Abundance Even in the Dark

 By Evan Casper-Futterman & Katherine Howitt

Our first haul from the winter CSA was a double whammy: our neighbors in the CSA emailed us to ask us if we were interested in their share for the week since they were out of town. This being our second winter season, we had some idea of what to expect in terms of quantity (the potatoes and turnips in our box did not disappoint), but a double haul of those great little fingerling potatoes was nothing compared to a double dose of what are BY FAR the largest cabbages I have ever seen. For example, the photo above is a photo of a cabbage with a substantial amount already used to make sauerkraut. Lucky for us this week we are staying with my mom at her home in Ulster county, about 2 hours north of the Bronx, so we have more space to store all this bounty. 

Our typical triage and assessment process to figure out how we’re going to deal with the contents of each CSA box can take up to 45 minutes with just one box. Four or five pounds of potatoes and 6 pounds of cabbage is a bit overwhelming, so we needed a family strategy session, which we didn’t even get to until Thursday. 

Here’s what we came up with for the immense quantity we are facing down for the next couple weeks:

Homemade sauerkraut  with caraway seeds (see photo above)

Winter slaw:This is an improvisation of my mom’s. 

-Shredded cabbage (about ⅕ of the green cabbage)

- 4 shredded carrots

- 1-2 parboiled and shredded or julienned beets

- 1 shredded turnip or radish

- 1 leek thinly sliced, mostly the green part

- caraway seeds (yes my mom puts them on/in everything)

- salt and pepper

- two sprigs of cilantro 

- tablespoon of minced ginger

- one minced garlic clove

Optional nuts or raisins if you like

Dash of hot pepper flakes if you like

Dressing: a sesame vinaigrette with 3 Tbsp sesame oil, 1/4 cip rice vinegar, and a dash of Bragg’s amino. 

The kraut used up the rest of the first cabbage so we’re one down, but have barely touched the potatoes, turnips, and carrots. For those, here’s what we decided to do:

Martha Stewarts Turnip and Potato Mash

Besides being from Martha Stewart, there’s not much special here but a solid mash is indispensable as a side dish and has that extra comforting quality in the winter. 

Moroccan Spice Carrot Potato Soup

This is a carryover recipe for our house from last winter. It's useful because it's almost completely interchangeable with many of the roots we get in our CSA. You could substitute a rutabaga or kohlrabi into this soup base instead of potato, or mixed with potato, etc. 

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

We typically are vegetarian at home but Evan’s family is partially from Eastern Europe and this style of preparation is the Polish-derived one. We got chicken from our neighbor’s omnivore share, so the beef was from the supermarket, but we’re looking forward to it anyway. 

Keep the lights shining in these dark days!