Vegetable blogging at ReadyMade

Hey...that's me! I'll be posting weekly at ReadyMade with info and recipes about a different vegetable every week. Check out my first post, about the wonders of butternut squash.

In other news: too sick to go to USG this week. Roasted some beets, sautéed up some greens, nothing too exciting. We've had sunshine though, so I'm getting spring fever for early veggies! Still a few weeks yet, I know.

It's the freakin' weekend

So, there will be no boring, self-important monologue about why I haven’t posted in nearly six months.

But! Now! Installed (as I am) in my own real one-bedroom which boasts an even smaller, narrower kitchen than my former home, I am suited wonderfully for the frequent dinner party for 2 and the occasional slightly crowded dinner party for 8, not to mention other configurations and guest-quantities TBC. (When spring arrives, there will be teas: delightful conversation-heavy teas in the best of company with the best of finger sandwiches and other delicacies, because I’ve never given up on my fantasy of having a salon.)

Since we last encountered our heroine she has become single, turned 30, quit caffeine, and acquired a personal chef client, a freelance cookbook-consulting gig, and an upcoming weekly vegetable-blogging assignment for a prominent DIY/lifestyle magazine (about which more later). This is on top of her full-time job managing a little record-label-that-could, as well as her new physical-fitness hobbies, running and Ving Tsun Kung Fu. (Today was my first Saturday off since mid-December.)

But enough about me. USG was closed yesterday due to our third snowstorm of the season, but today it was open and even thriving – much more crowded than I thought it would be, and with most of the wintertime vendors in attendance. But this photo (of organic farm Norwich Garden’s insulated tent-stall) is a pretty typical shot: it’s pretty much all root vegetables and tubers nowadays, where it’s not apples. And it’s apples almost everywhere. So it’s not much of a haul, but it was a welcome excursion for a work-free Saturday.

Hot and fresh out the kitchen:
1 ½ lbs. beets
1 ½ lbs. “Red Rose” potatoes
4 lbs. mixed bargain apples
½ lb. shallots
Total spent: $11

I also bought eggs from Northshire Farms, a maple syrup-sweetened lemon poppyseed muffin from Body & Soul which was very dense and had a not entirely unpleasant faint hint of Funfetti cake mix, and a gorgeous whole-wheat multi-grain boulé from Our Daily Bread with which I will spend the week making impractically-sized toast. Then I headed across the street to Whole Foods where I bought the greens, carrots, and other necessities our root-cellar of a market is currently lacking.

I’ll roast the beets and probably the potatoes (no doubt on separate occasions), and the apples I’ll make into applesauce, which will feature my new favorite spice to pair with apples: star anise. I know – daring! Nothing’s changed.

She's so c-c-c-c-cold

Yes, I went to the (not-so-) greenmarket today despite the single-digit temps. I wore three shirts, a sweater, and a sweatshirt under my jacket, plus a pair of super-thick knee-socks over my regular socks and leggings under my jeans. It was a real chore getting my boots on over all that stuff.

But in addition to making me weirdly off-balance, my frozen brain tissue couldn't recall much about my trip, other than I bought potatoes, carrots, and other predictable things. I had to swing by Whole Foods as well, for non-starchy vegetables, and I picked up some crimini mushrooms which I'll pair with my greenmarket leeks in a brown-rice risotto (to serve with sautéed greens) if I can drag myself out of our cozy bedroom lair long enough to cook it.

Currently I've got a batch of vegetable stock bubbling away (okay, simmering gently, but that's not as merry an image) on the stove, and I'm trying to think of something I can bake to heat up the house a bit more. I guess I should have thought of that before buying that delicious loaf of spelt bread at the market today.

Okay, back to hibernating. Will post recipe if risotto happens and is worthwhile.

Return to USG: they may not be so pretty, but they're dinner

It was a lovely cold clear morning at the USG - I am so glad to be back!

Super Roots:
2 1/2 lbs. soup carrots
1 lb. yellow carrots
1 lb. eating carrots
2 celery roots
3 lbs. parsnips
1 lb. burdock root
3 lbs. Yukon gold potatoes
1 lb. shallots
4 lbs. onions
1 head Shaman garlic
1 head cabbage
4 lbs. "bargain" apples
2 1/2 lbs. Mutsu apples
1 lb. Macoun apples
Total spent: $42.50

Once again reconfigured for construction, the USG was short a lot of vendors, and selection was limited to the season's slim selection of hearty roots (and the odd greenhouse-grown delicacy), but I managed to get enough food to fill all three of my shopping bags and test the strength of my shoulders and arms.

As the photo above indicates, I've got a red lentil and root vegetable stew simmering on the stovetop at the moment - not really a recipe dish but here's what I've done so far:
    I sauteed one onion (medium dice) in sixish tbsp olive oil and a pinch of salt until golden, added 4 cloves minced garlic and 1/2 tsp each sage and thyme, and cooked that about a minute;
    then I added 2 large yellow carrots, 2 medium orange carrots, one parsnip, and two 12" burdock roots, cut very roughly into 3/4"-1" pieces, stirred well, and sauteed uncovered for a few minutes, then covered and cooked about five minutes;
    at this point I added 4 cups homemade vegetable stock, 2 cups rinsed red lentils, several pinches of salt, 2 bay leaves, and a 3" piece of kombu; I brought this to a boil then turned it down to a simmer.
    When my lentils have disintegrated and my vegetables are tender, I'll season to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, and serve the stew with some of the whole-wheat bread I just took out of the oven.

I'm hoping the stew tastes good (I have never cooked with parsnips or burdock root at home before) and that the bread isn't underbaked. Fingers crossed!

Some of the rest of the vegetables will go into more stock (I'm down to one quart in the freezer), some into practicing one of the recipes for my group's upcoming Friday Night Dinner, and some will be featured in a week of what I'm guessing will be very similar meals.

I did buy some non-local collards and kale at the grocery, and will probably get some more Satur Farms mesclun mix at Whole Foods, my new pricey addiction. All in all, I'm feeling stocked up and looking forward to much better meals than my pantry-relying creations of last week (although I did come up with a lovely black bean soup).

Making/taking stock

This was the type of morning that makes it hard to romanticize being a Greenmarket farmer (which romanticizing I will admit that I do quite often). Below freezing and windy, today makes me want to stay inside my warm apartment, baking and nestling up on the couch with a book and a hot drink - while all day, the vendors are outside, selling cold produce to warm-home-bound people like me. And the fact that standing outside in the freezing cold all day is probably one of the least difficult aspects of farming as a profession, especially in winter? Hard for this California-bred vegetable-lover to fathom.

I said lots of "goodbye 'til next year"s today:
1 bunch Swiss chard
1 bunch red Russian kale
1 bunch collard greens
1 lb. fingerling potato "roasting mix"
3/4 lb. assorted chile peppers
4 lbs. onions
4 lbs. carrots
1 bunch celery
1 lb. cranberries
3 lbs. apples
1 head Shaman garlic
Total spent: $49.50

I have stock on the stovetop now (5 quarts water and 2 lbs. onions, 2 lbs. carrots, 1 lb. celery, 2 bay leaves, 4" kombu, 5 black peppercorns, 2 sprigs thyme, pinch of salt), and I'm also planning to make applesauce, a mushroom quiche, and maybe a loaf of bread or some pita or tortillas, if I'm feeling adventurous. And I'm not sure if I'll do it today, but I'm planning to make some cranberry jam or jelly - these are the first cranberries I've seen at the market this year, and I'm excited.

And later, I will finally finish my tabulating and announce the Produce Stories Best Of The Year!

Dark times

These are dark times, my friends. Today's rainy trip to the Greenmarket yielded very little in the way of fresh produce: a carton of sprouts, two onions, a few hydroponic tomatoes, a bagful of apples. No one even had any carrots! Migliorelli Farms was out of pear cider for the year, and the little stand where I usually buy my kale was gone, no doubt due to the weather. Last week's trip was much the same, minus rain.

This morning I slept late (well, 9:30), and had decided not to head to Union Square and its dismal produce offerings when I realized how much I rely on market vendors for staples like eggs, goat cheese, and apple cider - and I'm so spoiled by the quality of the local stuff that I trudged out into the elements, sweatshirt hood half-shielding me from the downpour.

Lucky thing, too, because I was able to invite Katherine over for a very-late brunch of spinach and goat cheese omelette and home fries. (Ironic given the subject of this blog, the only non-local element of this meal other than spices was the spinach!) And the apples bubbling away on the stove, smelling of wonderful Penzeys Ceylon cinnamon makes me even gladder that I made the trip.

But my point is that there's very little to report these days, and the winter monotony has me still struggling not to get too down. (Though I do think the B12-and-herbs cocktail in my Deproloft is helping too). I guess I'm going to have to start buying vegetables from Garden Of Eden and Whole Foods, unless I can figure out a lot of creative ways to cook cabbage...and spring vegetables are still at least a month away.

Though I have learned to make homemade pita, using this Epicurious recipe, which is especially nice fresh out of the oven with the aforementioned goat cheese and zatar. (Thank you, Kitchenaid, for saving me from ever having to knead anything.)

NYC Rainy day photo from Hialean's Flickr page

Smoothie Stories

My mom and I were discussing smoothies recently (that's nothing new), and after we compared recipes, I realized how elaborate my smoothies have become since the Vita-Mix. Since they're so easy to make and I have everything easily at hand, I was surprised to find that the pictured pre-smoothie contained fourteen different ingredients, when, a year ago, my smoothies had four: strawberries, banana, apple juice, yogurt. This is a "wintertime" smoothie because I use winter vegetables and add spices for heat, and all the fruit is frozen. It may sound like a weird and gross combination, but...man, these smoothies are good, and they make me feel great!

Wintertime smoothie:
ginger
cinnamon
soy yogurt
small lemon slice
flax seed meal
bananas
curly kale
parsley
red clover sprouts
carrot
frozen mango
frozen strawberries
frozen blueberries
apple cider

Super-delicious pasta

This turned out to be way more than the sum of its parts.

Summery wintertime hydropasta:
about 1/4 cup plain goat cheese
about 8 brine-cured kalamata olives, diced
2 tsp. olive oil (fancy and pungent if you have it)
1 hydroponic tomato (you could use a handful of grape tomatoes maybe)
fresh spinach egg linguine for two people (I used Knoll Crest Farms)

Put salted water on to boil. While it's heating, mix first three ingredients in a small bowl with a fork until cheese is smooth and olives are distributed. Dice tomato, removing seeds if you care. Cook pasta according to package instructions (2-3 minutes), drain, and immediately return pasta to pan. Toss pasta with goat cheese mixture, divide onto two plates, and top each plate with half the diced tomato. Add a few grinds of black pepper to each plate, and pow! Your awesome dinner is done in under ten minutes.

The olive oil flavor is really key here - the more "olive-y" the better. I used some of the Pasolivo I bought as a birthday present to myself. It's really good - if you've ever been skeptical about whether olive oil can have a real flavor impact, Pasolivo will convince you. It's quite strong, with lots of fruity, grassy notes. Plus Pasolivo is made in my homeland, the li'l old central coast of California. And look how lovely it is!

A skeptic relents: tomatoes in winter??!!

Another slim-pickins day at USG, which slimness was compounded by my late arrival (my usual vendor was even out of kale by the time I got there at 11).

I don't believe they were out of kale:
3 lbs. Nicola potatoes
2 yellow onions
1 1/2 lbs. carrots
1/3 lb. baby spinach
1/3 lb. baby red Russian kale
2 tomatoes
Total spent: $30

It was with a mixture of shame, hope, and confusion that I finally bought some tomatoes from the Shushan Valley Hydro Farm stand (this photo is from their website). Since they appeared a month or so ago, I've peered into their little plastic tent, even picked up then put down a bunch of basil once or twice, but haven't taken the plunge. Tomatoes in winter seem impossible, or at least ill-advised; I feel a bit like the sucker of a snake-oil dealer: "The taste of summer, yours year-round! Step right up, folks!" But today I needed inspiration (and I have had tomatoes on my mind since making the exquisite tomato soup from Veganomicon), so I went for it. I'm going to use at least one of them tonight in a quick sauce for Knoll Crest Farms spinach pasta, along with some black olives, spinach sautéed with olive oil and garlic, and Lynnhaven Farms goat cheese. So even if the tomatoes' soil-less cultivation has rendered them insipid, there will be enough flavor in the dish.

Other updates:
Pear pie = meh - I liked the pecan streusel topping, but the pear pie didn't quite work. Perhaps I needed more seasoning, or more lemon juice, or something: it was a bit overly sweet and one-dimensional, as my mother warned me it might be. Though it doesn't help that the pie crust was the toughest and worst yet! I am somehow regressing in pie-crust skill, and I don't know why. This week I will either go apple again or find a recipe for vegan banana cream pie.
I'm out of cinnamon so I had to order from Penzeys again. My order, which I am only listing because it's an eclectic bunch of mostly B-list spices I'm unsure about: allspice, cinnamon (Ceylon this time), vanilla beans (Madagascar), marjoram, zatar, tarragon, mustard powder (not hot), ancho chile powder, chipotle chile powder. I can't wait!
Veganomicon forays - So far I have made the chickpea cutlets, which are just as fabulous as I'd hoped, and the tomato soup, which is the type of tomato soup you'd get in a restaurant and say "this is why we go to restaurants - for tomato soup like this." But you're at home, so you just think "I am a genius," even though it's not your recipe. I still haven't made the autumn latkes - they'll happen this week.
More applesauce is on the stove, using last week's miscellaneous apples.

Ever-dwindling options

Even if I hadn't been anxious to get home to make my first-ever double-crust cherry pie (yes, I had to use canned and no, it wasn't pretty enough to photograph), I would have come home light-handed today. I couldn't even find any sweet potatoes!

I suppose this could make a nice soup:
2 lbs. German butterball potatoes
1 bag spinach
2 bunches kale
2 yellow onions
1 box mixed red clover and mung bean sprouts
4 pears
Total spent: $22

Also, I forgot carrots. No big plans for this tiny haul (kale and sprouts for smoothies), though the pears are a bit newsworthy. I bought them because my photo assistant likes them, though I don't, and it seems like having fruit variety is good when possible (which it barely is at this point in the season). Well, we cut one up and had it with brunch (homemade veggie biscuits and gravy!), and...I kinda liked it. I'm used to pears being mealy and weird, but this one (from Terhune Orchards, of course) was crisp, juicy, and sweet. So maybe I like pears now. Don't tell my mom.

Apples, celebs: just another day at USG

Maybe winter's not so bad - the photo makes today's haul look almost...appetizing!

My hearty cold-weather cornucopia:
2 bags spinach
1/2 lb. Swiss chard
1 bunch curly kale
4 large beets
1 1/2 lbs. Carola potatoes
2 lbs. carrots
1 bunch celery
1 buttercup squash
Total spent: $35

The greenmarket today was a sea of apples - even the usually reliable Migliorelli Farm had little more than apples - but I managed to find some good-looking (but pricey) greens. I don't like the texture of curly kale, but I'm going to use it for smoothies, so it shouldn't matter. The other greens will be sauteed or steamed, per usual, I'll roast the squash, and the beets will go into borscht.

But the most exciting part of the greenmarket today was when I met celebrity picklemaker Rick from Rick's Picks, and got to talk to him and his coworker Allison about how much I love their beets. They were really friendly! I also bought a jar of whole dill pickles, and I've eaten about half of them already...I think I'm going to try to make ersatz pickled carrots with the brine after they're gone, per a tip on the Rick's website. We'll see how that works out.

At the moment I have (last week's) apples on the stove for applesauce. No big recipe plans this week other than borscht; tonight I may make colcannon with a side of veggie sausage and steamed carrots, or maybe oven-baked sweet potato fries with sausage and greens - cozy winter foods, as it's just around freezing out.

Ah, sweet relief

Though Monday's Greenmarket pickings were verrrrry slim, I was so glad to be back that I barely noticed. I picked up some apples, spinach, baby bok choy, sweet potatoes, carrots, and butternut squash - nothing spectacular - but I'm very much looking forward to the spinach-and-veggie-sausage omelet with oven-roasted on sweet potatoes I'm planning to make tonight. And of course the apples are already simmering away for applesauce. California was great, but being home in my own kitchen is just lovely. And my Vita-Mix arrives Wednesday!!!

Winter is awesome

I take back what I said about winter. It's 60 degrees here, and I got a Vita-Mix for Xmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this my kitchen or Cute Overload??

These nested ceramic duckie measuring cups from Amanda are too cute to be real - but they are! They are probably too cute to use for measuring on a regular basis due to my own clumsiness, but I have visions of serving some sort of small, adorable dessert in them. (The cowboy in the photo to the right is my nephew.)

In other news, I'm going to California on Saturday for the holidays, so I will be out of commission for awhile.

Also, it is cold, my lips are chapped, and my nose is running all the time. Stupid winter.

Items

Re: the messiness of latkes (and the fact that my hair and my apartment both still smell like fried potato), Amanda put it well. "There are some things that are best just eaten at restaurants," she said. Though the latkes were delicious, they were an epic hassle to make and clean up after.

Re: my own burgeoning yuppiness - I wasn't quite so sure of it until I just got giddy after placing an order with Penzeys, and even expedited the shipping so it would definitely arrive before I leave for the holidays. Though I suppose using the phrase "butter-soft Catskills merino" in yesterday's post might be a clue as well.

Re: winter and its effect on my diet, it is getting difficult to get excited about more squash, more carrots, and more spinach. I have been trying to compensate for that by making too many rich dinners and too many sweet desserts, but now I just feel a bit blobby. Though I think my new favorite food, brussels sprouts with brown butter, would be okay for two meals a day, every day, I doubt anyone else would agree.

Look at these tomatoes!

Quite a pair, aren't they? (But seriously, these colors are outrageous. Just outrageous.)

I only bought enough to last through Wednesday:
1 bunch kale
1 bunch chard
1/4 lb. sorrel
4 zucchini
1 bunch celery
1 bunch Italian parsley
4 heirloom tomatoes (Striped German, Green Zebra, and another one)
1 pint black cherry tomatoes
1 pint blueberries
1 pint strawberries
1.5 lbs. peaches
2 lbs. nectarines
Total spent: $38

The blueberries aren't for me - they're for my blueberry-loving mother, who is coming to visit for a couple of days before she and I fly to the UK for a walking tour of the Lake District. I'm not sure why I don't like blueberries...could be early exposure to overly sweet faux-blueberry flavor...but they don't do it for me. Also in preparation for Mom's visit, I stocked up on peaches and nectarines: my love for fresh fruit is clearly inherited.

This week's was primarily a maintenance trip, just getting the basics, as I don't have much time for creativity in these last few days before my trip. Last week I stayed at the office until 8 p.m. almost every day, and went in on my Wednesday off...though there was that marvelous long weekend, which I spent poolside in the sunshine.

I'm looking forward to adding the sorrel into a pasta salad for lunch one day, because I think the sourness will add interest to the regular "greens, zucchini, white beans, pasta, tomatoes, olives" lineup (which is admittedly quite delicious).

Tonight, we'll have a salad of these gorgeous heirloom tomatoes along with plenty of Italian parsley, salt, pepper, and olive oil. The main dish will be sauteed chard with Tofurkey sausage and cheese grits on the side.

Unfortunately, my trip is timed so that I'll miss a lot of late-summer bounty; I'm afraid fall will have arrived by emphasis by my next greenmarket trip, which won't be until September 29. I hope there will still be fresh hull beans for me to try by then (I've seen more and more of them lately); at that point, I will probably be resigned to apples and I can start making applesauce. We'll see. I may still fight it.

Love hurts

It seems that the cherry season this year has been terribly short; it seems like only a week or two ago I was enjoying my first summertime cherries, and now they're already obviously on the wane. Strawberries disappeared all at once, but cherries are slowly fading - fewer USG vendors this week than last, and fewer next week, and soon they'll be totally gone, along with sugar snap peas, which are also past their prime. I feel winter creeping into my bones already!...and yet, it's mid-July.

Today's nevertheless-lovely harvest:

1 lb. cherries
1/2 lb. apricots
1/2 lb. plums (little purple ones, not sure what variety)
4 peaches
1 lb. sugar snap peas
1 1/2 lbs. green and yellow beans
1 lb. shell peas
1 bunch rainbow chard
3 zucchini
2 cousa squash
5 ears bicolor corn
1 pint orange heirloom cherry tomatoes
Total spent: $42

The tomatoes are delicious - as my photo assistant said while enjoying them with goat cheese, salt, and pepper, they're "outrageous" - and the little cherry tomato size is somehow less intimidating than the big ones, which I'm afraid will go bad before I can use them. The tinies are easy to snack on during every trip to the kitchen, which is good since I won't refrigerate them and they'll only last a couple of days in our hot lair.

Corn on the cob is quite a good consolation for the loss of earlier-summer crops - it's getting sweeter every week. There are already two husked ears in the steamer for dinner tonight, along with my favorite cherry tomato preparation, named above, and some squash and tofu sauteed together with garlic and spices, over rice.

I couldn't resist the green and yellow beans; I bought them from the same organic vendor I got them from last week, and they were delicious, and so versatile. They'll be blanched and served cold and salted in lunches, chopped into 1" pieces and added to pasta salads, stir-fried, and probably other ways I haven't imagined yet.

My fingers are crossed that the peaches will turn out better than the last ones I had; these are from the orchard I bought most of my peaches from last year, so I'm hoping they'll be as flavorful. I've already tasted a few of the plums and I'm experiencing my usual "blah" feeling about them; perhaps the Shiro and green gage varieties will be more to my liking, as they were last year.

I also bought some non-produce: goat cheese from Lynnhaven Farm (wonderful!), and fantastic basil pesto from an herb vendor. It's the second time I've bought the pesto - you get about 1 cup for $5, which lasts through lots of pasta salad servings - and it's really wonderful. I haven't made my own because I don't have a food processor... and I'm happy to buy it from the cute young couple who run the herb stand.

This morning I went to the USG about half an hour earlier than usual, as I had to get home early to go to the Sunburn Siren Festival, and it seemed more crowded than when I'm normally there. I wonder if there are more people who show up for the market's 8 a.m. opening than are there at around 9:30 or 10...before it gets crazily-crowded with regular folks around 11 or noon. I'm thinking of trying to get there when it opens one of these Saturdays, to see if I can get it on any extremely special, sells-out-immediately, produce...or perhaps that's a myth?

Chili!

Though I never disguise my feelings about winter, my recent lingering cold/flu hybrid (newest development: lost voice!) has lately sharpened my denunciations of this terrible season. What is there to like? Winter is life without its best parts: get up, go to work, pay your credit card bills, clean the catbox, etc., without consolations like sunshine, fresh berries, spending the morning at the greenmarket, riding bikes, walking around the city, picnics in the park, etc. Instead, I've been huddling under my light-therapy lamp, drinking ginger tea and eating the same veggies every day (all from the grocery, none local: spinach, green beans, carrots), totally uninspired and demoralized.

However, I will grant winter one (and only one) advantage over other seasons: winter is the best time of year to make chili, and chili is one of the very best foods. Though its spiciness might make it seem appropriate for warmer seasons, it's far too hearty and cooked too slowly to fit anytime better than a winter's evening when conditions make leaving the house impossible; the three or so hours of cook time a pot of chili wants are best passed with a cozy occupation such as reading curled up on the sofa, enjoying the lovely smells as they overtake the house.

One such pot of chili is bubbling away on my stove at this moment; I'm debating whether to add some diced zucchini for the last few minutes of cooking, to add vegetable value...but regardless, here's the recipe. As chili is always different depending on what peppers and beans are available/everyone's favorites, I'm providing the recipe I used this time around, which is turning out quite well, and is on the spicy side.

Three-bean winter chili (makes about 8 servings)
3 poblano peppers
2 anaheim peppers
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3-4 jalapeno peppers, diced finely
6 medium cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. oregano (dried)
2 (28-oz.) cans diced tomatoes, drained, with liquid reserved
2 (15.5-oz) cans black beans, drained
2 (15.5-oz) cans red kidney beans, drained
2 (15.5-oz) cans pinto beans, drained

Roast poblano and anaheim peppers under the broiler (or over a gas flame); remove skins and dice when cool (this can be done far ahead of time; cooled, peeled peppers can be refrigerated for up to two days or so). Add olive oil to a big, heavy pot over medium-low heat (an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven is ideal); when hot, add onions and cook, stirring, until almost softened, about 10 minutes. Add jalapenos, and continue cooking, stirring, until onions are soft and peppers are beginning to soften, about 5 more minutes. Add garlic, cumin, and oregano, stir well, and cook until aromatic, about a minute. Add tomatoes roasted diced peppers, and beans, and stir until well-combined. Cover pan and let simmer, stirring every ten minutes or so, for about an hour (the longer, the better!), adding liquid from tomatoes if chili becomes too dry (this isn't very likely). Taste chili and adjust seasonings if needed; every time you adjust seasonings, stir chili and let it simmer, covered, for ten minutes. At this point, the chili will be very liquid; remove cover halfway and cook, uncovered, until chili has reached desired thickness, about another hour.

Serve in bowls with a dollop of sour cream, crumbled cheddar cheese, and/or cornbread. Leftovers should be frozen; they'll taste even better when you heat them up.

USG: Not-quite-futile pursuit of spinach

The first Greenmarket of the New Year was dismally sparse, and I imagine that's how things will remain for the next few months. I left without peppers, sweet potatoes, celeriac, and came close to leaving without spinach, until I splurged and spent $8 on 1/2 lb. of biodynamic/organic/greenhouse/fancy baby spinach leaves. But in my family, 1/2 lb. is about one meal's worth of spinach. Sigh.

Happy New Year:
1 bunch celery
2 lbs. carrots
1 acorn squash
1 bag shallots
2 yellow onions
1/2 lb. baby spinach
1 lb. Loratte fingerling potatoes
8 lbs. apples (Mutsu, Winesap, Fuji)
Total spent: $33

Everything here is pretty self-explanatory, I guess. I also bought a bag of yellow cornmeal for my first stab at polenta, which I'll serve with the spinach, white beans, and maybe some sun-dried tomatoes; the potatoes I'll probably roast for a potato salad with goat cheese, and perhaps I'll throw in some green beans. The Mutsu apples (which I was so relieved to see are still available) will be applesauce, and the rest I'll slice for lunches. And the carrots I don't eat raw will end up in a puree along with the acorn squash...or just roasted in the oven, if I get lazy.

Offerings aren't too inspiring, but it is winter (despite what the weather tells us). I am going to have to start getting my veggies from far-off locales via the grocery store, but I'm trying to stave that off as long as possible. But green beans, zucchini, and spinach are such staples that I just don't think I'll be able to last that much longer. Maybe next week I can make do with bok choy and mache, but...how long will they last?

Ha!

I guess winter isn't so bad when you have applesauce cooking on the stove...
Went to the Monday greenmarket and got a pound of spinach, two heads of garlic, and eight pounds of apples to tide us over. All the apples (in two pots) are going into the applesauce - it goes quickly around here.