thoughtful consumption

Definitely an all fall haul this week. Note the absence of any summer stragglers. (And how about the absence of ugly wallpaper? We’re painting our kitchen this week… or this month… definitely this year… I think.)

• oyster mushrooms
• Chinese cabbage
• red peas
• butternut squash
• arugula
• lettuce
• eggs
• apples
• Carolina Gold rice
• mini-loaves!
• parsley

Mushrooms and parsley

I was eager to get another shot at the oyster mushrooms. Last month, I cooked some that had gone bad from too much moisture. (I think we all had a little too much moisture last month.)

So last night, I sauteed the mushrooms in olive oil with onion, white wine, garlic, and parsley. We ate them with rice, cooked cabbage, and sweet potatoes.

The mushrooms were delicious! Very tender and flavorful.

The parsley is really nice, too. It’s a beautiful green color, the flat leaves are easy to pull off and chop, and the stems are long enough to store in a glass of water.

The plastic bag is unphotogenic but necessary.

Hopefully, the parsley will keep a long time this way, and I can have fresh parsley whenever I remember to use it.

Chinese cabbage

I’m not going to repeat previous mistakes and use Chinese cabbage like green cabbage. Instead I’ll use it in fried rice, or even cut it up raw for cabbage wraps or slaw. Here’s a slaw-like recipe to try. I’ll use thinly-sliced sweet onion from an earlier week instead of green onions.

Lettuce and arugula

At first, I’ll try mixing the lettuce and arugula to see if they complement each other. If they don’t work together, they’ll be fine separate. While we prefer our arugula raw in salad form, you can also wilt arugula like this.

Update: The lettuce (Winter Density variety?) is delicious with the arugula. Both make great cat food salad.

Sea Island red peas and Carolina Gold rice

The peas and rice are heirloom varieties from Anson Mills. (Read more about them here.) The rice is delicious, but I haven’t tried the peas yet. We get so much fresh stuff that I put these peas in the fridge for January. Now I’ll have two bags. I can say that my mom and dad love these peas. Personally, I’ll have to report back later.

We still have a couple of servings of fresh field peas in the fridge. We’ve discovered that they go great on salads. Here’s a spinach salad with field peas and goat cheese.

Beats the pants off Hoppin’ John as far as I’m concerned.

Butternut squash

Speaking of January, I expect we’ll be eating butternut squash then, too. In cool, dry storage, butternut squash can last for 3 months. Last year, a butternut squash of mine was delicious after it sat on the kitchen table for two months . My kitchen stays fairly cool in the winter, but I haven’t ever risked dark storage. In my house, produce that sits out on the table is far more likely to get cooked and eaten.

Here’s a meal with the bottom of a butternut squash baked according to this recipe plus some spinach and a decidedly non-local dish.

On the way home from the gym, we passed a pizza delivery guy. After that, nothing else would suffice for supper. Thankfully, we had a frozen pizza at home.

Mini-loaves!

In an entirely selfless act, Chris and I tried out both mini-loaves this morning.

Mmm.… Here’s wishing everyone many more mini-loaves.