Epic tomato-canning session (thanks mom and dad for all the help!). 50lbs of tomatoes = 17 pints and 4 quarts of juice and 22 pints of crushed tomatoes.

Udon noodle soup with shiitake mushroom broth and sauteed bok choi, topped with shredded carrots (non-CSA) and radishes:

Pasta with garlic scape pesto sauce, sauteed zucchini, kale and chard, and a nice big green salad (still getting lots of lettuce!)

Tonight I made garlic-chive polenta topped with sauteed zucchini (coated with flour, nutritional yeast, oregano and salt), and a sauce of tomatoes, onions, garlic, olives and white wine. Yum. I haven’t made polenta in a while. It’s fun because you can serve it soft right out of the pan, and then put your leftovers into a container and it will solidify and you can cut it into squares and fry it up the next day for something a little different.

I used a mix of red leaf lettuce and arugula from the CSA, and added sliced scallions (CSA), fresh corn kernels, cherry tomatoes, and avocado. I marinated some soy curls in broth and then cooked them with a bit of chipotle in adobo sauce for a nice smoky-spicy flavor. Unfortunately the nopalitos turned out to be kind of gross. I should really just avoid any kind of canned vegetable because I never like them (except tomatoes and hearts of palm). They were pretty salty and weird, and included carrots and onions. I picked out the nopalitos and put them in the salad anyway, and they were ok with everything else but I wouldn’t get them again. I made a vinaigrette dressing with lots of cilantro, garlic scapes, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, agave nectar…garnished with some pumpkin seeds after I took the photo.

One big flaw in my plan was discovering that my stash of frozen lemongrass was all gone. I was going to marinate the seitan in lemongrass, garlic scapes, tamari, and rice vinegar, but I had to proceed without the lemongrass. Next I made some quick pickles with the CSA radishes, some carrots I had on hand, rice vinegar, sugar, and salt. When I make banh mi sandwiches I usually finely grate the carrots and radishes but I thought a chunkier preparation would be better for the salad. Next I sliced up some of the CSA scallions and tore some of the red leaf lettuce, and also added a sliced jalapeno (it wasn’t very spicy so I put in a lot of it). The salad dressing looked kind of gross so I didn’t include a photo- it was vegan mayo, rice vinegar, agave nectar, some of the marinade from the seitan, and siracha. After the seitan had marinaded while I was preparing everything else I put it in the cast iron skillet to cook. I wanted to sear it, but I made the mistake of dumping in all of the marinade with it, so I added some cornstarch to make a thick sauce instead. So it was a little less crispy than I would have liked but still pretty good. I added some cilantro and siracha to the top of the salad for garnish. It was really good and reminiscent of a banh mi sandwich. Would have been better with the lemongrass of course- next time!

Various lettuces, arugula, scallions, garlic scapes, bok choi, red chard, and radishes! We’ll be eating lots of salad for a while, which is actually just perfect when the weather is so hot.

This year’s CSA is starting! Hooray for fresh local organic produce from Red Earth Farm!

Usually I think of chili as something for later in fall. During my childhood, we nearly always had chili on Halloween. But I’m also notorious for jumping the gun on fall things since it’s my favorite season. I do things like break out the tall boots and scarves and jackets on days that start out chilly but wind up being 8o degrees. Silly me. I just can’t resist.

Anyway, back to the chili. I also added some pattypan squash from the CSA to my chili, as well as two kinds of dried peppers and chili powder from Penzey’s, some red kidney beans (used to hate these in chili as a child but I love them now!), some Boca crumbles for a meaty texture, some canned tomatoes from my parents’ garden, some chopped cilantro stems, and a few teaspoons of cocoa powder. (It sounds weird but really adds a nice richness to the chili!)

For the fried okra, instead of using eggs for the batter, I put the natural gooey-ness of okra to work. All you have to do is cut the okra up and soak it in cold water for a while, and whatever you want to use as breading will stick quite well. I used a mixture of corn flour, ground black pepper, garlic powder, sea salt, chili powder, and a shallot-pepper blend from Penzey’s. You could really use any sort of spice combo you wanted! I fried them up in peanut oil until nice and crispy. I also made a dipping sauce for the okra with vegan sour cream, a dash of siracha, about half a lime’s worth of juice, some salt, onion powder, and hot hungarian paprika.

I like serving soups and chilis with a variety of different toppings- this time I went with some fresh homemade guacamole, some chopped cherry tomatoes from the CSA, some pickled jalapenos (also CSA), and chopped cilantro.

~30lbs of tomatoes in cans for winter!

There is an abundance of beautiful, fresh, organic produce from my CSA. BUT we’ve also had a whole bunch of 90 degree and up days, even a few in a row that got up over 100. Which means that we’ve been eating a lot of salads and other minimally-cooked things, which although delicious, are really boring to share with the world on the internet.

I did borrow a food dehydrator from my parents and made some zucchini chips (a great way to use up an excess of CSA zucchini!). They turned out really good although after three batches I never felt that I figured out the perfect thickness to cut them. Too thick and they take forever to dry out. Too thin and they stick to the trays.

D. and I made a huge feast for the World Cup final, but unfortunately didn’t get any good photos. Here’s a crappy photo of the spread:

We tried to go with a vaguely Spanish and Dutch theme. Lunch was a variety of salads and tapas-type things. Cucumber salad (cukes from CSA), pickled beets, barrel pickles, hearts of palm, red leaf lettuce (CSA). Pickled red onions, candied almonds with cayenne and smoked Spanish paprika, tomatos with basalmic vinegar and basil, a sort-of Spanish potato salad with saffron-sherry vinaigrette (potatos and onions and garlic from CSA). Olive tapenade. Celery root salad. Stuffed grape leaves, which are nothing whatsoever to do with Spain but whatever. And some nice crusty baguette. More French than Spanish. Whatever. Dessert represented the Dutch side, with vanilla ice cream, apple-cinnamon syrup, chopped apples sauteed with sugar and cinnamon, and stroopwafels. Yum.

It’s been marginally cooler, so I’ve been cooking a bit more. Tonight was a perennial quick and easy favorite around here, a dish we refer to by the generic term NoodleSoup.  The actual ingredients may vary, but it is always more or less Asian-leaning in style and flavor. The noodles are whatever is on hand, soba or somen or ramen or rice noodles or even spaghetti in a pinch.  The broth almost always has lots of onion and garlic, and ginger if I have it. Usually dried shiitake mushrooms, sometimes sesame oil, sometimes seaweed, once in a great while miso. Toppings/content consist of whatever is in the fridge that makes sense. Soups are great for getting rid of random odds and ends. Tonight I threw in some yuba skin and some chard (CSA). Sometimes I put tofu in while the broth is cooking and let it absorb the flavors. Sometimes I sautee it seperately with a sauce, which is what I did tonight. I like to top this soup with some sort of green things, like finely shredded kale tossed with sesame oil, or scallions, or in this case some snow pea sprouts tossed with mirin and rice vinegar.

I also decided it was cool enough to bake something and made some blueberry/strawberry cobbler. I also made peach cobbler last week. I think cobbler is one of my favorite desserts of late. I’ve never been a huge fan of cake. I love pie, and sometimes used to request either cherry or lemon meringue pie for my birthdays. But all that business with rolling out the crusts is a pain. Cobbler is all the fruityness of pie but with more and better dough applied in a haphazard manner that I find appealing.

Monday October 12, 2009. Dinner- stirfry of shiitake mushrooms, kohlrabi, turnip, kale, baby bok choy, broccoli, onion, garlic. Served with homemade kimchi and a slaw made from shredded daikon radish and carrots. All the veggies except the mushrooms and garlic courtesy of our CSA!  Stirfry is the best for when you’re short of time and have a drawer full of random veggies.