Category Archives: Food

Over the weekend and in the works

I have a decent bit to share, but there’s that whole “time to write” thing.  My time promises to be even more crunched this week (physical therapy, no Mrs. L on Tuesday = one extra day with Gabriel, then spending over half of Wednesday at the Gateway Bike Plan Workshop), so here’s quick recap and preview of coming events!

Over the weekend
Matthew and I celebrated our 5th anniversary with a dinner date at Pastaria, followed by dancing at Casa Loma Ballroom.

It was our first visit to Pastaria — it lacked the ambiance for a romantic anniversary dinner, but we enjoyed our meal, nonetheless.  We ordered a ridiculous quantity of food: risotto ball appetizer, large kale salad, pistachio ravioli, butternut squash and sage pizza, and a side of roasted brussels.  We could have easily fed a third adult and maybe Gabriel, too!

The food was good, but too salty (Matthew’s currently reading Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us).  Though I could have done with less salt, I really liked the kale salad.  I’ve made raw kale salads before, but theirs was special.  I particularly enjoyed the crunch of the toasted breadcrumbs in their version.

Afterward, we headed to Casa Loma, where we did not dance nearly enough to make up for our huge dinner!  Casa Loma was a first for me.  It’s a special place because it’s where Matthew’s grandparents (married for over sixty years now!) first met.  I imagine we’ll return, though we may to brush up on our ballroom dance steps at home first.

Saturday was a typical Matthew and G at the garden, me getting stuff done around the apartment, day, though that won’t be the case for much longer, with the garden mostly put to bed for the winter.

Sunday morning, Matthew and Gabriel headed out to Cedar Hill, near where Matthew grew up, to visit a family friend and buy some dried beans and other assorted goodies from his friend’s farm.

In the afternoon, we attended our first local CyclingSavvy “Advanced” session in St. Louis, an informal gathering for CyclingSavvy StL grads to share experiences and trouble-shoot challenges as a group.  It was great to see familiar faces and meet some new people, and we had some good discussions.

In the works

  • Milling corn — trying a friend’s grain mill
  • Skillet cornbread
  • Vole trouble — pestilence in the garden
  • Third cup’s a charm?

Hope to get these written sooner rather than later, but we’ll see!

Foodie Friday

It’s been a bit light on the food posts around here lately, but rest assured that it’s not for a lack of garden produce to harvest, cook/process, and consume.

Apples
Like last year, we bought a bushel of organic apples from Blue Heron Orchard.  Unlike last year, we didn’t drive to northeast Missouri to get them.  Rather, we ordered ahead of time and picked up the boxes when Dan was at the Schlafly (AKA Maplewood) Farmers Market — super convenient.  So far, we’ve mostly been enjoying them fresh, but we’ve also dried two dehydrators-full for future enjoyment.

Last year, we experimented with dehydrating the apples with skins on and off and decided that we prefered the peeled version.  I prefer peeling apples with a knife rather than a vegetable peeler, but this leaves a decent amount of flesh on the peel, and I’m loathe to waste anything.

This year, I had the brilliant idea of cooking the apple peels, then putting them through the Foley food mill to make apple sauce.  Two whole apples (added to bulk up the quantity), plus who-knows-how-many apple peels yielded over a pint of very tasty applesauce.

I had good intentions of making and canning a big batch of apple sauce, but that hasn’t happened yet, and I’m not sure it will.  The remaining apples are in our “root cellar” by the front door, and Gabriel loves helping himself to a snack for the road.

Peppers
The early frost meant a sudden influx of peppers, most still green, that needed to be harvested before the frost.  It’s a bummer that more of these babies didn’t have a chance to fully ripen, but we’ll still enjoy them.

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I spent part of Saturday slicing and freezing two gallon-size bags of green peppers.   While [non-local] peppers are available in stores year-round, non-organic bell peppers are on the “dirty dozen” list, so it’s nice to have our own to add to chili and other dishes throughout the winter.

Tomatillos
After several attempts to use broiled (or grilled) chopped tomatillos in various dishes left me less-than-excited, I turned to the internet and discovered that most recipes call for pureeing them after cooking, and then using them as a sauce.

Inspired, I pureed and froze 8-10 cups of tomatillo sauce.  I saved a quart to use as enchilada sauce.  The dish turned out quite well, and I hope to share the recipe soon.

Curry leaves
I fell in love with curry leaves last summer when I swapped some of my garden produce for some of Nupur’s homemade Indian dishes.  She gave me a tiny cutting from her curry tree, but it failed to live through our Portland trip last fall.

I’ve had a hard time finding fresh curry leaves at the international grocers that are not too far out-of-the-way from my regular trips, so having our own potted tree would be ideal.  I finally scored some fresh leaves, and I’m attempting to root six little branches.

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I’ve managed to keep them alive for over two weeks now — grow, babies, grow!  If this works, maybe I’ll start a side business selling curry trees.

Greens
Finally, our greens consumption has dropped a bit, thanks to the good news that Matthew is no longer taking warfarin!  Not that I don’t enjoy kale and collards, but eating them every. single. day. did get a bit old.

Catching up

Where to start when one has been away for multiple days?

Recovery
After nine very blah days, I returned to [almost] full health in time to teach CyclingSavvy the first weekend in October.  For better or worse (perhaps better because my energy levels were still a bit low), the weather had other plans.

We made it through most of the “parking lot drill” portion of the class, including some low-speed drills on a freshly blacktopped parking lot that was quite slippery after a brief rain shower.  However, after two wet-pavement-related crashes (and with more storm clouds looming on the radar), we cancelled the afternoon road tour portion of the class.  I biked home, ate lunch, and passed out on the couch for two hours.

Found fruit
The following Monday, Gabriel and I visited a county park, where I just happened to come across some fresh persimmons.

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We snacked on some in the park (Sir is a fan), and I gathered a small bag for later consumption.  After painstakingly processing many of them into pulp, which later became persimmon custard, I’ve concluded that persimmons are best in small quantities, enjoyed raw, unless you have some sort of awesome way to separate the flesh from the seeds.

I originally thought our Foley food mill would serve well, but some places advised against it due to risk of scraping bits of seed into the final product.  So I removed hundreds of seeds by hand.  The custard is okay, “interesting” is a decent description — not bad, but probably not worth the trouble in the future.

By the time we encountered a persimmon tree right next to our campsite during this past weekend’s camping adventure (more on that in an upcoming post), I had had my fill of the fruit.

Biking
Having used the trailer recently and having decided that it’s workable, but not ideal, I’m back to having Gabriel in the front seat, trying to maximize the time we have to ride that way before he really and truly outgrows the thing (he’s still a few pounds under the 38-pound weight limit, but height-wise, his legs are already scrunched).

Last Friday morning, I turned what could have been tedious errands, if done by car, into a lovely 6-mile ride, stopping at a bakery, then making milk and [Schlafly pumpkin] beer runs.

This morning marked my first chilly weather ride.  By the time I left the house shortly after ten, I assumed my gloves and under-helmet hat would be overkill, but I brought them along just in case and quite happily donned them before my ride.  Nothing like some crisp, cool, fall riding!

Hunting for pawpaws

Several months ago, a friend shared a link to a website that maps fruit (and nut) trees in urban public spaces, i.e., an urban foraging map.  The concept kind-of boggled my mind.

If you knew the location of a great patch of raspberries, or a fabulous peach tree, why would you share that information with thousands of people on the internet?  I’m not sure about you, but the food hoarder in me says, “Sshhhh, don’t tell!”

I mean, even if the tree/bush/vines produced more than you could consume and preserve, why not share the information with a small, select group of people, ensuring that your source wouldn’t be overwhelmed?

Apparently some people don’t share my reservations, as they are sharing their spots for edible treasure at FallingFruit.org.

Anyhow, when I checked the map for nearby options, I discovered a marker for pawpaw trees, saying that the fruit ripened in early September.  We have a pair of pawpaw trees out at the garden, but they’re babies and won’t bear fruit for a few years.  Pawpaws are unreliably available at the farmers’ market, and you pay a premium.  Time to forage!

After double checking the map, and the description of the tree as “tropical looking” I headed out on my bicycle early Saturday morning.  I arrived in the indicated area, and spotted a tree that looked promising . . .

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. . .  or not.  Despite leaves that could possibly be described as “tropical looking,” I quickly determined that cone/fruit thing was not a pawpaw.  And yes, if I had a bit more tree identifying experience, I would have known right away that the tree in question was a magnolia.

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I did a bit of off-roading, circling the indicated area on my bike, looking for other likely subjects.  Finding none, I did a quick check of another section of the park, thinking perhaps the marker on the map was placed incorrectly.

That effort yielded this fruit, perhaps a walnut?  Or some other kind of nut?

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But still no pawpaws.  Were they just not there?  Had the trees not set fruit this year?  Had someone misidentified it?

I headed home at that point, wanting to beat the heat and more intense sun rays.  I would have been quite annoyed had I used the car and struck out, but, as it was, I got a nice bike ride out of the deal.

I reviewed the maps and website again for this post and realized that my exact foraging location was based on some kind of Google maps foraging tool, and not the map at Falling Fruit.  The FF map shows a slightly different location for the pawpaw trees — kind-of the same area, but different enough to be outside the area I searched, so now I’m debating a return trip.

Your Turn: What would you do with fruit foraging locations, share or keep it quiet?

Festival of Nations by bike

We spent Sunday morning in Tower Grove Park at the Festival of Nations.  Gabriel is three for three in attending the festival, having made it every summer since he was born (recap of last year’s event here).

We chose Sunday morning to avoid cutting into garden time on Saturday.  Matthew and I debated car vs. bikes for the trip — either way, we planned an early departure, to either get a good [car] parking spot or to have at least one leg of the bicycle trip be in somewhat cooler temps.

We were still debating on Sunday morning, when Gabriel’s new-found obsession with the car decided things for us.

Up until Saturday night, Gabriel’s experience with “driving” a car (i.e., sitting in the driver’s seat of a non-running motor vehicle and turning the steering wheel) had been limited to Baba’s vehicle.  After witnessing a couple of breakdowns when it was time for said activity to end, or when denied the privilege, I decided I would avoid the issue altogether by saying that only Mama and Dada could drive “Mama Dada ca” and limiting access to the front seat of our car.

Sir took this in stride.  Sure, he attempted to circumvent the rule now and then, but a reminder that it was “Mama Dada car” headed off any major issues.  Unfortunately, Dada didn’t know about this precedent.

Saturday night, after a long day at the garden, Matthew arrived home with Gabriel, and, after some tears, agreed to let Sir “drive” the car for five minutes while he unloaded the harvest.

Of course, Sir didn’t want to relinquish the driver’s seat after those five minutes, but he finally relented with out too much fuss.  However, he spent the rest of the evening looking out the window and asking for “ca,” while Mama shot dirty looks at Dada.

Sunday morning dawned, and someone had not forgotten about the “ca.”  Since Sir obviously needed a reminder about the other, more exciting transportation option, our decision was made — go by bike!

We pedaled to the park in pleasant mid-70 temperatures, though the day promised to be hot.  Arriving well ahead of the ten o’clock start time, we visited the playground to kill some time.

I should note that biking in the park ended up being tricky.  The northern road through the park, which is usually closed to motor vehicle traffic, and thus has plenty of room to accommodate two-way bicyclist and pedestrian traffic, was open to festival vendors.  We realized too late that we were in a suboptimal position, traveling the wrong way against the one-way, west bound flow of motor vehicle traffic, on a road made narrow with cars parked on both sides — accidental salmon!

Shortly after ten, we headed over to the Festival area, where we enjoyed almost having the place to ourselves for an hour.  Gabriel made a hat at the kids’ craft station, and we scoped out the food booths.

Before we settled on any food purchases, the sound of Irish dancing drew me to the main stage area.  We staked a quieter, shady spot with a decent view, and Matthew headed back to get some food.

We tried a couple of new items this year, including a flavorful Jamaican rice and vegetable combo and Burmese savory rice and spicy green beans.  The Jamaican won, although the green beans were also quite tasty.

We rounded things out with a veggie combo plate from the Eritrian booth, a favorite in past years that was disappointing this year, plus a couple of desserts, including a nice baklava (though our favorite from past years, the Iranian baklava, seems to be gone for good).

By that point, I was hot and tired, so we beat a rather hasty retreat, aided by our über-convenient bicycle parking.  We sailed down Arsenal and Kingshighway and were home quite quickly.

I’m glad we went, but I’m feeling a little burnt out on this event.  If my count is correct, I’ve been to the Festival seven of the past eight years.  Most of the food vendors offer similar items year-to-year, so between running out of new things to try, and old favorites disappearing or disappointing, the food is less of an attraction.  Add to that the end of August, almost-always really hot weather, and I have some serious temptation to sit this event out next year, or at least not prioritize attendance.