CSA Share for 2011 Week Fifteen

Only a little over a week until the fantabulous Bear Hill Farm Party!  I’m already dreaming of the incredible dishes that are always crowded onto the tables.  One of my favorite things is the ever-changing selections throughout the night; every time I re-visit the food tables, it’s a new adventure.  This party is definitely not to be missed.

In our share this week:

• kale
• collards
• leeks
• carrots
• onions
• garlic
• pick your own basil

Here’s a recipe to try that uses our garlic and onions:  a quick Dal Makhani.  I always order this dish when my husband and I go to my favorite Indian restaurant.  Even though this quick dal recipe doesn’t hold a candle to my restaurant’s version, it’s tasty and healthy.  Ingredient variations I used were 2 Tbsp tomato paste instead of tomato pulp and whole milk instead of low-fat milk, plus I added some butter which made my version a not-so-lowfat dal.  Also, the recipe calls for ginger-garlic paste, which I made by simply mashing up some ginger pieces and a small garlic clove together.    Of course this dish would be the best served over rice, but all I had pre-made were rotini noodles.  Oh well.

Now I’m off to make mega-batches of pesto with all that basil!

CSA Share for 2011 Week Five

We were out of town over the weekend, uncharacteristically eating out for every meal.  You can imagine how marvelous it was to have a giant homemade salad right when we got home on Monday (our farm lettuce fared surprisingly well in my veggie drawer during the week).  So, before you go on vacation, wash up and prepare your veggies before you go, so you can enjoy them as soon as you return.  You’ll be happy you did.

In our share this week:

• lettuce
• swiss chard
• Chinese cabbage
• basil
• beets
• cucumbers
• summer squash

Usually I like to prepare the first beets of the season as simply as possible, but I couldn’t wait to make My Sister’s Beet Salad again.  I got this recipe very late in the season last year, and it’s just so good, I didn’t get to make it enough last year.  Today I took Farmer Anne’s advice and didn’t bother de-skinning them after I boiled them, with good results; I couldn’t tell the difference.  Also, save your beet greens and try a few in your next summer smoothie.

By the way, if you don’t need your veggie trimmings for your own compost, save them and give them to the farm pigs, goats, and sheep during your next pickup.  They’ll love you for it.  I store my bagged trimmings in the freezer for the week till the next pickup day.

CSA Share for 2011 Week Four

It’s been a fantastic season for greens so far.  Farmer Mike says that they thrive in the relatively cooler weather that we’ve had this year so far.  No wonder the lettuce heads and kale bunches have been ginormous!   The temps are heating up this week, though.

Lots of new stuff  in our share this week:

• Winterbor kale (curly type)
• bok choy
• basil
• cucumbers
• lettuce
• extra garlic scapes

I’m loving the first basil sprigs of the season.  Not enough to make pesto yet, but my youngest son likes bits of basil on top of bread that’s been drizzled with olive oil and grated parmesan cheese.   After reading about how healthy basil is for us (here and here), it tastes even better to me!

Since it’s too early in the season to make basil pesto, how about trying garlic scape pesto?  I know that this has been covered in one of our previous farm newsletters, but I can’t remember which one.  I found this Garlic Scape Pesto recipe online, though, and I’m sure there’s many more out there to choose from.

This week’s newsletter has a recipe, Choi with Gingery Butter, that calls for bok choy, garlic scapes, and basil, making it a great recipe to try with our share this week.

Eggplant Parmesan Update

As mentioned in my post from last week, I planned on using last week’s eggplant in an Eggplant Parmesan recipe I found in Prevention magazine, which I did over the weekend.

I had to pare down the recipe to about a fourth, which left me wanting to make it again.  It was so very delicious, super flavorful, and not too greasy/heavy at all.  I used all my farm eggplant, and instead of the plum tomatoes called for in the recipe, I used a bunch of farm cherry tomatoes, mashing them with a potato masher right in the pan.  I also used my farm garlic, and farm basil that I had frozen from a previous share. I liked Prevention’s suggestion to take this on-the-go, as it is just as good at room temperature.  I WILL be making this again!

CSA Share for 2010 Week Thirteen

New this week in our share are leeks.  My introduction to leeks came through our CSA years and years ago, and they’re now one of my favorite veggies to see in our shares.  They’re simple and light to cook with, and I like their mild, fresh flavor.  All veggies this week are:

• basil
• bell peppers
• broccoli
• Chinese cabbage
• Crenshaw melon
• leeks
• onions
• summer squash/zucchini
• tomatoes
• pick-your-own: this week I picked cherry tomatoes, okra, husk cherries and herbs

I don’t remember getting Crenshaw melons in our shares in years past, and am looking forward to breaking into it.  For an educational yet entertaining flick on melons in general, watch this youtube video of chef Alton Brown’s Good Eats melon episode (part 1 and part 2), in which the Crenshaw melon makes a cameo.

While googling for ideas on using both the Chinese cabbage and leeks in the same recipe, I came across a very simple cabbage and leek recipe at relishmag.com.  It actually calls for green cabbage, but I am going to try it with my Chinese cabbage, using the thicker part near the bottom.

Those cherry tomatoes are really kicking in this week!

Sloppy Joes

This is yet another recipe for a quick meal that makes good use of leftovers, and one that will come in handy during this week’s heat wave here in New England. My recipe is based on Robin Miller’s Sloppy Joe Sandwiches recipe.  You can add any type of meat to this dish, or just go meatless and increase the veggies.  The key here is good-quality, fresh rolls.  (If you want to explore making your own bread and rolls, check out the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.)

Sloppy Joes

• 1/2 pound cooked hamburger (or any other type of meat you have leftover)
• 1 cup spaghetti sauce, or leftover Simple Marinara Sauce
• 1/2 cup frozen corn
• 1 small green bell pepper, chopped (from our farm share last week)
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1 Tbsp mustard
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp dried basil (or equivalent of fresh)
• cayenne pepper to taste (or use part of a pick-your-own pepper from the farm)

Combine all ingredients in a skillet and cook for about 5 minutes.  Spoon onto rolls and serve immediately, with Refrigerator Dill  Pickles if you have them.

Simple Marinara Sauce

If you are looking for an easy sauce to prepare and you have a lot  of tomatoes, this is the dish to make.  It uses up many of those fresh tomatoes, plus the garlic and basil, from the farm.

Simple Marinara Sauce

• 8 to 10 medium to large tomatoes
• 1 to 2 tsp dried oregano (or equivalent of fresh)
• handful of fresh basil
• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp sugar

Wash and core the tomatoes, then slice in quarters.  Place them into food processor and puree till smooth (or partly chunky if you prefer).  Pour into a large pot and add remaining ingredients.  Bring to a boil, then simmer an hour or so until sauce reaches desired consistency.

CSA Share for 2010 Week Nine

Here in New England, the farmers NEED rain!  When we keep getting all the beautiful veggies week after week, it can be easy for me to forget that there’s a ton of work going on in the fields every day keeping everything watered and lush.  After 12 years, I think that I treasure every veggie, but I find that I still need to be continually reminded that it’s not so easy, and that makes me realize all over again how precious these veggies are and how much I truly love my farmers.

We are on vacation this week, so I picked up my share early and worked at preserving most of it, while giving some away to friends.  In this week’s share is:

• basil
• beets
• broccoli
• cucumbers
• kale
• kohlrabi
• lettuce
• peppers
• summer squash
• tomatoes
• watermelon

I made the best salad out of the lettuce, broccoli, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes (with Balsamic Vinegar Dressing), and took it on the road with us.  What a treat!   Also, I did pick a few delicious cherry tomatoes and brought them to snack on; I can’t wait till they really start kicking in.   Also from the pick-your-own beds, in this week’s farm newsletter is a recipe for Indian Okra, which I am really looking forward to trying.  I remember years ago a recipe in the newsletter for Cabbage with Indian Spices, which became one of my favorite dishes, so I have high hopes for this current recipe.  I would be very interested to hear if anyone has made any successful dishes using okra.

Try the Pasta with Lentils and Kale recipe from epicurious.com.  I made it last night and had the leftovers for lunch today, although instead of lentils, I mixed in white navy beans.  Also, sauteing the onions for a long time is the way to go.  Yum!

CSA Share for 2010 Week Eight

Has anyone tasted the watermelon in this week’s share?  FanTAStic!  Also, the pick-your-own beds are coming along well and will soon be ready for us:  okra, hot peppers, tomatillos, husk cherries, and cherry tomatoes.   My husband uses the okra to make gumbo.  I’ve learned to love the tomatillos, and one of my favorite ways of using them on cooler days is in Crockpot Taco Soup.  New in our share this week is garlic, which I was happy to see since I was just about out of my store-bought stuff.  This is nice, fresh garlic that really is far better than in the store where you sometimes can get garlic that’s past its prime.  So, on to this week’s share list:

• basil
• carrots
• cucumber
• garlic
• kale (although there were three other greens choices–did anyone try the dino kale?)
• lettuce
• summer squash
• Tropea onions
• watermelon

We had some of the delicious watermelon with our dinner last night.  I had put it in the fridge right when I got home from pickup, so it was chilled by dinner, which made it very refreshing.  The summer squash got oven-baked, which is a great way to use these on busy pickup days because it’s so easy and quick.  Since I got a huge bunch of kale, I plan on making kale salad today, but will still have a lot of leftover kale to try the Kale and Avocado Salad listed in this week’s newsletter.  Most of the basil will be turned into more pesto (using that fresh garlic); I love having a lot of pesto in the freezer for easy pesto pasta dinners later on in the fall.

CSA Share for 2010 Week Seven

I was very happy to see carrots in our share this week!  Farm-fresh carrots taste so sweet and juicy, and so much better than store-bought carrots.  Also new are the Tropea onions, which are amazingly sweet when sauteed in olive oil or butter.  Here’s my complete Week Seven share list:

• basil
• carrots
• corn
• cucumbers
• eggplant
• kale
• swiss chard
• Tropea onions
• zucchini
• herbs

I went to tastespotting.com to find some easy ideas for what to do with the eggplant, and found a couple good ones which I’ll try this week.  Does anyone have any great eggplant recipes?

I’ve been using roasted zucchini in everything lately:  mixed in with scrambled eggs, on top of pizza, and in sandwiches.  But I think I will try baking with them today, using Paige’s recipe in this week’s newsletter for Chocolate Zucchini Muffins.  I also want to try the other recipe in the newsletter for Curried Chickpeas and Kale, which uses three of the veggies in this week’s share plus my leftover garlic scapes, so I better go and get busy!