After the CSA

The withdrawal from the weekly CSA share has not been as abrupt as I anticipated. There are still some items in the freezer: 

• Fruit beety
• Parley ice cubes
• Romaine lettuce broth

Kale chips are in a container on the counter.

Butternut squash, garlic, and sweet potatoes are in a bowl on the dining room table (we rarely use the room - so it a good room for a center piece of veggies that don’t need refrigeration.

I bought more produce at the grocery store. The strategy is not well developed yet although I will continue to eat more vegetables than I did before the CSA experience. The first week post-CSA, I bought carrots, celery, cabbage, new potatoes, and colorful bell peppers at the grocery store. I have a bag of cleaned and cut kale in the freezer from a previous week to use in soups and stir fries.

How will I sustain the variety that the CSA prompted? Here are my initial ideas:

• Intentionally - buy at least one different veggie than was purchased the week before.
• Look at the display of organic veggies and pick one (maybe using some ‘rule’ like least expensive for the nutrition value, new to me, or not purchased recently).
• Make sure the mix of soluble/insoluble fiber veggies are relatively balanced in my purchases.
• Pick a recipe from a vegetarian cook book and buy whatever it requires

In cool/cold weather I prefer soup rather than salad. That means I’ll be looking for leafy greens that go well in soups rather than lettuces that are mostly water….and canned tomatoes work as well as fresh ones.

I'm sure my challenge to keep the variety and amount of veggies in my diet is just beginning. The grocery store has the selection - but I have to choose!

CSA Week 21 - The Last of the Season

The only left over veggie I had in the crisper from week 20’s share was a bell pepper. That was a very good thing because the last week for the Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture was quite a lot:

• 2 green bell peppers
• 2 pounds sweet potatoes
• 3 garlic
• 2 baby lettuce
• 1 butternut squash
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 bunch chard
• 1 bunch watermelon radishes
• 4 snack peppers
• 1 bunch turnips

The turnips and watermelon radishes were about the same size. I’m going to cook the green tops too!

The garlic and peppers are pretty enough to be a centerpiece.

And the lettuce is a melding of gentle green curves.

I am going to miss the weekly trek to the CSA and the bounty of fresh veggies. It is going to take some focused attention when I go grocery shopping next week to buy a similar range of vegetables in the produce section of the grocery store; the CSA has broadened my palate. Now it is up to me to sustain the improved eating habits that have developed over this summer and fall.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - October 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations’ - as had been the usual for the past few months. Here are my top 10 for October 2014.

Nature hikes for elementary school students. The hikes I guide for groups of kindergarteners, 1st graders and 2nd graders are all celebrations - of nature, of fall, of being young and outdoors exploring. It is a near perfect volunteer gig! Yes - sometimes it rains and sometimes it is cold….but even with those challenges, something interesting and memorable always seems to happen.

An afternoon volunteering at my daughter’s high school. My daughter graduated 7 years ago and this was my first time back at the school. I celebrated that the building has been renovated, the crew of students picking up trash that had blown onto grounds (it was a windy day), and that it still seemed to be a well-run school! All the changes I noticed were positive.

Interesting elders. I celebrate the older people I volunteer to drive to their appointments or shopping. They are independent and savvy and full of life experiences. I get all kinds of ideas of how I want to be 20 or 30 years from now!

A whole pumpkin.  I bought a pie pumpkin - cooked it whole - ate a serving with butter and cinnamon as soon as it came out of the oven - made the rest into pumpkin/ginger scones and pumpkin custard.  I’m still celebrating the goodness…and hoping they still have some pie pumpkins at my grocery so I can buy another later this week.

Kohlrabi. This is my first season with kohlrabi and I like it so much that I celebrate every time I eat it. It is still new to my list of ‘normal’ foods.

Fall foliage. I have always liked the colors of fall ---- and October is the month for them in Maryland.

Cooler days. Along with the colors - cooler days make it easier to enjoy hikes. We’ve already enjoyed a trek in Catoctin Mountain Park and Cunningham Falls State Park in Central Maryland. Being in motion outdoors surrounded by trees and lakes and streams is a great setting for celebration.

Newport. I always include vacations as celebrations…they always turn out that way. There is always something that makes a place memorable. Newport is quite a collection of house tours...worth celebrating.

Coming home. After each week or more away - I always celebrate coming home. This time was no exception. It took me almost week to get caught up on processing the veggies from the CSA shares, course work, and laundry!

School. October is probably my favorite school month because classes are well underway and the upcoming holidays are not detracting. October always seems to be a peak learning month of the year…and I’m celebrating that realization.

CSA Week 20

Sigh….Next week will be the last week for our CSA. I’ll miss the creative meal planning to use up the weekly share; I’ve enjoyed it. I’ll have to shift the way I shop in my grocery’s produce section to achieve a similar result. In past years, it has been too easy to slip into the purchase of the same fresh veggies week after week.

We managed to eat the entire week 19 share so I had both crispers clear for the week 20 produce. That has worked out well. The pac choi is huge! I traded the hot peppers for arugula (someone getting a full share had put it on the trade table) but otherwise cheered for the variety and quantity of peppers: green bell peppers, sweet pepper mix and colorful bell peppers. There were the slender Japanese eggplants in the mix; they are my favorite for stir fries.  I used one in the stir fry last night along with stems and leaves from one of the kohlrabi, some arugula, and some pac choi.  I am trying to decide if I want to use the broccoli in soup or salad!

I have a few things that will last for quite a while from the CSA: garlic, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash. I’ve added the sweet potatoes from the CSA to the ones I harvested from by deck garden. The pile is in the glass bird bath that I recently brought indoors for the season.

CSA Week 19

Wow - I ate a lot of veggies in the past week. All that was left of the week 18 share was a few leaves of kale which I used in a stir fry with onions, mushrooms, edamame and carrots last night. I used the last of some roasted garlic hummus to make the ‘sauce.’

This week 19 of the CSA there are a lot of greens again. I’m celebrating and have meals in mind to use it all up before week 20!

Half the dinosaur kale and collards will become ‘chips’ (I project for tomorrow afternoon) and the rest will be used in stir fry.

Romaine lettuce, tender beet leaves, mizzuna and cauliflower are for salad.

Beets will become fruit beety (another project for tomorrow afternoon).

The larger beet leaves and tougher stems will be used in stir fry.

We’re cooking a big pot of chili this week and those green stir fries (kale, arugula, collard) will make a good ‘bed’ for it when I want a light meal.

CSA Week 18

When the CSA shares first started back in June, I always tried to have both crispers pretty empty when I picked up the weekly share. It didn’t work this week because I was away for too much of the week. I had Romaine lettuce, green beans, hot peppers, and escarole left (having made kale chips to get the kale out of the refrigerator earlier in the day!). All that fresh produce filled almost an entire crisper.

Unfortunately - all the items for week 18 are in the refrigerator now along with what is left from week 17. The crispers are overflowing with the added:

• Red leafed lettuce (upper right)
• Red Russian kale (lower left)
• Rainbow chard (yellow and pink stems at the top)
• Broccoli (upper left)
• Arugula (lower right)
• Scallions (the green tips peeking out to the left of the broccoli)
• Eggplant (purple and white with an elfish looking cap)

I managed to eat the last of the green beans, a hot pepper, two chard leaves, and some arugula in a stir fry for dinner which helped the crowding a little. Then again - the crowding is really bounty worth celebrating...good eating in the days ahead.

CSA Week 17

The CSA week 16 produce was packed in ice chests and taken with us on a trek to Newport RI where we have been tourists this week. We knew we would have a kitchen so planned meals around the veggies. We ate well!

TheCSA  week 17 share may be the last of the tomatoes….but we have cauliflower! The collection of veggies each week always prompts meal ideas. My challenge this week might be how to use all the poblano and padron peppers!

CSA Week 16

I finished everything from the week 15 CSA share….and harvested my own sweet potato leaves for good measure. They make nice green bouquets in multiple vases of water in my kitchen.

Then the week 16 share included sweet potato leaves as well. I’ll eat them first because they are more wilted looking.  They are with a lot of other greens: chard, lettuce, Portuguese kale, and Pac Choi.

The peppers, 2 types of eggplant and the butternut squash are the non-greens for the week! Hurray for fresh veggies!

CSA Week 14

On the morning before the pickup of the week 14 share, I had a few things left.

• I made a slurry of carrot tops and poured it into an ice cubes tray. The cubes will go into soup makings this fall.
• The butternut squash was something I completely forgot about. I decided to cook it for dinner; I’m sure I’ll have left overs to use in soup…or maybe I’ll make a small honey laced custard.

The week 14 share was very colorful: 2 pounds of tomatoes (I got yellow ones!), 2 snack peppers, 2 Japanese eggplant, 1 bunch of Swiss chard, 1 bunch parsley, 1 head Napa cabbage, 1 head lettuce, 1 pound of green beans and an acorn squash.

What a wonderful amount of color! The stems of the Swiss chard are my favorite.

The oranges and yellows of the peppers and tomatoes say ‘summer’ - maybe even more than the traditional red tomatoes (that I have from my own plants on my deck).

And the purple of the eggplant nestled in the greens of beans, lettuce, cabbage and chard leaves - the deepness of the color always surprises me.

I’m thinking stir fry (chard, green beans, cabbage…garlic and onions from earlier weeks), salad (tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, peppers, green beans, a little parsley). I am already planning for the parsley to be processed into a slurry and frozen like the carrot tops; I don’t want to go over the top on vitamin K!

CSA - Week 13

Wow - the warm days are flying by! We are in in week 13 of our CSA’s season. I don’t have much left from week 12: half a jalapeno pepper (which I will use in a stir fry tonight), garlic, and potatoes. The last two will last for a long time so I’m not worked about any waist.

I discovered that I like carrot tops both as an added green in salads and in stir fries. They are not as strong tasting as parsley more a bit more than spinach. Since carrots were included in the share again this week, I checked the tops as much as the carrots!

The small purple potatoes are being savors two or three at a time - diced and used in stir fry. It’s a great color addition to already colorful food.

I managed to get to the CSA pick up early enough to get some yellow tomatoes! Four pounds is a lot of tomatoes and I ended up getting red ones too. And then there were the roma and mountain magic tomatoes too. My plan is to eat the yellows ones sliced for a snack (maybe with dabs of garlic hummus), the mountain magic in salads, and the rest as tomato soup or sauce that I may end up freezing.

Hurray for the inclusion of pac choi again! It was in a share early on but it’s been too long. I like it it both stir fry and salads. The kale will work well in the same things….and I can’t resist making kale chips again.

Butternut squash is one of my favorites too. I usually just prick the skin and put it in the over for an hour….then cut it after it is already cooked (i.e. soft) and scoop out the seeds. If I have enough left over, I might make butternut squash custard (using the pumpkin custard recipe).

This is going to be another great week of good eating.

Favorite Memories of Summer 2014

Today - the traditional ‘last day of summer’ - I am savoring the memories of the past 3 months. It has been cooler than usual in my area (Maryland, near Baltimore) so the outdoor activities have been especially pleasant. Here are my top 5 memories from this summer:

The Deck Garden. The plants on the deck are a daily draw to go outdoors. There is always something changing - new flowers blooming, a tiny tomato forming, sweet potato vines spilling over the edge of the pot then the deck…and blooming, and all the associated insects and birds enjoying the plants (sometimes causing some damage) and the water in the birdbath and the pot saucers. I may change some of the plants next year - but using every available pot for something is definitely something to continue from now on.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. The place made my list because it was a new experience. I still enjoyed places I have been many times this summer (Brookside Gardens and the National Arboretum and the Howard County Conservancy Mt. Pleasant Farm) but the lotuses at the aquatic garden with the dragonflies that abounded were a high point of the garden visits this season.

Josey Ranch Lake. What a pleasant surprise it was to walk around the small lake near the library in Carrollton TX! It hosts such a variety of resident birds (although I did wish the nutria were not there).  It became the high point of ‘sights’ for the two weeks I spent in Texas this summer.

CSA Veggies. This was my first participation in a Community Supported Agriculture farm and I’ve enjoyed the enhanced flavor of fresh-from-the-field vegetables. I will do it again next summer!

Classes. I become more aware all the time of just how much I enjoy being a student. Whether the classes are online (Coursera and Creative Live) or ‘live’ at the Howard County Conservancy…classes have the effect of broadening my horizons and tweaking what I do. It may not be healthy to grow larger physically but growing mentally is always a good thing.

Happy end-of-summer 2014!

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - August 2014

Noticing something worth celebration each day is an easy thing for me to do. The habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for August 2014.

The weekly pickup at the CSA. Somehow the pickup every Wednesday afternoon become something to look forward to….a celebration of the food bounty near at hand.

Weight. I decided to take off about 8 pounds and am thrilled that my diet/exercise plan I used a year ago to take off a pound a week...still works. I am celebrating the loss of over 4 pounds so far!

Tomatoes of any varieties are abundant in the CSA shares now. I find myself drawn to the tomatoes that are a change of pace from the traditional red one. Somehow the large yellow or purplish heirloom tomatoes seem extra special….worthy of continued celebration.

Fruit beety. This was on my celebration list last month too. I had frozen a batch I couldn’t eat right away - and I enjoyed eating it this month!

 Watermelon. I discovered that watermelon, mint, and frozen cucumber smoothies are one of my favorite summer afternoon treats…and it is even better because it fits on my weight-loss diet.

Home again. Being away from home for two weeks in late July/early August caused me to appreciate returning….a homecoming celebration.

Photography class. I celebrated the online photography class from several perspectives: the learning experience, a new source of courses, and as an activity I shared with my husband.

Symmetry and tiles. The Symmetry class I am taking on Coursera has led to other activities and I am still getting more ideas!  I am enjoying the course plus the historical books about tiles I found on the Internet Archive plus I’m going to take a local class on tiling to enable some creative projects! I’m celebrating the serendipity of it all.

Centennial Lake. My husband walks around the lake on mornings when the weather is good. I went with him last weekend and celebrated the place: the natural beauty, the wide diversity of people enjoying the path and fishing….and the prospect of seeing the leaves turn over the next few months.

Robin. The robin that has become territorial about my deck may be misguided….but I appreciate the bird’s presence. She has become part of the place. 

CSA Week 11

It takes a lot of focus to not have tomatoes left from the Gorman Produce Farm CSA share each week. This I made tomato sauce with all the tomatoes that were left (the roma tomatoes). I am perfecting my technique; the steps this week were:

• Cut the tops off
• Put in a food processor
• Puree - skins and all
• Cook until about the right consistency for sauce adding seasonings if designed (basil and garlic were my choice)

 Everything else I had left will last without refrigeration: potatoes and garlic.

This week there are a lot of tomatoes again. The new type of tomato in this week’s share was yellow (I got 4 of them along with 1 red one in the 3 pounds in this week’s share). The yellow tomato I ate with yogurt on top last night was pretty and tasty. I’ll eat the heirloom tomato for my next ‘tomato as a side dish.’

The beautiful peppers are in a range of colors. What a way to add flavor and color to a meal!

The spaghetti squash will work very well under chili that my husband is going to make (using up some of the tomato sauce I am accumulating).

This upcoming week is going to be a ‘good eating’ week!

Tomatoes

The first tomatoes of the summer were from my deck garden. I enjoyed watching them ripen. The heirlooms were a new treat. I already knew that eating a tomato ripened on the vine and eaten within hours of being picked was something to savor. So I watched both the two pots - heirloom and patio with anticipation as the tiny green fruits formed and then grew until they ripened. They ripened so that I spread the eating of that first little crop over a week.

Now I am making progress on the load of tomatoes that came from the CSA during the 2 weeks I was away. I may have to freeze tomato sauce before I pick up the next share!

But I am enjoying the bounty of tomatoes two times a day and hope that I’ll be able to finish off most of them by Wednesday morning. The heirlooms go first…then the cherry tomatoes because they are so easy to cut in half and include in salads.  I’ll make homemade tomato soup tomorrow - that always uses a lot of tomatoes.

There are more tomatoes on my deck plants (a second crop) and I’m sure there will be more coming from the CSA. Tomatoes are summer food to celebrate!

CSA Week 8

The pickup and initial handling of our eighth week share from the Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) was totally up to my husband yesterday! He is not a big veggie eater so he grumbled a bit when first presented with The Plan. The Plan was for him to simply put everything in the crisper until I returned from my travels.

I turns out that there was something he can truly enjoy in the share before I return: a yellow flesh watermelon! When I was a child the yellow watermelons were always special; most of the time they came from a grandparents’ garden rather than a grocery store.

CSA Week 7

I’ve managed to empty out the crispers from the week 6 CSA share and even finish off from beet greens that I froze from an earlier week.

The share this week was handled very differently; I am traveling this next week and my husband is not a big veggie eater. So I ate a few tomatoes, half a cucumber, and a banana pepper as a salad..my husband and I finished off the watermelon…..the jalapeno and padron peppers are in my luggage since one of the people I’m visiting likes peppers….and everything else is processed and in the freezer!  I am already anticipating the great stir fries and soups.

CSA Week 5

I had a few things left from the 4th week share from Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) when it came time to pick up week 5: a couple of carrots, one leek, an onion, a few cloves of garlic and 1/3 of the cabbage. All the more fragile veggies were consumed before they were spoiled. I have discovered that I can enjoy a whole cucumber in one sitting made into a smoothie with pineapple salsa and water on a hot afternoon. The vines on my deck have a lot of small cucumbers right now so the cucumber + salsa smoothie might become a summer afternoon tradition!

The share for week 5 includes:

• 1 bunch of carrots
• 1 bunch of leeks
• 1 head of magenta lettuce
• 2 onions
• 2 small heads of cabbage (from at 3 types!)
• 2 kohlrabi
• 1 pound squash (yellow and zucchini)
• 2 pounds of cucumbers
• 1 bunch of kale (my choice instead of chard or collards)

I already made most of the kale into chips! And we’ve made a start on the magenta lettuce and purple cabbage as part of last night’s salad.

I am most thrilled about the kohlrabi since I discovered how great it tastes in stir fries when it was part of the week 3 share. They are such an odd looking vegetable but have become my favorite new food so far this summer (although the beets in Fruit Beety are a very close second!).

CSA Week 4

I managed to have empty crispers by the time I picked up the 4th week share from the Gorman Produce Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Drying most of the parsley (cutting it up coarsely with kitchen scissors and just leaving it out on a cookie sheet for a couple of days…now it is stored away for use in other cooking) and making collard green chips (same technique as kale chips) cleared the overflow condition within 24 hours of picking up the share!  Then I alternated between salads and stir fries and green smoothies to finish off everything except the beets - which I used for the special treat: Fruit Beety (see picture in yesterday’s post, recipe in CSA Week 3 post)

There is a shift in week 4 - it not as overwhelmingly leafy green! Can you find all the items on the list in the picture below?** (Hint: I chose the kale rather than chard or turnips). The cucumbers will make excellent smoothies with plain yogurt and pineapple salsa (and maybe I’ll use some leek too). The lettuce and cucumber are the only two items that are not candidates for stir fry. I’m trying to decide whether to use the kale for chips…or save some leaves for stir fry and salad - there’s really enough for all three!

** Starting at the upper left and moving clockwise: red leaf lettuce, cucumbers, onions, cabbage, kale (lower right), summer and zucchini squash, garlic, carrots, and leeks.

CSA Week 3

I did a reasonable job of using up the veggies from week 2 of the Gorman Farms CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) ….although not quite as good as the week 1 share. I ended week 2 with some broccoli and spinach left to eat….and some beet leaves in the freezer. I discovered that the dandelion greens were excellent in salads, kale chips are wonderful snacks, and beets are yummy in Fruit Beety. Here’s the recipe for Fruit Beety:

Combine in a food processor: 3 cooked beets, 3 oranges, 2 tablespoons coconut (unsweetened), 1 teaspoon honey, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 teaspoon grated lemon or orange peel, pinch salt, scant teaspoon of raspberry vinegar. Process for a minute or two. Mine was the consistency of a thick applesauce. Adjust honey or vinegar to taste. Chill to blend the flavors. This recipe results in 3 large snack servings (6 servings if with a meal). It is good by itself or with a dollop of plain yogurt!

Lessons learned from week 2: 1) have a salad or stir fry twice a day that uses a significant amount of produce, 2) make kale chips with the whole bunch right away next time they are included in the share (they keep well enough for a few days), and 3) remind my husband to eat at least one salad a day and sneak a leaf or two of something green into his strawberry smoothie.

Now for week 3:

I already have ideas for everything in this share….a lot of excellent meals ahead this next week!

On Trends in the US

There are quite a few news items about trends in the US. There are some that are appealing to me - and that I feel part of my life:

• Buying locally grown food
• Taking advantage of free online courses (Coursera is the one I’ve enjoyed)
• Reading online books (most of my reading these days is electronic rather than printed on paper)

There are other trends that don’t jive with my life right now:

• Watching television. I was an hour of less of television per day (there was an article about hours per day trending upward with the average being 4 hours per day)
• Interacting via social media. I do occasionally look at Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest….but not daily. The content can too easily be overwhelming rather than helpful.
• Moving to ‘senior’ housing. I have no desire at all to live in an area that is not age diverse. I like have children in the area where I live.
• Exercising as part of a class or club. I’d rather formulate my days to exercise as part of the way I live my life.

Now that I’ve started thinking about trends….I’ll do the ‘next step’ thinking when I read or hear a news item about a trend in the US.  I’m feeling a little rebellious these days so I anticipate that I’ll be bucking more trends than following.