Share Fourteen
Posted 9/1/2010 8:05am by Christy and Chris Kantlehner.
Howdy Tuesday Members!
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!!!
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!!!
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