Food, cooking for now and later
Sep. 24th, 2007 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidWednesday I got a half bushel of Roma tomatoes, and split a half bushel of (mostly green) peppers. I still had most of the apples from the pre-Rosh Hashana orchard expotition left (I inevitably pick far too many, more than a single holiday's apples and honey require), though I'd finally used all the peaches I'd gotten the same day (some in peach chutney, some in green salad, some in roasted fruit with vanilla). Thursday I decided it was time to make a dent in the bulk produce.
This year, given the tomatoes and peppers calling out for action as well, I didn't have the patience for things like apple cake or baked apples, so all of the unhoneyed apples went into applesauce. There wasn't enough room for all the apples, and I got tired of peeling them after around 30 or so. So half the apples went into the Thursday night batch, which I didn't can until Sunday morning. Total: a quart and four pints of applesauce, with enough left over for a couple of bowls of applesauce as snacks.
Queue came over for some impromptu Scrabbling, and in between words, I started another batch of applesauce, which has me down to zero whole apples (huzzah!). It, too, came out to a quart and four pints, with a bit less left over for immediate gratification. I admit that the crazy part of me thought about how there will be more kinds of apples available after Sukkot... I'm trying to quash that part. I mean, how much applesauce do I need this year? Of course, replies the crazy part, I could make interesting applesauce permutations, with other fruits, or with ginger, or vanilla, or...
Thursday I also started in on the veggies, roasting a tray of peppers and a tray of tomatoes. Thus condensed, the tomatoes took a lot less room in my freezer, and I ate the peppers for a late night snack. Friday during the day (thank goodness for time-bake), I tried slow-baking halved tomatoes (brush with a bit of olive oil, bake at 300 F for two hours), which worked quite well; two more sandwich bags of tomatoey goodness into the freezer for later. Before Yom Kippur/Shabbat, I roasted a second tray of tomatoes, but there wasn't time enough for them to caramelize properly, so they went into a bowl in the fridge.
Yesterday I tried oven-drying tomatoes. The recipes I saw said to halve Roma tomatoes, and put them cut side up in a very low oven (140 F and 170 F were mentioned in different recipes). I didn't put them on drying racks, because I didn't want to have to clean them off; I put them on parchment paper on cookie trays instead (which other home cooks had done). I don't have marks on the temperature dial below 200 F, so I put the oven on "Warm," and hoped for the best. Recipes varied in how long it would take (6 hours, 8 hours, etc), so I figured that as I'd put them in at 8 A.M., by midafternoon I'd have my oven available for the rest of the tomatoes and peppers. Not so. Some of the smaller ones were done by dinnertime, and I usually had a couple to take out of the oven each hour I checked them late in the day, but some still weren't done by the time I gave up and turned the oven off at 11:30 P.M. So I have a small bag of mostly-dried tomatoes to use soon, and a slightly larger bag of actually dried tomatoes to use later. I guess farm Romas are bigger than supermarket ones....
This morning I put in a final tray of tomatoes to roast. I'd intended to do a tray of peppers at the same time, but I ran out of olive oil. Tonight... and then I can get back to using up the regular farm share/Boston Organics veggies, which included this lovely red pepper:
How could I resist a pepper that showed such initiative? (photo courtesy Jaq and Theora's cellphone)
A couple of recent dishes:
- A savory bread pudding, using When Pigs Fly six grain and pumpkin seed bread with a lot of caramelized onions and cheddar cheese, plus eggs and black pepper. I didn't have any milk in the house (dairy or soy), so there was less liquid than usual; I didn't add as much water as I would have milk. This turned out to be right for this dinner, keeping more of the texture of the excellent bread intact, and requiring less time in the oven.
- A last-minute one-pot meal for someone with some food restrictions ended up being fish and veggies: I sauteed a couple of onions and cloves of garlic, added chard and some of the not-roasted-enough tomatoes, also some lemon pepper, then buried four not-really-defrosted-yet fillets of orange roughy under the veggies. It took a while, but was a nice dinner, and gave me leftovers for lunch, which is great.
- I started soup for Sukkot. No matter what the actual weather ends up being, I always plan to make a hearty soup for the holiday (thin soup loses heat too quickly when eating outside). The satisfying part was not only making the soup, but using up some of the veggies, and remembering to use a bag of the veggie stock I made ages ago (that have been lurking in the freezer ever since). So far, it includes: a couple of onions, a couple of leeks, collards, lacinato kale, white mushroom, baby bella mushrooms, veggie stock, barley (I may have a gluten-free person coming, so I debated this, but ended up going with what I wanted to make), a butternut squash, and the end of a bottle of white wine. I think it's pretty close to done, which is good, because I need to use that pot for other things. I need to decant the soup into Ziplocs, reheating as I need it. (Which also leaves open the option of turning some of it fleishig, by adding spicy sausage, or some of it milchig, with Parmesan or something.)
I still have a lot to make for Sukkot (starting Wednesday night), but it feels like a good start. (Making some actual menus would be a good next step!).
This year, given the tomatoes and peppers calling out for action as well, I didn't have the patience for things like apple cake or baked apples, so all of the unhoneyed apples went into applesauce. There wasn't enough room for all the apples, and I got tired of peeling them after around 30 or so. So half the apples went into the Thursday night batch, which I didn't can until Sunday morning. Total: a quart and four pints of applesauce, with enough left over for a couple of bowls of applesauce as snacks.
Queue came over for some impromptu Scrabbling, and in between words, I started another batch of applesauce, which has me down to zero whole apples (huzzah!). It, too, came out to a quart and four pints, with a bit less left over for immediate gratification. I admit that the crazy part of me thought about how there will be more kinds of apples available after Sukkot... I'm trying to quash that part. I mean, how much applesauce do I need this year? Of course, replies the crazy part, I could make interesting applesauce permutations, with other fruits, or with ginger, or vanilla, or...
Thursday I also started in on the veggies, roasting a tray of peppers and a tray of tomatoes. Thus condensed, the tomatoes took a lot less room in my freezer, and I ate the peppers for a late night snack. Friday during the day (thank goodness for time-bake), I tried slow-baking halved tomatoes (brush with a bit of olive oil, bake at 300 F for two hours), which worked quite well; two more sandwich bags of tomatoey goodness into the freezer for later. Before Yom Kippur/Shabbat, I roasted a second tray of tomatoes, but there wasn't time enough for them to caramelize properly, so they went into a bowl in the fridge.
Yesterday I tried oven-drying tomatoes. The recipes I saw said to halve Roma tomatoes, and put them cut side up in a very low oven (140 F and 170 F were mentioned in different recipes). I didn't put them on drying racks, because I didn't want to have to clean them off; I put them on parchment paper on cookie trays instead (which other home cooks had done). I don't have marks on the temperature dial below 200 F, so I put the oven on "Warm," and hoped for the best. Recipes varied in how long it would take (6 hours, 8 hours, etc), so I figured that as I'd put them in at 8 A.M., by midafternoon I'd have my oven available for the rest of the tomatoes and peppers. Not so. Some of the smaller ones were done by dinnertime, and I usually had a couple to take out of the oven each hour I checked them late in the day, but some still weren't done by the time I gave up and turned the oven off at 11:30 P.M. So I have a small bag of mostly-dried tomatoes to use soon, and a slightly larger bag of actually dried tomatoes to use later. I guess farm Romas are bigger than supermarket ones....
This morning I put in a final tray of tomatoes to roast. I'd intended to do a tray of peppers at the same time, but I ran out of olive oil. Tonight... and then I can get back to using up the regular farm share/Boston Organics veggies, which included this lovely red pepper:
 |
| pepper, other side |
How could I resist a pepper that showed such initiative? (photo courtesy Jaq and Theora's cellphone)
A couple of recent dishes:
- A savory bread pudding, using When Pigs Fly six grain and pumpkin seed bread with a lot of caramelized onions and cheddar cheese, plus eggs and black pepper. I didn't have any milk in the house (dairy or soy), so there was less liquid than usual; I didn't add as much water as I would have milk. This turned out to be right for this dinner, keeping more of the texture of the excellent bread intact, and requiring less time in the oven.
- A last-minute one-pot meal for someone with some food restrictions ended up being fish and veggies: I sauteed a couple of onions and cloves of garlic, added chard and some of the not-roasted-enough tomatoes, also some lemon pepper, then buried four not-really-defrosted-yet fillets of orange roughy under the veggies. It took a while, but was a nice dinner, and gave me leftovers for lunch, which is great.
- I started soup for Sukkot. No matter what the actual weather ends up being, I always plan to make a hearty soup for the holiday (thin soup loses heat too quickly when eating outside). The satisfying part was not only making the soup, but using up some of the veggies, and remembering to use a bag of the veggie stock I made ages ago (that have been lurking in the freezer ever since). So far, it includes: a couple of onions, a couple of leeks, collards, lacinato kale, white mushroom, baby bella mushrooms, veggie stock, barley (I may have a gluten-free person coming, so I debated this, but ended up going with what I wanted to make), a butternut squash, and the end of a bottle of white wine. I think it's pretty close to done, which is good, because I need to use that pot for other things. I need to decant the soup into Ziplocs, reheating as I need it. (Which also leaves open the option of turning some of it fleishig, by adding spicy sausage, or some of it milchig, with Parmesan or something.)
I still have a lot to make for Sukkot (starting Wednesday night), but it feels like a good start. (Making some actual menus would be a good next step!).
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 05:40 pm (UTC)I want to do more preserving too.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 05:53 pm (UTC)I hadn't planned to get any more bulk stuff for at least a couple of weeks (the holidays starting Wednesday nights means I wouldn't get around to them until Saturday night at the absolute earliest, which isn't optimal, even though some of them have sat around longer than that this time). I don't know whether they sell to non-share people, but I can order more for you, if you're willing to meet me at Harvest in Central for pickup with a car or a rolley cart (they're not easy to schlep around, though; I got a ride home last time to avoid having to carry two half bushels plus my regular share).
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 07:07 pm (UTC)onions, half bushel, red or yellow, $28
carrots, 25-pound bag, $25
beets, 25-pound bag, $27
peppers ("for freezing,", whatever that means), half bushel = 10 pounds, $20
grapes, 25-pound box from Cold Spring Orchard, Frontmac (red, seeded) or Chardonel (yellow, seeded), $3
basil, pound, $6.00
(PS. They've confirmed that peppers are $20.)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 07:28 pm (UTC)Also, FYI for comparison, 5 lbs. of carrots from Boston Organics is $6.
And I assume you are missing a digit in the price of the grapes.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 07:32 pm (UTC)Thanks for the comparison reminder. Last time I checked, their bulk prices were mixed, some seeming reasonable, some a bit pricey. And thanks for catching my typo; the grapes are $35.
Sukkot plan.
Date: 2007-09-24 05:46 pm (UTC)I want to make an apple+ pie dish. I'm debating having a bottom crust (if so, it will be store-bought); if not, it's a cobbler, which I wouldn't mind at all. I envision apples, raisins, +, juiciness, and a light crumb topping, but what the + is has yet to be decided. Do you have a recipe you really like?
Re: Sukkot plan.
Date: 2007-09-24 05:57 pm (UTC)I tend to wing it a lot when it comes to pies/cobblers/fruit desserts in general, so I have more ideas than actual recipes. My first inclination is to add cranberries, actually, making a cranberry-orange relish, adding diced apples and raisins, and baking that into a pie. Or possibly apple-pear-ginger crisp. Or apple-plum-raisin pie.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 07:29 pm (UTC)And my first thought was especially overwrought Arabian slippers :-)