Last night I decided to roast a sunshine kabocha squash as part of our dinner. Sunshine squash look a lot like short pumpkins.
Check out the squash in the upper left - those are the sunshine kabocha squash. The others are (from left to right): Sweet Dumpling, Thelma Sanders' Sweet Potato. Bottom row: Muang (a Thai variety), mini pumpkins, and Pink Banana. Thanks to Prospect: A Year in the Park for the picture and labeling!
Anyway, I roasted the squash - cut it in half, scooped out the pulp and seeds, sprayed with olive oil spray and sprinkled some black pepper on it. Yum yum. Aaron and I loved it.
The kids?
Yeah, no go on the squash. Caleb tried a piece. He chewed it so much that he no longer liked it. Ellie wouldn't touch it. *sigh* Caleb asked "How many pieces do I need to have?" I told him he didn't need to eat more of it. In fact, I said:
"You don't need to have more squash. You can eat your kale instead."
His response?
"KALE??? YUM!!!!!!" (munch munch munch)
I am not giving up on the squash, but how delightful that he chose a dark green leafy. :)
In my last post I mentioned two recipes you may want to try with your families.
Squash Kugel
Courtesy of our dear neighbors
Ingredients:
20 oz. frozen squash, defrosted
1/2 c. creamer (I use light cream)
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) butter, softened
7/8 c. natural applesauce (I use our applesauce)
2 c. flour
2 c. sugar (IF I add sugar, I halve it)
5 eggs
cinnamon
Instructions:
Mix everything EXCEPT the cinnamon in a large bowl. I use an immersion blender to make it reasonably smooth. Pour in an 8x8 or 9x9 pan lined with parchment paper. You probably could spray your pan instead of using paper. I use paper.
Bake at 350 for at least 1 hour, until set. Serve warm.
Tomato-Cucumber Salad
From ???
Ingredients:
2 medium cucumbers, diced
2-3 medium tomatoes, diced
1 small or medium red onion, diced
olive oil
lemon juice
salt and pepper
Instructions:
Combine cucumbers, tomatoes, and onion in a bowl. There should be approximately equally amounts of cucumbers, tomatoes, and onion such that if you took a spoonful, you would have a taste of each vegetable.
Add olive oil (maybe 1/8-1/4 c.?), lemon juice (about same as olive oil), and salt and pepper to taste. Allowing to marinate for 30-60 minutes in the fridge is ideal.
Note:
This is one of the few ways I enjoy fresh uncooked tomatoes. :)
Something I think has helped our kids to be willing to try vegetables as well as other new foods has been involving them in the process of producing, acquiring, and making food. Today was a good example of involving them. Aaron and I cut a deal that he would buy the fish for tonight's dinner (saving me a trip to the grocery with 2 kids who don't really want to shop) and I would pick green beans from our garden, as well as anything else in need of harvesting. I was certain there would not be enough green beans to share with our friends who would be joining us for dinner, but I agreed to the deal.
Look what we found!
3 cukes,
a tomato, and a little less than a pound of beans. The kids were really excited to show off the produce. I told Caleb about how much he helped by planting, watering, and picking dead leaves from the plants. Ellie enjoyed smelling the tomato (which she does not like eating yet) as well as trying to snag a green bean (they were washed before dinner!).
After harvesting the vegetables, the kids had lunch. I included a peeled and "sticked" cucumber, and they both ate it happily. Caleb also ate some tomato. Ellie has yet to develop a real taste for tomatoes, but I don't like them uncooked either, so I'm not too worried. After the so-called naptime, Caleb and I made squash kugel, which did not involve our harvested produce, but he still saw what went into making one of his favorite dishes. He enjoyed using my immersion blender, and he was surprised (annoyed?) that the mixture didn't look like "squash cake" when he was done mixing.
Involving him in the magic of cooking seems to help him try new things and enjoy the dishes we create together. At dinner, he tried the cucumber tomato salad even though I know he isn't fond of vegetables that have been "dressed up." He told me he liked the cucumber but not the other parts. I'm guessing he didn't like the onions. Anyway, he knew the salad came from our garden, and he was willing to try it because he was curious about what came out of our backyard. I think I even caught Ellie munching on a piece of cucumber or tomato.
Maybe this post isn't surprising, but I wanted to share that involving kids in the process of food does seem to have an effect, at least in our house.
Recipes for salad and kugel forthcoming!
First the good news:
Last night we harvested our first cucumbers (4!), our first red tomato, and our volunteer squash (i.e., we didn't plan for it to be there but it worked out).
Now the bad news:
The squash bed has not worked out and we have been digging up the dead plants. I think 2 things happened - first, I think that we had all male flowers and no (or not enough) females. Supportive as I am of same-sex marriage, it doesn't work out well in a vegetable garden. :P The second thing that may have happened is a squash borer population (nasty moth larvae that eats the stems from the inside out). Grf. No pumpkins this year. In theory we could re-plant the other squash, but I'm too grumpy to re-plant. Aaron has suggested planting kale, but again my grumpiness needs to pass first. I've given him a green light to plant as he sees fit.
In additional bad news, I fear we may have tomatoes with blight. Check out the second picture of last night's small harvest.
What do you think of the tomato now? Last summer loads of people ended up with tomato blight and we totally lucked out with healthy beautiful and yummy tomatoes. The black spot has me worried. I thought blighted tomatoes looked healthy on the outside but crummy on the inside, but maybe I'm wrong and sometimes the blight is visible on the outside.
Back to the good news, aren't our cucumbers delightful? The first one on the left is enormous! The second one is ridiculously fat. The last two might be supermarket passable *smirk*. Did you know that supermarkets will reject perfectly edible produce solely based on shape of the fruit/vegetable? Our family cares less about shape and more about yumminess.
Off to figure out about our 'maters!
This week's box from Stillman's showed signs of summer's progress. We had fewer green leafy vegetables and the start of the squash harvest. Our bounty for this week:
- 2 bunches of different varieties of kale
- 2 heads of lettuce - red leaf and something in the plain green variety
- 2 bunches of beets (the variety name escapes me)
- 2 pounds of snap peas (NOM NOM NOM!!)
- MANY zucchini and summer squash (some were pick your own)
- a few cousa squash (look like smaller lighter green zucchini)
- several cucumbers - slicers and picklers
- 1 pint of blueberries
We happened to buy beets at the farmers' market this weekend with the intention of grilling them that night. We forgot. We now have an oversupply of beets. Aaron enjoys them roasted. I know the kids will eat them in risotto. My neighbor made a very tasty beet salad that I hope to try to make. We will get through the beets. Feel free to share your favorite recipes too!
Speaking of farmers' market, we bought LOTS of fresh fruit this week from Dan the Orchard Man as we like to call him. He is one of the farmers of Keown Orchards. From him, we bought raspberries, apricots, plums, and apples. I can't remember whether we also picked up blueberries there. We have had such great quantity of blueberries coming in that it is hard for me to remember their exact points of origin. Anyway, I am really happy to have local fresh fruit again. Caleb and Ellie have been whining for the fruit I set on the counter, so I don't expect it to last much longer. On the other hand, Ellie only acts like she wants food, so we may end up with masticated but not eaten fruit (blech).
I think my next post will be on meals eaten and those we intend to make.
I'm trying to decide whether making a soup today will work out. Caleb is sick and needing my attention. I didn't get a soup started in the morning as a result. Plus I had a doctor's appointment in the late morning, so the time has gotten away from me. On the bright side, I have finished my teaching prep for tomorrow (am terribly behind on other prep), so perhaps I *can* make soup.
Of course, Ellie is choosing to vocalize instead of sleep. I don't mean talk. I don't mean cry/fuss. I mean vocalize. High pitch swooping down to low pitch. Over and over and over.
And Caleb isn't really sleeping. I can hear him coughing.
So can I whip up a squash soup on a gray cool day? Magic Eight Ball says "Signs point to yes." Hmph. We'll see about this.
I miss our CSA.
When we picked up most of our produce on Mondays, I could plan the week of food based on whatever was in the box. I didn't have to think about vegetables. Meals practically made themselves, once I got into the groove of figuring out what to do with all those vegetables.
And now?
No more weekly pick ups. How sad for us. I'm thankful to have our weekly local farmers' market. BUT... I actually have to plan meals before going to the market now. It's like I've forgotten how to decide what I want to eat since I got used to being told "here are your vegetables for the week." Well, I could eat chocolate morning, noon, and night, but that isn't exactly the healthiest option. ;)
I keep passing the list of "possible meals" we have posted on our refrigerator and feeling rather uninspired and as though the meals are not quite good enough. Not balanced enough, not flavorful enough, not interesting enough. It's rather frustrating since I KNOW we all like those meals.
So what are we going to feed the kids tonight? It's supposed to be pizza night for me and Aaron after the kids go to bed, but I'm craving vegetables oddly. In the vegetable category, we have a large bunch of beautiful swiss chard waiting to be enjoyed. I'm thinking about making Crustless Swiss Chard Quiche because we haven't had it in quite a while, and I remember LOVING it. Besides swiss chard, we have plenty of squash, including pumpkins that I promised to share with Caleb. Caleb wants to make pumpkin cookies from a recipe he saw in a book by Jane Breskin Zalben called "Don't Go!" Maybe they will be nut-free and I can send them to school with him!
This post is dreadfully rambly, but I think it reflects how I'm feeling about meal planning without my CSA pickups. Perhaps I need to return to the habit of meal planning once a week, and I can post those weekly menus as a reminder.
On Tuesday, one of Caleb's teachers asked me if I would bring to school some of the "gourds" I mentioned on my last visit. She wanted to have the kids check out the seeds and see the variety and so forth. She said they are talking about crops and farming. Basic sensory experience, as far as I could tell. We have a large bowl overflowing with "gourds," so I was happy to oblige.
By gourds, she really meant winter squash. Before I started to cook more from scratch, I didn't understand what people meant by winter squash versus summer squash. I definitely didn't realize I could eat most of what I saw as decorations, let alone know HOW to prepare winter squash. When we started going to the farmers' market, Caleb inevitably would pick up something that neither Aaron nor I recognized and beg to buy it. We would ask sheepishly what the thing was and how to prepare and eat it. The answer was usually to cut it in half, add olive oil or butter, salt and pepper, and roast until done (tender, soft, edible).
The first winter squash Caleb introduced us to was delicata squash. The link takes you to a beautiful food, garden and cooking blog. Delicata squash is the shape of a fat cucumber, light yellow in color with green stripes. The interior is a yellow or light orange usually. It is a sweet and tender squash. It makes a delightful side dish to any number of meals.
This year we received many kinds of winter squash from our CSA: butternut, acorn, sunshine (looks like a smooth slightly darker orange pumpkin), carnival, sweet dumpling (looks like a delicata squash in color but is round), and at least a few that I don't know the names of yet.
The next winter squash Caleb introduced us to was blue hubbard squash. It is NOT a pretty squash, in my opinion. Big, bluish-gray, bumpy. It is delicious, once you crack it open. The microwave is fantastic for softening up winter squash skin.
And so this morning I picked 4 different squash - butternut, delicata, carnival, and sweet dumpling - and gave the teacher instructions for how to prepare them:
"Microwave them for a few minutes to soften the skin. Cut them in half. Add butter or olive oil. Salt and pepper OR brown sugar. Roast until done."
I'll let you know how it goes.
How did it get to be the second week of October?
Anyway, food continues to be delicious, but we have reached a new challenge. This past Monday was our final CSA pickup. :( Granted, we got more food than we can go through even in two weeks, but what will we do for fresh local conscientiously grown food after that? *sigh*
For the record, here is what we received in our final CSA pickup of the season:
Half of the full share:
1 HUGE butternut squash
1 carnival squash
1 delicata squash
1 stalk of brussels sprouts
1 yellow/gold cauliflower
3 ears corn
1 bunch arugula
1 head lettuce
1 bunch kale
1 savoy cabbage
1 napa cabbage (it's quite large)
1 large eggplant (white)
1 HUGE green pepper (I've dubbed it Darth Pepper)
a bag full of various hot peppers
a bag of apples (maybe about 8-10 small-medium?)
1 pear (I gave my neighbor the other 2 because we have a few already)
1 tomato
We ate the brussel sprouts for dinner last night, and they were amazing. I actually liked brussel sprouts even before trying these, but these did not have the weird aftertaste. They were phenomenal, and all I did was steam them. Besides the brussel sprouts, we also enjoyed a blue hubbard squash - roasted with butter and brown sugar. Caleb periodically insists that we buy some unknown food from the farmers' markets. It is through Caleb's curiosity and persistence that we discovered not only blue hubbard squash but also delicata squash. Both are great. If you think you don't like squash, you might want to revisit them with the simple farmer "recipe." When Caleb finds his prize, we end up asking the farmer what the object is and how to cook it. Usually the farmer tells us to cut it in half, butter/oil it and roast it until it is soft. Give it a try - you might like it!
Aaron already has polished off the arugula by adding it to his turkey wraps. He is so very proud of his professional-looking wraps. I must say that they are very tasty and do look quite professional - but less expensive. :)
Tonight's adventure will include more squash as well as a modified Kielbasa y kapusta, Kielbasa and Cabbage. Since we don't eat kielbasa, I'm going to substitute the casing-free chicken sausage from Trader Joe's.
I'll report back soon!
Check out the squash in the upper left - those are the sunshine kabocha squash. The others are (from left to right): Sweet Dumpling, Thelma Sanders' Sweet Potato. Bottom row: Muang (a Thai variety), mini pumpkins, and Pink Banana. Thanks to Prospect: A Year in the Park for the picture and labeling!
