Winter Food Blues, Take 2

Springy Kraut

To make my homemade root veggie kraut lighter and more spring like, I do this:

  • On plate, place a pile of kraut to please your appetite.
  • Add tiny chunks of 1/2 apple or grate 1/2 apple.
  • Add 1 stalk of celery, chopped into bite sized pieces.
  • Walnuts to please...
  • Sheep milk feta

This is it, before I piled it onto plates and added the feta and walnuts.  I also grated a carrot and a hunk of my beloved celeriac into the root veggie kraut.

DSC00963

This is a fun way, for me, to change my regular food as I work through my impatience around the spouting up and availability of local spring produce.

Peas.... how long must I wait for peas?

spring peas

Winter Food Blues

It is that time of year... I am sick of winter root veggies, squash, and cabbage.  I know, on the tail end of it, there IS good things coming.  I get impatient. I long for the green things sprouting out of our local soil.  To survive until the local farmers and my garden has some stuff to offer up, I play around with food. (Truthfully, I play around with food all the time.)

I am waiting, very impatiently, for the wild leeks.

I do have tiny stinging nettle tops poking up in my garden.  I have popped off a couple of nettle tops and indulged in the raw green-ness of it.  They are so young that they leave no sting behind on the tongue or in the throat.

Dandelion greens are out there too.  All survival food to nourish my cells and my soul!

So a dear friend turned me on to Balela, a Mediterranean salad. Immediately I thought: "What a fun idea and release from winter food."

davids

David's recipe, displayed above:

Ingredients:  all ingredients are organic

  • 1 15-oz can black beans
  • 1 15-oz can garbanzo beans
  • 1/2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
  • 2 stocks green onion, chopped
  • 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar (white or apple vinegar should suffice)
  • two organic tomatoes chopped into bite-sized pieces
  • 2 tbsp chopped parsley
  • 1 tbsp chopped mint
  • unrefined sea salt & pepper to taste

 

mine

My improvised Balela, using what I had on hand:

Ingredients: again, all organic

  • 1 15-oz can kidney beans (no black beans in my cupboard)
  • 1 15-oz can garbanzo beans
  • 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/3 cup organic lemon juice, Lakewood Organic from the Potsdam Coop
  • Chopped chives from my herb garden
  • 1 1/2 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar from Martin's Farm Stand
  • about 25 frozen cherry tomatoes from The Kent Family Growers winter CSA, thawed and chopped in 1/2
  • 2 tbsp chopped oregano from my herb garden (no parsley yet!)
  • 1 tbsp lemon thyme from my herb garden (no peppermint, deer ate it!)
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • red pepper flakes to taste
  • unrefined sea salt & pepper to taste

Just before I indulged, I placed pine nuts on top and some sheep milk feta.     Very YUMMY!

I know David is eating and enjoying Balela, as well, in LaFayette!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's Winter Food Blues Recipe... how I Spring up the root veggie kraut to make my taste buds sing (instead of them whining about more winter food and thinking the green stuff will never grow!).

Hang in there... local, spring food is right around the corner!