CSA Week 11, 2019

CSA Week 11, 2019

This week you MAY have Chinese Cabbage, apples, peaches, tomatoes, onion, corn, squash, cukes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli? chard? lettuce?

Chinese Cabbage is truly a cabbage and it is truly Chinese. It is quite different from our western cabbages and some posit that it is a cross between pak choi and turnip. turnips really get around in the veggie world. I’ll try to remember to write about all the things that have a turnip for a parent going forward. We mainly grow the kind of chubby, very crinkled leaved Napa and the tall and cylindrical, smoother leaved Michihili. Both are WONDERFUL raw or any degree of cooked.

There was a little hiatus with the lettuce, but I think it is coming back. You may recall my discussions of seeding lettuce every 10 days, which means we set out a crop of lettuce about every 10 days too. This ensures that we have a steady supply all summer, BUT, there is almost always a gap due to either inability to get on a field or weather pushing it to come all at once. We do our best 🙂 We are still picking Early Mac apples, and now other varieties appearing like the Zestar, Sansa and Ginger Gold. There should be peaches for a while longer and I still have not preserved any.

This is one of my favorites! Chinese Cabbage Salad

Here’s another along the same lines, with less steps:

Chinese Cabbage Slaw

Remove and discard any abused looking wrapper leaves. Give a quick rinse. THINLY slice the cabbage. The core of the cabbage is nice and not a tough, hard thing like our western cabbage, so slice it up with the leaves. Sprinkle with salt. While the cabbage is tenderizer and draining, whisk or shake up some rice vinegar (1/2 c), soy sauce (1/4 c), sesame oil (1-2 TB), pepper (or red pepper flakes if you like), a generous amount fresh or powdered garlic and ginger and a little sugar (unless you are using sweetened rice vinegar or ponzu). Rinse and dry the cabbage, toss with dressing.

Really you can shred/spiralize up anything to toss in this slaw, like a cucumber or squash.

The soup I made last night

Faith loves her a noodle bowl. Last night I collected the odds and ends and we enjoyed a yummy vegetable soup. All the veggies were cut into about the same size, except for the cousa, which I left in hunks for a little substance. I couldn’t find any Napa in the barn, but I would have gladly used  part of a head in the soup.

• several garlic cloves minced
• 3 star anise
• 1 leek thinly sliced (a small onion would be great)
• 4 slender carrots sliced
• 4 or 5 tops left behind from celery stalks, chopped
• 5 lunchbox peppers, halved
• 4 baby cousa, cut into nice chunks (probably equivalent to 1 medium zucchini
• 2 bundles udon
• 2 Tb “better than bouillon” chicken (see. I’m all about fast and convenient too!)
• 1 Tb “better than bouillon” mushroom
• soy sauce
• olive oil to saute veggies
• Tb or so toasted sesame oil

Heat oil in medium stock pot, toss in all the veggies (I saved out the celery leaves) and saute 4 or 5 minutes. Add water to cover all the veggies, stir in bouillon, celery leaves, additional seasoning like star anise, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce…when the broth gets hot, add noodles and simmer everything until the noodles are tender, probably 8 minutes or so. Remove the satr anise if you used it 😉

I garnished mine with sliced Hungarian Wax peppers. YUM!

ZsaZsa’s Corn ‘Oysters”

~an old New England dish.

• 1 egg beaten
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1/2 C flour
• 1/2 t. baking powder
• kernels scraped from 3 ears of corn
• 1 T. melted butter

Add all the above together-adding milk to make a heavy pancake batter. Melt some butter or bacon fat in a skillet or griddle. Drop batter onto hot pan by serving spoon size dollops. Turn down to Med heat. Brown, turn and brown other side. Serve with applesauce or maple syrup. Make about 8 ‘oysters’

Fresh Summer Corn Chowder
4 ears corn, cut off the cob
1/2 large onion, minced
1 T butter
2 cups diced potatoes
1 cup water
3-4 springs fresh thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
4T flour
2 cups milk
In large saucepan, saute onion in butter for 3 mins or until tender. Add the potatoes, water, thyme, salt, pepper and corn. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 mins or until potatoes are tender. In small bowl, whisk flour and milk until smooth, then gradually stir into soup. Bring to a simmer and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Yield: 4 servings.

I thought this recipe looked good Roasted Zucchini and Tomatillo Salsa Verde

It has been a great year for the ragweed! Anyway, don’t let that keep you away though – you should come out and pick some berries or apples. You can always try to tie it into another activity out this way, like Old Sturbridge Village, Rock House Reservation, brewery hopping (Lost Towns Brewing Curt and Halley Stillman!)… You can find out more about what goes on in our neck of the woods here.

I left a head of broccoli in a plastic bag on my counter for two days…as you might imagine, it was quite yellow. Broccoli has a very high rate of respiration and breaks down its own carbohydrates quickly to produce energy. Chlorophyll is used up quickly AND ethylene gas is produced.  At room temperature and high humidity, broccoli has a very short shelf life. Broccoli should be stored very cold, in a bag that breathes a little (lest you trap the ethylene in), and not with fruit (big ethylene producers). Other crops that suffer from high respiration rates are, surprise! sweet corn, peas and mushrooms. Crops that suffer quickly from ethylene damage include lettuces (the russet spotting at wounds), spotting and pitting on summer squashes, cucumbers, peppers…. Having said that, it’s not harmful, you can still eat the lettuce, squash, cukes, even the yellow broccoli is technically fine. This damage can happen quickly and it is good to know it is not going to hurt you if it happens…which I hope it does not!

For the first time in a while, Faith will start school AFTER Labor Day – pretty psyched about that. I know I have chatted with a few of you in the past about how school starting in August was yucky to me, for which there seemed universal consensus. It sounds like her school is an exception though. So, happy back to school this week for those of you returning to work, college, or sending your own kids off!

The coolness has been in the air the past few mornings and that always seems to coincide with school starting. Now the time is right for apples! Is it me of did this summer fly? I cannot belive how much I did not get done and I have so much to do. I’ve got loads of “putting by” to do and I was going to paint, and spread bark mulch and spend a few days at the beach and, and, and….

Oh, the garlic all got undercut and is curing in one of the greenhouses. It’s very satisfying to see any crop come to fruition, but especially one that takes almost a whole year to cultivate. I think the garlic harvest occurs at the same time the Franklinia tree blooms. I am typing distractedly while I watch our very bossy hummingbird is intermittently feeding on the blossoms and then sitting nearby, ready to chase off any competition. She has chased every other female away from the tree within seconds. Must be extra good!

The bags I have been delivering are pretty heavy, enjoy the last week of August’s bounty!

Eat well,

Geneviève Stillman