thoughtful consumption

• apples
• eggs
• cheddar cheese! (I’ve been itching to try this for a while.)
• broccoli
• celery!
• oyster mushrooms
• lettuce
• herbs: dill, lemon balm, and catnip
• spinach
• blueberry oat mini-loaf (consumed immediately, so not pictured)

And here’s what I bought from the store.

• lamb
• catnip
• 7-pepper chevre (Hopefully, you can recreate its original size and shape.)

Beets

I broke down and bought beets at Kroger. They were organic but from California. Sliced beets are one of my favorite parts of fall, and I’ve been craving them since at least August. Next year I hope we’ll have enough sun for beets. (Can I just mention how cool it feels to know that no fall sun means no fresh beets? I love knowing about and being part of that connection – even if I wasn’t tough enough to pass up California beets this time.)

In addition to roasting the roots, it’s pretty easy to find uses for the rest of fresh beets, too. This time we 1) ate the baby greens in a salad, 2) chopped up the stems for stir-fries, fried rice, and shepherd’s pie, and 3) blanched and froze the larger greens in hopes of using them later.

Here’s our salad with little beet greens. It’s also got some of this week’s lettuce and the rest of our Romaine from the garden. I’m grateful to have remembered to use it before Thursday night’s freeze.

Cheese toast and salad counts as supper, right?

Shepherd’s pie – now with real lamb!

I made a shepherd’s pie yesterday with half of the ground lamb and a bunch of veggies

mushroom, beet stems, garlic and onion, broccoli leaves and stems, and celery leaves and stems

I have about the same amount of chopped up veggies left, so I’m counting on making another pie next week.

I didn’t have any mashed potatoes, so I topped the pie with bread crumbs, butter, sour cream, and cheese. It was good, but I think the next time I have to make pie without mashed potatoes (probably next week), I’ll just top it with cheese and serve it with hot, fresh bread.

Half a pound of lamb was plenty enough meat for the pie. (I think ground lamb must cook down less than beef.) Unfortunately, once I added the Worchestershire sauce, it was hard for us to taste the difference between ground lamb and beef. It just tastes like meat and Worchestershire. Which is not bad, but next pie, I’m cutting back on the sauce.

Chicken vegetable soup

It’s so exciting to get celery. Especially in such good soup weather. Sometime this weekend, I’m going to make soup with celery, garlic, onion, dill, and some chicken. At first, I was planning a tomato base, but I’m not sure that will work with the dill. Guess I could make both and freeze one. Can’t let that celery go to waste!

Catnip

I was happy to get some catnip in my weekly box in addition to my store order. I like catnip tea at night. I use a teapot with a strainer but you could also just boil some water in the microwave. Put a stem with a bunch of leaves on it in a mug and pour the water on top. Cover it and let it steep for at least five minutes. Because the leaves stay on the stem, it’ll be easy to get the catnip out once it’s done steeping.

Another good thing about catnip is it lasts for weeks in the fridge. It’s not like mint, which I always try to use up in a week.

Two cats are on my Christmas list, so I’m considering drying  some of my catnip and making little cat toys. Possibly with inside out Logan’s Mill Pioneer Porridge bags. Or I may take a cue from last year’s CSA gift sale and use baby socks. I’ll keep you posted.