“Flavors of the Garden” at Civic Garden Center

Members of the Enright CSA will once again participate in Flavors of Community Gardens at the Civic Garden Center this week. Jeanne Nightingale, Elaine Wolter, Diana Lewis, and Suellyn Shupe will bring recipes prepared from our CSA gardens vegetables for participants to taste. We will also taste from the bounty of many other gardens sponsored or supported by Civic Garden Center.

You may not be aware that the fenced garden on Terry Street was originally a Community Garden sponsored by CGC and established as such via the efforts of Jennifer Belisle, who is a five year member of the CSA. That garden was vital to the project in its first year, and continues to provide plenty, as well as being one of the few that is securely fenced.

All CSA members are invited to attend this free event to hang out with garden people and get some good recipe ideas. You probably won’t need dinner when you get home.

Flavors of Community Gardens

Thursday, September 12

5:30 to 7:30 pm

Patio at Civic Garden Center

2715 Reading Road, Mt. Auburn

—Suellyn Shupe

End-of-Summer Pickled Cabbage Salad

I’ve made various salads with Napa (or Chinese) cabbage before, and I’ve pickled it with carrots and radishes into a kind of Korean kimchi. Over the weekend, I was looking for something that was somewhere in between—a tangy salad, but not quite as tangy as kimchi. I also wanted to eat it the same day as I made it, rather than burying it in the backyard (or, these days, the refrigerator) for a few weeks, as you need to do with kimchi.

I searched for pickled cabbage online and found some recipes for sauerkraut and pickled red cabbage, and I also found various recipes for cabbage salad. I took a little from one recipe, a little from another, and came up with this tasty version, with oranges, golds, and reds mixed in with the green cabbage—a perfect color combination for the beginning of September.

Pickled Cabbage Salad

1 head Napa (Chinese) cabbage

2-3 small carrots (gold or orange varieties)

1 red sweet pepper

1 purple onion

1 small piece of ginger, about 1 inch to 1½ inch

1 teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

2/3 cup cider vinegar

3-4 tablespoons honey or agave

Wash and separate the leaves of cabbage; cut them into strips long ways, then cut the strips into about 2” pieces. Peel the carrots and cut into matchstick size pieces;  seed the red pepper and dice it into small pieces; peel and slice the purple onion thin and chop into bite-sized pieces. Put all the vegetables in a large container with a lid, then sprinkle with celery seed. Peel the ginger and slice very thin; cut the slices into strips. Heat the vinegar and honey or agave in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil, turn down to simmer, and add the salt and ginger pieces. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool down for about 5 to 10 minutes. Pour it over the vegetables, sprinkle with black pepper, put the lid on, and toss until all the pieces are coated with the dressing. Refrigerate at least four hours (overnight is okay, too) before serving.

Improvise and Compensate!

I was involved with a few local theatre troupes in my youth, and we always had rather laughable budgets to put on shows, so our motto was always “Improvise and Compensate.” It’s stuck with me all these years; there are always ways to make do with what you have or substitute something you can get for something that just isn’t attainable.

Well, over the weekend I realized that can apply to cooking, too. I dearly love gazpacho, a cold soup, usually made with tomatoes (but I also have a recipe for a delicious cucumber version). The standard recipe calls for peppers and celery and cucumbers along with the tomatoes, and I’ve posted the recipe in the past. 

But this season, when I had enough tomatoes, I didn’t have any cucumbers, and I had more hot peppers than green peppers, and no celery at all. Still, I had tomatoes that needed to be used quickly, so I decided to try a little improvising, compensating for what I lacked.

What I wound up with was a slightly different but very tasty version of the traditional tomato gazpacho. Since I used mostly things that were in the share last week and this week, I thought I’d post my improvised version of this fresh vegetable favorite.

Improvise and Compensate Gazpacho

6-7 stalks bok choi (just the stalks, not the green part)

2 cups cubed watermelon, seeded

8 small to medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped

2 green peppers, seeded and chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped

2 red onions, peeled and chopped

½ cup cider vinegar

¼ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Put all the chopped up vegetables in a food processor (in batches if necessary), and puree until there are no chunks left. Add the oils, vinegar, salt, and pepper and mix well. Chill and serve cold with croutons, onions, parsley, or chopped cucumbers as a garnish.