Between CSA Seasons, Week 2 Menu

Seasonal, Economical Chard

The last week of winter and the beginning of spring! Since abundance of local veggie variety is still a couple of months away, I decided to thaw some apricots that I froze last year. I anticipate a lot of apricots this summer because the weather was fair when the trees bloomed recently, making for easy pollination. The past two years we’ve had winter storms during what would have been prime time for making fruit. Apricot chicken and easy apricot jam are on the menu.

This week's full of celebrations: St. Patrick’s day, the first day of spring, and Seasonal Eating’s one-year anniversary. As winter moves into spring, new growth and new life start stirring in the natural world. Let’s think of all of the things we’d like to plant this season, both literally and figuratively, to harvest later in the year.

Between CSA Seasons, Week 1 Menu

Giant Butternut with other Seasonal Foods

As winter gives way to spring, our CSA pauses for a few weeks between its Winter Season shares and its Regular Season shares. We are free to choose our own veggies, but planning the menu is still beneficial. It avoids the “what’s for dinner and where are the ingredients” syndrome. I’ve been there too many times.

I’ve been taking a challenging online class in finances, and this is my last week, so our menu is simple this week, featuring easy-prep comfort foods. Next week I’ll have time to get a little more creative. Spring veggies like asparagus and peas are beginning to come into season, even as I finally use up the cranberries we’ve had on hand this winter. Pre-spring winds bring fresh movement to the air. Be well and enjoy the last days of winter.

(Final) Winter Week 10 Veggie List & Menu

Apple Times 53

It’s already the 10^th and final week of our winter CSA farm share! We’ll have a month or so before our regular share kicks in to finish up our leftover veggies and make new fruit & veggie year resolutions. We’ll also get to choose our own seasonal veggies for awhile, reversing our usual pattern of receiving veggies before planning the menu. This bit of relaxation in late winter is most welcome, especially since I’ll also be creating a “pot” garden from seeds.

Winter Week 9 Veggie List & Menu

Onions We Had Before Receiving More This Week

It’s an unseasonably balmy day in the neighborhood, but that’s not unusual in many places in the US in February. Warm days and cold nights are causing the sap to rise in New England maples, ripe for harvest and maple syrup making. I’m thinking about my garden, wondering whether it’s too early to plant tomato seeds and how cold the rest of winter will be. The uncertain and curiously springlike daytime hours inspire me to shake up my menus-of-sameness.

Winter Week 8 Veggie List & Menu

A Rainbow of Carrots this Week

Our weekly winter menu is beginning to seem like “more of same,” as we’re getting similar veggies every week from our CSA. Seasonal eating in winter is no piece of cake. The number of onions we’ve accumulated over the past few weeks is rather frightening. Anyone have some great onion recipes? I’m thinking of trying French Onion Soup again, a dish I used to whip up when I was a hungry college student many moons ago. Hopefully memory will serve. Anyone have ideas for small red onions? Lots of them?

Winter Week 7 Veggie List & Menu

Tale of Two Kales

My apologies for the late posting of our weekly menu. I’ve been rather under the weather, and we’ve been faking it rather than planning it. Bruce has been an enormous help with the cooking. Though it’s a great help to have a meal plan, it’s even better to give it some room for flexibility, since “life happens.” For example, if I’m not up to making the kale dish plus the carrots and parsnips tonight, we’ll save the root veggies for next week and cook up the more perishable kale. Lots of steamed veggies during trying times simplifies food preparation too.

Winter Week 6 Veggie List & Menu

One Huge Romanesco Beauty

 We’ve just passed the middle of winter, and luckily the bitter cold nights are behind us. Bitter cold in central California is about the same as moderate temperatures in most parts of the country. But our plants, even the natives, aren’t adapted to the weeks of mid-20 degree nights we've had this season.  Violets seem to be the exception, peeping out perkily every morning from beneath the frost, and producing a host of flowers during the past week. I just learned that violets are edible and am curious about their flavor and uses. I found a peculiar cake recipe…to be continued.

Winter Week 5 Veggie List & Menu

Stirring Persimmons into Batter

I’m a couple days late posting my weekly menu, as we spent some time in San Francisco this weekend. Our walk through Golden Gate Park this afternoon was decidedly un-winterlike, even for San Fran. Magnolias and early rhododendrons are blooming, and even I was too warm in a jacket. Sweet as this weather is, central coasters are longing for the windy wet stuff, nostalgic for stormy 2011. The water table and our local crops need it.

Winter Week 4 Veggie List & Menu

Pumpkin Ripe for Cooking

It’s raining. That’s big news in Santa Cruz, where it’s been drought-dry this winter. Since it only rains in winter here in central California, we’re happy to see our water table replenished. Local farmers are happy too. At Live Earth Farm, our CSA, Farmer Tom has been irrigating not only vegetable plots, but cover crops, which is unprecedented in the farm’s life.

Winter Week 3 Veggie List & Menu

Christmas Pippins from Dan's tree

I won a raffle prize yesterday at the staff meeting at my day job: ½ dozen eggs fresh from the office manager’s chickens! I could use them for seasonal baking, but decided to feature the delicious fresh taste in some variation of frittata instead. It’s been many years since I’ve had eggs this fresh. It was enlightening to learn that our manager cleans up after the chickens every morning, taking care of ”the sh*ttiest job I’ll have to do all day” before she even gets to work…now how many of us can say that? Thank you, Maureen!

Winter Week 2 Veggie List & Menu

I've never seen parsnip greens before.
Have you?

Today we received our first winter CSA share here in central coastal California. Last week actually began the season, but we were visiting family, like many of us do around this time of year. Returning from Idaho, I feel fortunate to live in a county where food can be grown year-round. Moving on towards the darkest time of year, we’ll be eating plenty of root veggies, onions, and apples, and someday soon I will have to make use of the giant pumpkin from the Live Earth Farm harvest festival in October.

While it’s tempting to post lots of treat recipes this month, I’ll find some nutritious main and side dishes too. For starters, check out my friend Mira’s curried cauliflower, which I’ll be making tomorrow night with the delicate green Romanesco.

Week 33 Veggie List & Menu

Whimsical Apple

This week marks the end of our CSA’s regular share season. Thank you, Live Earth Farm, for the tasty organic veggies, fun community events, and the easy system for donating our share to food banks when we’re out of town. We’ve signed up for a LEF winter share as well, and pick-ups will start December 1. Next week is Thanksgiving, and although I won’t post formal menus, I’ll continue posting recipes, particularly whatever I make for the Thanksgiving potluck. Hopefully I’ll get an inspiration for that soon. A third large green cabbage in as many weeks means you’ll likely see some sort of cabbage recipe/s as well.

Week 32 Veggie List & Menu

A Bounty of Butternuts

For days I’ve been making varieties of herbed tomato soup (see bottom of linked page).  With a dozen or two tomatoes left from this season, I’d like to do something special, perhaps a small batch of homemade catsup or just an all-tomato salad. On to the fall veggies: plenty of greens, more cabbage and beets, Brussels sprouts, leeks, onions, potatoes, and winter squash.

11/11/11 is coming this week, a palindromic date that occurs once every 100 years. In numerology, 11 can represent a channel to the subconscious, a doorway to the inner self. Some also say that 11:11 is the symbol of spirit guardians, a group of 1111 celestial beings who look after us earthlings. Perhaps I’ll have an amazing insight, or get zapped by a celestial do-gooder, at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11. Or, maybe I will just have some fun appreciating the number and our lucky space in time.

I’m going to have a second try at recreating my (long deceased) Gram’s applesauce cake this week—I overcooked last week’s batch and it was a little tough to cut (hungry musicians enjoyed it at the potluck anyway). I’d like to try more apple syrup, since we got apple juice in our CSA share, and perhaps roast some root veggies with it. Three small butternut squash are perfect candidates for microwaving. First of the season’s Brussels sprouts are harbingers of winter. But can you believe we got one last basket of strawberries (a bit pale, but strawberries nonetheless)? Live Earth Farm, you are awesome in the true sense of the word!

This week’s veggies:

Gala apples (lots)
Beets

Beet greens

Brussels Sprouts

Cabbage (large green)
Collard greens
Green beans
Kale
Leeks
Onions

Yellow Finn potatoes

Butternut squash

Strawberries

Apple Juice

Leftovers: leeks, rutabagas, beets, large cabbage, cranberry-orange relish, roast turkey thighs, carrots, tomatoes, 1 hot pepper, applesauce, cranberries, butternut squash, herbed tomato soup, oregano, basil

Wednesday

leftover roast turkey

steamed green beans

leftover herbed tomato soup with hot peppers

Thursday

leftover roast turkey

steamed Brussels sprouts

cranberry-orange relish

make applesauce cake

Friday

veggie burgers

potato leek soup

quick Asian-inspired collard greens

steamed butternut squash

strawberry crisp?

Saturday

Lunch: catered after Holt’s urn-filling ceremony

Dinner:

fish with orange ponzu sauce

tomato salad with basil and oregano

steamed beet greens

steamed butternutsquash

Sunday

Lunch:

tacos or veggie burgers

kale “hot salad”

tomato salad

Dinner:

roast turkey thighs

cider-glazed roasted root veggies

baked butternutsquash (large)

cranberry-orange relish

Monday

beet & cabbage borscht

leftover turkey and veggies

Tuesday

leftovers

Week 31 Veggie List & Menu

Chrysanthemums and Lemons

It looks like cold weather is settling into Santa Cruz with mid-fall. Every year it seems so sudden. Nights get chilly and the furnace must be turned on. Tonight I even covered up the plants, as it’s rumored that we will have our first hard frost. The chrysanthemums, luckily, are quite tolerant of this and continue blooming in the garden.

Week 30 Veggie List & Menu

Bumper Crop of U-Pick Apples

Fall is most assuredly asserting herself now, with golden sunny (and shorter) days and long chilly nights. On Monday we celebrate All Hallows Evening (Halloween or Samhain), marking mid-autumn and the end of the Celtic year. Traditionally, this is the third and final harvest of the year, the harvest of fruits and nuts. Fall fruits and veggies are abundant in coastal CA now: the last of summer’s tomatoes and peppers, fall’s apples and pumpkins, wintery root veggies and multi-seasonal lettuce and greens. This bounty of veggies calls for a giant stir fry on Saturday.

Week 29 Veggie List & Menu

Celebrate: More Apples, More Apple Recipes

“Adapt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our CSA sent these words of wisdom in last week’s newsletter. It’s even more appropriate this week, since this week’s fruits and veggies look like an instant replay of last week’s. Patience is the tool that I need to re-make the Carrot Sambal, Roasted Beet Salad, and Apple Cake recipes from last week in an attempt to improve them from good to uniquely delicious.

Week 28 Veggie List & Menu

Fall Fruits: Warren Pears & Gala Apples

I've been away from the West Coast, in Cape Cod, MA, scattering my deceased father's ashes and visiting places that he loved, and that I love. Amidst family musings, and with limited kitchen resources, I temporarily abandoned my usual weekly menu format, while donating our weekly farm share to Loaves and Fishes, a local food bank. It's been liberating to only post recipes and whatever commentary comes to mind. But now I'm ready continue with my original format, with my goal of creating a whole year of seasonal menus.

Week 24 Veggie List & Menu

35 lbs. of Tomatoes from Live Earth Farm

Tomorrow Seasonal Eating will be 6 months old! I’ve decided to simplify my format by writing one post per week with both my veggie list and menus, instead of a post for each. Fall will arrive this week, with a whole new season of autumn veggies!

Week 23 Menu Plan

First Five Galas of the Year

Featuring tomatoes, greens, strawberries, green beans, and apples

We’ve been eating homemade tomato sauce with pasta for days, and plan a similar use of the Early Girl tomatoes this week. Seems like no matter how few veggies get added, homemade sauce is always delicious. End-of-season strawberries won’t last long, so we need to eat them pronto. We got our first heirloom tomatoes of the year this week, so will be enjoying them with the leftover basil soon. Speaking of basil, I didn’t get to the basil-orange chocolate truffles last week, and they are just too intriguing not to make! Soon.

Week 22 Menu Plan

Summer and Winter Squashes

Featuring tomatoes, sweet peppers, potatoes, basil, and fennel

It’s the everything-with-tomatoes time of year, and luckily we’ve got fennel, sweet peppers, leeks, and basil, which will combine with them beautifully. I bought my first-of-the-season winter squash though I might just admire it for a week before cooking it. I’d like to experiment with some sweets to share this week. Our CSA recipe maven posted an intriguing recipe for vegan basil-orange chocolate truffles. I’m going to wander through the usual haunts for the last of this year’s blackberries, and perhaps make a pie. And I hope to finally make those intriguing carrot pancakes for a breakfast treat on Labor Day.