Vegetable booty! (farm share, weeks 10 and 11)

[magid]

Thanks to DAL for sending me the list.

• one pint of plum tomatoes
  
• two pounds of other tomatoes
  
• one and a half pounds of green bell peppers
  
• six ears of corn
  
• two eggplants
  
• one and three-quarters pounds of onions
  
• a quarter pound of basil
  
• half a pound of wax beans

This week, I got:

• three pounds of tomatoes (regular red and some heirloom)
  
• five ears of corn
  
• a pound of carrots (large ones)
  
• a pound of beets (no greens)
  
• a pound and a quarter of cucumbers (I chose little-ish pickling ones)
  
• a head of garlic
  
• a pound of peppers (I got mostly the purple-over-light-green ones, also one oddball that was yellow-orange streaked with purple)
  
• two small Walla Walla onions (note to self: buy onions!)
  
• a head of celery (huge; I'm not a huge fan, and I'm not sure what to do with it all. Help?)
  
• a head of fennel (really, I'd like to call it a fan of fennel; it looks like it would be a nice stand in for a palm frond if necessary)

Still left from previous weeks: half a small head of red cabbage, some smallish carrots in three colors, and some rather elderly Hakurei turnips.

First thoughts: Israeli salad with feta and/or olives; some form of corn-tomato salad; roasted carrots, beets, and fennel; sauteed red cabbage and carrots with polenta cubes; perhaps some garlicky sauteed pepper dish?

P.S. This Saturday is the farm's annual tomato festival, which includes a tomato tasting of the 60-odd varieties they grow. I can't go (it's Shabbat!), but my share gives me the right to get two people in free. Let me know if you'd like to take my place. (Note: the farm is in Granby, MA; it's a noticeable schlep from Boston.)

And wholly tangential: well after yesterday's rain, there were two blackouts in my neighborhood last night. Neither was very long, but both were after dark, and I noticed that bicyclists without lights really were pretty invisible as they zoomed by.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Celery can be minced and frozen into portions to use in soups of many varieties. Medium-thick slices of celery give a nice crunch when included in a stir-fry or fried rice with other vegetables. Celery sticks kept in the fridge standing upright in an open jar with a bit of slightly-salted water at the bottom make a refreshing, readily-available snack with the "string" problem alleviated. Chopped celery can be included in tuna salad or tofu salad. Carrots pair well with all of these.

[magid.livejournal.com]

My difficulty is that even as a little kid, I always liked the carrot sticks much much more than the celery sticks (and avoided the latter if I could). The only times I tend to use it voluntarily are in some soups (usually a couple of stalks in hearty ones, with lots of other flavor notes), or a bit in stuffing. Since I'm not so fond, I'm not sure I want to devote any of the (totally at a premium) freezer space to it.

Any chance you'd like to be gifted most of a head of skinny stalks of celery?

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, I see. I guess there isn't a way to use up celery in bulk when one doesn't much like it as a primary ingredient. The idea of voluntary use of celery has me imagining involuntary or forced use. I wish I could find you a chest freezer that takes up no space but magically has unlimited space inside. Hmm, could you make soup, or soup starter, and can it?

Oh, you are so sweet to offer. Heh heh, the skinny celery stalks at midnight!

And . . . I am very sorry about the unintended tone of my comment in our linguistics thread a month ago.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'd love a TARDIS freezer! That would make it enormously easier to figure out where to put it :-)

I could make soup/soup stock, but I'd have to freeze it, unless I can get access to a pressure canner: vegetables and other low-acid foods need more than just a hot water bath to can properly (there's a reason that I've only canned things like jam and chutney... though I use the jars for other foods, with different ways to control spoilage (fermentation, submersion in booze, refrigeration)).

*giggle*
With the size of this head, it's a skinny celery mob stalking at midnight!

And... no worries. You are quite polite.

[(Anonymous)]

Hee hee!

Oh yes, that's true; I'm sorry I did not consider that. Unless you want vats of tomato soup?

I wonder for how long celery sticks would last in the fridge prepared as described, to then be cut and used as needed in some of the other discussed functions, instead of being chopped and sliced in advance and taking up freezer space.

A skinny celery mob, stalking at midnight, forcing you to use them! "Stalk 'em up!"

Thank you for being so gracious.