Monday, September 26, 2011

Dealing with CSA mono-vegetable glut

So the question that I have heard a lot of is this summer is "We just got a lot of ___________ from our CSA.  We can't eat it all/we're bored sick of it/we don't know what to do with it".

Obviously, no one wants to throw food away or even compost it, feed it to the pigs/dogs/chickens etc.  So here are a few long-term, easy storage tips.

First, get yourself a good food storage book.  Whenever I have a question, I consult Mike and Nancy Bubel's Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables. It tells you the best conditions to store each type of food in, and also which varieties are the best keepers. While the focus is on root cellaring, it is important to note that you don't need an actual root cellar in order to root cellar (did that make sense?).

So here's my short-list of autumn glut CSA foods and what to do with them.

Potatoes:
Immediate use:  The nice thing about potatoes is that they'll store short-term without you having to do anything other than keeping them in a dark place.  In the fall, we make potato pancakes, fried potatoes, skillet frittatas, and of course mashed potatoes.  If there are some good-sized ones, we make crunchy potatoes (twice baked potatoes) with lots of goodies in them.
Storage: White potatoes store well at 36-40 degrees F with 90% humidity.  If you have a nook in your house that can meet those conditions, great.  To increase the humidity, take any organic material (leaves, straw, shavings) or sand and soak it. Pack your potatoes lightly, as ventilation is a good thing.
I also mash potatoes and store them in quart size containers and freeze.  This is a great option if you have the freezer space!

Tomatoes: Don't refrigerate them!  Keep them on the counter and they'll be happy for a week or two.  We bought three crates at the farmer's market this summer, and they were fine just sitting on the table until we could process them.
Immediate use:  Salads, sauces, stuffed tomatoes, casseroles, pasta or rice dishes, in egg dishes. We make fajitas a lot, so I always add a couple then.
Storage:  Two easy methods:  Sauce them (if it's a roma or other paste tomato) and then freeze in quart size bags.  Or, just throw a bunch of whole tomatoes in a gallon bag and freeze.  The skins will come right off when you thaw. You could even core the tomato before freezing.  You can also can.  Please remember to add 2 TBSP of lemon juice to each QUART (1 TBSP to each PINT) because today's tomatoes are generally not as acidic as yesteryear's.  You can use a hot water bath (no need for the canner).  You can also prepare pizza sauce or salsa and then can (or freeze) those.

Winter Squash (including pumpkins): 
Immediate Use:  Again, these have a really long shelf-life at room temperature so there is no pressure to use them.  Yay.  The problem I find, is that I get sick of eating squash after about two weeks,  so I put them in the baskets that hang from our rafters and forget about them.  Then in January, I look into the baskets and there are a half dozen shriveled up squash specimens that probably don't contain many nutrients. 
Baked squash is always easy, and it's even easier in the crock pot.  You can mix mashed squash with mashed potatoes to cut the squash flavor if you're not a big fan.  You can make squash bread (always a huge hit in our household).  You can also stuff the squash with a meat casserole type thing and then cook it.  You can also use the puréed squash as a substitute for the oil, eggs and water when baking cupcakes etc. from a mix.
Storage:  So I tried canning these suckers (since I'm running out of freezer space) and I think it would work, but it's very labor intensive as you have to skin the squash without cooking it first.  Then you must blanch the squash and then you need to use the pressure canner for 90 minutes, which I don't like using.
So, the easiest way to store for us (aside from hanging it in the baskets) is to cook the squash, scoop it out, and then freeze it.  I'm hoping that by storing it in this manner right off the bat,  I won't have any shriveled up squashes come mid-winter.

Carrots: 
Immediate uses:  We always have carrot sticks cut in the fridge.  We find them particularly helpful if we're having an unpalatable vegetable according to Bud--he can munch on those instead. If you have a juicer, use it here.  Carrot muffins are yummy (so is carrot cake).  I actually use carrots in my roasting pan to support the chicken instead of using a rack.   In any soup or stew you can add carrots.  In fact, a mixture of carrots, celery and onion is the classic mirepoix--the base for any stock. One of my favorite salads is simply shredded carrot and shredded beet mixed with a light vinegar and some seasonings (unfortunately, my darling husband is not a beet fan).
Storage: Theoretically, these are stored at 32-40 degrees F with 90-95% humidity--very similar to potatoes.  I store mine in the same place (an unplugged freezer turned on its side in the basement with shavings in it).  Just layer the carrots with the organic material between them.  The carrots should be close to one another, but not really touching.  Store only the largest, most regularly shaped ones.
I also will blanch and freeze diced carrots to add to a mirepoix later or to a vegetable medley as a side dish. 

Hardy greens (spinach, chard, kale, collards):
Immediate uses:  I'm a big fan of sautéed kale, onions and pepperoni.  I'm sure you can do a similar dish with spinach.   In my opinion, these hardy greens are best when slightly wilted over your stovetop.  They are also great in soups, stews and pasta dishes.  You could also make a yummy spinach dip with some sour cream.
Storage:  You can actually freeze these.  You'll want to blanch them for a couple minutes beforehand.


Good luck and may there be no more glut!





Monday, September 19, 2011

Why dehydrate?

This year, has certainly been a phenomenal one for apples.  In the interest of preserving as much food as possible, as quickly and safely as posssible, we are dehydrating or saucing most of our apples.  Second only to the dutch oven, the dehydrator is one of my favorite kitchen tools. 

This model from Nesco probably cost around $85 (it was a gift).  The gift was actually given to us jointly with another friend (there really is no need for every single household to own a dehydrator, as most of the year, you don't need it).  Dehydrators also come in a box shape but I haven't tried those.  Do get one with the fan on the top though, as they are much easier to clean (if the fan is on the bottom, all the little pieces of food that fall through the cracks in the trays get caught there). You can always buy additional trays, although I wouldn't suggest working with more than a stack of 8 as the drying will become uneven.

Anyway, the apples in the picture above are all from our trees (or trees alongside the road).  They are truly beautiful and delicious.  For the first time in my recollection we won't actually have to buy any "fresh eating" apples as these untended trees are producing great fruit as is (I know, I keep harping on this point, but it is rather spectacular). 

My darling husband and I have basically been running the dehydrator every night with its trays full of apples.  To prepare, he peels the   

            apples and I slice.  I drop them in a bowl of water mixed with several tablespoons of lemon juice to keep them from browning (not really a necessary step as the taste remains the same, but they do look more attractive when not brown!).  I really like this brand of lemon juice as it's fresh squeezed (read: NOT FROM CONCENTRATE) and is organic. 

We lay the apple slices on the tray.  This was done very quickly (about 3 minutes) in the essence of time, but you can spend all the time in the world arranging them so that there are no spaces between the slices and everything looks very geometric. 

 The trays are stacked, the cover put on and the timer set for about 8 hours at 135 degrees F.  The picture to the left shows the finished product.  I think most models of dehydrators shut off automatically when done, so there's no need to get up in the middle of the night to check!

The four trays (probably made from 15 small to medium apples) yielded about 1 1/2 quarts of dried fruit.  I store them in Mason jars or plastic bags.  Storing them in Mason jars (no need to seal or anything) allows you to see if they are truly dry.  If condensation starts appearing on the inside of the jar you need to dry them more (or eat them) because they will mold. 

We have also used our dehydrator to make liver treats for the dogs, "sun-dried" tomatoes, dried mushrooms, fruit roll-ups (lots of fun and super easy), and beef jerky.  All of these items have a considerably long shelf life (months if not years) and the beauty of it is that there is no need to refrigerate, freeze or can!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Hurricanes, floods and a day of rememberance

I've been meaning to post for several days now, but "things" keep happening around here, which either change the focus of my blog or keeps me so busy that I have no time to blog.

Ten days after Hurricane Irene swept through here, the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee did a number on the Binghamton area.  We weren't directly affected aside from losing power (again), having the basement flood (again), and having a "weather related" day off from school,  but the county was declared to be in a state of emergency, and thousands of folks along the Susquehanna River have lost their homes, their farms, their livelihood.  The neighborhood where I lived when I went to grad school was completely underwater, and I'm sure the house I lived in did not escape damage.  Some of the aerial shots bring back vivid memories of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who are suffering from this event.  If you would like to help, you can go to the South Central New York Red Cross chapter website here and the Northeastern New York chapter website here  (Irene recovery).  As United Methodists, we also give through the United Methodist Committee on Relief.  One hundred percent of your donations go to help people in need as the administrative costs are covered by the local churches through annual collections. You can direct where you would like your donations to go with various advance numbers. 

So in church today, we were faced with the local tragedy of the flooding as well as remembering the national tragedy of 10 years ago.  All of us over the age of 15 have both personal and collective memories of that experience.  I remember walking through the computer lab at the school where I was teaching  and one of my colleagues saying "a plane hit the World Trade Center".  Thinking it was a little 2 person Cessna or similar I didn't dwell on it.  However, as the events unfolded, I remember leaving the school, going back to my apartment, and trying to get a hold of my brother who lived within walking distance of the Pentagon.  I remember learning about a family neighbor who was killed.  And I remember thinking as the day turned into a week and the week turned into a month, "what the hell am I doing teaching kids how to use microscopes when all of this is going on? How can we focus on objective lenses when thousands of people have lost their lives, when our country has declared war on "terrorism", when there is this cloud of helplessness and hopelessness hanging over the entire nation?"  I felt that my role as an educator was so insignificant to what was happening and I did not see any intrinsic value to what I was doing in the classroom.

This afternoon, in between trying to sew together another recycled feed bag, fill water buckets for the animals, and collect windfall apples for drying, my darling husband, Bud and I decided to trek down to a Celtic Mass of Peace in memory of the events of 9/11.  There is little we can do or offer to those who have lost loved ones either in the attacks or in serving our country subsequently, but listening to the orchestra and choir while sitting next to my family quieted my heart and my mind, at least for the moment.

Friday, September 2, 2011

First Fridays

Many cities and towns across the country have a First Friday celebration where local shops stay open later in the evening, allowing for folks to mingle with the artists and craftspeople and to hopefully buy some of the artists' fine work.  I never have enough "stuff" to sell at farmers' markets or even at a cooperative artists' guild (of which there are two in my area), but to inspire readers, I will be posting a new useful, crafty thing every first Friday.

This month's topic is the feed-bag-converted-into-grocery-bag.  There are several websites which outline this process.  One can be found here and the other is found here.  But if you google "recycling feed bags into grocery bags" a gazillion and one sites pop up.  Who knew?  I first learned about this at my spinning group where a 4H leader was doing this with her group.  I saw the finished bags in the 4H pavillion at the County Fair and they turned out really well.

Anyway, you do not have to be an expert sewer to do this.  I honestly do not get along with my sewing machine.  We have a very fragile truce which lets me do simple things (like make curtains).  Anything more complex, including quilting, and it balks (or I balk). I don't know anything about the specific types of stitches  or thread I should have used, but I did change to a size 18 or 19 needle (the largest, green one) because I was working with this feed bag material.

 So, my starting piece was a chicken feed bag that had looked something like this (okay, it looked exactly like this except that there was no feed in it).   

The finished product, after consulting the websites linked above, and spending about 45 minutes with the machine, looked like this:



For those of you who are expert seamstresses, I did not have a ruler or other measuring tool with me at any point during the making of this--it was all sort of eye-balled.  Also, the seams are by no means even or pretty-looking (which is why you don't get a close-up shot).

The bag hasn't really been tested yet aside from putting a couple jars of pickles, and a half gallon container of milk in it (those were the heavy things in my fridge), but I think it will do okay when I take it to the Farmers' Market tomorrow.

I'm thinking these would make great gifts (except for the price of the thread, and the electricity used by the sewing machine, they're free) especially if they are filled up with other crafty or homemade goodies.  

Happy sewing and TGIF!