Wha’dya do with the bag? – 5.27.08

There’s this big bag of veggies and/or fruit sitting on your counter.  And it’s gettin’ on to feedin’ time.  What do you do?  What did you do??

We’d love to hear how you spread your loot through the week, recipes you made (that got raves or got boo-ed), items you wish you had, things you didn’t use, and just the general happiness that was shared from your “Oki.”  

So tell us!!

BTW, these were the gorgeous flowers this week ———>

 

In the bag this week:

The Mini-Oki – potato, carrot, yellow onion, green beans, cucumber, corn (!!), tomato, garlic 

The Oki –  Mini-Oki contents PLUS red onion, red cabbage, radish, eggplant, hot peppers, okra, basil, & the ground cherries (the yellow things that look like tomatillos — see separate post about them).

The Trop Oki –  watermelon, bananas, pineapple

*Note:  These were the items in the Tuesday deliveries — other days might differ slightly.

Ground Cherries

I’d never seen these things before going to Onna.  I figured they were some kind of tomatillo (and they are a close relative) but they are called ground cherries and grow on a bush.  They fall to the ground before they are ripe and need to be ripened with their husks on after that.  In their husks, they’ll stay fresh for up to 3 months if kept in a cool place.  (Info happened to be in the current issue of Organic Gardening Magazine which you can get for free by saving the tops of Yo Baby Yoghurt)

 

They can be eaten on their own (as my son did with the WHOLE container at lunch today) or as Mindy mentioned, dipped in melted chocolate or added to pancakes.  But the magazine also included this recipe which is fabulous since we also got pineapples in our TropOki’s this week:

 

 

 

Ground Cherry-Pineapple Crumble

Combine 3 c. halved ground cherries and 3 c. fresh pineapple chunks with 1/2 c. sugar.  Spread in a baking pan.  In a food processor, pulse 1/2 c. almonds until coarsely chopped, and then add 1/4 c. unsalted butter, 1/4 c. flour, and 1/2 c. brown sugar.  Pulse until roughly blended; then spread over the fruit.  Bake at 375 F for 35 minutes, or until bubbling and golden brown.  Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Sweet Potato Fries

Cooking spray (organic available at the commissary)
2 large sweet potatoes cut into wedges (with or without peels)
Salt & Pepper to Taste
 
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray.  Arrange potato wedges on prepared baking sheet in 1 layer and coat them with cooking spray.  Sprinkle potatoes with salt & black pepper.  Roast for 30 minutes, until tender and golden brown.

Commissary Organics

I** dream of Whole Foods where aisle upon aisle upon row upon row of food is organic.  When I was home in April I spent more time wandering Whole Foods than I did shopping for clothes or shoes (and that’s impressive).  But I have to admit the commissary seems to at least be making an attempt.  Not so great as far as fresh produce, but they’ve now got organic bread, yoghurt, fruit juice, milk, 3-4 frozen fruits & vegetables, Amy’s organic pizzas & frozen meals and soups, organic chicken broth, diced tomatoes, salsa, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, sugar, white flour, and various cereals.  

But the exciting news of the week is that my friend spotted gluten-free organic PASTA the other day.  And I confirmed the sighting yesterday.  Unfortunately, it was $3.46 for 12 oz (normal pasta is 16 oz and MUCH cheaper) so that was not thrilling — but at least it’s there as an option.

The other excitement is that they are carrying some greener cleaning supplies/paper products – including dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, toilet paper, paper towels & no-chlorine diapers (cheaper than Huggies).

If you’d like to request more organic options, you can fill out an I.C.E. form online here (this is specific to Kadena — don’t know if other bases have something like this). I figure if enough of us bug them, they may continue to make changes…

 

**I am Joelle — one of Melody’s delivery gals.  I’ll also be helping out with the website so you’ll probably hear from me now & again.

Week 2: omg what have I started?!

After this week’s ‘vegetable smackdown’ deliveries I was really not sure this is something I can handle, but that was kind of the point in setting out to see how much can be handled in one day. I must find creative ways to be more efficient and more organized with all the many details. But it’s just a bag of veggies. I mean, really, it’s awesome locally grown veggies delivered to you and that’s super cool and important, but it’s not a crisis if I make a mistake at this. I feel like you all understand that you are kind of my guinea pigs trying this out with me. I dream about this being island wide and ‘Fresh in Oki, Inc.’ does have a nice ring to it (not that I have any clue how to do any of it right now). I must remind myself that its only been 2 weeks.

Did you see the post about Fresh in Oki on www.OkinawaHai.com? Huge thanks to Kelly and the okihai society!

I have a large round suprise for all the TropOki orders this week! Get in on the tropical summer fun!

See you all soon!

Melody

Passionfruit Recipes

(I’ve heard that you can tell the passionfruit is ripe when it becomes dimpled on the outside. However, I spoke with one of you today and you have already eaten yours (un-dimpled) and said it was very tasty — soooo??)

How to Eat Passion Fruit:

Cut in half (over bowl to catch the juice), scrape out the pulp with a spoon. Seeds are edible, but if you want to remove them, run the juice & pulp through a sieve.

There are many fancy dessert recipes that call for passion fruit juice, but here are some easy uses:

• Spoon over vanilla ice cream or yoghurt
• Add to a smootie with frozen fruit (organic blueberries, raspberries & strawberries are available at the commissary)
• Make a special salad dressing:

• • 1/2 c. passion fruit juice
  • 1/8 c. oil
  • 1/8 c. apple cider vinegar
  • 1 T. honey
  • salt & pepper to taste

What did you do with yours???

Melody’s Super Easy Vegetable Stir-Fry

Your Favorite Veggies

Olive Oil
Large Skillet
Spatula

Step 1:
1-2 T. olive oil into a large skillet on medium to high heat.

Step 2:
Cube root veggies like carrot, potato & onion and toss in skillet as you go. They take longer to cook that other veggies. Do not stir until the veggies have browned, maybe 5 minutes.

Step 3:
Cube other veggies like peppers, green beans, zucchini and eggplant and toss in as you go. The zucchini and eggplant get too mushy if cooked too long, so add those last.

You really can add anything you want — meat can be cubed and cooked in the skillet before. You can add teriyaki sauce and serve on rice. Pineapple might even be fun to try in there too.

Today’s Bag — May 20, 2008

The MiniOki: Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, potatoes, carrots, onion, green onion type thing & green beans.

The Oki: MiniOki plus pumpkin, sweet potato & multi-colored beans.

The TropOki: papaya, passionfruit, bananas, pineapple

Today’s Bag – May 13, 2008

The Oki: Potatoes, Carrots, Onion, Green Onions, Green Beans, Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Lettuce, Acorn Squash, Goya, Fresh Basil, Cabbage and Sweet Peppers, and a beautiful assortment of tropical flowers.

Here We Go Now…

Today was so exciting.  I was in such a frenzy all day.  I should have had breakfast.  

I met Joelle and her boys on Kadena and we headed up to Onna.  Pulling up to the market, it was much busier than the last 2 times I was there.  But there was a great parking spot just in front of the main doors for us.  Score.  Going in there were a bunch of people shopping and I was concerned that I was going to break some cultural custom by hoarding all the veggies.  One lady even asked if I was having a big party.  Yogi-san was very helpful taking each full cart to the counter to begin checking out.

Collecting 15 cabbages in one of the typically small Japanese market carts was a bit of a challenge.  I got a lot of strange looks.  And then 15 onions.  And 15 goyas.  And 15 heads of lettuce.  And so on.

Joelle might have had the funnest job — picking the flowers and arranging them into gorgeous bundles of color to be added to each bag.  And she was almost ridiculously excited about the fact that there were RED potatoes.  My eyes automatically go to the flowers.  The vegetables are cool, but the spread of flowers caught my eye every time I entered the building.

Things just went too smoothly it seemed.  We had 3 guys carrying large boxes out to the car.  Joelle placed the veggies in the bags and I went back for more and more and more.  Finally all the bags were full and all the boxes were empty and we loaded ourselves back in and headed out to deliver.

Finding the houses was even fairly easy.  Everyone had provided such great directions and it was cool to put faces with names.  All the customers seemed almost as excited as me.  And I was thrilled to be bringing healthy food to families all around the Kadena area.  Felt a little like I might be changing the world…  one goya at a time.

Starvation sent me digging into my own bag and I snacked on the cherry tomatoes with a smile on my face all the way home.