cooking

food : CSA bounty and the gardens of friends

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Our CSA is swinging into full summer gear, and we are overflowing with potatoes, basil, tomatoes, a variety of cucumbers, and two kinds of squash. To be fair to our farmer who works hard not to overwhelm us with what he perceives to be the less desirable of the summer vegetables (squash), this week’s surplus results at least in part from my choice to buy a second box at a discounted rate. Showing up exactly when the farmer is delivering has a few advantages, and being offered an orphan box is one of them. So I have twice as many tomatoes and squashes as usual, and am trying to decide what to do with them.

Although many people complain about squash, I like them and will probably just continue to eat them as a regular part of meals. So far this summer we’ve had yellow squash sautéed with olive oil and tarragon (my personal favorite way) and yellow squash fritters. The fritters were an experiment, the result of combing through Simply In Season and studying all the recipes marked with ‘summer squash.’ The fritters were quite tasty, but consistently soft. We’re going to have them again tomorrow—three cups of shredded squash is less than I thought it would be, so I have some squash pre-grated and ready to go—and I’m hopeful that smaller and thinner will lead to a crispier outcome. I’m also tempted by a pickle recipe that uses yellow squash, but not terribly motivated to hover over a pot of boiling water again so soon. Maybe later in the summer if we have another big yellow squash week. In the meantime, the green and white courge will go into muffins, and we’ll munch our way through the variety of cucumbers.

On the tomato front, I have a row of smallish red tomatoes lined up on the windowsill, two pints of cherry tomatoes in the fridge, and two large Cherokee Purples ready for eating. I’m thinking I’ll just stew and freeze the red ones, despite their suitability for sandwiches, which will save me the trouble of figuring out an actual dish to make with them once cooked. Freezer space is now at a premium, however, which means that recipes involving chicken stock need to start appearing on the menu forthwith. Not to mention that the actual chicken needs to be thawed and stewed, although that will do nothing to address the chicken stock surplus. It’s not exactly soup season, but I have some ideas involving rice and vegetables that could use some up.

We’re also getting a decent amount of lovely basil, but I’ve been too slow to use it and it’s quite wilted. It’s currently soaking in an ice water bath, which the internet assures me will revive it; I suspect that much of it has crossed the line from wilted to dried, so I’m unlikely to ‘revive’ enough for the pesto I was hoping to make. We did use the lovely lemon basil from the folks we know in Frederick for pesto last week, and I’m sure there will be more to come. I just hate to see it go to waste. Speaking of the folks we know in Frederick, they sent us home with some delicious selections from their garden. So far we’ve had dragon tongue beans and escarole, and are looking forward to the radicchio, which will be likely just sautéed as a side for salmon, and cabbage, which I’m going to make into Sweet and Sour Cabbage even though it’s white rather than red.

Not only is this making me hungry, it’s reminding me that there is a lot of chopping, dicing, stewing, sautéeing and baking to be done in the kitchen. Prepare for winter, indeed.

food : CSA bounty and the gardens of friends

food : first attempts at canning cherry jam

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The first attempt at making cherry jam did not go well, at least if you wanted the outcome to be cherry jam and not very sweet cherry sauce in a jar. There were a few things I did the first time that I did differently the second time that led to the second attempt being recognizable as jam (whether it’s still runny jam remains to be seen). One, I used frozen cherries and didn’t let them thaw first. Two, I didn’t cook the cherries long enough before adding the sugar. Three, I misoverestimated the volume of cherries I had and correspondingly added way too much sugar. As a result, I got cherry sauce, more cherry sauce than I have any idea what to do with as we regularly eat neither pancakes nor ice cream.

The second time around, I did all of those things differently. I used fresh cherries, cooked them until they were all coming apart, and then added a proportionate amount of sugar. Thus far what’s in the jars looks like jam and it’s already less runny than the cherry sauce; yes, I keep tipping the jars to the side even though you’re not supposed to touch them while they gel up for 24 hours. As I was boiling and stirring the second batch for what seemed like a really long time, I did some math in my head and concluded I could use four of the jars of cherry sauce and a quart of fresh cherries as the base for the cherry-walnut conserves that I’m planning to make tomorrow, and have just about the correct amount of fruit and sugar. That will leave me with only four jars of cherry sauce—a number that seems manageable and like an amount we could work into desserts over the course of a year—and with two quarts of fresh cherries to make another batch of jam.

The very last canning-related thing that happened today was that one of my pickle jars exploded when I put it in the hot water. Which was really frustrating because (1) pickles are supposed to be easier than jam and (2) I never know whether to boil the jars in sticky water or try to skim out the stuff and add fresh water or what. This happened with one of the jars of apple chutney in the fall, suddenly the pot was full of floating raisins and bits of onion, and I went with the skimming and dilution with fresh water approach. This time around I just boiled them in sticky water and wiped down the jars when they came out.

So, tomorrow we will redo today. I will prep the cukes first, so that the four hour soak happens early in the day, for which I will also prepare by refilling the ice cube trays before I go to bed. I will then one quart of cherries and make the cherry-walnut conserves, pit two more quarts of cherries and make another batch of jam, and then do another round of bread and butter pickles. I will then be done with all of the fresh cherries I have remaining and the cherry season will be behind us; I passed on the last few quarts were at the farmers’ market yesterday due to the many I already have. My shoulder will certainly be glad to move on to a tool besides the cherry pitter, that’s for sure.

food : first attempts at canning cherry jam

food : mojito pickle

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One of my goals this summer is to use the produce I get from our CSA and the farmers’ markets in a greater variety of ways. In the past we’ve frozen baba ghanoush, cooked squash, diced rhubarb, blueberries, persimmon pulp, and sour cherries. We’ve canned applesauce, apple pie filling, apple jelly, apple chutney, and quince jelly. This year, I’m planning to branch out into pickles—using the mandoline slicer I acquired last year—and new types of jams, conserves, and chutneys.


Pickles ready to go in the freezer.

It was my intention to start the pickling with bread and butter pickles, using a lower-sugar recipe from The Joy of Pickling (of which there’s a new edition with fifty more recipes, which would explain why the one I have was in the bargain bin). Then my neighbor showed up at the door with armfuls of mint that she was ‘thinning’ from her garden, so I went with what we’re calling the mojito pickle instead. This is a freezer pickle, and uses lime zest and fresh mint as flavors (in addition to the traditional red bell pepper, onion, and garlic). As far as I could tell by sampling it as I packed it into quart tubs this morning, it’s pretty great. I’m still going to do bread and butters, and if I find other cucumber-based pickles that sound appealing I’ll pick up more at the farmers’ market on Thursday.

Equipment-wise, the mandoline turned out to be much less complicated and dangerous than I’d feared, and was a breeze to use for the cucumbers. We do need to sharpen our knives before veggie slicing season really heats up, but I couldn’t get 1/8 inch slices with a knife if my life depended on it. For the bread and butters, I might even use the ripple cut option.

food : mojito pickle

food : asparagus pasta

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This time of year, I get three things at the farmers’ market: asparagus, rhubarb, and strawberries. These are, no doubt, the same three things everyone gets at the farmers’ market in spring, as they’re the first seasonal foods available. The Master Peace Community Garden Farm has a wide selection of delicious-looking greens; having just completed a six-month tour of nothing but greens and turnips, I’m disinclined to sample them. Instead, I buy asparagus. Lots of asparagus.

One of the most salient dynamics of seasonal eating is the propensity to eat so much of a fruit or vegetable when it’s in season—usually because you’ve been anticipating its arrival for weeks if not months, sometimes because you’ve grown it yourself and it’s just so darn prolific—that you can hardly bear the thought of touching it during the rest of the year. If you’re actively attempting not to buy vegetables shipped from the other coast during the off season, eating as much as you possibly can when it’s locally available is a good way to go to avoid being tempted during the rest of the year. This is my approach to asparagus. I confess to being a bit susceptible to a mob mentality when it comes to fresh produce; I’m not even sure I really like asparagus that much, but there’s such a culture of appreciation and veneration around the plant that I would never pass up the opportunity to cook and eat it. On the other hand, my partner is pretty sure he doesn’t like asparagus that much, so we’ve worked to find ways to prepare it other than steam, dab with butter, drizzle with lemon juice, and sprinkle with black pepper.

The way we’ve found is with pasta. In a cookbook I’ve had for many years, Pasta e Verdura, we found a recipe that we both love which combines the two seasonal favorites of asparagus and crimini mushrooms with shallots and tops it off with parmesan and black pepper (of course). Each spring we have this dish a few times, and then steamed asparagus until I get sick of it, by which point the season is over and we wait until the next year to do it all over again. This week, I ended up with two bunches of asparagus and only one round of mushrooms and shallots, so I improvised a second pasta sauce that was quick and easy. Steamed asparagus, ground walnuts, butter, lemon juice, and the ever-so-important ground black pepper. I think I added grated parmesan because why not, but it would have been just as good without it. If you’re going to keep it vegan by using olive oil, use less lemon juice; it can be overpowering without the butter. The recipe was quite good, enough so that I think I’ll use next week’s asparagus bunch this way rather than taking the time to cook up the mushrooms and shallots (it has the advantage of getting fewer pans dirty).

I’m sure that by the time my asparagus fixation runs its course, it will be just about time for pea season. To which I’m already looking forward.

food : asparagus pasta

gratitude for a chicken life well-lived

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It’s only been since participating in our CSA plan that I’ve cooked whole chickens. We signed up for the chicken option since we do eat chicken, and I liked knowing that the birds would either come from the farm (laying hens) or from local Mennonites with whom our farmer has an arrangement (roasters). I wasn’t prepared, though, for how emotional I got the first time I had the little naked bird carcass in my house. I cooked it, but it was hard; we ate it, and had a long moment of gratitude for the chicken’s life. It was delicious; we appreciated each bite.

It’s less difficult for me to cook a chicken now, mostly because I know what I’m getting into. I reevaluate each year whether I want to continue to receive chickens, and two more times now I’ve chosen yes. While the roasters are delicious, it’s the stewing hens that I feel an affinity for. I, along with nearly 100 other families, have eaten the eggs they’ve lain over the past three years. I have eaten the vegetables grown with the potent addition of their waste and kept free of many insect pests by their daring predation. I accept that their lifetime is limited, and that they won’t be able to lay eggs forever. I also accept that our farmer has chosen not to be driven by a chicken’s schedule, and won’t be replacing this flock. So I choose to accept the last gift of not one but many meals, in the form of the chicken stock I make and the meat full of all the flavors of what passes for wild living for a chicken.

Today I picked up the first of this winter’s chickens, and I feel a bit sad for it. I appreciate it and am looking forward to the meals it will provide, but I’m grieving a little bit as well. In a moment of the kind of timing that was completely absent last week, my replacement stockpot arrived yesterday, so the hen is already stewing. I have ambivalence about eating her, but that ambivalence is only one part of the multifaceted evaluation I make each time I choose my food. On balance, I would choose the same way again. Still, she deserves her moments of recognition, and today I will take time to make sure that this one chicken’s life has not passed unnoticed.

Thank you for the eggs, and the predation, and the poop. Thank you for your years of avian service. Thank you, in advance, for the delicious soups we will enjoy this year, flavored with your years of chicken experiences. Never let it be said that I forgot my food was once a living being.

gratitude for a chicken life well-lived