Happy Halloween from Yoda, Jack and Monkey

Jack and Monkey, by Marci and Lauren

Yoda, by Tyler

Have a spooktacular night! Bruahahahaha

-Marci

Celebrating Halloween in your late 20s

I turned 27 last weekend and realized I am now considered in my late 2os. Aren't people supposed to be married and have kids by now? Well, that is what I thought growing up in a small town where that did happen very often and if that didn't happen to you, you were probably not coming back anyways.

I was never a party hardy gal in my early and mid 20s and this Halloween is no exception. We have been gearing up for the big day by carving pumpkins tonight and thawing ze sweess cheese for a fete de fondue Halloween night. I must be getting old if I have to break up my pumpkin carving session into two nights, or my dad did way more carving on my pumpkins than I remember as a little girl. (Probably the latter.) Our porch will host an eclectic bunch of orange globes: Yoda, Jack (from "The Nightmare before Christmas) and a happy monkey (I think :). Pictures will follow tomorrow due to one member of this household taking on a rather difficult design. (up a little and to the right)

Cleaning out pumpkin guts means eating roasted pumpkin seeds. Roast clean seeds on cookie sheet at 300F degrees for 30-45 minutes, until golden brown. Just as you are taking them out of the oven, quickly sprinkle salt or other seasoning so it melts and sticks to seeds. I was thinking it would be yummy with a spicy cajun seasoning too. Next year...

To relax after the grueling pumpkin carving I made my first batch of hot mulled cider of the year. Mulled cider is one of my favorite drinks during the holiday season and if I lived in a cold, wintery city I would probably make it everyday.

Marci's Mulled Apple Cider

Ingredients:

1/2 gallon good quality apple cider
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon whole allspice
3 cinnamon sticks
1/4 cup brown sugar

Add all ingredients to sauce pan and heat on medium high until gently boiling. Lower heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve in mug with cinnamon stick.

You may also combine the spices and tie them up in cheese cloth and add to hot cider.

A couple years ago for Christmas I bought glass jars and filled them with the mulled cider dry ingredients and recipe as gifts to friends and family. It turned out quite cute I might say.

So this Halloween will be a relaxing, belly filled with cheese kind of night. And hopefully with a few trick-or-treaters that we can greet and act frightened by their monster, witch, vampire costumes.

Still loving fall,

Marci

Cool Season Vegetables

I stand corrected. There is not a "fall" in San Diego. There is a cool season and a warm season. And that's that.

I did learn more than that though at a free workshop put on by San Diego Food Not Lawns that I attended this past Saturday about how to plan your cool season garden (or "winter garden" if you love seasons so much you can't accept the fact that the city you live in has only 2). One thing that is great about having only 2 seasons is that I can still start a winter garden and it is almost November!

Cool Season Super Plants:

Fava Beans
Kale
Mustards
Peas
Artichokes
Fennel
Legumes
Dandelion Greens
Chard
Lettuces
Spinach

Yum, now don't those look like an appetizing bunch...

My one foodie fallback is that I don't particularly like dark leafy greens. And I certainly don't want to be growing them on TOP of getting them in the CSA box. So, I am thinking of trying fennel, snap peas, fava beans and possibly some new and different types of lettuce. I will also intersperse the vegetable plantings with some edible flowers because it brings wonderful color to the garden and biodiversity. Biodiversity is crucial to a happy environment for plants. Diverse plants add different nutrients to the soil and attract helpful (and sometimes harmful) bugs that pollinate the blooms, ward away predators and aid in keeping your plants healthy.

Even though I don't have an "in the ground" garden, I did find it interesting that planting legumes, like fava beans, in the winter can help restore your garden soil with nitrogen and prep it for the spring. The legumes act as a cover crop because their roots have nitrogen fixing bacteria that is stored in the nodules. When the crop is finished for the season you just let it die and leave the plants to act as compost for the soil.

Did you know that your dried up summer artichokes can revive themselves in the fall and begin producing again in the spring? (To: Lila) So, maybe you will get some arties next spring!

I think next weekend will be a spooktacular time to start planting. :)

Marci

Why does Pioneer Woman always have a new recipe up for something I have in abundance? (first squash, and now pears) I might have to try it this week.

L & R's trip to the farm

Ryan and I have been members of a local CSA for almost two years now (or at least that's what I think, our time here in Merced has all just merged together). The farm we get our weekly produce from, Rancho Piccolo, is about 7 miles away from where we live. It's located between Merced and Atwater and is run by Michelle and David Silveira, who are thoughtful, socially conscious farmers who are dedicated to sustainable ag practices.

We headed out to the Silveira's farm for a fall open house yesterday. We took a hayride through the 63 acres to check out the produce growing, met some of the other members (membership is now up to 200 people and a lot of those out at the farm yesterday were from out of town in Modesto and even Stockton), and had some soup that Michelle had made.

It was lovely visit and a great opportunity to get a sneak peak at what we can expect from our CSA box in the next couple months!

Here's a couple of pics from the day:

Farmer David leading a hayride tour of the farm.

Looking out over all the yummy produce growing.

There were so many kids at the farm yesterday. Here they are making bird feeders. The boy in the back is Antonio, one of the Silveira's boys. It's funny, we think we know Antonio because Michelle writes about him and his brother Joseph all the time in our weekly newsletter but he has no clue who we all are.

Ryan getting his soup on!

Paintings all the kids did while out at the farm.

Sugar Glazed Kabocha Squash and...spiders

Not to be confused with the fermented tea drink, Kombucha, kabocha squash is a japanese winter variety we received in our CSA box this week.

Colorful kabocha from the farm

I don't normally buy squash in the supermarket, but I am always delighted to see the fall colored vegetable among the greens and reds in the farm box. Last week while browsing cooking blogs I came upon a sweet squash recipe that looked so amazing I had to try it. So, when I saw the kabocha in the box this week I knew it was meant to be. I made this recipe from Pioneer Woman, but instead of using acorn squash, I substituted kabocha.

Brown sugar+butter+rosemary=Amazing!

Don't you all just love fall? And even though I live in what seems to be a year-round summer city, there are slight changes as November nears. Nights are cooler, morning and evening fog rolls in, dew is dripping from trees and webs, and spiders have come out en masse. I feel it is quite a nice thing Mother Nature has done for us humans: placing dew on pesky eye-level spider webs to reveal them to us before lunging into them.

While I was out taking kabocha squash photos this morning, I spotted several dewy webs in the distance and snapped a few shots. Spiders are nature in the city too, I think.

Loving fall-

Marci

I am off to a fall planting class. Can't wait to share the delicious info! :)

This is how I do kale:

Bacon bits and goodness...with kale

To make:

Saute a couple pieces of bacon until crisp. Add 3 cloves of garlic and a small hand full of pine nuts. Place a bunch of kale on top of mixture and cook down, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top. Enjoy a kale-less flavored meal with all the kale from your CSA box.

Fall gardening: mystery plants and zombie artichokes-- how appropriate for October!

I am loving gardening in the fall! I actually didn't even know fall was such a fantastic time to garden until this year. We all know spring is considered the season to be out working in the yard but fall has just been a time where I've found myself being more motivated and wanting to spend lots of time outside so it's a perfect time to be gardening.

We've been working on the backyard this season and we started by replanting the veggie garden. I ripped out all the spring/summer plants and now have fabulous fall veggies, including broccoli, cabbage, sugar snap peas, mint, rosemary, brussels sprouts, spinach and:

Mystery plants
So last season we ended up with a million squash because our compost didn't get hot enough to kill the seeds, well this season we have new mystery plants, can you identify them?

We have about seven of them in the yard. I hope they are some mystery veggie but seriously at this point I'm wondering if they are just non-flowering weeds that need to be pulled. Any ideas? Let me know!

Zombie artichokes
Last May Ryan's mom gave us artichoke seedlings (is that what they are called? oh well) and we planted them. We had been told that the Valley is too hot to grow artichokes but I figured if Mary could get them to grow in Red Bluff we could make them work here. Sure enough I planted five and they slowly died. One by one they were taken out by the summer heat. One plant held on for months but come August when it had just one leaf left I figured it was a lost cause. But in September our evenings started cooling down and that one little plant that had held on made a comeback. And it wasn't just that plant either, two of the other artichoke plants came back from the dead. Now we have three thriving plants. Incredible! I don't know if we'll get any actual artichokes from them before the cold gets 'em but it's pretty neat to watch them grow.

Beyond the veggies we've got new vines (carolina jessamine) on the fence and five new trees too! Four against the back alley fence, in the hopes that they will eventually create a screen for the backyard, and a new flowering pear. We'll post pics as they grow!

CSA Bounty Cooker: Roasted Tomato Soup and Sunchoke Gratin

Yay, it's veggie Tuesday! Or, maybe the day after, but I was busy cooking up a veggie storm last night and therefore, had no more energy for posting.

This is our CSA bounty:

Beets
Chard
Cherry tomatoes
Cilantro

Kale (my arch nemesis)
Oregano

Rutabaga
Strawberries (lasts about 1/2 hour once in the house)

Sunchokes (umm, google please)
Tatsoi

Winter squash

Yellow tomatoes

The first vegetables under fire (pun intended) were the yellow tomatoes. I recently made a Roasted Tomato Soup from 101 Cookbooks when I received several pounds of red tomatoes and it was so delish and flavorful I couldn't resist trying it out with yellow tomatoes.

Making tomato soup was actually quite a feat for me because I have always despised tomato soup since eating it as a child while having the flu. There is something about upchucking food that you just ate that makes you abhor it for almost ever. But I digress...back to trying to make you also love the roasted tomato soup too! :) I mean think, this must be good stuff then.

Roasted Yellow Tomato Soup
Adapted from Roasted Tomato Soup recipe, by Heidi Swanson
My changes in bold

Ingredients:

8 medium yellow tomatoes, quartered
6 cloves of garlic, left in skin
1 red bell pepper, quartered
3 onions, quartered
olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground pepper
1 cup vegetable broth
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 cup Feta cheese

To make:

Preheat oven to 375F degrees. Place parchment paper on 2 baking sheets. Lay tomatoes on 1 sheet and the onions, bell pepper and garlic on the other. Generously cover onions, bell pepper, and garlic with olive oil. Sprinkle each sheet with sea salt. Place in oven and cook for 50-55 minutes. Turning onions a couple times so they don't burn on one side.

Take out veggies from oven when tomatoes have flattened and onions are caramelized. Place all veggies on onion sheet in food processor, squishing out roasted garlic from the skin. Blend together. Add tomatoes, blend. Add vegetable broth, several turns of pepper grinder and smoked paprika. Blend until at desired consistency.

When serving, add some crumbles of feta cheese and dip with baked sourdough baguette. Yum!

And we cook on. Mystery vegetable this week was the sunchokes. I had never seen or cooked with them before yesterday. I decided to google it. I discovered sunchokes, AKA Jerusalem Artichokes, are a type of sunflower that is grown in the eastern United States and the root, or tuber, is what I received in the veggie box this week.

Sunchoke before being dressed in cheesy goodness

Sunchoke Gratin

Ingredients:

1 pound of sunchokes
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano, plus sprigs for garnish
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
salt
pepper

To make:

Preheat oven to 375F degrees. Cut or break sunchokes into about 1" pieces. Place into pot of boiling water for 10 minutes. Drain sunchokes in strainer and add vegetable broth, milk, oregano, salt, pepper and cornstarch to warm pot. Heat until bubbling and thick. Cut cooled sunchokes into 1/4" slices and place half in small baking dish. Pour half of milk mixture on top and add half of cheese. Repeat by adding rest of sunchokes, milk mixture and cheese. Cook for 30 minutes. Add fresh oregano after baking. Enjoy!

Now do you have any suggestions for my most favorite veggie of all: kale? Any help would be appreciated. :)

P.S. I am looking to make these tomorrow...I love the fall.

Happy cooking,

Marci

Nature in the City

Birdwatching? Yeah, that was never for me. For one, I was not patient enough to sit and search for the always bashful birds hiding in the trees. Secondly, holding up binoculars is kind of tiring to my arms. Thirdly, there are much more exciting and larger creatures to excite me, like foxes and goats and pikas. And lastly, isn't it for old people?

Some of my fondest memories of my grandparents was staying the night at their house and falling asleep to National Geographic bird programs on the T.V. My grandpa would carry my sleepy self to bed and then I would wake up the next morning to my grandma making Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes. My grandma was the birdwatcher. There were always binoculars sitting in the dining room window seal waiting to be snatched up to make a rare sighting in the backyard. She had bird books on the shelves, a lovely birdbath right outside the window and bird-feeders galore encircling the house. My grandparents had an open field for a view from their back windows with prime creature watching.

My view from the city apartment is a little different from my grandparents', to say the least. We are very lucky to have trees surrounding most of the apartment, which makes for a pleasant view compared to other apartment dwellers' view spying into other windows and I admit that I would be the last to say I would ever see any wildlife from our home. However, I am happy to say I was wrong.

One afternoon this past spring while tending to the porch garden I kept noticing hummingbirds fluttering about and acting brave enough to fly and pause within a foot of me. I was intrigued and kept watch. Not a moment later one of the hummers landed in the tree a few feet from where I was standing on the porch.

Hummer in trance

My eyes grew larger when I saw the hummer perch on it's nest. "A nest! Hummer babies! What a fantastic surprise in the city!" I immediately thought. So, for 2 weeks Tyler and I were on hummer patrol, binoculars and all. The eggs incubate for 2-3 weeks while the mother keeps them warm in a trance-like state during the night. The female returned to the nest every evening before the sun went down. We watched and waited (impatiently) to hear lil' chirps.

But, disaster struck.

Just as I was getting my hopes up for baby hummers to hatch soon, Tyler made his morning round to the porch and...gasp! The nest was torn apart on the ground. No eggs or mother bird. We were in a mild depression for days. Our nature in the city was gone. It made me think of the National Geographic moments I saw as a young girl visiting my grandparents. Food chain, cycle of life, whatever. I didn't like it.

Although my first birding experience has a sad ending, it did peak my interest in birding and helped me better understand my bird loving grandma. What I most appreciate about birdwatching is that it is a sport that you can do almost anywhere. City or country. I have even started reading about them. "Red Tails in Love" by Marie Winn is a great read chronicling a bird watchers dream in Central Park. And recently I spotted a red tail hawk flying across the street and if you read the book you would understand how excited I was. Tyler even benefited from my new hobby; he received a birding book for his birthday. I am not sure why he says I sometimes gift him presents that are really for us BOTH and not just HIM. Hmmm.

Happy birding and please share any city birding experiences you may have!

Marci

Dear Millicent...

Our CSA is having an upcoming open house on the 24th! We haven't been able to make it to the last couple so I'm looking forward to it. In our newsletter this week Michelle Silveira, one of our farm owners, encouraged us to contact a reporter in Sacramento who focuses on healthy living and has expressed some interest in coming to the CSA open house. Here is the e-mail I sent to the reporter about the impact the CSA has had on our lives:

Hello Millicent,

I'm writing to encourage you to attend the Rancho Piccolo CSA open house on the 24th. I just wanted to let you know a little about my experience with being a member of the CSA and how it has made my life a healthier one.

I've been a member of the CSA for about two years now. My boyfriend and I joined pretty soon after we moved to Merced from Orange County. When we made the decision to move to the Central Valley we talked about what great farmers markets and produce we would have access to. But what we didn't know was so many farmers in the area take their produce to farmers markets in the bay area where they can make more money (that's understandable). So we were a bit disappointed about our farmers market choices locally. After asking around we learned that joining the CSA would be a good way to access local Valley produce, so we signed up!

Joining the CSA has impacted the way we eat in the following ways:

1) It changes your mindset about planning meals. We used to think about meals in terms of "what do we want to eat" and then we would go grocery shopping or out to eat and this type of thinking about meal planning makes it much more likely that you will make unhealthy decisions about meals (for example heading to In and Out or the local taco shop on a Wednesday night wasn't uncommon for us). Now we think about meals in terms of "what do we have here to eat." We want to make sure we eat all our produce from the CSA so we build our meals around what we have in the house. Though this means sometimes being creative we've ended up eating a lot more simply at home, like more roasted vegetables, soups, and salads, so we can take advantage of our CSA produce and use as much as possible.

2) You learn to eat seasonally. I never thought about seasonal eating until we joined the CSA. I had no problem eating berries in the winter and corn on the cob all year round because I could get any produce I wanted at the grocery store any time of the year I wanted. Even though we still supplement the CSA veggies we get with grocery store veggies, now I buy seasonally to complement the CSA produce. There's just something about eating seasonally that makes sense and makes you feel that much more connected with the experience of cooking and eating. It just makes for a more conscious and thoughtful experience with food and that can really change the way you think about how and what you eat. And eating seasonally decreases the miles traveled for produce and that improves air quality making the Central Valley a healthier place for all!

3) We started to understand that food is connected with community. We know that individuals who have strong social networks lead healthier lives. They are less stressed and live longer. Well in an interesting way the CSA has strengthened our social network and ties. It's like the Silveira family are friends of ours! I look forward to hearing from them every week through the newsletter and I look forward to meeting other members at open houses. It's like a little social ripple that all starts with the food we eat. Without the CSA I don't think I would have fully understood the linkages between food and community. When you buy food at the grocery store there aren't any "community strings" attached to it. I don't know where grocery store produce always comes from, I don't know who grew it and with the CSA instead there is a full understanding of this, and beyond just knowing where your food came from I experience a sincere feeling of social connections through it.

Hopefully these three reasons help you to understand how the CSA has made our lives healthier!

I hope to see you on the 24th here in the San Joaquin Valley!

Best,

Lila

Now let's see if she shows up!

Farm Day!

Pulling weeds on a Saturday morning. It was just what I needed.

Tyler and I took an early morning trip to our CSA site this past Saturday to volunteer our unskilled labor by pulling weeds, picking strawberries and playing the role as overly enthused city dwellers on a farm. It was quite refreshing and relaxing to be in the valley surrounded by mountains, with views of orange and avocado orchards and three Red-tailed hawks circling overhead. It wasn't all fun and games though; I did have to babysit a little girl's squirmy green worm named "Jeremy" when she decided she was tired of weeding for the moment. But, she did come back shortly because her friend called her out on being lazy and not helping. They were 7.

Loofah plant before and...

...after! Now you may use it to scrub yourself clean!

The reason we were able to pretend to be farmers for the day is our CSA, Tierra Miguel Farm, holds a monthly volunteer day to allow farm share subscribers to help them out with various chores around the farm. They are also gracious enough to give us an educational farm tour, share fruits and vegetables along the way and answer all our gardening questions. As we were walking and talking one of the kids noticed long green leaves poking up from the soil. "What are those?" They asked curiously. "Carrots!" answered Mill, the resident farmer. "You should pull some out." And, boy, were their expressions priceless when they magically pulled out long orange carrots from the soil! Later on in the morning while I was weeding and conversing with a fellow adult, she shared that her friend brought her son to the farm one volunteer day and since then he hasn't stopped talking about "the farm" and how he loves his fruits and veggies now. Isn't that awesome? It can take only one day of exploration and hands-on experiences to discover where food comes from and a child eats healthier and enjoys it.

I feel fortunate that small farms, like Tierra Miguel, are available to us urbanites, to replenish and renew the senses with a clean, open environment and memories to tide us over until next time. And it is important that there will be a next time. I am glad I have the opportunity to support one farm by being a part of the farm share and taking my good experiences to other people to share. But small farms are few and far between in the U.S. and finding ways to support their business and ideals can be challenging in the mega-corporation world, but if we don't where are we going to take our kids to discover where carrots come from or taste the best strawberries in the world?

So, we filled our bellies with sweetest strawberries you'll ever taste and nourished our country-loving souls until next time...

Enjoy!

Marci