Week 17; Sept. 24, 2008

Sorry for the delayed posting…
On this wet weekend, you might want to make a soup with some of your veggies. We nursed ourselves through our first colds for the season (that is, the school season) with a vegetable soup made from chicken broth, green beans, spinach (kale would work too), potatoes, leeks, chopped tomatoes and basil. See below for some other cooking suggestions.

Here’s what was in this week’s share:
1 pound beans—green or yellow wax
½ pound cooking spinach
1 acorn squash
1/2 pound mild mesclun mix
bunch of leeks
1 bok choy
1 bunch of red Russian kale
red potatoes
garlic
red onion

Bok choy- well suited to stir-frying; slice leaves into ½-inch strips and thicker, wider portion towards bottom of leaves into thinner strips, about ¼-inch wide, so that it cooks at the same rate as the leafy portion

Acorn squash- not a squash well-suited to peeling; best roasted
Here’s how:
Preheat oven to 400° F and line a roasting pan or rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or foil
Slice a thin slice off both ends and then slice in half perpendicular to the ribs
Scrape out seeds
Rub cut sides and hollowed center with butter
Season with salt
Roast “bowl” side facing up until very tender when pierced with a fork, about 1 to 1 ½ hours

Kale- good braised or sautéed or chopped up in an early fall vegetable soup (see above); kale goes well with any cured meat—bacon, pancetta, ham—and garlic

Week 16, Sept. 17, 2008

For all those hankering for comfort-type foods, we’re moving fast into fall crops. Hopefully not too fast. We’re a bit nervous about tonight’s frost warning. We’re covering up delicate crops, like greens, today to keep them protected. And then, well, we pray.

Some cooking notes from Maryellen:
winter squash- slice this in half down its length and scrape out seeds (to make a boat shape); brush cut side with oil and gently roast on a heavy baking sheet or baking pan (350° to 425° F is a safe range) ; if you place cut side down on the pan, you’ll get more caramelized flesh, which will taste toasty and sweet; I usually then just serve with butter and a sprinkling of brown sugar or maple sugar

Peppers: taste the Italian sweets—the long tapered variety—fresh; we’ve never tasted a pepper so sweet and crisp

Sweet corn: probably the last you’ll see this season; if you’ve had enough, blanch and freeze it for when you’re hankering for some this winter; or make chowder!

In this week’s share:
2 delicata squash
1 pound green beans
1 bunch parsley
2 ½ lbs. white potatoes
½ lb. salad mix
½ lb. spinach
1 bunch purple carrots
1 onion
bag of red peppers
half dozen or so ears of sweet corn
1 watermelon

Week 15, Sept. 10, 2004

I’ve been holding off on roasting beets all summer—just because I hate to turn on my oven that time of year. It’s my absolute favorite way to eat them. The roasting seems to concentrate their sugars; they just taste so sweet. I can’t count how many farmers market customers I’ve converted into beet lovers by telling them to try roasting them. Roasting, in general, is a pretty flexible technique in terms of temperatures and times, but here’s a basic guideline:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

For 1 pound of beets: trim, peel (or don’t; the peels will slip right off when rubbed with a towel or pressed with your fork after roasting) and cut into 1-inch-thick wedges. Toss with enough extra-virgin olive oil to generously coat (1 to 3 Tbs.). Toss with Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Spread on a heavy-duty rimmed baking sheet. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes or until undersides are beginning to turn golden brown along the edges. Flip and continue roasting until tender, about 15 minutes.

I like to then serve with balsamic vinegar and crumbled blue cheese or goat cheese.


In this week’s share:

1 pound edamame (see wk. 12 share info. for cooking instructions)
Salad mix
1 pound of beets
1 large onion
1 canteloupe
7 to 8 mixed sweet peppers, mostly red
10 ears of corn
2 pounds white potatoes
yellow wax beans
1 bunch carrots

Week 14; September 3, 2008

Our tomatoes are hanging in there, despite the damage from all the rain we had this summer. We haven’t seen or heard of anyone’s tomatoes thriving this summer—on farms or in small gardens—so we’re glad we can still keep them coming thus far.
Now, of course, we’ve hit a dry spell. We just keep nursing new seedlings with drip irrigation so that we’ll hopefully have plenty of fall greens!
Meantime, some of summer’s best are now peaking—like melons! And the peppers are sweet. We’re not one to snack on peppers, but these are so crisp and light on the palate that that’s just what we’ve been doing—when not eating the melon, that is.

In this week’s share:

1 cantaloupe
4 heirloom tomatoes
1 bag of mixed sweet peppers (6 to 7)
1 bunch of beets
1 large white onion
12 ears of corn
½ pound of salad mix (these are baby lettuce leaves, so a light dressing like a homemade vinaigrette is recommended)

Week 13; August 27, 2008

It hasn’t always felt like it, but summer is still here. Here’s what was in this week’s share:

2 bunches of carrots
½ pound salad mix
1 ½ pound shell beans
1 cucumber
1 to 2 eggplants, depending on size
6 tomatoes
1 large onion
1 bulb of garlic
1 bunch of parsley
1 bunch of basil
1 pound of purple beans (unfortunately, these will lose their regal color once cooked; serve fresh with a green goddess dressing or hummus?!)
6 ears of sweet corn

The corn was at its peak of maturity, which is when the bugs love it. So we did our best to find ears that weren’t buggy. That would explain why a lot of the husk was peeled back or off. If you haven’t already eaten it, it holds best wrapped in a damp towel in a zipper-lock bag in the produce drawer of your refrigerator.

The lima-like beans with the mottling on the pods are fresh shell beans. We love these. Cook them just like you would a dried bean. Because they’re fresh, however, they shouldn’t need quite as much time to cook.

To cook shell beans: Remove the beans from their pods. Place them in a pot of water with aromatics, such as onion, peppercorns and a bay leaf (I’ll also throw in carrot trimmings if they’re kicking around). Bring to a boil, and then lower to a simmer until they are tender. Stir occasionally. Depending on the age of the bean, the amount of time needed to cook varies. I recommend tasting beginning after about 20 minutes. We have hard water, so it can take twice that time in my kitchen. I’m going to try adding a little baking soda to the water this year to soften it and, hopefully, speed things along. I know that helps when cooking dried beans.

You can use them with your corn to make succotash. They’re also great in pasta. Last night we caramelized some onion, browned some diced eggplant in extra-virgin olive oil, and then simmered them briefly with chopped tomatoes, more extra-virgin olive oil and minced garlic. Chopped basil was added in at the end. It was great as is, but the beans would have been a nice addition and source of protein. And the good news is that all those ingredients are in this week’s share.

Week 12; Aug. 20, 2008

Yes, we have corn at last! Our corn crop took a hammering recently from torrential thunderstorms with strong winds (what’s up with all these storms?! Sigh.). But not all of it was leveled by the wind. The kernels on this variety aren’t large but are succulent and sweet. This was picked just hours before we delivered your shares.

You might also be wondering what those fuzzy little green pods are. They’re edamame, also known as soybean. They’re such a treat. We like to just boil them in their pods in well salted water for about 5 minutes. Drain, spread on a baking sheet and sprinkle with Kosher salt (the salt part makes it tasty, but it is optional). They can be served warm, but some recommend serving at room temperature. The best way to eat is to just pinch the beans out of their pods and into your mouth with your teeth or with your thumb and fingers. If anyone else has a take on how to serve these, please comment!

For something different to do with red cabbage, try this Chinese chicken salad with peanut sauce: http://www.taunton.com/finecooking/recipes/chinese_chicken_salad.aspx
If you’re vegetarian, you could substitute tofu or tempeh for the chicken.

Here’s what was in this week’s share:
1 pound edamame in pods
1 Walla Walla onion
4 tomatoes
1 quart of red potatoes
1 bunch of beets
1 bunch of purple carrots
1 red cabbage
1 bulb of garlic
10 to 12 ears of corn

Week 11, August 13, 2008

We had a rather curious harvest this week. Our walk-in refrigerator broke down over the weekend, and the refrigeration repairman was still waiting on parts Wednesday morning when we needed to harvest the CSA share. So, in the name of getting things harvested as close to delivery time as possible—so that nothing sat out for too long, we didn’t jot down a list of what was in the week’s share. So, this is what we think was in the share:

1 bunch basil
¾ pounds green beans
4 tomatoes
1 quart of potatoes
½ pound salad mix
2 cucumbers
3 bulbs of garlic
1 bunch of leeks
1 large onion
3 patty pan squash (great grilled or roasted or sautéed; they brown really beautifully)