Winter squash is one of my most favorite foods. I love this time of year. This photo makes me drool. It was taken by FruitGuys’ buyer Rebecca at The National Heirloom Exposition. I can’t wait to stock up on my favorites this fall.
Sep 302011
Sep 292011
Last week and this week, we took vacation from Fresh Fork since I was in Hawaii last week and this week I’m in Maryland. We already used some of our credit from last week and next week, we’ll use the rest of our credit.
I still wanted to capture what the shares looked like.
Week 17
Small CSA:
- 1 whole pasture raised chicken
- 3 lbs. sweet potatoes
- 1 bulb hardneck garlic
- 2 lbs. concord grapes
- 6 ears sweet corn
- 1 lb. green beans
- 1 sleeve leaf lettuce
Week 18
Small CSA:
- 1 lb. ground Italian sausage
- 1 large pizza dough shell, rolled in a ball and frozen
- 1 bag of heirloom corn chips
- 1 16 oz. jar of Blaze Gourmet salsa
- Approx. 1.5 lb. onions (about 2 medium candy onions)
- Approx. 2 lbs. tomatoes for making sauce
- 2-3 hot banana peppers
There’s never a good week to be on vacation, but at least I’m not missing any winter squash.
On Saturday, September 24th, I visited the Byodo-in Temple with my sister Holly. We paid $3 each to enter the memorial park. The structure is a non-denominational Buddhist temple and is located near the Ko’olau Mountains. It’s amazing that it was built without nails. You can read all about its history at their site.
Here are a few photos:
The entrance.
The temple.
View from the temple.
Bell to ring for good luck before entering (and after making a donation).
Buddha shrine.
Lyn at the temple.
Holly at the temple.
The United States of America flag with the Hawaii state flag below along with mountains in the background.
It was a peaceful stop on our way to the North Shore. Thanks to my friend Shayna for suggesting it.
Sep 272011
HI! I’m back from Hawaii and I am leaving for Maryland in the morning. It’s such a busy time of year.
Here’s a group shot of this week’s pick up – minus the apples. I forgot them in the group photo.
Apples
Turnip greens, rhubarb (don’t eat leaves if you have any)
Bell peppers, tomatoes
Swiss chard, lettuce (2 different kinds)
Onions, yummy orange peppers
Green beans, garlic
Radishes with tops, potatoes
The garlic, onions and potatoes will store while I am gone. My husband will hopefully use the greens, beans, radishes while the kids and I are gone. I’m taking the apples and peppers with me. I’m freezing the rhubarb and tomatoes. We’ll be back to normal next week.
Sep 262011
On Tuesday, my first full day in Hawaii, I went to see Pearl Harbor. It was a solemn trip and totally worth it. The new visitor center and displays are well done.
This was my view as I debarked from the city bus. It was the easiest way to get here from my hotel.
Once I arrived at the visitor’s area, I received a ticket for the 8AM theatre presentation.
While I waited for my presentation time, I walked around the monuments.
I also looked at the Bowfin submarine from the outside. The whole area was rather park like.
This is a photo of the text from a letter sent from President Roosevelt to Emperor Hirohito of Japan on December 6th, 1941. You can read the text here. It really struck a chord with me.
The USS Arizona sunk in 9 minutes. It burned for over 2 days. After a short film, I took a Navy boat over to the memorial.
You can see some of the ship still above the water. Some of the ship is visible just under the water.
The memorial is an open building that sit above the sunken ship.
A US flag flies over the memorial. Here’s a view from the boat as we head back to the visitor’s center area.
I can’t imagine going to Oahu without going to Pearl Harbor. It’s such a huge part of our history. I’m glad that this visit was early in my trip so I could spend time enjoying some of the more positive aspects of the island.
Sep 252011
I’m back from Hawaii. I arrived at Hopkins around 2:45PM and drove to the RIPE Fest at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens to meet up with Stephen, Nick and Sally.
The kids look like they each grow an inch or two while I was gone. They still love the fountain.
Both of them were were very interested in the map.
We saw some nice autumn displays. They kids played in the farm themed bounce house.
They each made a pot and planted some lettuce.
The kids also enjoyed driving these tractors around the path.
We didn’t arrive to the festival until about 4PM. For me, the highlight was seeing Velvet View Farmstead Yogurt sampling their yogurt. We’ve been getting it from the Fresh Fork CSA and love it. It was nice to stock up.
While we were at the festival, we enjoyed an apple caramel crepe as an appetizer. We also had grass fed cheese burgers with a milk shake for dinner.
The festival also included music and some other vendors. There was also some programming. All in all it was much smaller than last year. Many vendors also tore down early which was frustrating. We still managed to stay busy until almost 7PM before we headed home. It was good to finally make it to our house. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.
I’ll have many posts about Hawaii coming up in the near future!
Sep 242011
Last week, we went to Eddy Fruit Farm to pick grapes, apples and plums. The grapes were seedless, sweet reliance grapes. Turns out that they are seedless, but they don’t have a good texture for snacking. Stephen, the kids, and I didn’t care for them. I decided that I would make jelly. I had ordered jelly bags on line. I ordered way too many. They were only $1.49 per pack, but I bought 5 packs. It turns out they are reusable. I had no idea.
I started out cooking the grapes with a little water on the stove. I cooked them until they were really soft and then I ran them through my manual food mill. The grapes are not recommended for the Kitchen Aid mixer food mill. Since I only had 2 pounds of grapes, it wasn’t going to make a difference.
After I ran them through the mill, I poured them in a jelly bag that conveniently fit over a pitcher. Sorry, I didn’t think to take actual grape photos.
After it strained, I tried the juice. It was so good that I never went to the next steps for jelly and just drink the juice. Grapes were 90 cents a pound. It took 2 pounds of grapes to make a nice size glass of juice. I don’t think I would make it often, but it would be good once a season.
Sep 232011
Tomorrow is the Akron Marathon. My husband Stephen will be running the half marathon. He’s in training to run a full marathon in November. I suspect he’ll do great at 13.1 miles. Good luck!
My good friend Lisa, is also running. She’s going to run her first FULL MARATHON! That’s 26.2 miles. She’s trained and done all of her homework. She’s going to ROCK the race! You’ll do great Lisa.
I’ll be thinking of you both as well as the other runners!
Aloha!
The dishes! We have 4 people living in our house. We don’t have a dishwasher and we don’t have a good place to add one. When you are preserving – using canners, strainers, food mills, crock pots etc., you dirty lots of dishes. I actually don’t hate the dishes that much, but I really hate the drying! I usually spread them out as much as possible so they can dry naturally while I do other things. After I overflowed our drying rack, I spread out a bath sized towel on our kitchen table for the rest. I was sure glad when everything was dry and put away. I won’t be doing dishes this week in Hawaii and I’m happy about it!
Sep 212011
On Labor Day, my friend Sherry shared her kitchen and canning talents by helping me can 100 pounds worth of tomatoes into sauce. I had purchased the tomatoes from Ridgeview Farm. I had 40 pounds of tomatoes already juiced when I arrived at 8AM and quickly got to work on juicing the other 60 pounds.
Soon enough, we had sauce simmering on the stove and in the oven.
When we ran out of room inside, we added the turkey fryer outside. This huge pot on a burner worked great!
After a few hours of work, it was time to fill the jars and use the pressure canner. I really enjoyed learning how to use the pressure canner since I usually do water bath canning.
By 5PM, we had canned almost 9 gallons worth of tomato sauce. Some of it is seasoned with herbs and some is plain. I plan to use some for ketchup and BBQ sauce throughout the year, in addition to pasta sauce.
My pantry is fairly stocked with tomato sauce now. Next year, I plan to branch out to canning diced tomatoes in addition to sauce.