CSA Week 7, 2019

This week you MAY have corn, squash, cukes, beans, greens, blueberries, peppers, eggplant?

link to week 7 post

I am seeing a few eggplants coming in, so I imagine they will appear to you soon. I will cover the eggplant next week, but if you get something that looks like it might be eggplant, it likely is:)  As for peppers: look for your standard green bell, but we also have white, yellow, orange, lilac, and purple flavor. What about red you say? Did you know that red peppers are just ripe peppers? Yep, the yellow and orange were also green first too!

We grow A LOT of peppers! Mostly you will see sweet bell types, but you may also see sweet banana/Italian frying types like Carmen, Italica, and Mama Mia Giallo- in shades of light green, dark green, yellow and red,  Lipstick – a pimiento shaped red one that ripens to red early, and some ‘blushing beauty” Romanian types.. It’s turned into a sickness passion here to grow any peppers – especially the hots! IF we put any in your box/bag, you would most likely see jalapeno, Hungarian Wax -hot banana looking, and Poblano- dark green, pointy but looking somewhat like a bell pepper. You can read more about hots we grow here.

Coming up: tomatoes, peaches, onions, eggplant

green bell peppers, Mole top left, jalapanos top right

Recipes

Faith asked for her favorite Spicy Coconut Chicken (made in the InstantPot, of course, recipe at Epicurious), which I made, accompanied with pickled cucumbers and fried eggplant. It was all very complimentary and yummy together!

Fried Eggplant
  • 2 medium eggplant, cubed with skin on
  • small onion, minced
  • 2 Tb minced garlic
  • healthy pinch of red pepper flake or a minced chili pepper from your box 😉
  • 2 Tb fish or oyster sauce
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • 1 tsp powdered ginger
  • 2 tsp cornstarch
  • 2 Tb soy sauce
  • oil for frying

Heat a couple TB of oil in skillet large enough for your eggplant. Toss in eggplant, onion, garlic, hot pepper and fry, stirring frequently to keep from sticking to bottom of pan and to cook evenly. Feel free to drizzle with a little more oil if needed and also a little water to keep things moist. Meanwhile, mix up a slurry with your sauces, cornstarch, ginger, sugar, and up to a Tb water to make runny enough. After about 7 minutes the eggplant starts to look cooked. Add the sauce/cornstarch slurry, stirring constantly until the sauce is thickened. If it is too thick, stir in more water. Turn off the heat and let rest a few minutes.

Vegetarian Chili
Quick Lemon Summer Pasta
Zucchini Recipes
Summer Tian

fried eggplant in soy glaze

Farm Dirt

The weeds are growing just fine here at the farm, but it’s a great time to visit nonetheless! The blueberries are ripe and ripening, break an ear of corn or two, cut a head of lettuce…
Roaming the farm is good for all ages, and well behaved dogs too! I’ll have to finally make an updated farm map so y’all know where to find stuff 😉 When I refer to visiting the farm, I always mean the New Braintree farm. Info here

Lots of bird activity! The second and even third of Barn Swallow nestlings have hatched and most of them fledged. They are starting to congregate in social groups and before long they will all gather up on the electric wires and migrate for the winter. Seeing them go leaves me with a pang of sadness for the fleeting Summer. While they are finishing up, the Goldfinch season is in full swing. They nest late, when the milkweed and thistle are blooming, using the fluff to line nests and then the thistle seeds to feed their young. This year we have six or seven pair of Barn Swallows that nested in the first round, maybe four pair in the second round…unless a few pair found entirely new spots to nest – but I don’t think so! I have no idea how many Goldfinches are here on the farm. Glenn says hundreds 🙂 The Red-tail Hawks have been especially loud the past couple weeks, I normally see their young out by now, but so farm they have been kept secreted away. Mama and Papa are busy hunting I guess. Cue the iconic eagle cry from every Western…that’s really a Red-tail vocalization! On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have our feisty hummingbirds feeding in the back garden daily. This week, I guess an immature House Finch got too close and Mrs. Hummi chased that poor thing ALL OVER the yard! While it is common to see the hummingbirds chase one another and other bird species, I have never seen one stay in a chase for so long. It was pretty funny, unless you were the finch!

Eat well,

Geneviève Stillman

Coming up: Peaches, eggplant, garlic, onions…

Turkey Vulture hanging out in our yard…not sure why he was there this morning, perhaps drying off?

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