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So what was in your share this week?
1 bunch Crunchy Royale Radishes. Like little apples! These bionic radishes grow large, stay crunchy, and don't split. You can slice them in rounds or make little matchsticks and throw these in a salad or a slaw. Or just eat them like an apple. or put thin slices on buttered bread. or sautee them briefly in butter for a lighter potato-esque side. I've heard of making a pesto out of the tops.
1 bunch of Carrots. This variety is named Bolero. A winner, I say. really good flavor. Perfect for shredding on a salad or into a slaw. Shredded carrots are fabulous on sandwiches, too. Or do the matchsticks for a stir fry or maybe a chopped salad with matchsticks of kohlrabi, radish, carrot and chopped arugula. I'm thinking those along with hard boiled egg and a lemon-honey-mustard vinaigrette would be a good combo. Of course, if you are roasting veggies, chunks of carrot roast up super sweet. Carrot cake/muffins are delicious.
1 bunch Swiss Chard. Swiss Chard goes very well with cheese and eggs. Quiche, frittata, scramble, breakfast burrito. A homemade macaroni and cheese is nice with chard wilted in with the cooked pasta and warm cheese sauce, then baked with bread crumbs on top (perfect chance to use any leftover parsley, too - finely chopped with the bread crumbs). A sautee if swiss chard with a sweet and sour golden raisin and rediced vinegar sauce and toasted pine nuts is great. I always enjoyed a pasta with chard, feta, and toasted walnuts. Use your instincts!
Eggplant. If they're adding up, try the baba ganouj. It's always good to have a snacking dip around. Pita triangles or some veggie sticks would be the perfect vehicle (kohlrabi and carrot sticks, for example). Grilled eggplant is yummy on a sandwich or a pizza or just chopped up with some grilled sweet peppers and onions and tossed with a little balsamic and olive oil for a side or a topping for a slice of good bread. Our neighbor Kathy did not leave any of her gourmet instincts behind on a recent camping trip. She wrapped a couple eggplants in foil and put them in the fire to roast. She scooped out the cooked eggplant and mashed it with some garlic, olive oil, and parmesan cheese. It was a wonderful dip for a loaf of bread. I love that story!
Onions and Garlic. These should keep in a basket on the counter okay. They just need to be dry. The onions are not storing as well as we would like. We try to rogue out any soft ones, but if you end up with some bad onions just let us know and we'll send you to the basket at the stand to replace them. The garlic is the bomb.
2 Zeppelin Delicata Winter Squash. The cream colored squash with green stripes. This is winter squash. It has very delicate skin, which is edible if you like. The easiest cooking method is to just slice them lengthwise and bake in the oven. Maybe try with honey or maple syrup or ginger or nutmeg or cinnamon and some butter. It is also quite sweet and delicious on its own. This is really a pretty easy crowd-pleasing side dish.
1 bunch of Spicy Arugula. The bunch of greens with the roots on. it's just a bunching method, you don't eat the roots (I don't think. In the case of cilantro, the roots are used in southeast Asian recipes). This is kind of a spicy arugula so I recommend chopping it for a salad or pizza or sandwich. You can treat it like an herb. Finish an egg dish or a risotto with it. A really tasty salad combo is arugula, diced red onion, and thinly sliced green apple with that honey-lemon-mustard vinaigrette. Toss the apples in the dressing as soon as they're cut so they don't brown. Chopped arugula is great in sandwiches. Even a BLT - BLAT!
Bok Choi. Our little hourglass-shaped friend. This should be stored in a plastic bag in the fridge so it doesn't get wilty (same for all leafy greens). To prepare it, I'd cut off the base so the individual leaves can be removed and rinsed at the bottom (kind of like celery - collects dirt at the base). Then you can cut it lengthwise and braise it with some garlic and onions, then stock and soy sauce if you want to feature it as a side. If you are throwing it in a stir fry, I'd slice it cross-wise and add the stems first and then add the leafy part towards the end. My aunt gave me a recipe for a delicious salad made with bok choi. And one of our farmstand shoppers described a very healthful and satisfying preparation: She layers a bowl with first bean sprouts, then shredded carrot, then thinly sliced bok choi (she will also substitute kale or chard or whatever). Then she pours a boiling broth (she makes one out of water, soy, sesame oil - I think chicken, veggie or mushroom stock would work great, too) over it and has a nice soup. Maybe she added rice noodles, too (if not it would be good)
sweet peppers. Good in that veggie wrap or roasted or in the stir fry or a salad.
tomatoes. a few stragglers.
1 pint tomatillos. Hope you are enjoying salsas with these little guys.
1 Kohlrabi. The alien vegetable. Slice the bottom so you have a flat surface to put on the cutting board, cut off the skin and then make sticks or cut into chunks for roasting. We had a report of roasting kohlrabi and other veggies under a chicken (using the vegetables as a rack). The kohlrabi acted like a sponge for all of the flavorful juices produced in the pan. Don't forget the slaw option. Kohlrabi lasts a ridiculously long time in the fridge. If you're not inspired to use it this week, just push it to the back and it should keep. But beware, the cabbage crops coming along are looking good.
1.5 lbs String Beans. Mostly yellow beans, and a few green for flair. Another simple side dish. These can be blanched and frozen if you are overwhelmed. I'll try to add a few recipes to the website.
That may be everything! If i'm forgetting any item that you have questions about, just send me an email.
Thanks so much for your continuing journey through the seasons in vegetables!
Take Care!
Chris and Christy at White Barn Farm
Quick reminder: Pick-up hours end at sunset (6:40 this week, a little earlier every week).
and one more: we happily accept the clean pint/quart containers back, as well as clean egg cartons.
Fresh Cannellini Beans. These are fresh shelling beans. Take the pods off the plant, take the beans out of the shells. They just need to be cooked briefly, preferrably in a flavorful liquid, like a stock. A fresh minestrone soup would be perfect. Some chicken broth, butter, and sage would be nice. Or use your Tuscan Kale and do a White Beans and Escarole sort of dish. The beans can be boiled quickly until tender and then used for a fresh bean salad - maybe with your red onion, tomato, and parsley. Hey! look what I just googled: New York Recipes.
Sweet Peppers. Perfect for adding flavor to any stir-fry or pasta sauce. One CSA member told me she has been slicing onions and peppers very very thin then sauteeing in olive oil and putting on top of fish or chicken, baked in the oven. It keeps the meat moist and adds a wonderful aroma to your kitchen!
Red and Yellow Onions. Just enough for a few recipes. Small onions this year. :( We will irrigate them if we have another dry spring/early summer :)
Garlic. Just enough to flavor that kale, make some garlic-rubbed bruschetta, make your own aioli or salad dressing, flavor a pasta sauce.
Fennel. Read what Alice Waters has to say about fennel. The white bulb with the tall, feathery green fronds. The fronds can be used as an herb and would be especially fantastic in a seafood broth. Lobster shells or shrimp shells can go in a stockpot with onion and garlic peels, parsley stems, carrot ends, kale stems, peppercorns, celery leaves. You can make a wonderful fish stew with the strained stock. or chop them fine for a fresh herb to flavor a mixed herb dip or to add to a grain salad or best yet, a salad of the very thinly sliced fennel bulb. I adore fennel. It does have a strong flavor, so distaste for this vegetable is understandable, though I can't imagine not enjoying it in a balanced composition of flavors. One good combination is citrus and fennel. The key is to slice the bulb very thinly. Shaved is a better term. If you have an adjutstable mandoline, that is the best tool for getting the paper thinness. Anyway, toss it with some sectioned orange or grapefruit or blood orange and a citrus vinaigrette. Al Forno would serve tender, grilled calamari over a salad of shaved fennel with a mustard vinaigrette. Magnifique! If you are already a fennel lover, try roasting slices on a baking sheet in the oven, or just slice up the bulb and sprinkle with kosher salt and drizzle with a tasty olive oil - this is an excellent accompaniment to some good mozzarella (like from Narragansett Creamery). That is what I was served at the first lunch I had at an excellent cheesemaking dairy farm I WWOOFed at in Cremona, Lombardy, Italy.
Tuscan Kale. Try cooked kale in an omelet, a soup, with potatoes. I'm going to try to add a couple of kale recipes to the Recipe Menu on the website. I definitely recommend going to that and searching by vegetable for ideas. Here is Creamy Sesame Greens from Whole Foods.
1 lb Tomatillos. Enchiladas Verdes. Make a sauce for chicken, swordfish, or pork. Make a salsa for corn chips. The first step is to remove the papery husk, rinse, then slice in half and roast until collapsed. Once this has cooled you can add diced onion, serrano chili, lime juice, and cilantro for a good salsa.
Tomatoes. I made a yummy side dish for lunch the other day. We were having cheese quesadillas with thin sliced red onion, thin sliced red and yellow peppers, and cilantro. I opened a can of garbanzo beans, drained most of the juice and threw in a bowl with diced red onion, diced sweet pepper, and good, ripe chunks of tomato. I dressed with a dash of vinegar and a good drizzle of olive oil, and finally a good amount of chopped parsley. yum. and some protein for the vegetarians on our crew.
Speaking of parsley. That is this week's herb. Ana Sortun, of Oleana restaurant, has a good idea for a fancy condiment: parsley oil.
Cherry Tomatoes. Snack. or roast briefly for a candy-like treat.
3 Heads of Lettuce, including one head of Romaine. Caesar Salad! Whoopie! Grill some chicken and bread to make fresh croutons with and you just about have a meal. Have one more tomato sandwich or BLT.
Handful of Hot Peppers. Salsa, chilli, Jamaican Jerk, hot sauce, pickled hots, dry the cayenne.
thanks everyone!
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Don't forget: tomorrow we are showing the Goonies on the barn. Come by at 6:30 for a tour if you want. Movie starts at 7pm. Don't forget to bring your chairs, blankets and treats! Parent-teacher conferences schmonferences. (just joking, everyone). Don't be afraid to come to just the tour or just the movie. Hope to see your happy faces! Park in the field where you pick up and be careful crossing the road. I'm going to send this email now and maybe create some links to new recipes, etc in the version I post on the blog - so check it out tomorrow if you want.
One more reminder: Pick-up hours end at sunset (6:40 this week, a little earlier every week).
and one more: we happily accept the clean pint/quart containers back, as well as clean egg cartons.
Soybeans. Again! Edamame. Pluck those beans off the plant. Boil in salted water for five minutes. Snack on them with soy sauce or sea salt. If you're feeling ambitious, pop them out of the pods and add them to a salad or make a little smashed soybean humus. Last year, one of our members was really enjoying these cute little beans in a pasta salad.
Napa Cabbage. So good for slaw. Today I decided to stray a little away from my go-to slaw with the peanuts, cilantro, mint, basil, soy, sesame. Instead, I slivered the cabbage, tossed with a little salt and whipped up a dressing of a couple cloves of garlic in the garlic press, a couple teaspoons of dijon, a couple of cider vinegar (now available at the Big Apple!), a good drizzle of Franklin Honey, then whisked in canola and olive oil. I added lemon juice and S&P to taste and finished it with some fresh chopped dill. Voila! A hit! This cabbage is so sweet and crunchy and succulent that you don't have to do much to make it great. A farmstand shopper reported back that her cabbage rolls came out marvelously with the Napa. My aunt used it in soup. We love it in veggie wraps, fish tacos, and buffalo chicken wraps.
Sweet Peppers. Perfect for adding flavor to any stir-fry or pasta sauce. One CSA member told me she has been slicing onions and peppers very very thin then sauteeing in olive oil and putting on top of fish or chicken, baked in the oven. It keeps the meat moist and adds a wonderful aroma to your kitchen!
Red and Yellow Onions. Just enough for a few recipes. Small onions this year. :( We will irrigate them if we have another dry spring/early summer :)
Garlic. Just enough to flavor that kale, make some garlic-rubbed bruschetta, make your own aioli or salad dressing, flavor a pasta sauce.
Fennel. Read what Alice Waters has to say about fennel. The white bulb with the tall, feathery green fronds. The fronds can be used as an herb and would be especially fantastic in a seafood broth. Lobster shells or shrimp shells can go in a stockpot with onion and garlic peels, parsley stems, carrot ends, kale stems, peppercorns, celery leaves. You can make a wonderful fish stew with the strained stock. or chop them fine for a fresh herb to flavor a mixed herb dip or to add to a grain salad or best yet, a salad of the very thinly sliced fennel bulb. I adore fennel. It does have a strong flavor, so distaste for this vegetable is understandable, though I can't imagine not enjoying it in a balanced composition of flavors. One good combination is citrus and fennel. The key is to slice the bulb very thinly. Shaved is a better term. If you have an adjutstable mandoline, that is the best tool for getting the paper thinness. Anyway, toss it with some sectioned orange or grapefruit or blood orange and a citrus vinaigrette. Al Forno would serve tender, grilled calamari over a salad of shaved fennel with a mustard vinaigrette. Magnifique! If you are already a fennel lover, try roasting slices on a baking sheet in the oven, or just slice up the bulb and sprinkle with kosher salt and drizzle with a tasty olive oil - this is an excellent accompaniment to some good mozzarella (like from Narragansett Creamery). That is what I was served at the first lunch I had at an excellent cheesemaking dairy farm I WWOOFed at in Cremona, Lombardy, Italy.
Tuscan Kale. Try cooked kale in an omelet, a soup, with potatoes. I'm going to try to add a couple of kale recipes to the Recipe Menu on the website. I definitely recommend going to that and searching by vegetable for ideas. Here is Creamy Sesame Greens from Whole Foods.
1 lb Tomatillos. Enchiladas Verdes. Make a sauce for chicken, swordfish, or pork. Make a salsa for corn chips. The first step is to remove the papery husk, rinse, then slice in half and roast until collapsed. Once this has cooled you can add diced onion, serrano chili, lime juice, and cilantro for a good salsa.
Tomatoes. I made a yummy side dish for lunch the other day. We were having cheese quesadillas with thin sliced red onion, thin sliced red and yellow peppers, and cilantro. I opened a can of garbanzo beans, drained most of the juice and threw in a bowl with diced red onion, diced sweet pepper, and good, ripe chunks of tomato. I dressed with a dash of vinegar and a good drizzle of olive oil, and finally a good amount of chopped parsley. yum. and some protein for the vegetarians on our crew.
Speaking of parsley. That is this week's herb. Ana Sortun, of Oleana restaurant, has a good idea for a fancy condiment: parsley oil.
Cherry Tomatoes. Snack. or roast briefly for a candy-like treat.
3 Heads of Lettuce, including one head of Romaine. Caesar Salad! Whoopie! Grill some chicken and bread to make fresh croutons with and you just about have a meal. Have one more tomato sandwich or BLT.
Handful of Hot Peppers. Salsa, chilli, Jamaican Jerk, hot sauce, pickled hots, dry the cayenne.
thanks everyone!
- Just as we got you all trained on the hours at our farmstand, the northern hemisphere begins to tilt away from the sun . . the Autumnal Equinox is Wednesday, September 22. Day and Night are equal, and thereafter the nights are longer! What I'm trying to say is that it is beginning to get dark before 7 o'clock.
The Hours of the Roadside Stand will be curtailed on Tuesdays and Fridays:
The stand will still open at 3pm, but we will close at sunset.
CSA Members, this is true for your pick-up hours as well.
Saturday Hours will be the same as always, 10am to 2pm.
We plan on being open until the last week in October. Then we will have one more sale just before Thanksgiving. Stay tuned!
- For all you local veggie junkies, check out what our farmer friends are doing:
Shared Harvest CSA: Locally Grown Vegetables for Winter Eating
- And a reminder to reserve your Thanksgiving Turkey from Brambly Farm:
The O'Harte family of Norfolk raises Bourbon Reds, Royal palms, Bronze Turkeys, all listed Heritage breeds. They also raise Traditional Broad Breasted Whites. They are fed all natural grains and are pasture raised. The Royal Palms are a small type breed and its unusual for them to grow bigger than 14 lbs but they do taste truly delicious. The Bourbon Reds and Bronze can range between 12 - 24lbs and are regarded by many as the best way to give a big family a very special Thanksgiving .
If you would like to reserve a turkey please mail your $25 deposit check, made to Brambly Farm, to:
Brambly Farm
84 Cleveland St
Norfolk, MA 02056
Please include the following information: Your name, phone number, email address, and preference of birds (breed and preferred size). Sooner is better for best selection . . .
The fresh (not frozen) Turkeys will be available for pick-up the Monday and Tuesday just before Thanksgiving (Nov. 22 &23) here at White Barn Farm. We will send a notice with more details about the pick-up to all who have sent a deposit (really, don't forget your email address!).
- Enjoy the beautiful quality of light that the autumn days bring us! and make sure to celebrate this week's Full Harvest Moon with some tasty eats!!!
Thank you, as always, for your kind support.
Chris and Christy at White Barn Farm
Hey Everyone!
Just wanted to say thank you for the awesome response to the announcement our first farm dinner. The 30 seats were filled as of Sunday at 5pm. There is even a short waiting list! Thank you to everyone who emailed to express their interest even if they couldn't attend. It looks like this could be a promising series for the farm. Our idea is to have one farm dinner a month during the pleasant months of the year. Time will tell . . .
If you do have a reservation, please park at the site of the Roadside Stand, which is right across the street from the farm, 458 South St. (which is 1A) in Wrentham. We are located between Wampum Corner and the center of Wrentham. You should see the big white tent where we have our stand. Park there and carefully walk across the street to the driveway of the white house with green shutters. As soon as you walk in you'll see the big white barn straight ahead. Look to the left down the hill where a large Ash tree stands, and you should see us.
We will begin welcoming guests at 4pm. As soon as everyone arrives we will take a walk around the farm. The ground can be uneven, so I certainly don't recommend wearing heels for the tour.
Gratuities for our volunteer waitstaff and kitchen help are not expected, but will be accepted.
Share # 16
Acorn Squash. These are the acorns that we deemed edible but not storable. The season pushed the winter squash to grow and ripen and die back so fast that these poor little guys were getting sunburned! Some spots were fully soft in the field so we never harvested them, but these we deemed hard enough to cook up and eat this week. We will be distributing storage winter squash in the weeks to come, but this Acorn is to be used this week or so. The weather sure is cooperating to make us in the mood for these fall foods. How about just cutting the squash in half, putting it on a baking sheet and adding just a pat of butter and a drizzle of honey or maple syrup and a little ginger. Here’s a great hot tip: buy a nice piece of ginger at the store and put it in a freezer grade Ziploc in the freezer. Use a microplane grater to shave fresh garlic off the frozen ginger whenever you want. Fresh ginger has so much more to give than our other friend, powdered ginger.
One bunch Soybeans (Edamame). That bundle of leaves with fuzzy little nodules on it is a soybean plant (minus the roots). This is a little project for you and your pioneer family to do while watching TV or listening to a radio show. Just pull those fuzzy beans off the plant and boil them in salted water. Serve them, still in their pods, with a little soy sauce or some cracked sea salt. You put the whole pod in your mouth and use your teeth to squeeze the beans out of their pod, getting the saltiness of the shell in the process. Put a bowl or something out to put discarded shells in. A tasty and kind of fun snack. Healthy, too. Some protein, some fresh green veggie power and no GMO, no pesticides, no herbicides. I will now step down from the soapbox. . .
1 little bunch of beets, with vibrant tops. We wanted to give you a little colorful mix of roots – the two different carrots and some beets. Roasted on a baking sheet, this medley would be a fabulous side dish for any meal. Prepare your sweet tooths!
1 lb carrots, including a white variety, White Satin. The carrot bed these came from was so sparsely populated, due to seeder malfunction or lack of germination due to the dryness, that each carrot turned out big! Whoopie! These carrots, together with celery, onions and potatoes are the perfect base for a nice, hearty stew.
Celery! For cooking. A little less stringy than last year’s, but still no ants-on-a-log material. I made a really tasty stir-fry over the weekend, using our garlic, onions, carrots, celery and finally marinated eggplant and sirloin strips (a simple whisked up marinade: soy, honey, ginger, garlic, touch of balsamic/rice wine vinegar, sesame oil). Celery is a wonderful base for chicken soup or if you really want to feature this veggie, Cream of Celery Soup. The finely chopped celery leaf can be a good herb to throw in a marinade or a pasta salad, tuna, risotto, soup, or a fancy salad. This week is an excellent week to stock up on stock! Veggie stock is a no brainer: Fill a big pot with water and throw in your clean onion and garlic peels, carrot ends, celery leaves, peppercorns, parsley stems, sprigs of thyme, rosemary, sage, whatever. Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer for several hours. Strain. Either put into containers to freeze or use right away to make a risotto or soup. Chicken soup with dumplings was mentioned this week. Sounds yummy. If you just roasted a chicken, throw in the carcass to make a really rich stock. It’s so nice to have homemade stock to make your risotto or soups with.
1 eggplant. Perfect for the stir fry, the grill, a pasta sauce.
Half a pound of Anaheim hot peppers (in the bag). Make a spicy salsa by roasting these on the grill or under the broiler, peeling them, and food processing, perhaps with grilled or roasted onions and garlic, too. Use your plum tomatoes, red onion, a squeeze of lime and fresh cilantro to make a delicious pico de gallo. Serve this with some Nachos, with dollops of refried beans, a generous sprinkling of cheese, and diced green peppers and onions. Sour cream and avocado (or guacamole) could make this a meal. Or do burritos, quesadillas. Anaheims can even be used for chiles rellenos - stuffed peppers. Stuffed with cheese and baked or breaded and fried.
Three Green Bell Peppers. Onions, Peppers, and Sausage. Onions and Green Peppers on a pizza. In a tomato-based pasta sauce. On a salad. In gazpacho, in a stir-fry, a curry. Stuffed and baked.
1 head garlic. We love our garlic. Sautee with the swiss chard. Put coarsely chopped garlic with the Roasted Veggies for delicious sweet morsels among the other roots. Use in everything. Baba ganouj . . .
Red and Yellow Onions. Just enough to start a couple dishes with. Salsa and stew.
Swiss Chard. Make a stuffing for a calzone or lasagna. Make an omelet or frittata. or just have it as a side of greens. Chard is good with potatoes - kind of home-fry style.
Cilantro. What a flavor. Essential to salsa. Great to finish a nice stir-fry. I even have a recipe for Pumkin Soup that calls for cilantro.
Three Heads Lettuce. Autumn BLT’s. I think the speckled Flashy Trout Back lettuce is a great base for a goat cheese and roasted beet salad. Torn up tasty lettuce leaves also create a salad with a few grated carrots, some thin shaved red onion, crumbled blue cheese, dried cranberries, and toasted walnuts.
1.5 lbs Juliet Plum Tomatoes. Make a sauce or roasted tomato soup or dried tomatoes or salsa. or just put on salads.
Kohlrabi. Peel off the light green skin to reveal the white crunchy inside. Make sticks for snacking with dip or dice to roast in a roasted root medley. or shred for a slaw. bon appetit!
We are teaming up with Chef Matt Maue at Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro to offer a farm dinner event here at White Barn Farm. We're calling this event Tastings at White Barn Farm, and we hope it is just the first in a series of fabulous farm dinners.
The date is Sunday, September 19th. We will welcome guests at 4pm, take a quick tour of the farm once everyone arrives, and sit down at 5pm. Chef Maue has created a wonderful five-course menu, based mostly on our produce, but also featuring locally raised pork. The meal will be served at a long table outdoors under a tent at the farm. It is BYOB, so we encourage you to select a nice bottle of wine or some good beers to bring.
We are really excited to offer our first official farm dinner event. It took a little time to get approved by the Wrentham Board of Health, so excuse the short notice. If you don't have plans, consider coming! Tell any friends not on our mailing list that may be interested. The cost is $75 and reservations are made through Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro (located at Patriot Place in Foxboro) 508.203.WINE(9463). Please mention any food allergies when you make your reservation. We are offering just 30 places at the table, so call soon!
My computer is back from the shop! Here we go with the emails . . .
First, I should mention before I forget - reusing containers: if those little green paper pint containers emerge dry and clean at the end of the week, we will happily reuse them. We will also take clean egg cartons to give to Brambly Farm and Pampered Poultry.
Also, we are teaming up with Chef Matt Maue at Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro to offer a farm dinner event here at the farm. The date is Sunday, September 19th. We will welcome guests at 4pm, take a quick tour of the farm once everyone arrives, and sit down at 5pm. Matt has created a wonderful five-course menu, based mostly on our vegetables, but also featuring locally raised pork. The meal will be served at a long table outdoors under a tent at the farm. It is BYOB, so we encourage you to select a nice bottle of wine or some good beers to bring. We are really excited to offer our first official farm dinner event and I thought you should be the first to know! It took a little time to get approved by the Wrentham Board of Health, so excuse the short notice. If you don't have plans, consider coming! The cost is $75 and reservations are made through Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro (located at Patriot Place in Foxboro).
Now, what was in the box:
Eggplant. If it is adding up, consider making Baba Ghanouj, a great dip for pita bread or veggie sticks. Another suggestion was to just salt and rinse slices of eggplant, top with tomato sauce and parmesan and voila. Easier, healthier eggplant parm. My aunt's cousin, Elena, gave me a recipe for Eggplant Caponata - perfect with good bread or to top bruschetta.
Cucumber. A perfect item to dip in Baba Ghanouj. or to put in a pita pocket or veggie wrap along with shredded carrots, sliced onion, maybe pickles, roasted red peppers, sliced tomato, whatever is on hand.
Napa Cabbage. If you didn't try it in the spring, you've got to try the Red and Green Cabbage with Thai-Style Fresh Herb dressing that comes from the book, From Asparagus to Zucchini. This slaw is fantastic. Everyone loves it and it is pretty quick to throw together. You'll need basil, cilantro, and mint for the herbs. Don't worry about the red cabbage, just Napa is still great. Thin sliced Napa is perfect to add crunch to sandwich wraps. It can be added last thing to a stir-fry. If you are feeling adventurous, you can make kimchee, a Korean spicy fermented cabbage, tasty and great for your tummy.
Kale. A little bundle of Tuscan Kale. Hopefully these newfound cool nights and shorter days are giving you that hankering for a little more fall fare. Here is the first taste. Sauteed Kale works really well with eggs and creamy polenta. Search our recipe page on the website for an easy recipe. Kale soup is a Portuguese tradition - a chicken broth based soup with spicy sausage, kale, and onions. I'm waiting for someone to give me their family's super Kale Soup recipe. Anyone?
Sweet Peppers. Not sure if I've mentioned roasting peppers. Rinse the whole peppers then blister their skins - under the broiler or on the grill - turning to ensure blistering on all sides. Then allow to cool (some people enclose them in a covered bowl or in a plastic bag to help steam the skins off. Peel, remove the seeds and stems, and you have roasted peppers. great for a sandwich, pizza, calzone; bruschetta topping with good ricotta (like from Narragansett Creamery); food processing along with roasted hot peppers, a little honey and red wine vinegar for a great salsa/relish. If you have an abundance of sweet red peppers, food process roasted red peppers with feta and a little olive oil to make a wonderful appetizer spread (maybe using the whip in a stand mixer would make it even fluffier?). I experienced this excellent preparation at the Cambridge restaurant, Oleana. The chef, Ana Sortun, is the wife of a farmer! She is also the author of a beautiful cookbook named Spice, excellent for introducing yourself to Middle Eastern, Greek, Northern African, Turkish sort of recipes.
Potatoes: red and blue. Perfect for cutting into chunks and roasting. Finish with some fresh herbs. I imagine a grilled steak, roasted potatoes, and sauteed kale to be a nice dinner. Parboiling, tossing with oil, S&P, and herbs, then grilling the potatoes, is another very tasty way to enjoy our spuds!
Parsley. Big, healthy bunch. Add to the frittata, the baba, the slaw, the taters, pasta salad, tuna, deviled eggs, soup, a sandwich, a grilled fish, an oven roasted fish with lemon. Stuff a roasted chicken with half a lemon, half an onion, and a handful of parsley and other herbs. Tabouli is a good dish that truly features parsley. Search for a winning recipe and let me know.
Lettuce. BLT. or just mayo, lettuce, tomato. eat 'em while the gettin is good. Salad, of course. Toasted nuts and a good cheese are always good for a hearty salad.
Tomatillos. the little green tomato looking things with the papery husk. Remove the paper! Rinse and roast or stew for best flavor. You can make a wonderful sauce for enchiladas. First, sautee some onions and garlic and a hot pepper if you like, add the diced tomatillos (and perhaps your green tomato) and allow to collapse, add stock (chicken stock is good), and allow to simmer down. That is the sauce. Corn torillas are traditional but a little more breakable so wheat is fine. Dip the small tortillas in your sauce to make it pliable, then put it on a plate and stuff with shredded chicken, picked off the bone, if available (or just use some spinach, chard, kale, whatever to stay with the enchilada verde theme) and roll up along with some shredded cheese or diced soft farmer's cheese. Place these in a baking dish, all lined up and finally cover with the remaining sauce. Bake at 350-375 until heated through, then add a little more cheese on top and uncover and bake for another 10 minutes. Serve with rice and beans if you like. This is certainly the Americanized casserole version. Definitely order the enchiladas verdes at a good mexican restaurant or best yet, a good taco truck on the West Coast. It is nice to clean up the kitchen while the casserole cooks, though.
Roasted tomatillos can also be a fabulous base for a tasty green salsa. Halve the rinsed tomatillos, place in a baking dish with a touch of oil and salt, bake until collapsed and saucy. To make the salsa fine dice onion, a hot chile (like Serrano), and cilantro, cover with lime juice and give a pinch of salt. Allow that to mellow together. Then throw in the cooled tomatillos. taste (add honey or agave nectar if it needs sweetness or is too hot).
Tomatoes. slice, dice, roast, stew. Dry, freeze, can. Check out the recipe page of the website for some new ideas. Raw tomatoes and fresh mozzarella (basically leftover Caprese salad) on cooked pasta with lemon vinaigrette is a perfect quick and easy dish.
Sungold cherry tomatoes. my sweet little darlings. perfect for a salad. or snacking.
Enjoy these shorter days. More time for cooking and reading . . .
Thank you for all picking up, right on time, boxes back, all pleasantness. We love our CSA members and we think our Roadside Stand has the best customers anywhere. Sure, we haven't done a scientific study, but we are so grateful for your spirit of appreciation for good food and the willingness to try crazy vegetable varieties that we are compelled to grow each year . . . We truly hope that you are enjoying working with all the veggies and that it inspires nice meals that are wonderful to share with the people you love.
What was in the box?
Finally, no melon to juggle back to the car. It was a good year for melons. That doesn't happen too often in New England, so three cheers for this year's cantaloupe and watermelons!!!
Now, what was IN the box:
3 lbs Red Gold Potatoes. These have the golden inside of a yukon gold and the thin red skin of a new potato. Wunderbar! This would be a great one to mash with the skins on. Just scrub, cut into smaller pieces for faster cooking, and boil in salted water til fork tender. Pour off the water and then leave the lid askew so steam can escape for a few minutes - this is moisture exiting the potato. That means it can be replaced with flavorful milk, cream, and butter (at the restaurant I worked at they would heat the butter and half and half together on the stove so they could add it warm). Certainly lower fat subsititutes/partial subsititutes can help create the right texture: sour cream, yogurt, olive oil. or just throw in some cream cheese and chives/scallions and don't eat a mountain of them. Anyway, mash 'em up and eat 'em. Don't forget to taste for salt and pepper before serving. Roasted Potatoes are always a go-to. Splendid with Rosemary if you have some. If you still have carrots you could roast them together - maybe even add some big chunks of red onion, too.
Red Onions. these are not cured properly so they will last the longest in the refrigerator (as long as they're not wet) and should be used within a week or two. Finely diced red onion is the perfect base for salsa or a cucumber salad. or very thinly sliced on a beet salad. they are perfect for gazpacho. you can certqinly cook with red onions. The Best Recipe cookbook (from America's Test Kitchen) calls for red onions in their French Onion soup. The best onion rings i've ever tasted came from Cook&Brown Public House in PVD. The chef there soaks them in buttermilk, makes a light batter and serves the modest stack with some sort of out-of-this world mayo. Red onions are great sliced thin on a pizza or tucked into a quesadilla. red onion rings can transform an ordinary turkey sandwich or burger.
Mini-bunch of Swiss Chard. I was dying to put something novel in the share this week and with that back-to-school feeling in the air I thought maybe we could push for something from our fall crops. cooking greens. There is probably not enough to make a side dish at dinner for a family of four. But you could certainly make a delicious frittata: sautee rinsed, coarsely chopped leaves (if you use the stems chop finer and add to the pan before the leaves) with garlic and olive oil. then add beaten eggs and cheese and throw it in the oven (350-75) covered at first, until fluffy and just about solid in the center (20 min?), then topped with parmesan and uncovered for the last 5 minutes to brown it. Yum. Or maybe a morning egg scramble. or if you are making a soup you can cut thin ribbons and toss them into the hot broth when it's a minute from finished. This is especially good in a chicken stock based soup. It could jazz up a parmesan risotto. It could be an element in a veggie lasagna - along with sauteed onions, sweet peppers, diced eggplant, tomatoes, and basil (or pesto if you made it into that).
Tomatoes. If you are tired of fresh tomato preparations, a fabulous method is to roast them. I've been cutting up all of the cracked tomatoes on the farm - not much, just so the centers are exposed - halves for medium tomatoes, quarters for large tomatoes - then putting them uncovered in a ceramic baking dish in the oven at 375-400 with a few pinches of salt and a quick drizzle of olive oil. The high heat cooking just concentrates the sugars and cooks off a lot of the liquid that you would have to stir and stir on a stovetop. If I remember I open the oven and stir with a wooden spoon every 20 minutes or so to help release more moisture and encourage even cooking. If I forget the top layer is usually blackened - but no big whoop - just stir it up and move on to the next step. As far as timing goes, it depends on how thick or thin you want your sauce - just cook longer for more concentrated. I will just refrigerate this product and wait for the next meal to inspire its use. I've made a roasted tomato soup - onions and garlic in olive oil at the base, a few slices of a fresh cayenne pepper, then chopped parsley and basil (I made a pile of the herbs and put in half at this point and saved half for the last second) thrown right into the oil. Next, roasted tomatoes, stock (veggie or chicken are great), then basically just heated it through and let it simmer for a few minutes. Next, puree with an immersion blender or do batches in a blender. If the texture is to your liking, stop there. I decided to remove the seeds and any remaining skin with the foley food mill - i think you could also press it through a sieve. I put it back on the stove to simmer, added salt and pepper and a shot of agave nectar (my newest condiment from ocean state job lot), and finally the rest of the fresh herbs. I did add a little half and half just before I shut it off to add to the creaminess. yum! A roasted tomato sauce for pasta is much simpler. just throw in the roasted tomatoes to a pan with sauteed garlic and onions, add some basil, add the cooked pasta, some parmesan. voila!
Cherry tomatoes: the little orange gems are sungold. the plums are juliet. these are probably familiar by now. juliets would actually be great for a hand chopped salsa, they are not extra juicy so you can add the lime juice salsa needs without making it too watery. they are both excellent dried.
Basil. make that pesto. or a basil oil. or just use it up in all the recipes described above. BLT with basil mayo is fantastic.
lettuce. crispy leaves for sandwiches and salads.
eggplants. finally a decent harvest! if you don't want to do the eggplant parm/veggie lasagna, look into Indian or Asian cooking. cubes of eggplant are little flavor sponges. they can soak up a delicious curry or some garlic and soy sauce. spicy eggplant is good. and if you don't want eggplant this week or if it's too much for one meal. fry it up and freeze it for winter eggplant parm. Marinated eggplant is fabulous on the grill. try minced garlic, soy, a little balsamic vinegar, a spoonful of honey, olive and canola oil, and some chopped basil. i always taste the marinade before adding the meat or veggies - make sure it's good!
cucumbers. some slicers and some picklers. you can certainly eat pickling cukes fresh or do the simple seasoned rice wine vinegar over slices in the fridge trick. I love a chopped salad with peeled, diced cukes, halved sungolds, finely diced red onion, a crumble of feta, and a balsamic vinaigrette. This would be fabulous served alongside fresh garlic rubbed bruschetta with olive oil and salt.
Garlic. the first bulb! I've been on a kick of making the bruschetta, mentioned above. I learned this method at Al Forno, where I worked for many years. They make the most excellent bruschetta and it pairs excellently with their littleneck clams cooked in the woodfired oven in a broth of spicy tomato sauce, white wine, sweet onions and butter. Anyway. the concept is this: toasted bread acts like a grater for fresh garlic. just peel a clove, slice off that nub on the bottom and you have a flat suface to scratch on toasted bread. I like to use a good bread and although Al Forno grills their bread, I use the toaster oven in a pinch. Once each slice is scratched with garlic, drizzle with tasty olive oil and finish with a pinch of salt. This can add bulk to any soup or appetizer course and is a fabulous base for an array of cheeses or marinated peppers, olives, whatever.
Sweet peppers. We have been dehydrating slices of sweet pepper to store up for making chili in the winter. Fresh, peppers are super on salad. Sauteed they are the perfect base for any pasta sauce, curry, stir fry, even burrito fillings. They are a nice element on the grill on a skewer. They are an ingredient in gazpacho - a cold vegetable soup, which you have all the ingredients for in your share: chopped red onion, pepper, peeled diced cucumbers, quartered tomatoes. these all go in the blender with juice from a whole lemon or lime, a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and a few tablespoons of olive oil. my food processor and blender are broken so the immersion blender did the job in a big stainless steel bowl. you could include a hot pepper if you want it to be spicy. I made ours at lunch and the vegetables were still room temperature from the field, so I ended up adding some of my frozen dried tomatoes as ice cubes. i think it added a little richness, sweetness. i added salt, pepper, a squirt of agave nectar, and some chopped basil, you could add some tabasco and worcestershire. Normally you would chill the soup for an hour or two before serving. This is truly refreshing on a hot day.
That is all I can remember! Hope you enjoy the extreme of this heat wave and store it up for those short, February days. We are looking forward to rain on Friday. Water for our cover crop seeds!!!