autumn harvest

as october continues to fly by, i’m finding my time is spent frantically eating the last of my csa greens while trying to spend as much time out in the world as possible. my friend sarah expressed this this conundrum well when i asked her to join me for pizza at the new vegan spot in town. she accepted then admitted how guilty she feels knowing what she should be eating. i think when you have enough turnips silently judging you in your refrigerator such that you are forced to stay home, make tons of vegetables with friends, and save money… it’s not such a bad set up.

my time in the kitchen has been with some of these goodies…
apple crisp with local apples, of course- all varieties!

lasagna – i was desperate for something warm and substantially unvegetable, but managed to sneak some csa turnip greens, green peppers and home grown basil, parsley and rosemary.

wild farmer-foraged chicken of the woods and hen of the woods mushrooms went into a miso-wine sauce with tofu and greens, served over race- SO amazing! i consumed almost 1.5 lbs. of mushrooms all by myself. chicken of the woods (the orange ones) have a texture so like chicken that it’s quite disconcerting!

pumpkin chocolate chip muffins – finally i’m getting around to eating my favorite squash of the season!

i have big plans for the upcoming fall and summer, but am going to try to get out of my future plan zone and make more food for/with friends and family before i leave boston!

sweater weather

i am closing the chapter on summer. is it too soon? i get excited about sweaters, squash, and the leaves falling.

the summer has been really great, but between dashing between U.S. coasts, to weddings and babies, and adventuring in general, it doesn’t leave as much time to cook and read! i can’t wait for things to slow down a little so i can enjoy the boston area again, and make good use of my csa share.

tonight was a desperate attempt to use up veggies after eating out for 6 meals this weekend. how did that happen?!

i stuffed four green peppers with cumin-orange rice (disguised within which were the yellow carrots i kind of strongly dislike) topped with almonds. i roasted those bad boys along with some tempeh and broccoli covered in sesame oil, salt and pepper. also on the side i crunched on some radish, tomato and onion salsa with lots of cilantro.
every single veggie was grown just 15 miles away!

…can’t say the same for the coconut milk ice cream i’m plowing through right now!

making do

farmer steve postponed our csa share two weeks ago, due to being unable to plant adequately during the crappy months of rain we endured in the late spring. even this past week’s share was a little slim, although new red potatoes, peppers and cukes do not go under appreciated!

using new jersey eggplant, connecticut garlic, and steve’s peppers and onions i made eggplant paprikash courtesy of fatfreevegan, a blog i drool over daily. i added chickpeas (and made a half recipe, with extra tomatoes) and served over whole wheat pasta.
a cuke salad with mom’s mint and a splash of rice vinegar= a hot summer night’s perfection.

skimming book review #1 – food matters

are you still allowed to give your opinion of a book that you’ve only skimmed? i hope so, i’m about to.
i snagged this book at the library for lack of anything better, plus i’d heard about mark bittman and how great his cookbooks are, etc. i’m not doubting that.
‘food matters’ is definitely in the pollan-esque camp of being very blunt about what you should eat. the title says it all, and bittman espouses the same eat-lots-of-veggies-and-take-it-easy message that pollan touts. food matters has recipes and meal plans, though – and some good solid advice as to how to fit sound food choices into your busy day. he’s not too intense about it. that’s nice.
but, this book isn’t really about politics of the plate or anything too news worthy, so as a vegan it didn’t really do much for me. i can totally see how it would help someone munching on the standard american diet, but i can barely fit all the veggies that i currently have into my belly, so i’m not overly worried about eating more.
the bit of advice i took away? bittman tries to strictly limit his refined carbs before dinner. at first i thought i didn’t eat any refined carbs, then i remembered how sometimes i binge on cookies or get chinese takeout with white rice, etc. he lets himself go nuts at dinner time, because he enjoys it – which i can totally align around. i’ve definitely taken a couple baby steps to cut down my refined carbs/sugars before dinner – and chances are I won’t double up on them later in the day, so it’s a pretty good idea.

maybe reading this middling review isn’t very interesting, but i can’t help myself.

Nuts, as usual

I think a lot about food, and culture, and where the two mix.  In some ways, the two have intermingled and become our food politics, where we’ve turned something that used to be instinctive and guttural into something first pre-meditated, and then (now) an act that we do without thinking about how our food choices became what they are.

Some of us don’t think about any of this- food, politics, our and other cultures – because we can’t. I respect that- worrying about surviving does not leave room for introspective pondering, exploring new ways of thinking, and seeking out alternative options. If I didn’t live in an urban area, I probably wouldn’t have the time or the higher wages that let me think about food, and if I had a family on top of that, I’d be shopping at Walmart to make ends meet, so I don’t knock it. I don’t knock anything that we have to do to get by. If I knock anything, it’s someone who doesn’t want to think about the richness and complexity of what goes into our mouths several times a day – not just the flavor, but everything else that went into it.

 

Well I could go on and on, but I really came here to talk about hickory nuts, so I’ll get to the point.

I’m still amazed that nuts go on trees all over the place, and we’re oblivious. People who forage for nuts seem like happy people; not only do they have a pleasurable past time that includes walking in groves of trees, but their reward is delicious and valuable on the black market. Or the real market.

On a recent visit to Bloomington, Indiana I ended up at their awesome farmer’s market and chatted to a particular nut forager and grower, who seemed so thrilled about nuts (NUTs about nuts, you might say) you’d think I was the first person he’d ever told. If I could remember his name I’d obviously be highly recommending him! After sampling black walnuts and hickory nuts at his table and hearing that hickories were his favorite – after butternuts – I wondered why I’d never had them before, and bought a pound. I squirreled them away in my suitcase for consumption back in Massachusetts.

I say ‘squirreled’ because I’ve really bonded with these little guys since bringing home the nuts.  They require the patience of a saint and nimble fingers to extract the meat from the shell, and the fragments that result hardly seem worth it. Until you taste them!

Like pecans, but better – they taste like dessert to me, rich and buttery, and they leave a light spice in your mouth like the memory of apple pie. I was amazed, and thought I was being lame and over-foodie, until I tasted a supermarket walnut as comparison. I’m not kidding, it tasted totally bland, greasy and bitter. Maybe it had gone bad, but maybe I’m spoiled for life.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp with Hickory Nuts

So far, they have been used in topping for Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp, but I have my eye on Euell Gibbons’ Oatmeal Hickory Cookie recipe. When my inner rodent resurfaces, I’ll be sure to bake up a batch!