CSA Week 7
The plan for week 7: eggplant, green peppers, beans, beets, red onions, tomatoes, blueberries, possibly the first carrots or something else fun…
Lots of great things to toss on the grill!!
I just learned we put our own marinara sauce to the bags last week. That sauce was made with our tomatoes! Enjoy 🙂
Not sure what you will get for eggplants, but they are all delicious and VERY similar. Yes, I have preferences 😉 The long, slender Asian varieties are beautiful halved and grilled or stir fried.
Varieties: the basic dark purple ‘Classic’, the original white skinned (thus the name ‘eggplant’) ‘Tango’ – a very tender, white fleshed variety; Purple Blush – white to lilac skinned large softballs and a farm favorite; Neon – a magenta skinned elongated egg shape; Zebra/Nubia – a magenta-purple striped with white; Round Mauve an heirloom variety – pinkish-purple skin, Bride – slim, light rose with white stripes; some other elongated white one who’s name escapes me now; Rosa Bianca an heirloom variety- round with rosy-lavender streaks. Then there’s the Asian types: Little Fingers and Orient Express– dark purple skinned, long cylindrical; Machiaw – magenta, very long, and skinny. Well, what’s what? At first sampling, the Purple Blush, Rosa Bianca and the white are distinctly tender and sweet; they also cook faster. The others really have to be sampled side by side, and yes, they are different. We hope you can have fun with them as we do: baking, sautéing, grilling….
Recipes
Anytime Zoodles and sauce
The marinara sauce was made last Fall with our tomatoes 🙂
Spiralize 2 large summer squashes/zucchini. Heat Stillman’s Marinara Sauce in large saucepot, add zoodles and heat through, cooking for 2-3 minutes to tenderize. Serve hot with grated/shredded parm.
The men in thou house like their protein, so I usually fry hamburg or ground pork, add sauce, then zoodles. No one misses the pasta and I feel like I can splurge and eat a hunk of focaccia pr some other scrumptious bread!
If you get eggplant, baked as described below would be awesome with your marinara zoodles 😉
Speaking if eggplant, even if you think you hate it, try it again with a new attitude. I am including our go-to “recipe” below, which required very little effort and is not gross, LOL Many of you have experienced greasy, bitter, not flavorful eggplant dishes and that is sad. As I recommend with summer squashes, eggplant wants to be lightly salted and drained for a half hour or so. When you re ready to use it, pat it dry and if frying, toss in a little corn starch. It will brown, get a little crispy even, and not sop up all the grease, requiring you to add more, only to get absorbed again. No need to peel, the skins are tender right now.
Here’s a fail proof, non slimy, not greasy recipe that I post every year: No need to go through the salting process for this 🙂
Baked Eggplant (even my kids like this) Slice thinly (the long way or the round way), lay on greased baking sheet, spread mayonnaise on top, sprinkle with parmesan cheese, garlic powder, salt and pepper and bake in hot (450) oven for 10 mins, or until fork tender. If you’re a purist with garlic, omit the powder and mix minced garlic in with the mayonnaise. Everyone has time for this recipe!
The leftovers are good on a sandwich. The past two years I have had very good luck freezing the above recipe. Make all you want, then slide the cooked eggplants onto a baking sheet, let them snuggle if you like, and then freeze. After they are frozen, you can transfer to another container or ziplock bag. Reheat on a baking sheet at 350 until hot; you’ll never know they were frozen! You could also add tomato sauce and serve on pasta or what have you.
Member Lisa sent me this and I am 100% on board for making it this week! I LOVE lemon and blueberry (or raspberry) combos!
She says: Hi Genevieve and family! We love this recipe for lemon yellow squash (or any summer squash) bread. It’s also awesome if you add some of your blueberries to it! Enjoy!
Depending what is left over form last week – this could be ratatouille time!!! This is essentially what I do when I whip up a mélange:
Chop an onion and bell pepper, cube an eggplant, 2 zucchini or any other type of summer squash, and 2 tomatoes.
Heat about 3 Tb oil in a large frying pan. Sauté the onion and pepper until fragrant. Add eggplant and squashes and sauté to lightly brown. Season ( this should include at least 2 cloves of minced garlic), cover and cook ~10 mins over medium heat. Add tomatoes and tsp. basil or lots more if it’s fresh, 1/4 tsp. thyme, and 1/4 tsp. oregano. Partly cover and cook another 5 mins or so. Great with Parmesan cheese and toasted bread.
Farm Dirt
Lots coming in from the fields right now…mostly squashes and cucumbers…but the peppers are sizing up, saw some EPIC Dante jalapeno yesterday, eggplants coming along, mostly Asian types, tomatoes are ripening fitfully, not sure, they should be lovin this weather, but it is also the kind of weather that is a huge disease threat with regard to early and late blight, verticillium, black spot, fusarium, etc. Good times! We preventatively to to keep them treated with copper, magnesium and or oxidate. All of these are on the OMRI list 🙂
We are picking a few peaches and it is a welcome sight after NONE last year. They are not huge, but they are tasty, so we will take it! I am guessing you will see your first next week.
Once again, you are welcome out to the farm to pick a few raspberries or just roam freely. If you do make it out for a visit, please pop in the farm stand or greenhouse and let staff know you are visiting – we don’t actually allow non-CSA members roam the farm and the staff here does not recognize everyone 😉 Also, please be respectful of the rows and assume if there is a plant growing or plastic laid, that you should not step on it. it is very tempting to short cut across a field and march across the rows, but it takes a big stride to do it without stomping on the edge of the plastic or the plants – especially if melons or winter squashes are involved. Thanks in advance!!!
As with last year, everywhere is aflutter with Monarchs, Fritillaries, Tiger, Spicebush, and Black Swallowtails, interesting moths (not the Cabbage Loopers, they are not interesting :P) and so many more. This is also a great wildflower time for you anthophiles out there. Oh, and it’s a great time for you herpers too! The Red Tail Haws are out with their family, the Barn Swallows are busy with a second nesting, Last week’s Long Eared Owl was replaced with several Great Horned owls.
There’s a lot of chatter about our native pollinators: we are loaded out here! Yes we have our farmed honey bees, but we depend on so many other bees, wasps, flies, butterflies and others to tend to all the crops, as well as the native plants that produce food for our native birds – especially the ones that overwinter with us. We leave the milkweed in great swaths next to fields for the Monarchs (who procreate here and then fly south for the winter), we encourage the Ilex/Winterberry at field edges and moist areas for the Robins, Bluebirds and Waxwings that feed on them in the late winter, and specific dogwoods, and, and, and. When I am out in the cut flower field, there are so many different Bombus, Sweat Bees, Mason bees, wasps…also a myriad of butterflies and moths. My favorite is to watch the bumbles crawl inside each snapdragon flower, then back out, then into the next. They are very thorough!
Many wonderful things to take in at the farm for all ages.
Eat well,
Geneviève Stillman
Coming up: greens, lettuce, tomatillos, tomatoes, peaches
