Cooking in Season
Week 15
So I’m pretty sure it wasn’t picking the jalapenos that burned my hands, face and eyes last week, but a random pepper row in my boss Marty’s garden with “semi-hot” something peppers that turned out to contain quite a bit more capsaicin than expected. I had a bowl of Marty’s wife’s pasta with just half of one of those peppers chopped up in it and it heated up the whole giant pot. Wow. Maybe I’ll be pickling those with some super gloves on for cutting without injury. My sister cut them in half and stuffed them with cream cheese, sausage and cheddar on top. Delicious! So hot though that I had to keep eating them for the burning to subside.
Our first round of picking and crushing at my vineyard went amazing last weekend! It was a couple 14 hour days (thanks Janice for helping) with two different picking and crushing crews, but we made it and the wine is happily fermenting in giant vats, releasing happy yeast blurps (I call them yeast farts) as we speak. Round two is this weekend and after popping out a rib somewhere in between getting attacked by the 700 pound sow a few weeks ago and climbing in and out of fermenting tanks, I feel like I’m being held together by a shoestring. The good part about this time of the season though is bittersweet: soon the hard work will be over… but then comes the depressing snow and long winter.
Speaking of which, it’s winter squash season finally. We’ve got carnival squash, spaghetti, acorn, and a couple butternuts. I had some blue hubbards, but the chickens snuck into my garden and hollowed them out. The carrots are coming in now too, which makes for perfect soups. Add in some onions and sweet potatoes and it’s really starting to feel like fall with winter soups quickly on the horizon. I got some peppers from Greenfield Organic near Wooster after loving their tomatoes last weekend and am very pleased again. Red peppers take so long to ripen that they tend to be on the top of the list for pesticide laden crops on supermarket shelves so very worth it to buy organic, just as a sidenote.
Sweet corn is here again. I don’t even know what round this is but my bosses are really on top of staggering their plantings. The yellow type is Bodacious, which I am very not impressed with. The stalks only got 4 feet tall (anyone want mini corn shocks?) and only one out of every 4 stalks produced an ear. You’d think after all that, they’d taste amazing, but they’re just ok. I think they’re getting shucked and going in my freezer to be brought out when I forget how good fresh sweet corn is. And I’m never planting that again. The bi-color is from Nick’s garden is Now That’s Delicious, and it lives up to it’s name. I picked it last night and it’s still fresh and sweet. - I tell you all the names and when they were picked because you have no idea when you go to a roadside stand what type it is and how long ago it was picked or if it was in the prime or too old or what. It’s quite a gamble and knowing you like yellow, white or bi-color really isn’t enough. So this year the winners were Now That’s Delicious and the early batch of Temptation was amazing, so now if you stop at a stand, you can ask the type and when it was picked and hopefully you’ll avoid some mealy mix of sweet and feed corn like I’ve been subjected to in the past. Next year is another round of trial and error in the race for the best sweet corn. So much to learn!Oh, and my sister went to the grocery store and confirmed allegations of a shortage in pumpkin pie filling, so take those pie pumpkins and harken back to an earlier time before canned pumpkin pie filling began. My grandma says fresh pumpkin pie tastes terrible, but she likes green beans from a tin can so what does she know.
Hopefully you all have been squirreling away the extra veggies from the past 15 weeks and throwing them in the freezer, in cans, or in a root cellar. It’s been a really great year, although the end usually has been far more productive but I think lack of rain really has us limping to the finish line this year. Our lettuce is up and the winter crops are growing well. Our hens lay a little bit through the winter and then kick into high production in the spring time, so email me if you’d like some eggs in the off season and I’ll try my best to keep up.
Next week, no newsletter and it’s BYOB – bring your own basket. Take only what you like and what you can use. We’ll pull up everything we’ve got left that’s ready for you all.Thanks for joining this year! It was another great season. Email me if you want any garden help this winter… or just want to chat. I go through CSA withdrawal when pickup stops. Yes, I’ll miss you all. Have a great winter. -Janee
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
week 14
Cooking in Season
Week 14
Thou shalt not rub your eye whilst picking jalapenos. – ouch!
There’s bulbs on the shelves at the garden centers. The tips of the maples are losing their chlorophyll. The grass is choking with no rain. The autumn wind is both amazingly fresh, but also blows a twinge of regret as summer comes to an end. It seemed like I spent this summer hiding from the heat so much that I missed it. I didn’t even get sick of zucchini this year. Weird.
Anyway, I spent about 4 hours straight at my work garden picking beans. 4 hours and I barely got halfway through my first planting. I harvested soybeans which were supposed to be endamame, but because of the drought, they only filled out when the pods started to dry. So I’m not sure if they can be prepared like endamame, which is steamed in the pod and then removed from the shell and eaten, or if they could be dried. Or if you’re real adventurous, perhaps try to make your own tofu or soymilk? I still have my second planting coming on and it’s incredibly time and labor intensive for such a little handful of beans that I’d like to hear from you if it’s worth it. I just wanted to try something new and figured you all wouldn’t mind playing around with some fun recipes. And honestly, how often do you see soybeans for sale on grocery store shelves. I just shelled them and put them in a bowl with a little water in the bottom and put them in the microwave for one minute and thought they were rather delicious. I often drive around watching the fields of soybeans dry into their sticks with beans all up the side. My little plot is surrounded with soybean fields, but the deer came to my tiny plot constantly and nipped off the tops of my soybeans and ate half of my second planting down to the ground. 85% of soybeans grown in the US are genetically modified. Most are modified to withstand weed killers that are usually sprayed at least twice on the fields. Then these soybeans are ground up and a lot of them end up in animal feed. Mine aren’t genetically modified. I think the dang deer figured that out fast. I wonder if cows in a feedlot would prefer my soybeans over the GM soybeans too. I hand weeded though, which I don’t think is possible for those larger fields.
Anyway, enough about soybeans, on to the pretty beans – first round is ready! I have Jacobs cattle, which are white with red spots, and Vermont appaloosa, which is white with brown and light brown spots like an appaloosa pony. I like to shell these beans and make sure they’re dry (should shatter when crushed) and put them in a mason jar to throw in soups or side dishes later. Hopefully everyone who wants some will get enough at least to try them. Dry beans should be soaked overnight before use, which cuts down on their boiling time when added to soups.
I made a deal with my boss where I took all his tomatoes and in return, he gets some spaghetti sauce. I picked until my trunk was totally full of tomatoes that I could have opened a roadside stand out of it. I also stocked up from Greenfield Organic Farm down in Amish country with enough canner tomatoes to hopefully put back one can per week of delicious pasta sauce. I cook it down in a crock pot for a day with spices before I can it. Looks like I have a lot of cutting ahead of me, but it’s all worth it in the winter when I have delicious tomato sauce from Ohio grown tomatoes picked in season. My sister canned whole tomatoes a few weeks ago and used a can for her chili, which got excellent reviews. Tomatoes take a long time in a boiling water bath, but they are pretty easy to preserve if you just make up your sauce and throw it in some freezer bags not too full and freeze them right away.
Alright, I’ve sat in front of a computer long enough (I swear, not checking my fantasy football scores or anything) but now it’s time to get down to the orchard and see what apples I can find. Here is a wonderfully simple apple sauce recipe from member Kim Applegate.
-4 apples, peeled
-¾ cup water
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
In saucepan, combine all ingredients. Cover and simmer for 15 – 20 minutes or until apples are soft. Allow to cool, then mash with a fork or potato masher.
Only a couple weeks to go! Email me with soybean ideas and inspiration if I should keep harvesting them. -Janees -
Week 14
Thou shalt not rub your eye whilst picking jalapenos. – ouch!
There’s bulbs on the shelves at the garden centers. The tips of the maples are losing their chlorophyll. The grass is choking with no rain. The autumn wind is both amazingly fresh, but also blows a twinge of regret as summer comes to an end. It seemed like I spent this summer hiding from the heat so much that I missed it. I didn’t even get sick of zucchini this year. Weird.
Anyway, I spent about 4 hours straight at my work garden picking beans. 4 hours and I barely got halfway through my first planting. I harvested soybeans which were supposed to be endamame, but because of the drought, they only filled out when the pods started to dry. So I’m not sure if they can be prepared like endamame, which is steamed in the pod and then removed from the shell and eaten, or if they could be dried. Or if you’re real adventurous, perhaps try to make your own tofu or soymilk? I still have my second planting coming on and it’s incredibly time and labor intensive for such a little handful of beans that I’d like to hear from you if it’s worth it. I just wanted to try something new and figured you all wouldn’t mind playing around with some fun recipes. And honestly, how often do you see soybeans for sale on grocery store shelves. I just shelled them and put them in a bowl with a little water in the bottom and put them in the microwave for one minute and thought they were rather delicious. I often drive around watching the fields of soybeans dry into their sticks with beans all up the side. My little plot is surrounded with soybean fields, but the deer came to my tiny plot constantly and nipped off the tops of my soybeans and ate half of my second planting down to the ground. 85% of soybeans grown in the US are genetically modified. Most are modified to withstand weed killers that are usually sprayed at least twice on the fields. Then these soybeans are ground up and a lot of them end up in animal feed. Mine aren’t genetically modified. I think the dang deer figured that out fast. I wonder if cows in a feedlot would prefer my soybeans over the GM soybeans too. I hand weeded though, which I don’t think is possible for those larger fields.
Anyway, enough about soybeans, on to the pretty beans – first round is ready! I have Jacobs cattle, which are white with red spots, and Vermont appaloosa, which is white with brown and light brown spots like an appaloosa pony. I like to shell these beans and make sure they’re dry (should shatter when crushed) and put them in a mason jar to throw in soups or side dishes later. Hopefully everyone who wants some will get enough at least to try them. Dry beans should be soaked overnight before use, which cuts down on their boiling time when added to soups.
I made a deal with my boss where I took all his tomatoes and in return, he gets some spaghetti sauce. I picked until my trunk was totally full of tomatoes that I could have opened a roadside stand out of it. I also stocked up from Greenfield Organic Farm down in Amish country with enough canner tomatoes to hopefully put back one can per week of delicious pasta sauce. I cook it down in a crock pot for a day with spices before I can it. Looks like I have a lot of cutting ahead of me, but it’s all worth it in the winter when I have delicious tomato sauce from Ohio grown tomatoes picked in season. My sister canned whole tomatoes a few weeks ago and used a can for her chili, which got excellent reviews. Tomatoes take a long time in a boiling water bath, but they are pretty easy to preserve if you just make up your sauce and throw it in some freezer bags not too full and freeze them right away.
Alright, I’ve sat in front of a computer long enough (I swear, not checking my fantasy football scores or anything) but now it’s time to get down to the orchard and see what apples I can find. Here is a wonderfully simple apple sauce recipe from member Kim Applegate.
-4 apples, peeled
-¾ cup water
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
In saucepan, combine all ingredients. Cover and simmer for 15 – 20 minutes or until apples are soft. Allow to cool, then mash with a fork or potato masher.
Only a couple weeks to go! Email me with soybean ideas and inspiration if I should keep harvesting them. -Janees -
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
week 13
Cooking in Season
Week 13
I am completely exhausted. I got back at 2am last night from a fast trip down to North Carolina for their picking, crushing, pressing, and first fermentation of grapes. I spent all weekend following a master wine maker like a little puppy dog, constantly asking –what’s that- what are you doing – why does that smell – questions. My head is going to explode with everything I learned. I’m running on low sleep and high stress. The grape harvest season is impending at my vineyard up here along with apple crushing, pressing, fermenting and AGH! Why does everything happen all at once?
While down in North Carolina, I got fed incredibly well, including okra from the winery’s organic garden. I haven’t found as many okra pods as in past years as I think my grandma has been stealing it slowly and accumulating a “mess” which is the term for a bunch of okra… enough okra to mess with fixing. Small pods can be sliced and pan fried, covered in flour or corn meal and a pinch of salt with quite a bit of oil. Larger pods can be split open and as long as the seeds are still white and not terribly hard, scoop them out and add them to the top of a salad for an interesting treat. But I’m having trouble getting enough messes for all the baskets, so hopefully within the next few weeks, if you want to try it, there’ll be a basket with it in there. I do not like the slimy gumbo style okra that’s in soups. Fried is the way to go.
The eggplant is still doing well in the back garden. The tomatoes and ground cherries are collapsing in on themselves. The peppers are loving this heat and drought, but the lettuce I just seeded looks like it’s crying. The potatoes are just confused, but growing through it. Our squash is getting eaten from every pest that squash can be eaten and we’ve lost 75% of our melon crop this year because of rabbits, squash bugs, drought, and that damn peacock taking a peck out of every melon just to make sure they’re all not ripe yet. What a jerk.
When I worked as the cook for a vegetarian restaurant, my specialty was soups and namely, my fall / winter special soup called “Sunshine Soup.” Pretty much, I would take everything the color of sunshine and put it in a pot. There’s a lot of margin for personal preference, but my mom is on a new food restriction program where she’s pretty much a vegetarian to detox and hopefully heal her condition that has her rendered pretty much vegetarian. Her dietician recommends eating winter squash and sweet potatoes, so I whipped up a batch of sunshine soup and it was gone in one day. She loved it. (Even without the copious quantities of butter I used to use for the restaurant.)
Anyway, start with the acorn squash in your baskets. Take a meat cleaver and a mallet, rubber or wood is fine. Press the cleaver down a bit into the squash and then start tapping the back of the cleaver with the mallet. That’s the easiest way I’ve found to open up winter squash without really hurting your hands or almost losing a finger.Scoop out the seeds and put in the oven set to medium heat to soften the squash. While that’s in the oven, put on a pot of water and cut a couple of onions in half with some lentils (optional) and start them boiling. In another skillet, sauté up some diced onions with garlic and anything else yellow or orange such as just a few apples, pears, or shredded carrots, corn or red or yellow peppers. Meat eaters could throw in some ham chunks or brown some sausage with your onions. Next, move onto the sweet potatoes, cutting them into one inch slices. Put them on a cookie sheet with a bit of a rim and drizzle with vegetable oil and put them in the oven too. Take out the squash, let it cool for a bit then scoop it out. Remove the halves of onions that are probably soggy by now and put the scoops of squash in with the boiling lentils. Once the sweet potatoes have softened a bit, cut them into cubes and add them to the boiling pot as well. Add the sauté pot about 10 minutes before serving. Finish it off with a little bit of ginger, salt and pepper.
This soup turns out warm and hearty, which makes it a perfect winter soup. I prefer sautéing the vegetables separate and adding them just at the end so they don’t lose all their flavor through hours of boiling. This recipe works with any winter squash or you could add red potatoes instead of sweet potatoes.
This week I am going to a bunch of local orchards to pick up apples for our cider at work, so I’m sure the apple pies will start getting put up in the freezer very soon. So delicious. I don’t remember seeing too many orchards in North Carolina. Score one for Ohio! - Janee
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
week 12
Cooking in Season
Week 12
My kitchen has been invaded. There is a small, red and orange army gathering on my windowsills and countertops and it seems to grow by the day. I go to my mom’s kitchen and she’s been infested as well, and my boss’s house has tons of them too. It’s not bed bugs, it’s…. tomato season!It’s a sigh of relief for us tomato lovers (or a groan of anguish for non-tomato lovers) but it looks to be an excellent year for tomatoes. Travis’s well constructed tomato cages made out of wire fencing which started out at three feet, then five, then six and he’s talking 8 feet tall next year because they turned into a tomato forest… or a tomato jail, if you’re trying to pick them and the fence is a bit tighter than a hand can get through. But I’m glad that this year we finally are getting a good crop. The real question is, after at least two tomato sandwiches a day, what to do with the leftovers.
I roast mine. It’s similar to sun drying, but a bit faster. Slice small or roma tomatoes in half. Larger ones are best if you cut the ends off and use the middle for fresh use. Put the tomatoes cut side up on a parchment lined cookie sheet, sprinkling your favorite chopped herb (mine is garlic, basil, or thyme) and drizzle with a bit of olive oil, or use an olive oil spritzer for full coverage and less mess. Make sure to cover the herbs with olive oil and make sure they are inside the tomato “cups” or else they dry out. Then put them on a very low oven. I mean the lowest it will go. It will take about 3 hours of bubbling at 200 degrees to get the water out, but it’s completely worth it to get these amazing, lycopene packed treats. After roasting, pack in olive oil and they’ll keep in your fridge for the next 2 weeks or pack tightly in a freezer bag and freeze. Or, you could do my favorite – roasted veggie lasagna. You know how sometimes if you try to add fresh tomatoes to lasagna, you end up with a bunch of runny water after you scoop out your lasagna and mushy noodles? Try this – slice long slices of eggplant, garlic, onions, zucchini, or peppers and roast them in the oven with your tomatoes in the same fashion, but only for an hour. Then place in a lasagna pan, a layer of sauce, a layer of noodles, a layer of roasted vegetables and tomatoes, then a layer of ricotta and cottage cheese mix and top with sauce. Repeat until your pan is full, which is usually only about one and a half times. Yes, this is a veggie lovers lasagna with not a lot of noodles in the end. Top with shredded cheese and from there, either bake or cover and put in the freezer to pull out a piece of the garden in the dark days of winter.
I got another batch of lettuce, kale, peas, and mustard greens that are up now and I’m looking at my last planting of sunflowers wondering if they’ll bloom before frost. And then I think, geez, I’m already thinking about frost. And on the same token, if anyone wants squash blossoms from the late planting of winter squash, request them and we’ll pick em as they probably won’t make it to maturity, but will make an excellent squash blossom soup. Oh, and this batch of corn is my boss’s pride and joy – Now That’s Delicious. It’s a super sweet type that I’m proud of him for not spraying insecticide on for corn ear worms. I picked it yesterday so cook it soon!
So my mom got a super great recipe for Bruscetta, but the piece of paper got lost in transit, so here’s her rendition of what she could remember of Donna’s Best Bruscetta.
Put some red wine vinegar in a sauce pan and turn on low heat to reduce out some of the water. Slice ciabatta bread into inch and a half slices then butter & garlic both sides of the bread.Slice open the tomato & pull out pulp then diceBroil the bread for a few minutes until slightly crisp.Place tomatoes, basil, and feta cheese on the bread. Broil again for a few minutes and then drizzle with reduction and serve right away.
We’re looking forward to more winter squash, pumpkins, apples, grapes, peppers, carrots, and ground cherry pie. Started seeds for winter broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and purple kohlrabi. Watching football and seeing the tips of the maples turn as this summer starts slipping into September, I’m happily already planning my Thanksgiving feast. Maybe a pear crumble or sausage stuffed acorn squash or sweet potato cakes or… any suggestions?
Until then, enjoy - Janee
Week 12
My kitchen has been invaded. There is a small, red and orange army gathering on my windowsills and countertops and it seems to grow by the day. I go to my mom’s kitchen and she’s been infested as well, and my boss’s house has tons of them too. It’s not bed bugs, it’s…. tomato season!It’s a sigh of relief for us tomato lovers (or a groan of anguish for non-tomato lovers) but it looks to be an excellent year for tomatoes. Travis’s well constructed tomato cages made out of wire fencing which started out at three feet, then five, then six and he’s talking 8 feet tall next year because they turned into a tomato forest… or a tomato jail, if you’re trying to pick them and the fence is a bit tighter than a hand can get through. But I’m glad that this year we finally are getting a good crop. The real question is, after at least two tomato sandwiches a day, what to do with the leftovers.
I roast mine. It’s similar to sun drying, but a bit faster. Slice small or roma tomatoes in half. Larger ones are best if you cut the ends off and use the middle for fresh use. Put the tomatoes cut side up on a parchment lined cookie sheet, sprinkling your favorite chopped herb (mine is garlic, basil, or thyme) and drizzle with a bit of olive oil, or use an olive oil spritzer for full coverage and less mess. Make sure to cover the herbs with olive oil and make sure they are inside the tomato “cups” or else they dry out. Then put them on a very low oven. I mean the lowest it will go. It will take about 3 hours of bubbling at 200 degrees to get the water out, but it’s completely worth it to get these amazing, lycopene packed treats. After roasting, pack in olive oil and they’ll keep in your fridge for the next 2 weeks or pack tightly in a freezer bag and freeze. Or, you could do my favorite – roasted veggie lasagna. You know how sometimes if you try to add fresh tomatoes to lasagna, you end up with a bunch of runny water after you scoop out your lasagna and mushy noodles? Try this – slice long slices of eggplant, garlic, onions, zucchini, or peppers and roast them in the oven with your tomatoes in the same fashion, but only for an hour. Then place in a lasagna pan, a layer of sauce, a layer of noodles, a layer of roasted vegetables and tomatoes, then a layer of ricotta and cottage cheese mix and top with sauce. Repeat until your pan is full, which is usually only about one and a half times. Yes, this is a veggie lovers lasagna with not a lot of noodles in the end. Top with shredded cheese and from there, either bake or cover and put in the freezer to pull out a piece of the garden in the dark days of winter.
I got another batch of lettuce, kale, peas, and mustard greens that are up now and I’m looking at my last planting of sunflowers wondering if they’ll bloom before frost. And then I think, geez, I’m already thinking about frost. And on the same token, if anyone wants squash blossoms from the late planting of winter squash, request them and we’ll pick em as they probably won’t make it to maturity, but will make an excellent squash blossom soup. Oh, and this batch of corn is my boss’s pride and joy – Now That’s Delicious. It’s a super sweet type that I’m proud of him for not spraying insecticide on for corn ear worms. I picked it yesterday so cook it soon!
So my mom got a super great recipe for Bruscetta, but the piece of paper got lost in transit, so here’s her rendition of what she could remember of Donna’s Best Bruscetta.
Put some red wine vinegar in a sauce pan and turn on low heat to reduce out some of the water. Slice ciabatta bread into inch and a half slices then butter & garlic both sides of the bread.Slice open the tomato & pull out pulp then diceBroil the bread for a few minutes until slightly crisp.Place tomatoes, basil, and feta cheese on the bread. Broil again for a few minutes and then drizzle with reduction and serve right away.
We’re looking forward to more winter squash, pumpkins, apples, grapes, peppers, carrots, and ground cherry pie. Started seeds for winter broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and purple kohlrabi. Watching football and seeing the tips of the maples turn as this summer starts slipping into September, I’m happily already planning my Thanksgiving feast. Maybe a pear crumble or sausage stuffed acorn squash or sweet potato cakes or… any suggestions?
Until then, enjoy - Janee
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