CSA Week 11
This week you MAY have apples, peaches, tomatoes, hot peppers, onions, lettuce, eggplant, tomatillos, celery…
There’s a lot going on at the farm with the hurricane to heat and humidity and some crops have suddenly ripened or been stricken with disease 🙁
We are hoping for tomatillos and a few hots to go with them this week. Make some salsa verde and kick back. CSA Week 11, 2018
Our celery is “stringless”, so just cut it up and enjoy!
This is a hasty letter – mostly stolen off last year…I was goofing off with the grandkids yesterday and forgot all about sending it out 🙂
Recipes
Baba Ghanoush or Baba-ganouj or Caviar d’aubergines
Still on the fence about eggplant? You might not even realize what this was if you had it. Yummy with toasted pitas or as a sandwich/wrap spread. Faith calls this eggplant hummus 😉
- 1 eggplant
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/4 cup pure tahini
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.
Place eggplant on baking sheet, and make holes in the skin with a fork. Roast it for 30 to 40 minutes, turning occasionally, or until soft. Remove from oven, let cool peel skin off or scoop our pulp.
Place eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, and garlic in an blender/food processor and puree. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
You can grill the eggplant or char it on the stovetop if you like a smokier flavor. This freezes beautifully!
Cream of Celery Soup
- 3 tablespoons butter, divided into 2 Tbsp and 1 Tbsp
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 1/2 cups sliced leeks, white and light green parts only
- 1 large bunch or 2 small bunches celery (5 cups chopped for the soup, 1 1/2 cups diced for the topping)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 1/2 teaspoon to 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, to taste
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup of cream
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
- Fresh chopped chives or parsley for garnish
Sauté onions, leeks, 5 cups chopped celery: Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a thick-bottomed 4 to 5 quart pot on medium heat. Add the diced onion, the leeks, and 5 cups of the chopped celery. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes until softened. Add the minced garlic and cook for a minute more. Add stock, bay leaves, salt, then simmer: Add the chicken stock and bay leaves to the pot. Taste for salt and add salt. (If you are using unsalted butter and unsalted stock, you will need to add more salt than you expect, if not, maybe just a little salt will be needed.) Increase heat to bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover to maintain a simmer. Simmer for 15 minutes.Braise remaining celery to soften: While the soup is simmering, prepare the extra celery that will be added later to the soup. In a separate small sauté pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter on medium heat. Add 1 1/2 cups diced celery to the butter.
Ladle 1/2 cup of the simmering stock from the soup pot into the sauté pan. Simmer on low for 5 or 6 minutes to soften the celery. Set aside.
Purée soup: Remove the soup pot from heat, let cool slightly. Remove and discard the bay leaves. Working in batches, purée the soup in a blender, filling the blender no more than a third full at a time (keep your hand on the lid so the hot liquid doesn’t explode). Return the puréed soup to the pot.
Stir in the cream and the braised diced celery.
Taste for salt and add more if needed. Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper and chopped chives or parsley to serve.
Speaking of celery…check out the pretty caterpillars Faith was rescuing off the Cutting celery and fennel in the kitchen garden:
Farm Dirt
YES! You are welcome to come to the farm – the New Braintree farm 🙂 I still have not made maps for this year…but maybe I can get to it this next week. Please feel free to park wisely in the barnyard or houseyard, or on street where/when safe. Also: wear sensible shoes, pack snacks, pick snacks, avoid the temptation to step over the rows and accidentally damage our/your plants. Also resist the temptation to walk through any vining crops like melons and squashes. It takes more skill thank you might think to tiptoe through harvesting, without stepping on the vines – once crushed, there’s no fixing that once the damage is done. Having said all that, it is a great experience to roam the farm and harvest some extras for yourself…ad it is a great bonus to having a CSA with us. I will send you an official invite to the farm when it is gleaning time (before the killing frost). Oh, and pick a few apples!
I am looking forward to broccoli and cauliflower in the coming weeks…but Glenn thinks they will be late. We are talking about the 2 Week extension to CSA this year so we can get to all the late things (remember, planting was late for many crops). Look for an announcement next week about adding 2 weeks to your CSA which should include: potatoes, Brussel sprouts, broccoli or cauliflower, cabbage, apples, winter squash, new and interesting late fall greens…
It was VERY popular last year and is a great way to keep the goodness going!
Eat well,
Geneviève Stillman
