Spicy Garbanzo Beans

March and the start of April are challenging eating months. The stockpile of root veggies grows smaller, and at this point, more rutabaga, turnips, or cabbage aren't as appealing as they were even a few weeks ago. The pantry of canned foods gets emptier and emptier...and all of my favorite snacks were eaten first, so what remains is certainly not as exciting. Same goes for the freezer.

So, I was in for a wonderful surprise on Friday night when Andy brought home a recipe for Roasted Garbanzo Beans. We had them, roasted with chili powder, as a snack, and today, we made a large second batch with curry to take with us for lunches this week.

Crunchy. Salty. Healthy. Vegan. Addicting.  And only four ingredients:

• garbanzo beans (dry)
• olive oil
• spice
• salt

To make them, I suggest preparing them from dry beans, but you could also go the canned route.

If you go with my suggestion, start by soaking 6 cups of beans overnight in a bowl of water. The water should be a couple of inches above the beans.

The next day, drain the water. Then, add new water, a bit of salt, and boil for 45 minutes or until tender. Now the beans are ready to roast!

Drain the beans. Transfer to a bowl and toss with quarter cup of olive oil and spice of your desire (possibly chili or curry!?), plus salt.

Spread onto a baking sheet. Roast at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how crunchy you'd like them.

Before Roasting

After roasting

  Be warned: seriously addicting!!! 

Eating Seasonally: Practice Makes Perfect

Recently a friend asked, "How do you use all of your CSA box and garden?"  This wasn't the first time a friend or family member has wondered that. After seven years of membership, we have worked out a system. We 100% build our weekly menu around the box, and one big way that we use an armful of vegetables is in a weekly soup or salad for lunch. Today, we made a lentil-and-curry based soup. Typically, we start with a base, such as this, and then we look through the refrigerator to find vegetables that will meld well.

Tonight, we each devoured steaming bowls of this new creation, topped with sour cream. So delicious that we decided to make the recipe permanent, right here, on our blog. Of course, living with a CSA box and a huge garden doesn't always lend itself to replicating recipes ingredient-by-ingredient, so this will always remain a skeleton, unless the stars and veggies align next fall, and we find ourselves with the same exact ingredients and happen to remember this specific mix on that day.

Here's what we used:
3 carrots
4 cups of escarole
2 cups of dry lentils
6 cups of water and vegetable broth mix
3 potatoes
1 small head of cauliflower
1 head of garlic
2 leeks
2 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. curry paste
1 lemongrass sprig
3 tomatoes
sour cream (optional)

Directions:
1. We heated the butter in a soup pan and added the leek, garlic, and lentils. We allowed this to cook for a couple of minutes.
2. Then, we added the broth, tomatoes, carrots, and lemongrass. We brought it to a boil.
3. Then, we added the rest of the ingredients, except for the escarole, and let it cook until the lentils were tender.
4. We added the escarole at the end, let it wilt, and then served it up for dinner. It was wonderful topped with a bit of sour cream.

It made 13 cups. We each had one cup for dinner, and we stored the rest in Ball jars (1-cup in each). We'll have an easy, go-to lunch for the rest of the week.

Dinners will consist of plant-based ingredients, both from our box and from our garden. Whatever isn't used by the end of the week will go in the freezer. Eating seasonally definitely takes planning, but once you get the hang of it, it is easy ....and dare I say, fun!?

Fall Harvest: Beans and Greens

Beautiful Swiss Chard

We've been busy, busy the past few weeks and weekends, as I'm sure most of you all have been. Luckily, the weather has been such that we personally haven't been too worried about the veggies left in our garden or the amount of work yet to be done before the first snowfall. This weekend, other than Saturday-morning test proctoring and Sunday paper-correcting, we had no plans! While it seems we have overzealous ideas about the amount of work that realistically can be done in a day, we still managed to get a significant start on cleaning up a few garden beds and harvesting/preserving a bit of food.

First, we harvested three of our four pole bean beds. Our Trail of Tears Black Bean bed was full of skinny, gray/brown pods. Each contained about 8 small beans inside. We managed to get a whole quart of those. Our Mother Stallard bean beds produced about a quart also. Dry beans are a must for growing in our semi-vegetarian  household. We've already decided that  next year, we will triple the amount of beans. Not only are homegrown beans 100% ethical, they are also economical. Compare the price of a burger to that of a homemade bean burger made with beans from your backyard. Crazy savings!

Mother Stallard and Trail of Tears Beans

Plus, beans are just so gosh darn beautiful. The process of planting,  harvesting, picking, and then storing them entertains and tickles all of our senses. Luckily, we have beautiful Christmas Lima beans yet to harvest.

Next, we cut Swiss Chard. We'd been waiting to make a big harvest until a frost hit. In cold weather, some vegetables respond by producing more sugar because sugar doesn't freeze;  hence, the veggies are a bit sweeter. It's worth noting though, that a freeze will kill Swiss Chard, so the whole sugar thing doesn't work beyond a certain point.

This  morning, I froze 2 bags of our Swiss Chard and 2 bags of Harmony Valley Farm's spinach. If you haven't ever frozen greens before, it's super easy and well worth your time. Simply rinse the greens, chop them to desired size, and put them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Then, put them into an ice bath to stop the cooking process, dry them (in salad spinner or by squeezing and draining), and then bag them up. I find we actually eat more greens in the winter because taking them out of the freezer and heating them up or adding them to a soup or casserole is so quick! 

I also stuck a bunch of dry curly kale into bags. No need to blanch! Kale crumbles are the perfect easy addition to winter dishes.

Nutrition for the winter

And now, we're off to the garden. Happy Fall!

Garden shots from early June

We've been planting gardens since early May. Spring was a bit odd, with lots of cold patches and rainy days. Thus, we were a bit late in getting some of our new raised beds built and planted. Once we saw a coyote heading towards our chickens (eeks!), our butts were kicked into gear, however, and we managed to capitalize on a few nice days and get most beds built and planted. Our raised beds serve as extra protection around the run, especially from diggers like coyotes.

Anyway, here are a few pretty shots from two weeks ago:

Trail of Tears Black Beans

Christmas Lima Beans

 

First cherry tomatoes poking through

Mother Stoddard's Beans

Sunflowers

Rat-tailed radishes

Kale (planted early May)

Cabbage (planted early May)

Lemon Thyme (perennial)

Rocky, the rooster

Chickens and Chickpeas

All of our chickens are in the coop! Despite not hearing back from the State Lab regarding Marley's illness, we decided (after checking with our vet) to put all of the chicks together in the coop and run. We're crossing our fingers that Marek's has not visited the Poquette residence.

Tonight, we enjoyed all of their company for a few hours. We let them frolic outside of their run while we grilled some veggies for a new kicked-up-a-notch version of one of my favorites, Tex-Mex Chickpea Salad.

...and so, here is our official flock (drum roll please!)...

The oldest two first. Both are Bantams.

Zappa: King of the Roost

Sweet, sweet Ani (she doesn't fit her namesake very well!).

Next, the middle ones: the Polish hens...who have managed to sneak their way to momentary favorite status (at least for the writer of this blog). They're time inside the house from July to the start of September lent itself to many moments of bonding and cuddling. The first night they finally slept outside, I felt like I was experiencing empty nest syndrome.

Sultry Ella...she really loves perching.

Janis ... she does fit her namesake.

And finally, the "babies" ~ though they're much bigger already than all of the other birds. They still look less mature, but their size is massive in comparison. They are Ameraucanas, otherwise known as Easter Eggers because of the color and size of their eggs. These ladies will eventually be much larger than their flock mates.

Spinderella...she is ALWAYS flying onto everything. It's very endearing.

Salt...on a mission.

Pepa never poses...this is like my 100th try at a picture of her. She's very elusive.

Now for the chickpea recipe (I love word coincidences!). We usually make this inside, but last  night we decided to grill all of the veggies. The results: delicious!!! However, if you don't feel like grilling or it's not the right season, the inside version is nearly as good. We usually make a huge batch so that we can take leftovers for lunch all week.

Tex-Mex Chickpea Salad (grilled)
Ingredients (all are approximates and could be adapted to your liking):
4 cups dried chickpeas (soaked and prepared)
3 tomatoes
1 chipotle and adobe sauce
3 jalapenos
1 large onion
3 large cloves of garlic
2 bell peppers
juice of 2 limes
2 Tbs. olive oil
cilantro
sour cream (optional)

Instructions:
1. Prepare beans or use canned chickpeas.
2. Cube the bell pepper and onion. Peel and half garlic cloves.
3. Halve limes.
4. Prepare hot fire on the grill. 
5. Grill onion, garlic, and peppers in a grill basket. Put large tomatoes and halved limes directly on grill. 
6. Cook until charred and soft.
7. Dice tomatoes, juice limes, and dice chipotle.
8. Combine all ingredients.Salt and pepper to taste.
9. Top with sour cream, if desired.

Honestly so good! ...and so nutritious! Great source of protein for a Meat Free Day!

Dilly Beans

Carmen's opinion of canning in 90+ degree weather. Hehe.

For the last several years, we've bought a 10 pound box of beans from Harmony Valley Farm. This year we canned 6 quart jars of dilly beans and froze the rest of the beans for fall and winter casseroles and soups.

Dilly beans are great accessories to a Bloody Mary and fabulous snacks for any time you're craving something salty.

Ingredients:
4 pounds of green beans
8-16 heads of fresh dill
8 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup canning salt
4 cups white vinegar
4 cups water
hot pepper flakes -- optional (we used approx. 6 dried peppers' worth)

Materials:
6 quart jars or 12 pint jars
canner
jar grabber
tongs
large pot
funnel

The process is as follows:

1. Snap the ends off of the beans. (This is a fun step. My parents usually come over, and we gossip over wine while bean-snapping like crazy people. Now the chickens run around, scavenging for bean butts.)
 
2. Put beans into a sink full of water to get them clean. 

3. Sterilize quart jars and lids by placing them in boiling water for 1-2 minutes. Or if your dish washer has a sterilize cycle, use that.

4. Prepare the brine by combining salt, vinegar, dill, water, and red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil.

5. Put the garlic, dill, and hot peppers (optional) into the steralized jars.

6. Tightly pack the beans into the jars, leaving 1/2-inch head space.

7. Pour brine over the beans, again leaving the 1/2-inch head space on the jar.

8. Put the lids on the jars.

9. Put the jars into the canner and process for five minutes - though depending on your altitude, times can vary.