Moving ahead

Never underestimate potatoes - I dug up about 12 pounds (maybe more) of Yukon Golds today, after I thought there was nothing else in there! I had to use the shovel and dig down about a foot so all of that end of the bed is mixed up now. I'm going to let things rest and start putting in the clover during the week, a little at a time. The Biointensive bed is now completely torn out - it took about two hours this weekend plus another hour for the potatoes. There is one tiny little peapod on the pea plants and it's very very cute. I did get the broccoli and collards in the ground on Thursdays, and the radishes are coming up but nothing else yet.
Photos coming soon...

Harvest 2008

Just some examples of things I've harvested in the past month or so. The potatoes were from a while back, the tomatoes and basil were probably early August, the melon was last week and the corn/squash/tomatoes are from tonight. Potatoes:Yukon Gold, squash: Yellow Straightneck, tomatoes: Green Zebra, Roma, Brandywine, Rutgers, and Better Boy (I think), basil: Genovese, corn: Golden Bantam, and the melon, 'Arizona', is an heirloom variety of canteloupe that doesn't seem to be too well known. It is SO sweet and flavorful...everything was great! This is my first year of serious gardening and I am definitely hooked...

Holiday stuffs

Nothing surprising here. Stuffed acorn squash much like last time, but substituting replacing the channa masala spice blend with basil, oregano, and sage from the garden. It was a hit at the party we went to! Today I'm making another veggie pie/tortiere with onion, carrot, fennel, and those same garden fresh herbs sauteed together. At the end, I added cashew butter and nutritional yeast to try to make it gooify, as a "problem" with this type of dish is that it tends to fall apart when serving. This stuff lined the bottom of the pan, with a middle layer of cooked green lentils and black beans and topped with mashed potatoes from yesterday. I smeared on a bit of olive oil in hopes that the top will brown a bit.

As for the fennel, I used both the bulb and one of the stalks, which took on a surprisingly different flavor once sauteed. I think this will be one of my best dishes yet.

another veggie pie/tortiere

This time I sauteed some thinly sliced onions and celery with herbs, then thinly sliced potatoes and sunchokes. I layered those in the pan, added a can each of kidneys, pintos, and corn, then covered it in baked squash and baked it all for 30 minutes. I've made this kind of thing lots of times, but this is definitely the best.

Something different

I baked a couple of acorn squashes tonight for dinner, and reheated some mashed potatoes (made in a fairly normal way, but w/ almond milk instead of regular). We also had a bunch of green and white beans, so I sauteed those in a cast iron skillet with olive oil, minced onion, marinated tofu from the farmer's market, salt, pepper, and sesame seeds. I've done this kind of thing before and the beans never came out right, but this time I periodically deglazed the skillet with water and and put a lid over the top so the beans would get steamed. It worked well and I was pleased with how they came out.

indianish food again

We got another box from the CSA the other day... It took me a while to work up the inspiration to prepare some food, but it turned out pretty well. I sauteed some some usual-suspect spices in ghee (almost gone now) and threw in a few chopped onions and the whey from my soy-yogurt cheese experiment. To this, I added chopped potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, and some frozen peas. Eventually I added more water and then a bit of peanut butter and nutritional yeast to thicken it up. I have to admit that it's not immensely flavorful in spite of having a more salt and cayenne in it than I normally would put, but it is pretty good and has a nice texture to it. Panir or lemon-marinated tofu would have been a nice addition. We're eating it over rice.


Yogurt cheese? Yogurt cheese. I made some soy yogurt as I often do, and am straining it in a sieve lined with cheese cloth. I think that for the full effect, it would need to sit for a few days, but it thickened up pretty well. After I finish dinner, I'm going to mix in some sugar, saffron, and cardamom and serve it as dessert.

CSA, curry, salsa

Haven't posted in a long time... Did anyone notice? A lot has happened in the time since I was posting more frequently. I have been riding my bike a lot and have lost a pretty good amount of weight... About 25 pounds so far, give or take. I bid farewell to my 6 wisdom teeth, and so far I am happy that they are gone. We just ditched Planet Organics and are trying out a CSA called Two Small Farms. They sent us corn, beautiful heirloom tomatoes, tomatillos, sweet red peppers (HOT), strawberrys, red onions, and spinach. Possibly some other stuff but that's what I remember.

The problem with PO was that most of the time, the food (supposedly picked less than 24 hours before delivery) was already spoiling, and the stuff that wasn't was going to soon. We couldn't just eat all the food in one day, so our interest in PO kinda waned and we ended up wasting food every week, which made us unhappy. It looks like the weekly portion from TSF will be a better size, and so far I am more impressed with the quantity. Also, we like the idea that we're supporting a few local farms. With PO, it was supposedly all local, but, well, that proved to be the case much less of the time than we'd hoped. Oh well. They're a good business and they try hard, I think, but perhaps they have moved in a direction that is not in line with our interest.

Anyway, tonight I made a curry with corn and potatoes. Boiled those both first. I sauteed onions, garam masala, star anise, and a cinnamon stick for a while cutting the corn off the cobs, occasionally adding water to the pot to soften and meld it all together. I used ghee, btw, mostly because I've got some I want to use up. I do like it's flavor, but I'm happy enough to just use olive oil, even when most people say its flavor is too distinct for a given recipe.

Anyway, I added the potatoes and corn to the pot and a few cups of water, and put it on about medium heat. I added a chopped red pepper (which is currently burning my thumb), some peanut butter, and some almond milk, and then let it simmer for about 20 minutes. It was pretty liquidy at that point, but after letting it sit for a while, whilst I made the salsa and assembled burritos from preexisting parts, it had thickened up to a nice consistency. I'm looking forward to eating it, although sadly I haven't been very hungry today and still am not*.

For the salsa, I just chopped and blended all the tomatillos, one onion, one heirloom tomato, and two chili peppers, which may have turned out to be too much. I added a bit of water to help with the blending but I think that was the wrong thing to do. It could be that simmering this whole mixture would be good, but I'm not planning to try it now... Just an idea for next time. Although I may try it, given that I can barely eat it as it is, due to its heat.

*Note: there is, however, a root beer float in my near future.

Some meals I prepared this week

Last night I made a few dishes inspired by the gujarati cuisine at Kokila's Kitchen in Cupertino. The main dish consisted of many little potatoes boiled until soft, then simmered for a half hour or so with onion, cauliflower, mustard seeds, cinnamon sticks, star anise, fresh mint, turmeric, coriander, asfoetida, a bit of salt, and a splash of wine. On the side, we had green beans sauteed in similar spices, minus the mustard seeds and add cayenne.

I was planning to make Palak Paneer tomorrow, but I was bored this evening and it occurred to me that we always say "boy, that curry tasted better the second day, after it had some time to meld." So, I went ahead and made palak paneer this evening. I used more spinach than I normally do, steamed it until wilted and then blended it rather than chopping it as usual. I sauteed the paneer (in the future I may generally use tofu, but we already had the paneer) in the cast iron skillet and some spices in the big pot for the palak... Let's see, I used curry leaves, cinnamon sticks, garam masala, turmeric, asfoetida, cayenne, and a bit of salt. I added the blended spinach back and let the whole thing simmer for about an hour, adding the paneer in part way. Usually I'd add yogurt, but this time I don't think it really needs it. I will leave that until serving time tomorrow night, because it did come out a bit on the spicey side and my wife (yes, wife! I said it again!) might like the yogurt to cut the spice a bit.

The texture is definitely a lot more like what I'd find in a restaurant... I guess the blender does work better than knife for this.

Fingerlings!

Fingerlings potatoes have been some of my favorites ever since I used to get them at my local farmers' market and roast them with some carrots and whatever else looked good. I used to walk or bike to the market, but alas that's not really possible where I live now. We got some organic "russian banana" fingerling potatoes in our last Planet Organics shipment and a bundle of herbs (mostly rosemary and time), so I smeared some olive oil on the potatoes, sprinkled on a bit of salt and pepper, put the herbs on top and roasted it all for 20 minutes at about 500 degrees.

The smoke detector went off! It must have been the high heat because it wasn't really smoking, that I could see.