Mixed Vegetable Kimchi

Some of the greens we get from the farm are greens we're not too excited to eat. Some go straight to our rabbit (looking at you, mustard greens). Some clearly want to be made into something more interesting. Like kimchi.

Usually once I get a Napa cabbage and some scallions I'll make a batch. I have to say that in the past I've been disappointed in my kimchi but I think it's because I use too much liquid and so it's soggy. I'm going to try to remedy that this time. Also, I had four different vegetables I could use in the batch, so I did:  Napa cabbage, bok choi, scallions and daikon radish. For proportions of the salt and water and the spices, I used the cabbage and radish kimchi recipe on page 182 of The Joy of Pickling.

These have been brining since yesterday and, after a quick purchase of fresh ginger, I mixed up the drained vegetables with minced ginger, Korean red pepper, salt and sugar. Now this will ferment in its brine for a few days. And then I plan to make sure I remove most of the extra liquid so my finished product isn't so disappointing. I guess we'll find out next week.

Summer Has Begun

And the farm share is really plentiful!

Today I picked up the share: Napa cabbage, collard greens, kale, garlic scapes, daikon radishes, bok choi, Hakurei turnips, scallions, 2 heads of lettuce, 2 kohlrabi, cilantro, parsley, 1/2 pint of strawberries, "unlimited" fava beans and snow and snap peas (I only took a quart of snap peas and some favas, I'm not crazy), 1 quart of shelling peas, and rainbow chard. Some was set aside for my friend's half, and then I got to work.

I chopped the Napa cabbage, bok choi, daikon radishes and scallions and they are currently brining. Tomorrow I'll start them fermenting to make kimchee.

With the cilantro (1 large bunch) and garlic scapes (20) I made a pesto using toasted pecans (1 cup) and parmesan cheese (1/2 cup, maybe?) with salt, pepper, and some cayenne for zip. For dinner we had a salad with fresh peas, strawberries, turnips and lettuce and then cheese ravioli tossed with this pesto and some blanched fresh peas. Now I have three half-cup jars of pesto to put in the freezer for another time.

The fava beans were blanched and peeled and are now in a jar with some salt water. I didn't want to marinate them because I'm hoping to use them to make baghali polo; I'll grab some dill next week so I can make it.

Also, I picked a whole lot of mulberries off my tree, simmered them with water and ran them through the jelly bag to start getting juice for a batch of mulberry jelly. The tree is covered with berries so I hope only 2 or 3 more picking sessions will be enough. 

Epic Stir Fry and Other Things

Yesterday's farm share consisted of 2 heads of lettuce, a bunch of kale, a head of napa cabbage, onions, little red turnips, 3 pounds of squash, 3 pounds of cucumbers, 2 quarts of fava beans, and 1 quart each of snow and snap peas, plus some flowers and herbs.  We didn't pick the herbs this time.  The kids and I brought it all home and I sent them outside to shell the fava beans and the snap peas, which were too big to eat whole.  Once I got everything cleaned, I took a few steps to work through all the veggies that were accumulating in the fridge.  I still had 2 heads of bok choi leftover, plus snow peas, scallions and some lettuce.  I started chopping away, and suddenly I had a huge bowl of stir fry ingredients:  cabbage, bok choy (all of it), snow peas, celery, scallions, and onions.  I made some rice and marinated some beef for the grill, and for dinner I fried all those veggies in the wok.  It cooked down a lot, thankfully, because the pile of veggies was initially bigger than the wok.  I drizzled them with soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sesame oil at the end, and we ate a fair amount of it over the rice.  Plus we had a salad with some of the lettuce, Hakurei turnips, radishes, the blanched snap peas, a few mulberries, and some homemade croutons.

Fava beans

The fava beans got marinated again; 2 quarts of pods makes about 1 pint of beans and these will last for a while now.

This morning I pickled the cucumbers.  I specifically picked the smallest ones I could find so that we would have whole dills rather than slices.  I used a recipe from the Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving, "Favorite Dill Pickles."  This made 3 quarts of pickles, but there are really only 4 cukes in each jar.

What's left?  Lots of lettuce, turnips, radishes, garlic scapes, kale, 3 pounds of patty pan squashes, snow peas, and some swiss chard and another zucchini my mason gave me.

Forgotten Mallow Cookies

All those mallow peas I found at the farm share Thursday were put to good use yesterday.  I boiled them, following the instructions in Edible Wild Plants by John Kallas:  for each ounce of mallow peas, 3 ounces of water.  I had 2 ounces, give or take.  This resulted in a very small amount of mucilaginous liquid.  Once cooled, I made a meringue of sorts.  The boiled mallow peas were added to a stir fry I made for dinner from some tofu and more of the farm share veggies:  bok choi, snow peas, scallions, and arugula, served over udon noodles.

In his book, he says he found he needed to use one egg white to start the process of making mallow meringue, so I did the same.  I beat one egg white to the soft peak stage, added 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar and then started adding the mallow liquid ("whites," he calls them) and 2/3 c. sugar for the cookies.  Once this was beaten to the stiff peak stage, I added a teaspoon of vanilla and some chocolate chips.  This was then dropped by the spoonful onto parchment paper and placed in a 350 degree oven, and the oven was turned off.  Overnight, they became cookies!  Mallow cookies!  

Crazy Hot Day at the Farm

Yesterday it was, in New England parlance, a "scorchah!"  At one point the exterior thermometer on my car registered 105.  And I stood in the hot sun at the farm and picked peas and strawberries.  It was grueling.  But, as always, worth it!

The share consisted of: 2 heads of lettuce, 1 bowl of arugula, 1 head of bok choi, 1 head of napa cabbage, 5 garlic scapes, 6 scallions, 1 pint strawberries, 1 pint snow peas, 1 quart snap peas, 1 quart shell peas, and herbs (I took another bunch of cilantro).  As a little bonus the mallow peas were plentiful and I picked about 1/4 cup.  I'm not sure what I'm doing with them yet, but I have them.  I kept all the veggies in the car with me so the air conditioning could keep them fresh(er) in that awful heat.

Dinner last night was a strawberry soup, made with mascarpone, mango juice, and honey, with a cilantro pesto on toast and a salad of arugula, lettuce and freshly shelled peas.  It was way too hot to cook and, on days like that, a cold meal is often best.

Soup Season Has Started

This morning we overslept. It's raining, and dark, so that is no surprise. The weather just cried out for a soup. So I pulled out the frozen leftover prime rib roast bones and bone-in steaks we just couldn't finish one night, and put them in the big pot with 7 pints of water. All the vegetables are from the farm share (yay!). Here's the full recipe:

5 beef bones with meat left on
7 pints water
kosher salt and pepper to taste
2 bay leaves
1 T. soy sauce
1 package of frozen bok choi/joy choy
1 pound of small potatoes, cubed
1 onion, diced

This simmered on the stove for several hours and when the beef was no longer frozen I took it out, cubed it and put it back in the pot with the bones. I only took the bones out when I was ready to can the rest of the soup. My parents joined us for lunch. I made heart-shaped Bisquick biscuits and, in my opinion, the soup was yummy! (Those of you who were at lunch may comment if you wish...) The leftover soup fit into 3 quart jars and 1 pint and are in the pressure canner for 90 minutes at 10 lbs of pressure. I still have a to do list for canning, as I have 3 bags of apples in the fridge and also 3 celeriac roots, 2 turnips, and a bunch of carrots which I was hoping to turn into another soup. Anyone out there have an idea for how I can take those 3 ingredients and make something soup-ish?

Bounty in June

Another week, another farm share. More new things for us to try! This week the haul was even bigger; here's our half: 2 pattipan squashes, 1 head of lettuce, 1 large bowl of mixed greens (mustard, spinach, arugula, and mizuna), 5 scallions, 2 large radishes and a small hakurei turnip, 10 baby carrots, 5 garlic scapes, 1 joy choi, 1 bok choi, and 2 tat sois, 1 pint strawberries and 1 cup of snow peas. Wow. And it's just going to be more and more each week!

Add to that the mulberries picked from the tree around the corner (at least 1 pint! what a tree!) and we have the makings for some great salads, stir fries, and snacks. Tonight it's a salad, and I have to run to the store to get some goat cheese and some hamburgers.

Look at all this wonderful stuff (and this is only a little bit of it all)!

More From the Farm

This week the farm share consisted of lettuce, spinach, bok choi, scallions, radishes, snow peas, strawberries, and some Hakurei turnips which are edible raw. Mmm. I went up to my roof deck and harvested a few radishes of my own (red and white), some more spinach, and a few of my shelling peas (well, all that were ready) and made a salad with the shelled peas, lettuce, a little spinach, radishes and one of the turnips. I fried the spinach with a little garlic in olive oil. The strawberries were devoured for dessert. Tomorrow night I'll make a stir fry with the bok choi, scallions and snow peas. We are liking this farm share thing!

Hooray for Farm Shares!

While this entry is not about canning, it IS about cooking, and anticipation of canning! As I mentioned in my previous post, my sister-in-law and I are splitting a farm share. This our first year and we didn't really know what to expect. Yesterday we met at the farm and picked up our first share: 1 head of lettuce (which she kept), 9 bunches of bok choi, a bunch of HUGE radishes and a bunch of scallions (all of which we split). Since it wasn't really enough to preserve in any way, but it was enough to make a very fresh dinner, I set to work finding a recipe or something.

I pulled Everything You Want to Know About Chinese Cooking off the shelf. I have had this book since college, but it's so labor intensive I haven't made anything since the Velvet Chicken attempt (VERY yummy, took ALL day - really). Thumbing through it I found a recipe for braised oysters with scallions and ginger. I decided I could add the bok choi to this and come up with a single dish. It was a little labor intensive but not nearly as bad as the 4-6 hour prep time recipes! And, even better, it cooked up in about 5 minutes. All the bok choi and scallions used up in one meal (I ate the radishes as I'm the only one in the house who likes them) and no leftovers!