Wart a dilly!

I've never really understood this pun from Chicken Trek. It's one of the many pickle-themed taunts yelled at Oscar and his cousin Dr. Peter Pretchwinkle as they cross the country in the Picklemobile (which, to be exact, is actually at that point called the RemDem (tm), though its pickley appearance is really all that's relevant here).

Regardless, the phrase always pops up when I think of dilly beans. For these, I was inspired by a recipe I found on this Gardenweb thread. I used about 2 lbs. snap beans, dill, serrano peppers, slightly bruised garlic cloves, a half-and-half water and apple cider vinegar mixture, and kosher salt. Everything went smoothly, though I panicked a bit when it was time to remove the air bubbles, since I didn't know how - turns out it's easy enough to do with a rubber spatula. All the lids have popped and gone concave, which seems like a good sign. Also they are cute!

Also I made granola, which turned out fine, though next time I'll use fewer sesame seeds. I also attempted to make seitan, which was a total failure: I guess blithely ignoring the fact that the recipe calls for bread flour wasn't such a good idea. But batting .667 isn't bad for a Tuesday.

A tough day redeemed by berries and dinner

This morning I was tired and listless at the Union Square greenmarket. After wandering back and forth three or four times, aimlessly picking up something here and there (sometimes visiting the same vendor multiple times), I realized I just needed to be home.

Luckily I managed to get a reasonable amount of food, despite my haziness; however, it took me so long to wend my way to the Fantasy Fruit stand, they had sold out of Tristar strawberries by the time I arrived. I was so close to the end of my rope I almost cried - now I know why my intuition has always sent me to their stand first.

But when I got home and started eating the delicate heritage raspberries and spectacular blackberries I bought from Terhune Orchards, I felt a lot better. There will be more strawberries next week!

I don't remember buying half this stuff:
1 pt. blackberries
1 pt. raspberries
2 lbs. peaches
1 lb. apricots
2 lbs. lady apples
2 ears bicolor corn
1 bunch collard greens
1 bunch Swiss chard
1 stalk celery
1 bunch carrots
2 lbs. green beans
2 lbs. zucchini
2 heads Rocambole garlic
Total spent: $50

Since it was ungodly hot today, I had to work up to the idea of making dinner for a couple of hours, and decided on stir-fry, with the vegetables cut into thin strips. This has the hot-weather advantage of quicker cooking than larger pieces, and, even better, I got extra knife skills practice.

For two people, I French-cut about 1/2 lb. green beans (French-cutting green beans is so hard!!), cut 2 medium-sized carrots into matchsticks, and chiffonaded 6 big Swiss chard leaves. I also pan-fried about 1/3 block of tofu, pressed briefly and cubed. I threw the carrots and beans in, then once they were almost ready, added a twince more oil and tossed in the garlic and chard, then added the tofu once the chard was almost wilted, just to heat it back up. We had this with my favorite grain, short-grain brown rice. Why is it so good? All other forms of brown rice are dead to me.

We also had the corn, steamed, to start, with butter, salt, and smoked Spanish paprika. I like bicolor corn, but regular yellow is much sweeter - I hope it shows up at the market soon. And of course, dessert will be more fresh berries!

Speaking of berries, I desperately need to get on the canning wagon. I had planned for Tuesday, but the photo assistant and I are going to see The Dark Knight instead. Next Saturday, then, I will be making my first batch of jam. I can't let another summer's bounty get away from me...and as I have an offer open to practice with peaches from a friend's family's tree, I have to hold up my end of the bargain and figure out how to do it, stat.

(Photo is not mine! It is from futurowoman's Flickr photostream)

An exciting and impractical morning

What a morning! I miraculously awoke at 6:32, even though I'd forgotten to turn on the alarm I'd set for 6:30. I got up even earlier than usual so I could get to the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket at 8:30 for a meeting about an exciting internship (more on this later so I don't jinx it), then to USG for shopping. I bought shell peas twice, once because I planned it, and once on impulse when I tasted sweeter ones elsewhere. It was that kind of morning.


Yes, I have an expensive fruit habit:
2 pints Tristar strawberries
1 pint blueberries
1 pint raspberries
1 1/4 lbs. cherries
3 lbs. zucchini
2 lbs. shelling peas
1 lb. sugar snap peas
1 bag spinach
1 bunch spring onions
1 bunch carrots
Total spent: $57

I had a nice NYC moment today, during my convoluted subway trip (turns out I made the wrong call about how to get to Grand Army Plaza and back). A very nice woman asked me if I knew how to get to the Cloisters. "I've been there, but I'm not sure I remember," I replied, and racked my brain to recall the subway stop. After the not-so-helpful "it's somewhere above 180th, and you take a bus to Fort Tryon Park, I think" and multiple attempts to find secret clues by staring at the subway map, I had all but given up.

But! Miracle of miracles! When the memory part of your brain has been eroded by too-late-diagnosed ADHD, and you therefore have the short-term memory of a newborn bunny rabbit, you come up with coping mechanisms like writing down in a little black notebook any information you may need to know more than five seconds in the future. And so, luckily for my new friend, I found all transportation and contact information for the Cloisters in said notebook, to her delight and amazement. And we could be heroes, just for one day.

Clearly, I bought a ton of fruit this week - including blueberries which I don't even really like! - because I just can't get enough. It's only going to get worse when peaches and apricots come into season...but of course, I can't wait. Thank goodness I just got a raise! My photo assistant is currently giving up refined sugar, so I'm using that as an excuse to be even more lavish than usual with my fruit purchases - but I'm still eating the lion's share of the fruit (just like with everything).

We're having a friend over for dinner on Monday, and I think I'm going to make a risotto with the spring onions, spinach, and peas, serving veggie sausage and broiled zucchini on the side; I'll start with an olive and pickle plate featuring my new favorite, Rick's Picks Mean Beans. Dessert will be fresh berries, that is of course if we've got any left.

I like it because the vegetables go to the party

Who needs money when you've got fresh fruit?

It was an overcast morning; I am in madcap desperation to eke the remaining joy out of summer; hence today's wild fruit spending spree.

Oh, the aching joy of shoulders:
1 pt. strawberries
1 box blackberries
1 box raspberries
3 lbs. white peaches
1.5 lbs. yellow peaches
2 lbs. nectarines
1 little watermelon
4 heirloom tomatoes
1 pt. sungold tomatoes
1 lb. spinach
1 bunch kale
4 big zucchini
1 head celery
1 bunch carrots
5 ears corn
Total spent: $55

Last week's seemingly-successful peach-freezing experiment means I'm going to try to repeat it until peaches are gone and I have a month or so worth of frozen lovelies for my smoothies. I'll be freezing most of the white Terhune Orchards peaches; the other peaches, nectarines, and berries are all going toward satisfying my apparently-endless appetite for fresh fruit.

Reading over answers to this Serious Eats thread, I realized that I couldn't think of a fruit I like that I wouldn't love to eat every day for the rest of my life, except maybe bananas. I can't imagine an occasion when the answer to "does a perfectly ripe peach sound good right now?" would be "no." Even - or perhaps especially - after eating a peach, the idea of eating a peach always seems like a great, irresistible idea. The same goes for berries, ripe melons, or citrus.

We're all friends here, so why lie? - sometimes I have eaten so many delicious seasonal fruits that I have suffered gastrointestinal distress. Logic and moderation fail me at times like these. Last week's fruit was all gone by Wednesday, and while I'd like to imagine this massive haul will last longer, I have no reason to think s6 - this week's strawberries are so delicious that I doubt they'll be around much longer.

Otherwise, it was a pretty standard day at USG. Apples are taking up more real estate than last week; soon they'll be abundant. The only new vegetable I'd like to try are some of the fresh beans, but I want to know how to use them before buying, as there are several varieties I'm not familiar with. If fresh lima and cranberry beans are still around next week, I'll pick up some of both. Green beans are waning, and shell peas are finally completely gone.

The spinach this year has been less bountiful, but quite delicious - the leaves are very tender at this point in the season, and the flavor is delicate and fresh. I bought kale as well, because it's one of the only cruciferous vegetables my photo assistant will eat, and we need to get some of those every week, I think. Swiss chard may be tastier and packed with nutrition, but since broccoli is unacceptable around here, I'll have to choose kale, bok choy, and tatsoi more often than my dear chard.

No photos this morning because we have a band staying with us and there are too many boys in sleeping bags on my floor to set up a shoot, but later I'll try to get a photo of my cute watermelon once I open it up, as well as the entwined love carrots I found in my bunch last week. [UPDATE: Just found the watermelon photo on my camera and added it later to this post.]

Delicious stir-fry sauce; plum updates

Last night I was craving spicy green beans a la San Francisco's amazing House Of Nanking, so I improvised. Of course, they didn't hold a candle to the originals, but they were certainly salty, spicy, and delicious. They were so good that I wrote down the stir-fry sauce recipe for once:

Spicy garlicky stir-fry sauce for green beans (and tofu)
Enough for two green-bean-loving people

4 tbsp. vegetable broth
2-3 tbsp. tamari soy sauce
1-2 tsp. chili garlic sauce (I used about 2 and they were on fire!)
2 cloves garlic
about 1/2 tsp. cornstarch

Mix everything up in a little bowl with a fork. Start sauteeing your beans whole on medium-high, then add half the sauce when they're halfway done. Add the rest just when they're tender enough, and stir until everything's coated and sauce is thickened, about 5 seconds (seriously). Serve over LOTS of rice with many iced drinks on the side. You can also use this sauce for tofu, but you can figure out how to do that on your own.

In plum news, the lovely big Shiro plums were...well...still plums. I am afraid I'm doomed to disappointment by most plums. The combination of super-tart skin and extremely mild, sweet interior flesh is just not for me. I wish I could find the Green Gage plums from last year! Sigh.

Also, in only tangentially-related news (because they are only tangentially vegetables), Snapea Crisps are now available at Trader Joe's, which basically means all my meals are going to be spoiled by snacking from here on out.

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?

Too many guests, not enough time

We had multiple houseguests this weekend, which meant no room for photos on Saturday morning...and no time to describe the goods. However, here's a recap.

Monday evening, we had roasted winter vegetables, from guidelines I found on Recipezaar: butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and celeriac, all cut into 1"-ish cubes, drizzled with olive oil and tossed w/ salt and pepper. Accompanying were sauteed chard and pan-fried tofu. The vegetables turned out wonderful - and the celeriac was loved all around, so I'll have to get more next time. It was quite satisfying to peel off the hairy rooty outer layer and make a smoothly faceted orb.

Last night we had oven-roasted green beans with crispy, browned garlic slices and parmesan alongside our ravioli with tomato sauce; I'm so glad it's roasting season, so I can make my favorite green beans again! I roasted nearly two pounds, thinking we would have leftovers...but instead, we ate them all. For dessert, baked apples - I used the Mutsus, cored them, cut away a 1/2" strip around the middle to avoid splitting, rubbed the insides with cinnamon, stood them up in aluminum-foil cups in a baking dish, and filled the centers with brown sugar and a little butter.

Otherwise, we've had greenmarket baby lettuce salads for lunch, and greenmarket spinach everywhere possible...tomorrow night, I'll be trying out the Brussels sprouts recipe my friend Kris gave me, along with acorn squash, last week's tricolor fingerling potatoes, and some grain sausage.

More guests this weekend, but I'll try to do photos nonetheless.

Getting out of my USG rut

It sounds simple, but I started on the other end of the greenmarket today. Usually, by the time I slog my way through from the lower, southwestern corner, up to the bend, I've already got bagsful of produce - out of room, patience, and money. And it worked! I ended up finding lots of new apple varieties, and buying my "staples" from different vendors than usual, with the exception of peppers (I had a great conversation with the fellow at my usual pepper stand), shallots, and herbs.



My more-eclectic-than-usual take:
1 bunch fresh basil
1 bunch fresh oregano
6 apples, various types (among them Honeycrisp, Macintosh, Jonamac...)
3 peaches
2 purple plums
2 nectarines
4 shallots
2 heads Rocambole garlic
1 lb. green beans
1 bunch kale
3 Poblano peppers
3 Hatch chiles
5 jalapeno peppers
total spent: about $28

Three of the shallots, half a head of garlic, and most of the fresh herbs have already been simmering in my tomato sauce for a few hours, with unsurprisingly delicious results. (And I now know why most people don't use fresh oregano - after you've rinsed and dried what feels like 1000 little stalks, you have to pluck ten or so delicate, fuzzy leaves from each, then chop all of it somehow.)

Kale was a risk, but since I don't like Swiss chard, and spinach might poison me, I had to do something green and leafy. Luckily, Recipezaar provided a really great-sounding recipe for white beans and kale, so I'll try that one of these nights. The recipe couldn't get more wintry, unless it were served in a butternut squash bowl.

The green beans will have their usual fate - blanched, cold, for lunch snacks - and all the peppers will end up in a gigantic pot of black beans. I'll roast the Poblano and Hatch (as my pepper guy instructed), and probably won't use all the jalapenos, though they are little (and were 5 for $1).

Last week's early goldens weren't as crisp and sweet as before I went on vacation, so I eschewed them entirely in favor of a mixed bag of "crisp"-promising varieties. The Macintoshes I picked up last week were terrific (and I got a couple more this time around), though I feel a bit mainstream saying so.

Speaking of mainstream, I bought Kitchen Confidential today, and I'm devouring it, despite Bourdain being a semi-sexist vegetarian-hater. (I think he just hates vegetarians who are irritating about it when they're at restaurants. But who doesn't?)

How can I miss you if you don't go away?

Back to the dear, dear USG today after weeks of questionable eating. But while in Cali, I had some really delicious strawberries and pluots (sexy hybrids like that never make it eastward, it seems), as well as all the ripe, buttery avocadoes I wanted, which was lots.


I came home with:
4 "Early Golden" apples
2 Macintosh apples
2 zucchini
1/2 lb. yellow snap beans
1 1/2 lb. green beans
3 peaches
1 lb. "Yellow Egg" plums
2 ears yellow corn
3 tomatoes
2 Poblano peppers
1 Anaheim chile
1 lb. fingerling potatoes
Total spent: about $30

The peppers will go in a pot of black beans, the tomato, corn, and zucchini will comprise another (late-)summer saute, and I'll roast the potatoes in the oven with olive oil and salt (as the sign over the bin recommended). I usually try to avoid the simple starches, but the potato vendor had so many beautiful varieties that I couldn't resist, and it was easy to choose fingerlings of the same size for even roasting.

I'll boil the green beans quickly with salt, and keep them cold for lunches, as a substitute for edamame (we eat quite enough soy in this family) - and, of course, the apples will be slices for lunch. The Early Goldens are absolutely my favorite - so crisp and sweet-tart! - so I hope they stay around for awhile...but I'm going to try a different variety also each week.

The plums were a total gamble - I have no idea what they'll be like, but their color was similar to my beloved Green Gage plums, so I went for it. You'd think my spotty plum history would advise caution in this type of decision, but I was still dizzy with joy at my return to the greenmarket when I hit the Red Jacket Orchards stand. The yellow snap beans were $6/lb., but I couldn't resist getting a few - and, once again, the boy who sold 'em to me was a bright-eyed cutie of about 22. What is it with snap beans and good-looking boys?

A beautiful day, darkened by eggplants

Today's USG trip was harrowing for two reasons: 1) I hadn't had any coffee; 2) the place was lousy with eggplants, ranging in color from deep purple to pure white. Now, eggplants are lovely, I will admit, but I absolutely loathe them. Bell peppers, another non-favorite, are also very much in season, and mocked me alongside their eggplant brothers from every vendor's stall. The coffee problem made me impatient, so I didn't go out on any limbs (unless you count the sorrel, which I have no ideas for) - though I did go a little overboard. Since all I feel like doing lately is eating, that should work out just fine.



My shoulders hurt from carrying all this:
1 lb. shell peas
1 lb. green string beans
3 heirloom tomatoes
4 zucchini (2 green, 2 yellow)
2 poblano peppers
2 jalapeno peppers
1 bunch sorrel
4 ears sweet white corn
5 peaches
1 lb. apricots
2 Golden Delicious apples
2 Tydeman apples
total spent: $35

The shell peas were a great surprise, as nobody's had any for the last few weeks. I think I'll whip up a new version of my "summer veggie saute" using peas, corn, and zucchini. Since I'm not savvy when it comes to cooking peas, I'll probably blanch them first, then add them to the saute right before adding the corn, to make sure they get cooked but not dried out. The super-sweet bicolor corn was not available, but my usual corn vendor assured me that both his white and yellow varieties are quite sweet, so I chose white for how it will look in the pan.

Last week's black beans were missing something, and, though I included three roasted poblanos, I think that missing something was jalapenos. This week, I'll use both. (I also think the Trader Joe's organic black beans I bought were especially tough - back to Goya for me!)

The green beans I'm planning to boil for a couple of minutes in salted water, then keep them, cold, in the refrigerator, for lunches and snacks. Last week, I boiled some yellow string beans for dinner and forgot to serve them, so I had them cold the next day as a snack at work, and they were delicious. I'm hoping to repeat this with green beans while they're still sweet enough, as an alternative to carrot sticks (which certain members of this family refuse to eat).

The Tydeman apples are quite good, especially with (gasp!) a slice of good cheddar cheese. Otherwise, the apricots and peaches are from the same places as last week's. The Red Jacket Orchards folks, where I get my apricots, also had a golden variety this week, but after learning they're sweeter than the tiny ones I've been getting, I stuck with the usual, which are sweet enough for me. And I was almost tempted into plums again, at the place where I bought the peaches and apples - they had some beautiful tiny, purple ones - but I held off. Next week, I'll get nectarines and red plums, to keep things interesting.

8:30 a.m. - The Opposite Of Hallelujah

After forcing myself to wake up at 8:30 after being out 'til 2 at the Jens Lekman show, and 1.5 hours of travel time (due to multiple unexpected train changes), I arrived at the Union Square Greenmarket a bit sweaty and worse for wear. Luckily, I encountered strawberries and more compensations immediately, and couldn't regret the trip (or the sleep deprivation) one bit. Also, I would pretty much go to hell and back for Jens. (I think the coffee probably helped, too.)


The takings:
5 ears bicolor corn (for a barbecue tonight)
1 pint strawberries
1 lb. cherries
3/4 lb. tricolor snap beans
3/4 lb. tiny Yukon Gold potatoes
1/3 lb. salad mix
1 lb. shell peas
5 yellow peaches
3 Shiro plums
Total spent: $25-$30 (I stopped counting)

Forgive the photo background - my photo assistant was out of town. After photos and eating all the cherries and strawberries that didn't fit in my tupperware, I proceeded to make what will go down in history as the Greatest Lunch Ever, which was a bay shrimp-stuffed salmon fillet from Trader Joe's with oven-roasted green beans and Yukon Golds.

The green beans were from last week, and turned out perfect: I left them whole, blanched them for about 30 seconds, then, after they were completely cooled by cold water, tossed them with a little olive oil and sea salt, and roasted them in a 375-degree oven for 10 minutes, turning once. Similarly, the potatoes turned out divine - I cut the little guys in half, tossed with olive oil and salt, and roasted them along with my fish for 25 minutes. They were creamy and full of potato flavor, which is a weird thing to imagine until you taste it.

Very excited about the tricolor snap beans. The cute boy at the produce stand thrust a yellow bean into my hand, which I munched obediently - the beans are sweet enough to be delicious raw. I think a blanch and quick saute in some olive oil will take them to new heights. Meanwhile, I'm guessing produce boy has no trouble with the ladies.

The shell peas I bought for a recipe, but I've never had freshly shelled peas before, so I might prepare them simply - braised or sauteed in a little butter.

Strawberries felt like another miracle (especially given my rough morning). And unfortunately, I found out from a grower that the cherry season is on its way out, as well. There were certainly fewer cherry vendors this week than there have been for the last month or so, but I hope they'll last at least another week or two...I'm not ready to give up having fresh cherries whenever I want them!

Now reading: What To Eat by Marion Nestle. This was recommended by a friend, and is a clear, unromantic look at supermarket food offerings - from the health/political/environmental benefits of organic vs. locally-grown vs. conventional produce, to an explanation of what trans-fats actually are, to investigating the different sides of the health claims made for soy products, it's been quite educational thus far, and her writing style is compelling. Though her initial conclusion - that the best thing you can do for your health is eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise, and that successful weight loss/maintenance is based on calore consumption, are not revolutionary, they're certainly easily obscured by the marketing arms of the food industries she discusses.

Basil plant update: The remaining plant looks to be thriving, with lost of new little leaves, though an alarming yellowness is showing up near the roots of the plant. I've got to start cooking with basil pretty soon - there are some big leaves up top that need trimming.