CSA Week 8
This week you MAY have corn, squash, cukes, beans, greens, tomatoes, blueberries, peppers, eggplant, kohlrabi, peaches? The blueberries I saw today were the biggest I have ever seen – hope you get some of those too!
We are harvesting several kinds of corn right now (well, we always are): a lovely bi-color (butter and sugar) type and the amazing, all yellow Mirai. Mirai, pronounced me-rye, was developed (hybridized…not GMO) at Twin Gardens Farm in Harvard, IL and then introduced to Japanese growers. They named it Mirai which translates to “the future is coming” AND “taste”. It became the most popular corn grown in Japan and is growing in popularity in the US now, as a Japanese gourmet corn – which is funny because it was developed here. Cool right.?
I heard tell of kohlrabi! I’m giving you the heads up in case you get a weird looking green or purple round thingy with a few stems sticking out of it. If yours has leaves, those are quite tasty, but the real show is the swollen stem. Give that baby a quick peel, use necessary caution cutting the root end off – as you would with any extremely hard, dense, round vegetable. Enjoy raw with salt, your favorite dressing/dip, in salad, in slaw, OR cooked in stir-fry, soup, grated in a potato pancake…
Eggplants, we grow A LOT of eggplants. I’ve always liked eggplant but I know that is is not everyone favorite. Here’s that request to try it again for the “first time”, without prejudice. Obviously I am not espousing that advice for anything you might be allergic to! Varieties we grow: Classic, Listata de Gandia, Applegreen, Round Mauve, Rosa Bianca, Bride, and many Asian types like Little Fingers, Machiaw, Oriental Charm, Orient Express, and a few others.
Click here for the complete rundown on the eggplant varieties we grow.
Recipes
Baked eggplant
This recipe goes into every year’s eggplant letter…it’s simple, not slimy or greasy, and very tasty.
Slice thinly (the long way or the round way), lay on lightly greased baking sheet, spread mayonnaise on top, sprinkle with parmesan cheese, garlic powder, and pepper and bake in hot (400) 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!
I freeze eggplant made this way on a baking sheet and package up after frozen…it is fabulous to have on hand in the winter to re-bake and serve with red sauce and pasta for a quick vegetarian meal.
Eggplant Pizza
Yep! It’s just what you are thinking 🙂
Slice eggplant the long way, top with your favorite tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, whatever else you have laying about; bake 12 minutes at 400. Yummy!
Vegetale al Forno
This is one that appears in the boxletter yearly, by request, and contributed by member Lisa. It is always yummy…even better when you think you have overcooked it. My tips: don’t undercook, also, I have been told if you omit the soy sauce and wine, use margarine and low fat cheese, it is not very flavorful (surprise!). I love to tweak a recipe with the best of them, but you have to substitute within reason. On a no or low sodium diet, try substituting potassium chloride. Not into butter fat? Use a nice olive oil. Skipping the soy sauce and the wine? At least use a really flavorful chicken or vegetable stock.
On the bottom of a nice sized baking/serving dish place a layer of thin-sliced eggplant, on top of that a layer of thin-sliced zucchini, then a layer of sliced (or canned whole) tomatoes. Use plenty of vegetables. Layer it twice if you have enough room in the pan.
Then take a cup of red wine, mix it with half a cup of melted butter, about four tablespoons of soy sauce, pepper, garlic, oregano and basil. Pour it over the vegetables and top with a thick layer of grated swiss cheese. Bake uncovered in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the dish. The cheese should be crusty on top, and the liquid should bubble. The vegetables should be incredibly tender.
This is a nice one dish meal or side dish with meat. I like this on a nice baguette.
Check out:
Zucchini Galette – King Arthur
Cream of Eggplant Soup
Baked Eggs in Tomato Cups
Eggplant with Tomato Coulis
Farm Dirt
Well, per usual, it’s all or nothing.
No rain ever, or all rain all the time. We are hanging in there and trying to plant in between the deluge. Yes, we are still planting! Most people associate Spring with planting and Summer-Fall as harvest time, but in order to do what we do for CSA and markets, we plant lettuce every 10 days, various root crops every 2 weeks or so, 3 plantings of squashes, and a whole set of cole crops every few weeks! Speaking of lettuce, the weather prevented us from getting a crop of lettuce in the ground on time so we are experiencing a little gap in the lettuce harvest. Last week Glenn knocked down the first corn crop and today they planted broccoli on that same land. It’s always great to watch a passed crop get cleaned up and replaced with something fresh and new…but it’s also complicated and requires a great deal of planning – and good weather! Anyway, the broccoli is in 🙂
It’s butterfly central around here! As I was out on baby watch, the pasture was FULL of Monarchs, Spicebush, Anise and Tiger Swallowtails! The cows don’t eat the milkweed or thistle, so those plants are there for our butterfly habitat. We will mow the pasture after the butterflies’ cycles are finished. Unlike the Barn Swallows which cut out of here the last week of August, the Monarch butterflies will hang around well into October. Back to “baby watch”: Those of you who have been with us for a few years (or 20!) will remember we sold our herd of Belted Galloway cattle, keeping 2 cow calf pairs, during the summer of no-peach-no-rain two years ago. Last year I bought Glenn a Beltie bull for our anniversary and now we are watching and waiting for the first calves to be born. We are excited and a little stressed at the same time! It’s not that we worry so much about the two cows…they’ve had several good births and are good mothers, but there’s always concern for a first-calf heifer. Everyone say a little prayer and send your positive energy their way for healthy calves with happy moms! Hopefully, there will be a picture of babies in next week’s letter 🙂
Eat well,
Geneviève Stillman
Coming up: Peaches, eggplant, garlic, lettuce…
