CSA Week 11
This week you MAY have corn is back! peaches, apples, tomatoes, red onions, Tuscan/lacinato kale, carrots, surprise cabbage??…
The plan is for everyone to get the flattish, slender kale this week, also known as Tuscan or lacinato or Dinosaur or black kale. All the kales are interchangeable, BUT, I particularly like kale salad or kale chips made with the Tuscan. The kale forms a wonderful bloom, that waxy scale, to protect itself from creatures and moisture loss; it is even more pronounced this year. If you wash your kale like I do, by dunking it in a pot of water, you will observe some bloom will have come off in the rinse and form a cloudy surface on the water. This is a good thing, and natural 🙂
Tomato season is lasting wonderfully so far and it is such a joy to have a fat slice on a sandwich or just by itself. The peach cop is not super heavy, but they are soooo good right now. Just wash the fuzz off and be sure not to eat in a way that peach juice drips on your shirt 😉
Molly Delicious apples! Molly Delicious are an heirloom apple variety, also known as Sheep’s nose. If you think you don’t like Delicious varieties of apples, just hang on a moment and try these. Crisp, sweet, lovely. If calling them Sheep’s Nose makes it better, then go with it 😉 Oh, and just wait until the Golden Delicious!!! Once of the best apples on the farm!
Recipes
Kale Caesar
Well, it’s all about the dressing right? I’ve been making mine with Greek yoghurt these days in an attempt to cut some of the delicious fat out of my life, sigh. It’s still delish though!
Wash and strip the stems out of the kale. On the Tuscan kale, you don’t have to get to neat, the stems are pretty tender. Roughly chop the kale, toss with sliced red onion, shaved carrot, drizzle with dressing and enjoy! As I do with my regular kale salad, I get into it with my hands and make sure all the kale is covered, it goes a long way to tenderize 🙂
The dressing
- 3/4 cup Greek yogurt (do I need to add the “plain” here?…go ahead and try it with vanilla, LOL 😛 )
- 1/2 cup grated/shaved, whatever, Parmesan cheese
- 3 Tb EVOO
- 3 Tb lemon juice
- 1 1/2 tsp anchovy paste (if you are skipping the anchovies, you need to make up the salt somehow)
- 1 1/2 tsp Dijon
- 1 (or more) garlic clove
Blend it all together! Use your immersion blender or food processor.
If you still have a bunch decomposing in your fridge, LOL:
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 still welcome to come to the farm – the New Braintree farm 🙂 I have yet to update the map for this year…but it will happen. The good news is the raspberries, apples and blueberries don’t move around much 😉 Please feel free to park wisely in the barnyard or houseyard, or on street where/when safe. it is also advised to let someone know you are here so you don’t get kicked out 😉 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…and it is one of the best perks having a CSA with us. There will be an official invite later in the season, MUCH LATER, when it is gleaning time (before the killing frost). This date is typically late October, and we always hope it is at the very end of October or even November.
We are talking about the 2 Week extension to CSA this year so we can get to more of the late season crops like Brussel sprouts, broccoli or cauliflower, cabbage, apples, winter squash, new and interesting late fall greens…
Our 2 week extension has been very popular and brings one right up to Still Life Farm’s Winter CSA start date. A few people have asked me why we don’t just offer an 18 week Summer CSA and it is mainly due to us not wanting to overpromise on something we actually have little control over. In other words, it takes us this deep into the season to be able to predict what and how much of some crops we will have. The verdict is still out on the winter squash, for example.
The corn this week is some of the best of the season – pretty excited for it and I know I need to get my corn frozen for the winter.
Wildlife: The Barn Swallows left today, right on time, you could keep your calendar by it. The entire farm was so quiet today and this evening without them. Glenn and I are watching for the Night Hawk migration. We saw two the other day, but they were headed East…We should see loads any evening now, headed South.
We finally received some blessed and timely rain! This gave a much needed lift to that late planting of cole crops I wrote about 2 weeks ago and also created field conditions Glenn had been waiting on to set out a boat load or Asian greens. Another year and I would have been writing about Amaranth or Bekana, but this year it has sat outside the greenhouse for weeks; Glenn knew if we set it out it would have died for sure in the hot & dry. It is finally going in the ground and should be ready soon.
I am headed out to scout the Chinese cabbage now and see if it will be in this week’s bag 😉
I am back, no Chinese cabbage yet…but the regular green cabbage is ready 🙂
Eat well,
Geneviève Stillman
