maple syrup. Potatoes are never a problem. Maybe some sort of cole slaw for the cabbage.

So, that leaves the eggplant, the parsleys, and the peppers…any suggestions – especially for the eggplant, which looks to be a hard sell in this house…Thanks!!

Day 18 – Slow Roasted Tomato Sauce

Tags

locavore, recipe, roasted tomato sauce, roma, tomatoes

Tomatoes! Yesterday Patrick and I made tomato sauce from the 25 pounds of tomatoes which arrived from the co-op.

It was wonderful to have his help with the peeling and seeding as the pile of tomatoes looked enormous. I started with the same recipe as I did earlier this month (that time with only a few of pounds of tomatoes) coupled with some of the inspiration from Chris and Daisy’s Kumato recipe.

After the peeling and seeding step, I roasted the newly diced tomatoes with fresh basil, garlic, basalmic vinegar, olive oil, dried oregano (it was local to Elizabeth and Neal…), fresh oregano (local to my garden), salt and pepper. After several hours, the result was a very thick, rich tomato sauce.

The other result was that there wasn’t much of it. This was the somewhat disheartening step where I couldn’t believe that all of our hard work and all of those tomatoes created such a small amount of sauce. Prepared sauce from the grocery store was looking like a pretty good option for the future.

But, the recipe had one more step which I decided to wait on: adding a fair amount  of water and wine to it (thus increasing the yield). As I was planning to freeze the sauce, I opted to leave it in the concentrated state and add the liquid (and possibly meat or additional veggies) when I planned to use it. I also froze some in ice cube trays to use for mini-pizzas. (I made 14 mini-pizza crusts while watching the soccer game…). Maybe for lunch today??

Here’s a mini-photo essay of the tomato sauce:

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Day 17 – Darwin’s Garden, Revisited

Tags

basil, botany of desire, Darwin, garden, tomatoes

And the current winner is…basil!

I mentioned awhile back that my approach to gardening was “survival of the fittest” (May 13 post).Granted, I have been dutifully watering my plants every day, if not twice a day, as it has been very hot and dry this summer. But I haven’t done anything else…no food, no fertilizer…

And guess what? The results of my effort (or lack there of) show…almost all of my plants are still alive, but they haven’t grown much and certainly are displaying no interest in bearing fruit.

In fact the only productive ones are the herbs (oregano, thyme, lemon verbena, parsley, stevia) and my vibrant, beautiful basil.

I’m not sure if the basil is thriving because it is naturally self-reliant or because it is the most loved (and thus most watered) plant in the garden…either way it is a winner. Speaking of which, somewhat tangentally, I recommend a wonderful documentary on plants, The Botany of Desire, which is available on Netflix streaming.

While I still have hopes that some of the other plants will produce something…there are a few flowers on the canteloupe and the peppers, I’ve decided to concentrate on creating an larger herb garden…and will leave the tomato growing to the professionals!

Tomato note: there are 25 lbs. of tomatoes (skillfully grown by co-op farmers) on my counter…today’s project: tomato sauce!!