OLS Week #11: on not enough, on too much

I started the week off at the beach and had high hopes of writing about some fresh seafood. More than that, I was hoping to write not only about fresh seafood, but seafood that I myself had caught. Crabs, that is. Fresher than fresh, pulled right out of the water within hours of being cooked. Unfortunately, odds were against us and we never managed the large haul, though we did catch enough one day to take home and cook up. We had maybe 9 crabs or so, but by the time you get them cleaned, cooked and picked out the end result is maybe a quarter cup of meat. There were no crab cakes, that’s for certain, which makes me wonder how the “fresh, local” restaurants do it? If its not the right season, and the tides come in at rather precarious times (that would be earlier than I should be awake on my vacation and later than I want to be standing in murky water) where is this fresh local seafood coming from? It certainly isn’t sustainable to haul in 30 crabs to make one fried patty. Just how local is this food I wonder or, rather, how much of the menu and what items are coming out of the water I can see from the picture glass window?

So I left empty handed, or at least with an empty belly, but my family did manage enough to make a batch of crab dip by the end of the week. There may not have been crab salad, crab dip and crab cakes, but at least I had the glorious opportunity to watch the sun come up over the water way and see the tide roll slowly in. Pelicans dive bombed schools of fish and a salty musty, smell (adorned with the stench of rotten chicken necks) filled the air. Up to my knees in murky water isn’t always an ideal place to be at 7:30 in the morning, but on vacation at the beach I can’t think of many better ways to start the day.

Needless to say, as far as food is concerned, it’s been an odd week. I cleaned out the refrigerator rather thoroughly and, having missed every market I usually attend, really didn’t have many options. On my first day back at work, I smuggled home some edamame, squash and tomatoes. Luckily there were leftovers in the freezer – squash casserole and stewed tomatoes with okra. I baked bread and granola bars and made a quart of yogurt. It was enough to get by.

The abundance of squash from our most recent cucurbit planting has had me considering ideas for new dishes – squash corn bread, squash pancakes, stuffed squash (the search option on VegetarianTimes.com is outstanding). Making do with what I had on hand, I decided on squash lasagna. I cut the squash into thin, wide “noodles” and layered a baking dish with tomato sauce from the freezer, ricotta, chard and my squash noodles.

The extra benefit of the dish, other than being astoundingly easy, was starting to tap into the bags of frozen tomato sauce. With the abundance of tomatoes, and their near demise, a co-worker and I took to canning spaghetti sauce. Inspired by Barbara Kingsolver (we actually used her recipe), and having wanted to can sauce in the past, we got together several weeks ago and began our mass attack against the mounting piles of tomatoes. We canned 11 jars that day (30lbs of tomatoes), and she 11 jars the next (of which she gave me three). Having experienced some success, and with a plethora of tomatoes still lingering around the packing house, I put in one more round. With 9 quarts already, I aimed for a half batch and ended up canning another 6 quarts topping me out at 15 quarts of spaghetti sauce. That ought to keep me fed through the winter for sure. Seeing them sitting on top of the kitchen cabinets already has my head filled with day dreams of warm red pizzas on cold white January nights, my cozy little abode steamy and warm in a frigid, dead world. What’s not to like about that?