I’ll be playing along with this:

http://bisuitgospel.blogspot.com/search/label/CSAProject

You guys are waaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of us in what kinds of stuff you’re getting. We’re still in lettuce/field green/spinach season. The growing season here is short and starts late, but damn do we have good dirt.

The strawberries we got this week are delicious.

I also got some garlic scapes from the local co-op and some green garlic from my own garden. I’m hoping there’s more than greens at this morning’s farmers market.

Re: basil. It also freezes well if you plant a lot in the summer and have extra.

My job and commute take a lot of time during the week, so I tend to cook a lot on Sundays.  Pasta sauces work very well for that…  Even those with meat can be frozen and quickly re-heated with a double boiler.

We got cabbage every week for awhile.  And you get a LOT of cabbage out of a cabbage head.  And I don’t care for cabbage all that much.

First we (my neighbor that I split the share with) made pigs in a blanket (the Polish way).  It was delicious, but really I could have eaten the stuffing without the cabbage.

For the next head of cabbage, we turned half into cole slaw (meh) and braised the other half in bacon.  You could probably braise it in butter instead to get that really rich sweetness.  Braised cabbage can be wonderful but I would only care to eat it once a month.

So the next cabbage got turned into kimchi.  This was by far my favorite cabbage experiment.  Our preparation most closely matches this recipe:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/pickles/recipe-kimchi.html
Except that we just packed it into jars, screwed the jar lids on, and left it in the fridge for a week.  Sterilization is only necessary for pantry jars and cans, not for what are essentially refrigerator pickles.
Also, we used fresh serrano peppers instead of pepper flakes and it was SO HOT.  I loaded up crackers with it and ate my entire half-head in a week - but kimchi lasts a long time in the fridge, so it’s a good thing to do when you have too much cabbage and not enough inclination to eat it all at once.

The next head of cabbage was a red cabbage, so we braised that with apples and apple cider vinegar.  Sorry no recipe for that - I found one on the net, but we rejected it as too complicated.  I think all we did was brown onions in oil, add whole shredded cabbage + 2 chopped apples + herbs, add half a cup vinegar and then enough water to cover, simmer with lid on.  Also very good, but I was relieved to get no cabbage this week.

This is an excellent (very much non-vegetarian) use for cabbage:  http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chicken-in-Riesling-with-Prunes-and-Cabbage-234144

Ends up with a rich gravy that goes great on pasta, and then the resulting chicken carcass makes a nicely perfumed stock.

Ah, zuchinni bread.  Makes me want to go make some right now.

If you’re searching for ways to cook cabbage, my favorite recipe just needs an onion, olive oil, and a little turmeric and mustard seeds, which are inexpensive at most Indian stores I frequent. I heat the mustard seeds in olive oil till they make that super popping sound. Then I add half an onion and saute that for about five minutes. Finally I add about half a cabbage, chopped as if for cole slaw, and about 2 tsp turmeric. I saute and stir that until the cabbage is cooked well and is nice and yellow. I’m really liking it right now, especially since it’s very simple and quick. I can’t remember where I got this recipe from though; partly my mom, I think, and partly an adaptation from something at epicurious, maybe? By the way - I love this whole CSA posts idea Amanda! Thank you!

In my opinion dishwashers are great if you have a big family and even a snack would result in a big stack of plates (via a blended family I’m one of 7 siblings - my mom had a fucking dishwasher).  But being a single person and usually cooking for one or two people?  You’re so right.

And I will add that I am not participating in this thread anymore until I have returned from my first trip to the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket!

Hooray for new apartments in new neighborhoods!  I wonder what kind of stuff they’re going to have, and if the farmers are nice, and if it’s bigger than the Fort Greene Park one?  I feel a little bit like it’s the first day of school.

We had a LOT of cabbage this winter and spring from our garden; we made sauerkraut with some of it.  Now, I know it’s not to everyone’s liking, but I have to say that it really was the best sauerkraut I have ever had.  We spiced it with a pinch of fennel, caraway and juniper berries (a little goes a long way) and just let it go for a couple weeks.  I admit, unsterilized fermentation is a little daunting for us 21st century folks, but once you get over that and realize that it’s not the botulism factory you might be fearing (the salt and the lactic acid produced by fermentation, from which sauerkraut gets its name, prevent spoilage) it’s really easy, fun, and delicious.

The rest of that website is worth clicking around, btw.  I found it after reading his book, which is a great introduction to making fermented foods at home.  The guy’s pretty much the quintessential crunchy, foodie, community-activist, queer-activist, commune-living DFH, so if you’re inclined to hate on people for that sort of thing, just move along.  If, on the other hand, you take inspiration from the ways in which microbial culture informs and shapes human culture, and take pleasure in healthy, wholesome, delicious food, it may be just the thing for you.

A lot more herbs than the food snobs will let on work fine dry: thyme, oregano, rosemary to name a few.  One that I think you can’t really skip as fresh is basil, though.  But try not to buy it at the grocery store, where it’s super expensive.  If you have a cheap pot and some soil, buy your own.  Just keep it well watered and in sun.  Make sure it doesn’t get pot bound.  As long as you do this, it should grow like mad, and you’ll have more than you could ever need.  When you’re cooking with it, just cut the tops off right at the joint, which will make it grow even more.

If you grow it yourself, make sure you always cut off the tops even if you’re not going to use them.  If it flowers it will “bolt” which means you have any nice leaves to use any more—it’s putting all its energy into the next generation (kind of like those sad tired quiverfull moms).

If you see a little pyramid-y shape at the top, cut it off, down to the next two ranks of leaves.  It flowers when a certain number of pairs of leaves are present below—don’t remember the number, but if you use enough basil you won’t need to know.

Also, if you’re not going to use it right away, put it in a little cup just like you would a little flower. 

Also, you can put some in at the beginning of cooking.  Chop up the thicker stem and save the leaves for the very end.  Layering of the same flavor rocks.

You should make coleslaw with that cabbage! I used to really hate coleslaw when I was a kid but I realized I just hated the really mayonnaise-y version with a lot of sugar added. I chop the cabbage up, grate a half an onion and add a lot of black pepper, a little salt, and a little white vinegar. You can add a carrot but its optional. Add a little mayonnaise but not too much. Add olive oil if you hate mayonnaise. Then add some feta. It sounds weird but comes out totally awesome. The feta contrasts with the tartness of the slaw in a really delicious way.

Also: everything here looks so, so good.

If you want great coleslaw, use rice vinegar.

I went the red sauce route with some of my CSA share this week, too.  This week we received a fennel bulb, pearl and green onions, and parsley, I so I sauteed the fennel (including some fronds) and onions, added some ground turkey and cooked it until it was browned and in tiny crumbles, and then added a large can of diced tomatoes.  (Somewhere in there were red pepper flakes, dried basil, and salt.)  Once most of the liquid had simmered away, I stirred in some whole-wheat spaghetti that had been cooking on the next burner.  While those had been cooking, I made a lasagna-like cheese topping: cottage cheese and grated romano cheese, mixed with chopped parsley and basil from my garden.

Other things in my box were lettuce, radishes, beets, snap peas, and carrots, so a salad with oranges and goat cheese is likely to come together soon (that combination makes the beets palatable for me.)

If all goes well in my garden, I will have eight heads of cabbage in a few weeks—at least some of that will go into red-cabbage sauerkraut that I will can (the pressure canner is on its way from Amazon) for winter pairings with crock-pot sauerbraten.

Yes to coleslaw!

Cabbage, yellow bell pepper, orange bell pepper, carrot, celery, dried celery seeds, salt & pepper, vinegar (whatever flavor you prefer) mayo (to whatever consistency you like). We don’t like raw onions but plenty of people do so add those, too.

It’s not really a meal, tho’, at least not for use. It’s fabulous with fish -n- chips and on / with pulled pork BBQ. Yum.

I wish we could CSA here; there just aren’t that many farms in Vegas . . . .

A Great and delicious way to use up a LOTTA cabbage:

Pre-heat the oven to 450˚. Chop up a cabbage as if for coarse slaw. In a frying pan, sautee the cabbage in butter until it is pretty wilted. Transfer to a baking sheet (It will take a couple of panfuls to sautee it all.) Then, put the cabbage-full baking sheet into the oven. Roast until it starts to be very shrunken and is browning a little; 20-25 minutes. Essentially it will dehydrate COMPLETELY and half a cabbage will turn into a normla sized serving.

YOu can eat it just as it is, OR, make it the hungarian way: mix it in a bowl with sour cream and caraway seeds.

BEST CABBAGE RECIPE EVER! (ALso, I learned that fresh cabbage lightly sauteed in butter is a GREAT way to make cabbage, too! If you don’t have the 25 minutes for roasting!)

I’m probably betraying my West Virginia heritage here, but I adore hot buttered cabbage. Of course, unlike the way I grew up, I eat it as a small side dish and not as a giant main course of butter, noodles and cabbage. I also tend to brown the butter these days. Delicious.

My favorite cabbage recipe, adapted from Madhur Jaffrey: Slice a yellow onion into fine half-rings, mince a couple of cloves of garlic, slice cabbage into fine shreds. Heat up a BIG frying pan, or wok, and add a couple of tablespoons of ghee or other cooking oil. When the oil is smoking hot, throw in a couple of tablespoons of mixed spices (you can buy a mix called panchpooran at pretty much any Indian grocer, but otherwise, a mixture of fennel, cumin, black mustard, sesame and black onion seeds works great) until they start to sizzle and pop, and then chuck in the sliced onions, turn the heat down a skosh, and stir like crazy to prevent sticking or burning. When the onions start to brown, toss in the cabbage and the garlic, and stir fry until it all starts wilting and then begins to brown nicely. Sprinkle in some cayenne pepper, a teaspoon of garam masala, and mix it in well. Squeeze over the juice of half a lemon, stir it up, and serve. Cucumber/mint raita goes really well with this.

Do you get enough basil to make a meal’s worth of pesto? De Cecco extra virgin olive oil goes on sale for $10 a liter at the middle eastern store. Get some garlic, grate some romano and away you go (forget about nuts—they add nothing IMHO). Any that escapes the pasta we mop up with broccoli florets

@JamieD, #9 - I didn’t really like sauerkraut until I tried a friend’s homemade take on it.  Around here there are a few small companies that do pickled veg that is less industrial and closer to the homemade end of the scale, and I’ve enjoyed their sauerkraut as well.  It’s amazing how many foods most people hate simply because they’ve never had the real thing, only a pale industrial imitation.

I wonder if it’s possible to make kimchi in a typical apartment kitchen?  A Korean family that runs one of the farms with a stand in my “old” neighborhood greenmarket always sold in-house kimchi.  But they’re farmers.  They probably have a big farmhouse kitchen and lots of outdoor space for that sort of thing (in Korea the kimchi is aged in pits underground).

I’m back from the GAP greenmarket with a big haul and questions, btw.

The haul: fresh peas still in their shells, 4 of the daintiest apricots I’ve ever seen, 6 kirby cucumbers, 3 big yellow onions, 2 cups of Hudson Valley yogurt, a bunch of mint, a GIGANTIC bunch of basil, and a sage plant. 

Question #1: Is there a good way to make pesto without a food processor?  I’ve been spoiled the past few years by my former roommate’s cuisinart, but I just moved to a new apartment with new roommates who don’t cook.  I’m down to the bare minimum of kitchen tools, here. 

Question #2: Please offer any hive-mind wisdom about growing herbs.  I live in Brooklyn.  My new place has a little bit of outdoor space (a fire escape), north facing, somewhat shady but gets good light on sun-drenched summer days like we’ve been having.  Does my wee sage plant stand a chance?  What are good choices for that kind of space?  I’m thinking of adding mint and perhaps basil and lavender.

You folks are my cabbage heroes.

Oh, and I have one more question, partially answered already by oldfeminist - can I put basil stalks into stock?

On #2, that I have advice.  Just water.  A lot.  If they start to look wilty, more water.  Fire escapes get *very* hot.  There’s so much sun now that I imagine you’ll probably do fine.

RE: Fire escapes.

In Boston, I planted a window box of basil and a big ol’ pot had two cherry tomato plants in it.  They grew great (as long as I kept up with watering). I at pesto and tomato-basil salad and similar stuff from July through September. It was great!

My roommate and I have been discussing joining a CSA. Amanda, your blogging on it, along with cooking info, has definitely helped.

What I found is we live in an almost perfect illustration of a food desert. We’re in Vallejo and fast food is everywhere. There is a Taco Bell across the street from a Taco Bell.  There are also dozens of CSA’s in the Bay Area. But only one has a drop off in Vallejo. Seriously, many of them have to drive through Vallejo to get to their other drops but no common drop off in Vallejo. That’s not to say they wouldn’t if there was a demand. In fact many have contact info posted if there isn’t a drop point in your area and you want to become one. I just found the imagery of CSA’s driving through Vallejo to get to cities that have easier and better access to fresh local fruit and veggies already sadly funny. It’s like something out of The Grapes of Wrath where starving people watch food being dumped. I realize it’s not that bad. But that’s our goal after the holiday. Contact all the CSA’s to see if we could become a new drop sight.

So I do have a couple cooking questions and odd ones at that. I’m one of those people that had to teach myself to eat veggies. Plus I can’t eat some large amounts of my childhood mainstays like chiles, pico de gallo, salsa or anything with much heat because of an ulcer (who gets a bleeding ulcer at the age of 16?). Two veggies I still have trouble with are cabbage and broccoli. Specifically the smell of them cooking makes me nauseous for hours. There are some awesome sounding cabbage recipes up thread. Do any of these recipes cut that funky smell? I realize most people don’t have this juvenile reaction.  KMT and Bella’s instructions sound delicious but I’m afraid to try them. Any suggestions?

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to smell broccoli cooking.

Opoponax:

On #1: Do you have a good big knife? If so, just get chopping on the basil. A grater would be nice for the rest, but not really necessary. Then just mash everything up together with the olive oil. (I disagree with whoever said you don’t need the nuts, but that’s just me.) I’ve done it that way a couple times when I didn’t have access to a food processor, and it’s not as pretty, but still delicious.

In the old days, pesto was rough chop followed by a mortar and pestle, but you’d need a pretty big mortar.

On #2: the intertubes will give you advice on which herbs are OK for open shade. Basil will probably not do that well—it wants all the sun and water you can throw at it. Sage is amazingly hardy. It may not grow much, but it’s pretty hard to kill (the one in our mostly-abandoned raised bed has been out for three or four winters now, with temps down to -25). Oh, and chives.

Glad to see all the cabbage recipes. It always looks like a good idea and then not.

Shakahi - there’s a similar thing going on close to here.  A group of neighborhood folks are starting up a food co-op for Fort Greene, which is an upper middle class micro-neighborhood.  The only real estate they’ve been able to find that meets their needs is a ways down Fulton Street, outside Fort Greene proper (but still nearby and well-connected via public transit).  The area available to them is also a food desert, where often the only place to shop is a corner store which can only be counted on to sell junk food.  It seems like a perfect fit - have the well-off folks down the road provide the capital for a co-op that would provide affordable fresh food to everyone.  But instead, the Fort Greene folk (NOT the co-op founders, but supposedly interested locals) are griping that they shouldn’t choose this space because it’s “too far”, “not really Fort Greene”, etc.  What it basically comes down to is that they want to participate in a co-op that is exclusive and not really open to less wealthy people.  Which really bums me out.

Luckily, though, the actual participants in the co-op have voted to lease the above property, and the landlord is apparently super cool, and it looks like the whole thing is eventually going to happen.  Regardless of what the snobs think.  I like it when obnoxious bigots gripe but don’t bother to actually participate in things.

Another amazing thing to do with a bunch of cabbage is to put it in the crock pot with pickling spices, water, and a little vinegar and salt. Awesome with mustard and horseradish and also potatoes and turnips.

Yes to rice vinegar for an awesome slaw, too. I have like eight different types of vinegar. If you want to be really, really fancy with your vinegar a cool thing to do is this: put a piece of fruit, like a strawberry or a few blueberries or whatever, into some white vinegar and put it in a jar in the fridge. About two weeks later, you’ll have a great fruit infused vinegar that you can use to make amazing vinaigrette. Blueberry vinegar mixed with a little yogurt makes an awesome salad dressing. orange vinegar makes a great marinade for pretty much everything. you can use lime vinegar to make a southwestern-y coleslaw.

For cabbage I love to make a really simple Hungarian tomato cabbage. Cut or grate the cabbage and saute with vegetable oil until it is reduced, but still crunchy. Add 2-3 tbs of vegetable stock, salt, and pepper to taste. Add tomato paste until the cabbage is coated in it. That’s it. If you use canned tomato paste it will be sweet, if you make fresh tomato puree you might want to add a sprinkle of sugar, but I prefer it to be more savory myself.  Cooked ground meat or TVP can be added to this to make it more substantial.

I just moved into a new place in Irvine and signed up for a CSA. They don’t deliver and I’m carless right now (hopefully permanently), so I picked it up on my bike which was pretty easy since it is so flat down here. I only started cooking a year ago and really only know about 5 dishes so I’m really learning as I go along.

I got a bunch of chard so I took Amanda’s collards idea from last week, sauteed it with onions and garlic, and put pinto beans on top. It turned out pretty well, though the chard is kind of clumpy. Maybe I need to dry it better?

I also made pickles since they gave me dill (apparently not a brand of pickle and tiny cucumbers. Haven’t tasted them yet, but will try them tonight. Never thought I would be making pickles.

I have a bunch radishes and turnips with the greens still attached. I want to turn them into a soup, so if anyone has an idea I would be much obliged.

The only thing I’m worried about is using all the food before it goes bad. The box is just every two weeks, so I’m trying to eat the more delicate stuff this week then have some left over for next week. I froze some green beans and have an acorn squash which should be fine for a week. I have a bunch of big cucumbers and summer squash which I’ll either eat raw or make into a pasta sauce. I also have a lot of lettuce, and I think I’ll have trouble eating all of that.

Shakahi, I have a pretty high tolerance for brassica funk, but I really can’t smell much of the cabbage above the onions, garlic and spices in my recipe. I mean, it gives off a smell, but mostly what you get is the smell of frying spices.

shak, don’t boil your vegetables.  That’s what creates the funk.  Steam broccoli, quick stir fry cabbage.

That’s a shame, Opop.  Mine distributes right where everyone can see, and there’s a real friendliness to everyone who comes by and asks what’s up.

Matt - I guess this is a YMMV thing, but I found that my CSA vegetables lasted much longer than I usually expect produce to last.  Maybe because it’s trucked directly from the farm to you, without needing to be processed, driven across the country, stocked into the produce area of the supermarket, and sitting there for god knows how long till you come along and buy it.  So I wouldn’t worry too much. 

There are also a lot of ways you can process and store vegetables for later.  When I did my CSA, I got more corn than I could possibly eat (10+ ears per pickup!), so I cut the corn from the cob and froze it.  I was still pulling out baggies of frozen corn at Thanksgiving.  Most vegetables that you plan to cook later* can be frozen with minimal processing.  If you have blocks of upfront time to invest, you could also cook up big batches of things like stew/soup/chowder/gumbo, tomato sauce, pesto, messes of greens, etc. and freeze them to eat later.  You can freeze herbs in ice cube trays and throw them into a dish as needed. 

Also, there are great many ways of canning and pickling vegetables for the long term (and without the necessary freezer space), if you’re more ambitious.  Though I find that most veggies that are good for pickling will probably hang around for a couple weeks in the crisper, anyway.

*i.e. I don’t think freezing lettuce is a great idea.

Rice lentil salad with cabbage and onions is fairly easy and lasts for days in the fridge.  A batch of brown rice, half as much cooked lentils (green or brown are easier to cook to just firm, what you need here), finely sliced or shredded cabbage, onion, carrot (all optional, pick the firmish veggies you prefer, though I’ve always included these three at the least).  Mix 1/4 cup oil, splash of seseme oil (optional), favorite vinegar, a pinch or sugar, salt, pepper (add your own preferences once you have the basics - during winter I use dried herbs, ground cumin, coriander and hot pepper; during summer fresh herbs and peppers, ground cumin - basil, thyme, and rosemary are good additions).  Toss in enough to keep rice from sticking; refridgerate the rest.
A bit of parm sprinkled on after plating make this a complete protein with the lentils, so good for a vegetarian main dish.

Shakaki, finding brassicas unpalatable can actually have a genetic cause (seriously, there is a “brassicas taste awful” gene. This is different from just not liking sprouts). If you’ve tried lightly cooked broccoli and still find it unpleasant, stop kicking yourself and just eat other vegetables. You aren’t obliged to like everything. This applies even if you don’t have the evil!brassicas gene - there are loads of vegetables and if one family doesn’t work for you, go for the others instead.

Amanda, I think once the co-op is up and running, it will all be fine.  It’s more the bitching and moaning about the reality that, no, a food co-op is not a country club.  Which, thankfully, the people who are actually meaningfully involved seem to understand.

I second thefeistysweetheart’s recommendation—great way to use cabbage. I have recently started loving cabbage like never before (I blame the blood thinners I’m on, making my body crave vitamin K), so I’ve been using a lot of it. My favorite: red cabbage stir fry with lots of ginger, some cashews, chile-garlic sauce, soy sauce, and brown rice. Sometimes I add sliced sugar snap peas or asparagus if I want more veg, but the cabbage and ginger and rice are really what do it for me. You want it just cooked enough so that it’s tender, but still firm so that it has some bite. I’m sure it would work well with green cabbage. And the non-mayo cole slaw that others have mentioned (shredded cabbage, thinly sliced onion, maybe some grated carrot, fresh oregano and crushed red pepper, white wine vinegar, olive oil) is fabulous and actually improves with some time in the fridge.

Also: it looks weird and possibly horrible, but I love this soup.

Also, @Matt - radishes are fantastic raw.  Especially sliced and eaten as an open faced sandwich with lots of butter on good bread.  Heaven.  In fact, I’m kicking myself for not even looking for radishes at the market today.

Oh, and thanks, Paul - btw re chopping, nuts, etc - is there an efficient way to tackle whole nuts without a food processor, or should I just buy the pre-chopped ones from the baking section of the supermarket?

A bit of parm sprinkled on after plating make this a complete protein with the lentils, so good for a vegetarian main dish.

Not to lecture or correct or be obnoxious at all, but just FYI to the veggies and veggie-curious out there: it is NOT necessary to eat “complete” proteins in each meal.  Our bodies are capable of synthesizing proteins on a catch-as-catch-can basis.  It doesn’t matter if you have lentils for lunch and Parmesan on your pasta with dinner, you will still get the benefits of all those “incomplete” proteins.  Your stomach doesn’t care if it was a few hours between the two. 

If humans were really that delicate, we’d have gone extinct ages ago.

shakahi, I’d recommend Napa Cabbage as a substitution in some cases, as unlike it’s Western cousin, it has a delicate flavor that makes it suitable for stir-fry with other ingredients like mushroom or Amanda’s yellow zuccinni, tofu, etc.

Bok choy has a stronger flavor but the small varieties like baby bok choy do well in soups and stews.

I would recommend Aloe vera for the shady spots on a fire escape, they can take the heat, don’t need as much watering as herbs, and are useful in case of a kitchen scrape or minor burn that happen to everybody now and then.

Jenny, if you bake, Mother Avengers’ secret to making good shortbread (after years of research with Grandmother Monk), is using rice flour and white flour in the mix.  If you don’t, then pass it on

Matt, there are Southern alternatives with your turnips, leaves and all.

As for your lettuce excess, two words, shrimp salad, that helps with the radishes as well.

Oppoponax, I’m glad it’s working out. As Amanda mentioned in the post I expect to trip over some privilege (mine included) when dealing with food issues since some communities in the Bay Area are littered with the stuff. But it’s beyond frustrating when people pick it up to use it as a weapon. Especially over something as basic as food.

Ok, so no boiling and lots of garlic. I can do that. Thanks Bella.

Have you ever considered fermenting the cabbage? I’m getting close to making my own sauerkraut.

Opoponax,
Frezing lettuce is a horrible idea.  The cell structure is delicate and breaks down to slime, just like when it frosts, for most varieties.  Cabbage freezes, though not really well, if you plan to cook it.  The sage should do very well on your fire escape, probably lavendar and basil; I’m not so sure of the mint as some varieties like a bit of shade (check the type before you buy).
I am traveling for another 2 weeks, but will see if I have access to my old Western Family store brand flour everything bread recipe.  It is like zucchini bread, but can be used with almost any fruit/vegetable/nut combination.  I use it year round, but always double check the amounts for the levening ingredients. 

For a change up with slaw, use ranch dressing with a bit of extra vinegar (I usually short cut this and use bottled).  Or add broccoli or cauliflower florettes, well chopped; different colored and temperatured peppers and onions; serve with sliced tomatoes and/or avacado, tuna, egg salad.

Frezing lettuce is a horrible idea.

Yeah, that’s what I said in my comment.

My dishwasher saves me loads of time I’d spend sanitizing my dishes, because it’s a four step process - Wash, disinfect, rinse, dry - and I can cut washing to only be things that are important like seasoned pans and knives, and limit everything else to just a rinse.  That’s saving me considerable steps with most dishes.

And a dishwasher reuses its own water while washing, so can be effective at saving water - it strains out the dirt and uses its basin of water repeatedly.  Of course, you’re replacing water with energy, but I live in an area of California limited to rainwater only for everyone to share.

We use cabbage in replacement for lettuce in tacos and other dishes which could use a crunchy green but lettuce wilts to fast for my spouse’s taste.  It keeps pretty well, too, comparatively.

Since moving to our own home we’ve reduced our trash from a bag a week to half that ^-^  Aside from packaging of durables, we wouldn’t ever exceed that.  But we have lots of home repair to do… Can’t wait until our garden produces veggies.  We’re going to have to do something about how cool it’s remained here.

Also, there was a fad diet back in the late 70s early 80s (one of those eat only this on this day plus all of this special soup you want).  My mom was on it a few months.  The diet itself was crazy, but the soup was great.  The main ingredients were cabbage, onions and tomatoes, no meat.  I know I have it at home somewhere, so will get it up here in a couple of weeks.

As the proud owner of the other half of that cabbage, I pledge to do something something photogenic with it. Some of it is earmarked for minestrone soup.

Do dishes need to be sanitized/disinfected? 

My dishwashing process is: rinse off with warm water, wipe down with a soapy sponge, scrub as necessary (which isn’t much if you wash relatively soon after eating), put in drying rack, empty drying rack when I get around to it.  Hard-to-clean stuff gets a soak in super-hot water, as well.  But I find that, if you wash things as you dirty them, very few things fall into the “hard-to-clean” category.

@helen w. h. - my dad went on the same diet back in the day.  I seem to remember him griping about the soup, but it smelled good.  Then again, very few things won’t induce complaining if you eat them 3 meals a day, day in, day out, for weeks on end.

My favorite thing to do with beets is stir-fry them with the greens.  First, cut off the tops and put them aside.  Rub a little olive oil over the cut side of the beets and put them in the oven for an hour or two (depending on temperature).  Be sure to put them cut-side-up unless you want a big mess.  You can do this up to a day or two ahead.

When you’re ready for the next step, peel the beets.  Since you have already cooked them in their jackets, the skins will slip right off like you’re peeling an orange.  Cut the beets into bite-sized pieces.  Then wash and chop the greens.  Heat some olive oil in a pan, then add the cooked beets and the raw tops.  Throw in a little salt and pepper (kosher and fresh-ground if you’ve got it), cook for a few minutes, tossing often, and nom.  It’s especially pretty if you get one bunch of regular beets and one of the golden beets.

Generally, no, dishes don’t need to be sanitized.  But things you use with babies, plants, fungi, growing or canning things need to be cleaned very thoroughly.  So I end up running a sanitize load once a week or so.

Still, you’re right, little needs more than rinse, soap, rinse.  But I’m skipping doing the soap and rinse and dry parts by having a dishwasher, it does that for me.  And as I use it, I can get familiar with what’ll be tough and need to soak - like pans or dishes used in the oven - and do that.

Also:  Silverware.  OMG is a dishwasher a time-saver for washing silverware.

Just to clarify, that comment was NOT me trying to convince you not to use a dishwasher.  I don’t use a dishwasher because I haven’t lived in a place that had one pretty much at all in my entire adult life.  Now I’m in the habit and prefer doing things that way, but I suppose that if I moved into a place with a dishwasher, sure, I’d probably use it.

By the way, guys - per my musings on shortcuts and experimentation and being open to new things even if they sound intimidating:

I found a recipe to experiment with making pasta!  Apparently the whole thing only takes about 10 minutes and involves no rolling out/assembling complicated little shapes (which is what intimidates me about pasta).  And I’m a fan of spaetzle, so yay!

I call shenanigans on the dishwasher claim.  I am a very effective dishwasher, and even a really light dishwashing job (just plates, utensils, and cups on a day without any cooking) never took less than 15 minutes.  Now I spend maybe 5-10 minutes every two or three days unloading the dishwasher.  I’m very happy to save 40-80 minutes a week not washing dishes.

Cabbage freezes, though not really well, if you plan to cook it.

I’ve heard freezing cabbage pre-tenderizes it and makes for really tender cabbage rolls… so if you’re planning on having tender cabbage, it’s great.

Nineveh, a friend of mine told me about that gene after a biology class he had where they tasted a certain chemical to see who had the gene. You’re right about the broccoli.  I’ve tried it lightly cooked in a stir fry and as soon as the cooking process starts the smell overwhelms me. Not to mention what happens if I try to eat it. I can skip it.

I wanted to keep working on the cabbage since it’s such a big part of what you get from a CSA. Plus it’s an inexpensive versatile vegetable.

keshmeshi - it takes me ten minutes to wash all the dishes from a cooked dinner for two.  Including anything fussy like an oily wok or casserole dish with baked on cheese.  Of course, this is because I have to do it, and I’ve been doing it just about every night for something like 10 years. 

I imagine that, while it might cumulatively save time if I had a dishwasher, it’s ultimately not that big a deal to just wash stuff.  If I had unlimited funds and square footage and could have any kitchen setup I wanted, a dishwasher probably wouldn’t make the top 10 on my wishlist.

And, again, nobody is trying to take away your dishwasher.  Amanda simply commented that it ain’t no thang to wash by hand.

Shakahi - is the brassica-hater gene the same thing as the taster/nontaster/supertaster thing?  Makes sense, because when I did the taste test with the little litmus papers, I tasted it, but thought it was kind of an interesting flavor.  Which is how I feel about foods in the cabbage family.  I experience the wonkiness, but I kinda dig it in moderation.  Especially in its more extreme fermented form.

Mmmm…cabbage.  My grandmother had a killer recipe for stuffed cabbage rolls that I’m still trying to reproduce.  We use ground turkey, but I wonder if there’s a way to go vegetarian with it.  I never cared what was in the rolls, I just wanted to get the tomato sauce right.

If I was doing vegetarian cabbage rolls, I’d use bulgar wheat for the filling. It really gives a good chewy texture like ground beef, and is good in vegetarian chili in just that role.

For the beets, I’ve used these instructions for making beet sour to create a base for borscht. So far, I’ve cooked the borscht in the slow cooker and had it hot, but you can do chilled borscht with things like cucumber in the summer, with a little plain yoghurt on top.

Another version of the cabbage-and-spices thing: a friend of mine calls it Tunisian Cabbage Stew. Not sure of the origin of her recipe, but the basics are the same: heat oil, add spices (cardamom pods, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, whatever you have) and heat until popping. Add ground spices (garam masala, curry, cumin, again, whatever you’ve got). Cook about a minute. Add onions, coat in spices, cook until soft. Add cabbage, dried currants or raisins, cook unti cabbage is to your liking. I usually don’t love cooked cabbage, but in this recipe I cook it down until soft. I also soak my currants for a bit in hot water first. Delicious and gets better after sitting in the fridge overnight. Completely NSFW due to cabbage funk.

Chingona, a simpler way would be to shred the beets on the large side if the grater and cook with vinegar or lemon juice for your borscht. That’s how my Jewish and Russian sides of the family cook it. You can add a shredded carrot to the beets as well. I sauté a sliced leek, add my beet-carrot mixture (3 part beet :1 part carrot + sliced celery stalk), add a good splash of vinegar, cook until very soft. Then add broth, cook 20 minutes or so. Adjust vinegar to your liking and serve hot or cold. I purée mine, but you don’t have to. Serve with sour cream and dill. For summer borscht, you can use beet greens (cooked), boiled potatoes, cukes, radish, boiled egg, lots of chopped scallions and dill, and sour cream. There are as many authentic borscht recipes as there are eastern European families; this is my family’s version. I don’t use beef broth for hot borscht and I use water+veg stock for cold and I use orange beets instead of purple.

I was just popping in to rec a Bengali or Sri Lankan dry cabbage curry, but Bella beat me to it. So, I second Bella’s suggestion. That’s my favourite way to eat cabbage (the dish has many variations—seek online until you find one to your taste), and the best thing: all those spices make the cabbage last longer as a reheatable leftover without developing that overwhelming stank-leftover cabbage taste.

Opop, I’m not sure about the super taster gene. http://bit.ly/YSVZM This is a link that gives a simple explanation about a gene that can influence our ability to taste bitterness, especially in certain veggies like broccoli.

Re: the basil, if you’re short on windowsill (I don’t have those) or other horizontal surface for plants.  I tried a basil bag this year.  It’s a heavy plastic hanging bag with holes cut in the sides (@ 2/$1 at the local nursery + potting soil (lots of vermiculite and plants).  People usually plant them with flowers like impatiens, but I thought I’d try basil in one so I could hang it right outside the back door in easy reach for cooking.  Used a bunch of different basils to make it pretty, oregano in the top.  So far the basil seems to like it, thought it needs almost daily watering so the ones on the bottom stay wet. I’m thinking it would work in a strawberry pot too?

to teac@#14 - do you know this place? http://www.quailhollowfarmcsa.com/

Jenny @29, you didn’t say, but I would assume any vinegar BUT the distilled white one? THe fruit never gets through the really sharp taste.  (Found out by trial and error and lots of wasted vinegar - fortunately it’s cheap).  Tried with cider vinegar and it worked much better.

Sorry that wasn’t the link I wanted. Now I can’t find the one I did. How I understand it is the gene TAS2R38 produces variations in our ability to taste bitterness. So there’s a chemical, PTC, that some people taste strongly, some slightly and others not at all. The ones that taste it strongly can taste the bitter thiourea (sp?) compounds in veggies like broccoli.

Matt, chowhound had a whole section on radishes a few years ago.  I had a bumper crop of radishes - they get really hot when the temp is over 85 degrees.  One way to take out the heat and to get non-radish lovers to at least try them is to slice and saute them (butter) then , when they become rosy and a bit translucent, add a teaspoon of vinegar which completely removes the heat.

Here’s the post from chowhound: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/291777

Crissa, if it’s a generally healthy baby, you don’t need to sanitize stuff.  Per our beloved and retired D.O. who was also our family’s pediatrician:  Let kids come into contact with germs at an early age.  That’s what builds immunities and prevents allergies.  Ad anything in the family home is likely to be stuff the kid already is exposed to.

Does not apply if the child or adult of any age has immune deficiency or other fragile health.

@elena ... Two things about the beet sour. One, it’s good if you have a lot of beets that you don’t know how you’ll get through. You just put it away (takes about 15 minutes of prep) and have it ready to go when you need some quick meal at some other point. Two, I, personally, not hating on anybody’s traditional way of doing things, thought it tasted better, with more tang/kick, than I’ve ever gotten with lemon juice or vinegar. When I’ve cooked with it, I actually found it easier because I didn’t have to do any monkeying at the end to get the flavor I was looking for.

Well, sure, but you don’t want a baby to interact with the kinds of germs that live in the kitchen.  You can’t stuff the world into a dishwasher!

Oh, I was just mentioning that you can save water/time with it if you use it right.  I installed mine myself.

A fantastic way to grow basil from seed is wintersowing. Actually it’s springsowing, but you do it using the method at wintersown.org. It takes an empty plastic container like a soda bottle or milk jug and it’s extremely reliable. You can start it slightly before your last frost and the basil will sprout just as soon as it’s time and the seedlings will even withstand a few light frosts. Wintersowing is great.

Well, like I said, it’s a matter of learning how to wash dishes by hand.  I realize, in 2010, that most people have grown up never having had to do that.  If you did, you might start to really see the dishwasher as a waste of space, in the same way that people who don’t make a lot of casseroles start to be suspicious of the need to have a ginormous refrigerator.  Personally, I need the cabinet space more than the dishwasher.

The dishes piling up:
I actually let the dishes pile up less when I am using the dishwasher because I just rinse the non-scrub stuff (basically everything but pans) as soon as I’m done using it or set it in the sink to soak then do so a few minutes later.  I have enough dishes to do that and run the dishwasher every 4-8 days (depending on what and how we’ve been eating) since we’ve still got the dishes for a 4-person household.  If I’m washing dishes, I wait until I have enough to not waste an entire sink of water for a single drainer of dishes.  That early learned west coast water savings training still kicks in even now that I live in the comparatively wet northeast.

I ended up having to do more work on occasion with the dishwasher because I’d rinse something, stick it in the dishwasher, and then need it again but it wasn’t full enough to run a load.  Granted, there’s only the two of us, but I run into this problem less. I’m a huge fan of lots of soap and soaking, as well as cleaning up as you go.  In case that’s not obvious from these posts.

When we had a dishwasher we’d wait till all of our dishes were dirty before we ran a load. Washing dishes by hand we use the same two plates, bowls, etc all the time. If we never had company we could live very simply.

You don’t need to run a whole sinkful of water to soak a load of dishes. The limiting factor at our place is the diameter of the coffee maker filter basket.

What I don’t entirely understand about the dishwasher (especially the “water saving” aspect) is that you have to rinse the dishes before you can actually run the thing.  When you wash dishes by hand, the only water used beyond that is rinsing the soap off the dish.  Considering that hand washing encourages one to own fewer dishes and dirty them wisely, I don’t really get how a dishwasher saves water.  I’ve read the research, and I suppose I trust that.  But I don’t really get how it can possibly be true, unless they’re not taking into account the pre-rinse.

phylosopher @ #71: No, I hadn’t come across them before. Thank you for finding it!

I shared an apartment with a dishwasher with two other people once, and we wound up using it as a drying rack to hold the dishes as we handwashed them. Each of us had particular dishes we tended to reach for preferentially—one roommate wouldn’t eat anything unless it was served on a proper full-sized plate, the other would usually reach for a rice bowl because he was almost always eating in front of his computer and he found them easier to hold one-handed (no matter what he was eating), and I preferred (and still do) eating out of wide, shallow bowls, because I’m a lot less likely to slop whatever I’m eating over the edge and make a mess. When you added in the fact that the first roommate was super-paranoid about dirt and germs and refused to let an unwashed dish sit in the dishwasher for more than about 18 hours, we eventually decided that it wasn’t worth the energy, soap, and water we were wasting, running a tiny fraction of a load every single day.

I keep buying beets intending to make borscht, but then my laziness kicks in and I wind up just roasting them and eating them (cold, with a little vinaigrette or ranch dressing—yum!) The laziness means I don’t bother peeling them before roasting. The peel slips right off once you open up the foil wrapping!

Some of those fancy new dishwashers don’t require rinsing.  But they do require certain kinds of plumbing and cash.  Which is to say, if you can afford them, they’re a really great luxury and I’d love to have one.  But what most of us are exposed to, in terms of dishwashers, doesn’t do a whole lot. 

Unless you dry all your dishes by hand, I suppose.  Then the drying function on dishwashers is kind of awesome.  But if you, like me, think that’s why god invented wooden dish racks, then it’s no big thing.  I used my dishwasher when I had one, but mostly because it was such a great dish rack that got them out of my way.

I used my dishwasher when I had one, but mostly because it was such a great dish rack that got them out of my way.

Yup. I just moved into a place without a dishwasher. My last apt had one, but that was like one of the past ten years.  It was fantastic when I had a party or when I was canning, but other than that, it just meant that I left things dirty longer while I waited for a full load to accumulate.

Problem with the soap and soaking is if it’s in the sink, then you for the most part, have an inoperative sink for that time.  Which may be the difference between having a one, two or three bowl sink.  Right now, we have a sink and mini compost sink and drainboard.  Next time, it’ll be the huge single sink and a dishpan for soaking.

This is why it’s best to just wash whatever it is straightaway without all the soaking.  Again, unless it’s something that begs to be soaked, like a casserole dish crusted with cooked on shmutz.  But I only ever have that sort of thing every so often.  And it’s usually pretty easy to commit the whole sink for that - it’s not like I’m soaking a casserole dish for three days or anything.

Well. Opoponax, I generally don’t either, but with multiple able to reach the sink people in the house, even a few hours can tie it up, because you know, one kid finishes one casserole out of the frig, and soaks it while someone else stands there with the armful of asparagus/lettuce/broccoli that needs to be soaked/rinsed/whatever.  So you clean that casserole - muttering all the while.  Turn your back to regrab the load of veggies and the next kid plops his just finished the leftover casserole dish in…. lather, rinse repeat for number of persons besides self in house and supply of casserole leftovers.

As I said way up at the top of the thread, big families pretty much require a dishwasher.  Especially big families with a bunch of teenagers who want to eat round the clock.

Though, in my family (partially because there were so many of us and all parents worked outside the home), there was one mealtime and one menu option for said meal.  And if you weren’t interested, you were responsible for your own food prep and cleanup and had to work around everyone else who was eating dinner with the family like civilized human beings.  There was no servant-mom standing at the sink waiting to cater to our food/cleaning whims.

You know what would be awesome? Having two dishwashers instead of kitchen cabinets. You could just cycle your dishes through and never have to worry about unloading the dishwasher.

OK- Opo, it isn’t an uncivilized kids thing - we want them to soak it as opposed to leaving it dirty on the counter - right?  There was a recent Calvin and Hobbes that was a perfect illustration - kid yells for mother from door.  Mother (sitting on couch) responds with “I’ve told you not to yell across the house, but to find me and ask me your question.  Kid dutifully and obediently tracks through house and says “where’s the garden hose?  I need it to wash the dog shit I stepped in off my shoes.” 

And it must be that disparity thing - I guess I don’t consider a total of 4 (2 kids, 2 adults) a big family.  And o shit - you mean this will go on for years? - they’re not even teens yet;-)

I only have a one bowl sink.  A two bowl sink would be a luxury; a three bowl sink unimaginable, because then I would have one for the drainer, one for soaking, and one for washing.  But there’s no reason to think a sink is completely out of commission if you have dishes soaking.  Wash as you go; that does the trick 95% of the time. Plus, if you’re washing easy stuff over the soaking stuff, it’s getting more water flowing over the soaking stuff, making it that much easier to clean when you get around to it.  It’s the same principle dishwashers use. 

Of course, I realize a lot of my instincts of when to wash, when to soak, how to make room, how quickly to do it, etc. are all because I have a lot of practice.

The third bowl is usually the mini-one over the garbage disposal - not super functional for washing anything, except that one I had had a neat drainer/cutting board thing which as wonderful for rinsing and then chopping veggies.  Agreed, the quick rinse over the soaking pan makes sense, but I’m talking here about the bringing in from the garden or farmers market stuff like broccoli - or do your CSA’s prebrine to get the worms out? Other “need clean, empty sink” are things like sweating eggplant.  Or cooling a veg after a blanching. or even draining pasta in a colander.

Phylosypher, I dunno.  All I can really say is that, per above, nobody is trying to take your dishwasher away from you.  Especially if you have kids.

And, uh, yeah, a 4 kid family is a pretty big family.  I grew up in a 4 kid family that later became a 7 kid family, and there were a lot of things we couldn’t do even at the 4 kid stage simply because there were too damn many of us.  One thing that got sacrificed was total food freedom 24/7.  Another sacrifice was the freedom to make constant messes and expect there to be an adult around to clean it up.  And yet another reality was that my parents claimed the right to say no, even to simple requests.  Simply because neither of them could stand around washing casserole dishes and rinsing salad greens and cutting crusts off sandwiches all day. 

It still weirds me out when I go home to visit and my mom asks me what I want for breakfast.

Really I don’t have a great attachment to my dishwasher.  In a recent “it’s broke should we bother to fix it or not,” I was pretty far into the not side, but since it was still under warranty, we did. 

Now, do I have a love/hate- mostly hate problem with our current sink?  Yes.  It’s some plastic shit material called “Swanstone” that stains constantly.  Configuration: one smallish sink plus that one 6x10” one over the disposal and an attached stain prone drainboard.  Doesn’t work for me. 

But if I have 4 kids - hey, where are the other two?  Oh, wait 2 adults + 2 kids = 4 people.  And I’m the one who’s supposed to be bad at math?;-)

We’re doing the kid independence thing - I mean, they heat, they eat, and they soak… all OK except when the soak conflicts with other stuff - it gets really fun when you get mad at yourself - because now you want the sink with armful of veg and it’s the casserole YOU left in it.  Think too much multi-tasking?

Watch out, Amanda. This is going to become a food blog before you know it.

Personally, I’d like a fridge that kept everything at a strict 51F to go with my 33F fridge for milk and longer term cold things and 20F freezer for actually keeping things solid frozen.  Some things are just better when chilled slightly, and some thing actively fail below a certain temperature.  Wines and tomatoes come to mind.  I don’t care what temperature my soda is, as long as it’s 65F or lower.  And some things want a sealed environment - like fruits - which I can’t keep flies out of my kitchen - that’s our front/garden door there - but I could keep them out of a smaller space.

I don’t think I spent that much on our dishwasher.  All told it was in the $400 range (sale price, I delivered it and installed it myself, I installed the disposal unit, etc.)  And I don’t use the disposal unit to dispose of anything but things in the dishwasher, really.

The dishwasher can strain out dirty water and re-use it.  Unless you can have a sink full of soapy water, washing by hand will use more water.  Even that sink full is more than the washer uses in a cycle.

Crissa, I think that’s the theory behind all those fiddly drawers and compartments in a refrigerator.  they’re supposed to control airflow and offgasses for ripening - sort of like those special veggie bags with holes.  And the meat drawer is supposed to keep stuff colder because it’s positioned in the coldest part of the fridge.  (Cue science person for better explanation).

Those new undercounter refrigerators (drawers really) are exactly what you are talking about - but beaucoup expensive, last time I looked. Personally, I covet a real root cellar (apartment dwellers stop reading now.)  Old fashioned dirt floored, not well-sealed basements kept natural foods at exactly the right temp, and with good airflow, and the right moisture - apples, squashes and well, ROOTS could be kept all winter.  Our modern basements are too warm, too dry, and too still for any type of storage.  You can get around it by walling off a basement area that has an operable window, I’ve been told.

You’re welcome, teac.  And, it’s been put on here a lot, but really is a great site worth promoting, IMO:
www.localharvest.org to find and connect with your local farmers.  New listings pop up all the time, so even if you can’t find one this year, try next.  And in the midwest, if you’re near a major city, at least, the good, established CSA shares seem to sell out by March at the latest - many by January.

@basements -

We don’t have a root cellar as such but we do manage some winter storage - we have a daylight basement (sloping lot) and put the potatoes in a box in the coldest corner and the squashes on a rack more in the middle where it’s a little warmer. 

It takes some fiddling around with the space you have but can be done, to a point.  A root cellar would be nice, but would be too much like work to build one on this site.

As always, I am late to the game, but I wanted to chime in that I do dishes while I cook (I like recipes that call for simmering or baking, that way I can do some dishes while I cook).  Also, I just bought a duplex this year, and I had several friends help me put in a garden.  Plus, I discovered I have a mulberry tree in my yard as well as a current bush!  My mom just showed me how to make and can the berries into jam, and I don’t think there is anything comparable to warm home made bread topped with current jam.
As for priviledge…There is this company called Grow Power here in Milwaukee and the owner, Will Allen, is making it his goal to bring fresh healthy food to the inner city.  Right now he is starting an offshoot right in the middle of the inner city.  So while many people really do not have access to fresh food right now (the grocery stores in the inner city seriously are filthy holes and I do not blame people for wanted to stay with boxed food because it appears cleaner and safer), There are people trying to change this.  Plus, it really is affordable.  Grow power sells some of the produce at the local coop and it is quite a bit cheaper than other stuff.

purpleshoes, cool- (extends hand) shake?

1 cup salt in 1 gallon water.  Immerse broccoli for 30 minutes.  Rinse and cook/process as usual.  .  I use an inverted bowl or rimmed plate to make sure the broccoli is under the water.  Supposedly the worms try to crawl out of the head when hit with the salt water.  This gets them out of the head.  If you just cook it, they die tangled in the florets.  Extra protein, and they won’t hurt you, but, there is a certain eeeeuw factor.  The worms we get are about 1/2 -3/4 inch long and pale green.  I think diamond back larva - there are much bigger worms, too. 

Hmmm, looking for the brine strength, I just found this tip if you are growing your own broccoli - we’ve used row covers, but for small gardens this was interesting - it said to put each head in a nylon stocking as it grows.  That keeps the moths from laying eggs on the brcooli.

Purpleshoes & Phylosopher@109 & 108:
if growing your own small amounts, very fine cheese cloth also works, though it doesn’t stretch to the extent the nylon will. 
The brine can be less than 1 c/1 gal, depending of type of bugs, but that will work for almost all of them.  I fill to the brim of a pot, then put the veggies in overflowing the brine, then put the lid on to keep everything under the surface.  This also works for kale, collards, and cabbage (really any of the leafy vegetables) as well as the cauliflower and broccoli.

good idea helen, though I would advise putting the lid on upside down if it’s a convex one - otherwise the little crawlers will just treat any non-submerged broccoli like their own rescue island and burrow back in only to re-emerge on the dinner plate.

One of my favorite things for summer: cucumber salad!  It’s great because it’s cheap and simple and actually gets better the longer it sits.  I slice up a cucumber and a quarter of a red onion.  Then I throw in some dry dill and red wine vinegar.  I put in salt and pepper and actually put in a dash of sugar to take the edge off of the vinegar.  Just let it sit in the fridge for at least six hours before serving, but I usually let it sit over night and then itjust hangs out in the fridge until I am done with it. :D Simple, cheap and delicious.  Just like me! ...wait.

It’s some plastic shit material called “Swanstone” that stains constantly. 

Woof.  I will never understand why they don’t make every single sink in the world out of stainless steel.  Condolences.

We do know that they pick produce sold at grocery stores when it’s way under-ripe to buy a little more time for all the shipping.  It’s one reason that a farmer’s market veggie is often richer in taste than a grocery store one—-that, and probably it used a different kind of fertilizer, so grew a lot slower.  However, the evidence that organic vegetables are more nutritious than grocery store ones is scant.  Far more important is making sure everyone gets enough vegetables.  The main problem is that a) they don’t and b) the way that we mass produce vegetables isn’t sustainable, since it relies so heavily on fossil fuels.

Condolences appreciated.  But in this neck of the woods (as in on private well water, or even public well water) as opposed to New Yorker, or even Chicagoans who have phenomenal soft water (NY has a great source in upstate reservoirs,) a stainless steel sink doen’t remain stainless - it tends to get an etched film and “rust” (tannin stains.)  The porcelain one we have in the barn, -which was a curbside rescue- really seems to hold up, even with much abuse.

Amanda, I’m not sure about that on the veggie/nutrition.  One thing we do know from animal nutrition studies, is that the mineral content of the soil makes a difference in the mineral content of the feed/veg/grass.  So if those studies test only for NPK, or vitamins and exclude minerals, it would show scant difference.  But if you start to take not as easily replenishable minerals into account, then there is a huge difference.  I believe in various areas of the US, it is selenium, magnesium and zinc that are often lacking, while in the UK it was copper.  It’s been a while since I kept up, so those are IIRC.

(I lived without a dishwasher for three years, mind, but I never got to the point where I didn’t have to do dishes for an hour before I started to cook.)

The longer I do this, the more I think that the key to a good hand washing flow is to not really have a whole lot of quantity.  This forces you to wash things immediately, or to get comfortable washing the same stuff multiple times per day and/or as you use them.  I have one wooden spoon that I like to use for cooking.  Which means it HAS to get washed immediately so that it can be ready for the next time I need a wooden spoon. 

Conversely, the key to good dishwasher use is to have enough stuff that the size of a load doesn’t pose a problem.

Here in CA, it’s well-known that the ’ best’ produce gets shipped back east and sold at a jacked-up price.

As for the different fertilizers theory, I don’t think that would make a lot of difference.

It’s probably more to do with the fact that the produce in the grocery store is old, and therefore loses a lot of natural flavors as it ages and is moved around about for a while before it ends up in the produce section.

Also, the farmers market stuff tends to be more heirloom varieties which are usually much more tasty than the varieties which are bred for volume and weight over flavor for the mass market.

Industrial scale farmers also tend to select breeds that will ship better and look nicer, sacrificing flavor.

electricgrindel @111:
My greatgrandmother from MO made something very like that.  She used sliced or chunked cucmber finely sliced white onion (or several green onions, white part only), herbs (fennel, basil, dill, parsley, whatever she had on hand and was in the mood for), white vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar.  The vinegar was added last, just enough to cover, and then all put on a cool porch or into a sealed container in a batch of water. 
I still make it as it’s one of the things, with fresh sliced tomatoes, that just means summer to me.  I slice the cucmber very thin, slice red or sweet white onion very thin, add a hot pepper finely chopped occationally, whole or lightly crushed coriander seed, fresh herbs sometimes, garlic sometimes, red wine or rice venegar, black pepper.  I don’t use salt due to my spouse’s heart condition and high blood pressure.  This is such a forgiving salad, you can adjust it to the likes of anyone who can eat cucumber.

sorry, that should have been @112.

electricgrendel - that sounds perfect!  I have extra cukes and have been looking for something to do with them in this heat wave we’re having.

does anyone else do freezer pickles?

For salad, we sweat cuke slices with salt as people do eggplant for frying. (Else they sweat once you add dressing.) Then rinse off the salt. (Sweat in a colander over a bowl of some kind.

My friend who kept kosher in a single basin sink kitchen relied on a variety of dishpans to make it work.

Wow, thanks for all the cabbage recipes!

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