A Boy’s Life

This recipe was included in the veggie box last year, but I can’t find on the Farm Fresh to You site, so I’ll reprint it here.

First, either make a pie crust or thaw a frozen one. I used the frozen crust this time. Bake the pie crust in a 350 degree oven until it’s lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt 3 tablespoons of butter.

Peel 4 firm-ripe Fuyu persimmons—and they do have to be Fuyu; the other types of persimmons are too astringent to work well—and slice them up. Peel and slice two tart apples (such as Granny Smith or Pink Lady) as well. Mix the fruit in a large bowl with 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, and the juice of a lemon.

In another bowl, mix together 1 cup crushed gingersnap cookies, 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons flour. Mix in the melted butter and squeeze with your fingertips to form lumps.

When the pie crust is ready, fill it with the sliced fruit. Scatter the gingersnap mixture on top.

Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour, or until pastry is browned and filling bubbles.

I finally got around to making pumpkin puree from the pumpkins we got in our box a few weeks ago. I made two batches of pumpkin muffins and froze the rest of the puree.

The recipe for the muffins is one I clipped from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch probably around ten years ago. You preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In one bowl beat together 6 tablespoons melted butter, two eggs, two tablespoons molasses, 1 1/4 cups pumpkin puree, and 1/2 cup orange juice. In a separate bowl, combine 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Stir the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in 1/2 cup walnut pieces and 1/2 cup dried cranberries. Spoon into a greased muffin tin and bake for 30 minutes.

This week veggies included spinach, collard greens, red leaf lettuce, a fennel bulb and fronds, a bunch of leeks, a bag of bok choy, a butternut squash, five satsuma mandarin oranges, four persimmons, and five pink lady apples. Tonight we’re working on leftovers from last week’s cabbage and white bean stew, but tomorrow I’ll do pork chops alongside creamed spinach with leeks. Saturday, we’ll have a green salad with sauteed fennel and grilled steak tips, and then Sunday black-eyed peas with bacon and collard greens, and apple-persimmon pie for dessert. Monday, butternut squash and sage risotto; Tuesday, leftovers. Robin and I will have the bok choy at some point for lunch.

I’m watching Robin eat squash soup, all by himself, with a spoon. I tried to get him just to drink it from a cup, but he wants to use the spoon. It’s crazy messy, but I know that it’s good practice for him, and that it’s toddler nature to want to do things the way his parents do. He’s no fool: he can see perfectly well that we eat our soup with spoons, and he’s made it his job to figure out how to do that too.

I actually love watching his care and concentration as he navigates the soup to his mouth. And more than that: there’s something deeply, intensely rewarding in watching my son slurp up his vitamin-packed, all-organic, all-local, cooked-from-scratch squash soup. It’s like with every bite he takes my hindbrain purrs, good mom, good mom. Partly because food = love in my brain, but even more particularly because it’s squash soup, and I associate squash with my mom, so it’s like: Yes! I’m doing it right!

Weird the kind of deep buttons food can push for us, huh? Well, at least the mess is pretty localized, so it’ll be easy enough to mop up later.

So, we didn’t end up taking Robin out trick-or-treating: he was having too good a time visiting with his Nonna, Pappy, and anti-Sara. And the doggies. And the trains. He looooved a train video his Pappy had, and now he wants to talk about “choo-choos” all the time. Unfortunately his vocabulary is still highly limited, so the conversation is pretty much restricted to Robin shouting “choo choo!” over and over. He really likes it when you ask him what sound a train makes, because he’s got the answer down pat.

Anyway, we don’t have Halloween pictures, but since we did get him a costume we’ll probably dress him up and snap some shots anyway. Maybe later tonight.

Meanwhile, in our veggie box we got several huge glorious bunches of fresh leafy greens: chard, kale, broccoli rabe, arugula, and a bunch of beets with the greens still attached. We also got cabbage, lettuce, six kiwis, four fuyu persimmons, and five mandarin oranges—Robin will probably gobble these up as soon as he realizes we have them. He’s not as big a fan of kiwis, but I can usually pawn them off on him, since neither Sam nor I like them (too slimy! too many seeds!).

Tonight I’m making the squash soup that I didn’t get around to fixing last week. Tomorrow, we’ll have a salad using the lettuce, the arugula, and the beets (roasted), along with the persimmon-apple pie that I also didn’t make last week. Friday night we can have pasta with broccoli rabe, Italian sausage, and beet greens; Saturday night, I’ll make polenta with chard (one of my favorite recipes). Sunday night we’ll have a Tuscan cabbage and white bean stew, even though every time I make a recipe that describes itself as “Tuscan” I think of this bit from The Onion. Monday night, Indian-spiced lentils with kale over brown rice, and Tuesday, leftovers. And that’s what’s for dinner!