Well ... the season has ended. The urban veggies season, that is. Leafs season has just begun, but let's not jinx it, OK?
I got celeriac during the final couple of weeks. (Sounds like an illness, doesn't it? It's not.)
I had never heard of celeriac.
It's not pretty. But apparently it's proud of its lack of good looks. It's a very secure vegetable.
So today, I'm boiling and mashing it with some potatoes, as suggested by some Rocket Moms. I'm gonna freeze the mash in little baggies (because I'm the Queen of Baggies) and add the milk, butter, herbs, whatever later. I'll let you know how it tastes.
Meanwhile - this whole urban-farming locally-grown weekly-vegetable-share thing has been so very fun. Along with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, onions, green onions, a variety of potatoes and zucchini - which I was familiar with - I also got a multitude of greens I knew nothing of, Jerusalem artichokes, leeks, purple beans, squash, eggplant and ... are you ready for this ... zucchini blossoms!!
Yes. I prepared and ate flowers.
They were yummy.
And radishes!!! Mmm, they were good too. I was completely unaware that radishes could taste good.
I'm fully stocked up on garlic for the winter. I pickled some hot peppers. I froze dill, pesto and parsley, along with a TON of soups. I dried and layered eggplant slices with fresh garlic and basil, packed in olive oil. You already know what I did with the beets. Oh, the beets. I substituted in some parsnips for carrots into my favourite beef stew, and no one knew the difference. I dumped some plum preserves into a squash during the last few minutes of baking it. And I didn't eat peas and corn once during the whole summer.
In my food enthusiasm I also canned. And I made jam. To be fair, the canning and jamming weren't all from the urban-farming produce. It just got me in the mood.
So I'm definitely signing up next year. Now that I know what I'm doing (sort of), I'll miss the fun of holding something in my hand and Googling images to figure out what in the heck it is. But ... permit me some quick sentimentality ... I really enjoyed picking up my food each week, wondering what would be there and what I would do with it, chatting with my urban farmer friend, his family, and his other customers.
It's WAY better than grocery shopping.
And I'm pretty sure my rural-farmer-Grandma would be quietly proud. She wouldn't have SAID so ... she was a little stoic ... but I'd know.
So ... if you're interested in the details of my summer with veggies, just hit that "food" label to the side. Or try "moments in my garden". (I co-opted posts about Russ's urban farming into that "my garden" label, which is quite a ridiculous stretch of the definition of "my".) Or you can search any word you like and see what pops up. I almost always linked to the recipes I used, if they were online.
Excuse me - I need to mash things now.
