Archives for posts with tag: winter food

Seasonal Eating in Western Washington

April 27, 2025 //
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My weekly trip to the farmers market is always an adventure: what will there be in the last week of April? After decades of farmers market shopping, farm box subscriptions and growing my own food in California, I had a pretty good idea what to expect in the markets there. I knew homegrown cherry tomatoes might be ripe on June 30, or Fourth of July and sweet corn would soon follow, but I have lived two states to the north for less than a year and do not know what to expect.

I’ll adjust, but I am not adjusted. The days have gotten long here and cavalcades of flowers are blooming: bulbs and shrubs and flowering trees: peonies, iris, tulips, lilacs, rhododendrons, cherries and plums. And yet the food crops are stubbornly behind sunny California or even foggy coastal California.

I got excited on Friday because the market newsletter had said there would be strawberries this week. I packed empty glass containers to carry them home in and got to the market just as it opened to be sure to get some.

I didn’t see any strawberries when I walked through the market. I stopped to buy radishes and spring salad mix and a loaf of whole wheat sourdough. I walked through a second time. No strawberries.

I stopped by the market booth. “The newsletter said you would have strawberries this week. Did the vendor not come?”

The woman in the booth looked at me.

“Strawberry plants,” she said, naming the vendor.

Oh.

I spotted some rhubarb. Perhaps it was dreaming of strawberries like I was.

I did not buy any rhubarb this week. Once, in an effort to try everything in a market, I bought a bunch of rhubarb and made all kinds of things with it. You can read about those experiments here. I may get so I crave rhubarb in the spring after a few years in Washington, but I am not there yet.

There are no root crops in the market except radishes. Where are the carrots, the spring beets, the new potatoes?

On my way out, I bought arugula with my last six dollars. I’ll be eating both salads and cooked greens this week: spring salad mix, arugula, radish greens, bok choy and the last of some savoy cabbage I bought some weeks back. The arugula farmer had cauliflower, but I do not like cauliflower (If I want some, I can get some next week).

Once home I cooked my last two beets: I will eat those in salads this week with walnuts, feta, various greens and a vinaigrette with pomegranate molasses (I found pomegranate molasses at the health food store this week and am delighted to have it).

I am beginning to long for fresh fruit. I have blood oranges, oranges, lemons and limes. I have frozen blueberries. I have canned sour pie cherries. I have dried cranberries and dried cherries and dates. I eat all of these things. If I were in California I would be feasting on strawberries by now. I can make wonderful cherry pie out of canned sour cherries. I can make candied orange peel and eat it in oatmeal with dates and cinnamon. I have jams and apple butter as well. I can make do.

The truth is I am tired of winter eating. I am glad of spring salads. And I wonder what we will have to eat next week in western Washington.

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Categories frugal eating, salads, seasonal recipes, Uncategorized

Fall and Winter Salads

February 8, 2025 //
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Dear Readers,

In July 2024 I left my beloved California, the state I was born in and resided in most of my life. In early October I moved to a small city in Washington state (I am now hoping for the opportunity to buy a house in another, smaller city).

I am an economic refugee from California. I loved the Golden State and had a large community of friends in the Bay Area and elsewhere, but housing costs were too high even with an expected inheritance, so I moved to the Evergreen State to stay on the West Coast.

I am living in a 700 sq foot furnished rental cottage while I wait for my inheritance. 95% of my belongings are in a local storage facility. I have some winter clothes and three kitchen items of my own: a bamboo cutting board, a Pyrex pie plate and a one-cup liquid measuring cup. All of my cookbooks are in storage.

There are compensations to living here. I live between mountains and water up on a bluff above downtown. When I came here, turning trees greeted me with a fall display. And last weekend I had the pleasure of watching falling snow. The seasons here have neither the mild changes of California nor the severe weather of the upper Midwest.

For decades, I have been an habitué of farmers markets where the available food (and sometimes the vendors) changes with the seasons. I like to eat what is fresh, local and plentiful.

I also love to eat salads. My favorite salads are big bowls of crunchy romaine and Greek salads full of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, Kalamata olives and feta cheese. None of these things are local and available, although fresh corn lasted here well into October. So I’m getting really good at figuring out how to make delicious cold weather salads.

In fall I ate salads of radicchio, chopped dates and feta dressed with blood orange oil and lime juice, inspired by this recipe from Smitten Kitchen: https://smittenkitchen.com/2015/11/date-feta-and-red-cabbage-salad/ When spinach and mixed baby greens made brief appearances in December I bought bags of them each week and mixed them with chopped oranges, nuts, and a strong, garlicky red wine vinaigrette. When I lived in California I got bored with citrus. Here, I crave it, so I watch for specials on limes, lemons and oranges and incorporate them in salads or salad dressings. I bought a bottle of blood orange olive oil on my first local expedition in October: it is delicious and a little imparts a lot of flavor (Turns out the oil, which I bought from a vendor here, comes from California….).

When spinach and baby greens disappeared, I bought kale. Now the reason that I called my blog The Kale Chronicles wasn’t because I love kale, but because I am challenged by it. Last week I chopped the kale finely, mixed it with said blood orange oil and said vinaigrette, which consists of red wine vinegar, minced garlic, salt, black pepper and prepared mustard (I use the cheap, bright yellow stuff because I like sharp flavors). I let the kale sit overnight in the refrigerator before adding radishes, oranges and roasted almonds. It still tasted like kale, but a mellower, acceptable kale. This is a raw kale salad: if you want a cooked one, go here :https://thekalechronicles.com/2011/12/21/kale-conquered-the-kale-salad-i-love-and-the-versatile-blogging-award/

I was going to try marinating chopped kale in lemon juice and garlic, but today’s farmers had no kale: the only green vegetable available was Brussels sprouts.

Here’s what I did:

I removed the stem ends and sliced the sprouts finely into a large glass bowl. I added a tiny drizzle of olive oil (I’m running low) and the juice of half a lemon and tossed that mixture with my hands. Then I added two handfuls of dried cranberries. I slivered a Granny Smith apple from the refrigerator and re-tossed the salad. Then I added a dollop of yellow mustard and a sprinkling of chopped, roasted cashews and tossed the salad one final time. Then I dished myself a big bowl while I reheated a bowl of chili.

I could not stop eating this salad: I ate a full bowl and half a bowl more, resolutely putting the rest away for future meals. One thing about winter salads is that, like stews and soups, they keep well, and the flavors improve with time.

My take on constructing salads of strongly-flavored vegetables is to dress them first and let them absorb dressing before you add other ingredients. Add flavorful ingredients: I like dried fruit, citrus and nuts in winter salads, and sometimes feta cheese, but also pomegranate arils. If you skew more savory, you could add anchovies, olives, or Parmesan and skip the fruit — I won’t tell.

I’m not back in the habit of painting yet, although I painted during my travels in late summer and early fall, but these salads are colorful. If I do resume painting I’ll add illustrations to this post later.

Thanks for reading. And happy salad-making with whatever your market offers.

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Categories home cooking, salads, Uncategorized

What Do We Eat in January? Orange-Sesame Vinaigrette

January 7, 2012 //
39

painting depicts salad, varierty of citrus fruits.

Ginger-Sesame Vinaigrette 8″ x 8″ gouache and watercolor pencil. Sharyn DImmick

What do we eat in January? The reds of the summer and late fall have given way to orange and green. Citrus is pouring in from the farm box, from the market, from my sister-in-law’s orange tree. Lemons and limes are ripening in the yard. This week’s box from Riverdog Farm featured a red Kabocha squash (which is a deep shade of reddish-orange), two pounds of oranges, one and a half pounds of mandarin oranges, a couple of leeks, rapini, spinach, two celery roots and a pound and a half of potatoes.

First up, I stir-fried the rapini in olive oil with garlic and squeezed a lemon over that. We ate it with roasted delicata squash seasoned with ginger, lime and an apple cider reduction made from the last of a bottle of cider. We had a slice of heated up ham, which Mom splashed a little maple syrup on at the last minute. We each ate a slice of homemade whole wheat bread. I peeled a tangerine for dessert and Mom cut half an orange into quarters. I watched as her face puckered and volunteered to use the other half of the orange in salad dressing tomorrow.

I first saw this vinaigrette recipe in the farm newsletter, where it was reprinted from the Sun-Times. I have adapted it to use a variety of citrus and I’ll make it from now until citrus fruits fade out in the spring to be replaced by strawberries. While the original recipe called for canola or safflower oil I like to use peanut oil, which goes well with the Asian flavors of ginger, sesame, rice vinegar and tamari.

Orange Sesame Vinaigrette

Juice and zest 1 orange or 2 tangerines or 2 blood oranges or any combination into a bowl, bottle or cruet.

Add

2 Tbsp rice vinegar

2 Tbsp tamari

2 Tbsp sesame oil

1 Tbsp honey

2 tsp grated fresh ginger

2 cloves garlic, pressed

1/2 tsp kosher salt

black pepper to taste

minced chives, scallions or green garlic, depending on what you have

Whisk in

1/4 cup peanut oil (or add it to jar and shake vigorously).

Toast

2 Tbsp sesame seeds in a skillet

Now, make a salad of winter greens: spinach, arugula, lettuce, watercress — whatever you can get. If you can’t get fresh greens, you can slice up napa cabbage on a mandoline. Add slivered carrots, cabbage, sliced fennel, radishes. Throw in roasted peanuts or almonds if you like. Segment your favorite citrus fruits. Toss the salad with the vinaigrette and reserved sesame seeds.

Food notes: You can also eat this vinaigrette on cooked greens or Brussels sprouts. If you are allergic to peanut oil, substitute another oil that you like. Tamari is a wheat-free soy sauce, not as salty as standard soy sauce.

Painting note: This painting is a little blurry because it is a photo of a photo — the original is in a private collection and is more vivid and well-defined.

January is citruslove month. Which makes sense in the Northern Hemisphere at any rate. There is a citrus love recipe posting project. The hash tag is #citruslove. More about it here.

Now, Lauren of PrinceProductions has kindly awarded me another blogging award, Food Bloggers Uncovered, just to make sure I start the New Year off right. She posted ten questions to answer:

1.   What, or who inspired you to start a blog?

After struggling mightily over how to launch a website and what would be on it, I was talking to my friend Neola and she said, “Why don’t you just write about food? You could write about what vegetables you get and what you do with them.” Neola knows I am passionate about seasonal eating, that it actually pains me to see recipes containing basil and tomatoes in January.

2.   Who is your foodie inspiration?

I have had the good fortune to eat at Greens in San Francisco, at Chez Panisse and Ajanta in Berkeley, and at Joseph’s Table and The Love Apple in Taos, New Mexico. The chefs at those restaurants, Alice Waters, Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” and Michael Pollan’s books have influenced me mightily. The produce from Riverdog Farm has forced me to stretch my cooking muscles, and increase my versatility and look for ways to render a variety of greens delicious.

3.   Your greasiest, batter – splattered food/drink book is?

The old Betty Crocker Picture cookbook, which is where I go when I have a question about anything basic (substitutions, cooking methods, standard dishes). I like it that it has tabbed sections for yeast breads and pies as well as main dishes, meat, poultry. Read more about the cookbooks I use the most here.

4.   Tell us all about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

It would have to be in Paris in the winter where I ate coquilles St. Jacques, a poached pear and the best white bordeaux I have ever tasted, perfectly matched to the food.

5.   Another food bloggers table you’d like to eat at is?

I would like to dine with Susan Nye when she is cooking lobster, dine with anyone who likes to cook lamb, sit down to an Italian meal with John of the Bartolini Kitchens. Greg of Rufus’ Food  and Spirits Guide can make the pre-dinner cocktails and perhaps the bread pudding and you can all submit selections for the dessert cart. Are you listening, Linda? Get out the cheesecake! And I want to know what Christine of Angry Cherry is baking as well. Sally can bring the bread.

 6.   What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

We have a KitchenAid, but I would like the heavier-duty model, please.

7.   Who taught you how to cook?

Mom taught me the basics, including the pie crust, and then I started collecting recipes and techniques and ideas wherever I found them: learned to cook a few Indian and Thai dishes from college roommates, copied flavors I had had in restaurants, watched people cook on T.V., and read lots and lots of cookbooks.

8.   I’m coming to you for dinner what’s your signature dish?

It depends on the season. Turkey and apple stew, perhaps, or posole (without the kale!). Served with home-baked bread and a simple pudding or pie. Or green curry of anything. Or something Indian served with cucumber raita, whole wheat tortillas and chutney: chicken biryani or Indian-style black-eyed peas from the Ajanta cookbook.

9.   What is your guilty food pleasure?

My secret love of these processed foods: Cheez-Its (original flavor), barbecue chips, and Golden Grahams, which they might as well call candy.

10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

I refuse to eat a number of common foods: mayonnaise (I don’t care who makes it or if you call it “aioli”), avocado, hard-cooked eggs, most organ meats, tuna. I also refuse a number of delicacies: pate, sushi, oysters, caviar, Brie.

Finally…tag 5 other food bloggers with these questions…like a hot baked potato…pass it on.

No, no. We live in a democracy. Take it upon yourselves to answer these questions, or tell your friends about them. Alright, I nominate Granny Wise of Granny’s Parlour because I want to hear how she answers the questions. Who else? You know my favorites already. There’s Eva and Betsy and John, who doubtless have all been nominated for this before. I know, let’s give another award to Jane at ArtEpicurean. Done.

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Categories salads, seasonal recipes, Uncategorized