CSA Week 9
This week you MAY have corn, peaches, squash, cukes, beans, greens, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, The first apples! onions? Yaaaa, peaches Baby!
This is prime time for tomatoes…you need a lot? Break out those salsa and sauce recipes, or simply can some whole tomato goodness to remind you of Summer when it is snowing. We have a special price for CSA members of $25.case (non-members pay $30 depending on the week). Do you need something else for preserving? Let me know at my email and we will try to fix you up. You need a box of squash or cukes? We can get you what you need at any of our market location/CSA pickups, as well as Lunenburg, Southboro, and Framingham.
Once there are peaches, the nectarines are not far behind. Did you know they are exactly the same genus and species? A nectarine is merely a fuzzless peach and has been cultivated for thousands of years. Well, that might be a little over simplified, but it is not wrong. Some people like to think they are a cross between a plum and a peach. Not so. Anyway, like their sisters, the flesh can be white, yellow, peach and even fairly red. They can sit out on the counter, but if they are ripe (smell, your nose knows) refrigerate them.
It is very possible that you see apples or Chinese cabbage this week, but I am guessing both are more likely next week. I’ll write about cabbages next week, but if you do get a Napa/Chinese cabbage, don’t forget you can search the blog for good ideas 🙂
Farm snob alert: If you are new to fresh, local tomatoes, you cannot handle them as those rock-hard things masquerading as tomatoes at the supermarket. Be very gentle with them, knowing that they don’t like being squeezed, dropped, or having other produce piled on top of them. Also, wipe from your mind that a tomato is supposed to be firm, or soft for that matter. We have been programmed to squeeze produce to check for ripeness. Just don’t. Also, I have observed people over the years that pick up a tomato and if it gives to the touch (because it’s being squeezed), they put it back, as though it is supposed to feel like a supermarket tomato. Wrong. Just remember that the supermarket tomatoes, even those labeled “vine-ripe” are NOT. “Vine-ripes” are harvested when “pink” starts to show at the blossom end versus harvested at “mature green”. Then they run the tomatoes through sorters to grade them by size, then pack them. Usually they are refrigerated (a huge no-no for any unripe fruit); then they are shipped and gassed with ethylene during their journey to “ripen” them. By the way, ethylene is the natural gas produce by fruits to ripen, so it’s not harmful, just leaves me with the feeling of lab created. How on earth can you do all that to a ripe tomato…you can’t. And why would you want a fresh, harvested by hand, ripe tomato to feel or resemble those sold in the super? You don’t, it’s not real. OK, tomato rant off. If you love supermarket tomatoes or the hard, flavorless, pink circles on your sandwich, I am truly sorry if I offended…but you’re probably not going to like our tomatoes then
Just kidding – We actually do grow a very firm variety called Market Pride just for you – but they are red, LOL :~}
Recipes
Every year I like to bring a CSA box into my own kitchen and see what happens 🙂
This is how it all went down:Monday night after my CSA delivery route, carried box into my kitchen. Cooked the corn that was in the box, snarfed a salad that Faith had already made, and ran out to chair a Planning Board meeting. I did not unpack the rest of the box or put anything away. Tuesday: Shredded beef tacos (one jalapeno and a small onion went into that) and topped with chopped lettuce and fresh salsa of bell pepper, onion, tomatoes, jalapeno. Ate a peach while cooking. Wednesday breakfast- sliced peaches and Rice Krispies (did not have any blueberries :P), lunch- piece of deli meat rolled around handful of leftover chopped lettuce, dinner- vegetable au gratin (with one eggplant, onion, 2 yellow and 1 green summer squash, potatoes) and radishes and cucumbers in oil and vinegar. Thursday breakfast – more peaches and cereal, lunch – last of the lettuce for me, the leftover gratin for Glenn, dinner – quinoa stuffed peppers (used a tomato, eggplant, zucchini). It’s Friday, I decided to actually take everything left out of the box. LOL. There were three little onions, which can live in the basket on my counter, and a bag of green beans, which I opened and ate a couple to see if they were still ok. I mean, it would have been good if I had put them in the fridge and all. Quite amazingly, they were just fine and will get cooked tonight.
So, that’s how the week’s CSA box was emptied by the farmer’s wife – ME!
I plan to write down my “recipe” (before I forget) and add to the bog soon.
Any Fruit Crisp
Prepare any fruit you have laying about. I’ll be honest with you, I never peel my peaches when I make crisp (THE HORROR!) but simply rinse extra fuzz off, cut up in chunks, sprinkle with a little flour and lemon juice and toss with any berries languishing on the counter. I’ve decided the fuzz, which sometimes can irritate my lips, is rendered impotent when cooked – kinda like nettles.
With my fingers, I blend a stick of butter with ½ cup flour, ½ cup brown sugar, 1 cup oats/fine nuts (you know I don’t really measure anything). Prep your fruit, toss with a coulpe tablespoons flour and a sprinkle of sugar if desired. Top the fruit with this mixture (if this is new to you, it is crumbly, so just sprinkle/spread it around the best you can). Bake at 400 degrees for 25-35 minutes, until the fruit is tender and bubbling and the top is crisped and golden. YUM!
A few notes:
- crisp gets soggy the next day but is still delicious; I have enjoyed it on yogurt or oatmeal for breakfast.
- You can mix fruits freely, but apples cook at a different rate than peaches, so take that into consideration.
- Crisps and cobblers are a perfect way to use soft fruit that no one wants to eat fresh.
- The crisp topping may benefit from cinnamon and nutmeg, especially with apples and feel free to add a little granola or finely chopped nuts or seeds if yo have them
- If your fruit is dry (as apples can be), you may want to sprinkle a little water and lemon juice over them before topping.
- Substitute whatever flour you like, I have had the best success with corn flour, but have used blends of rice flour too.
- Cook with The Force, I do!
*Wet fruits like peaches, nectarines and blueberries really need the addition of some thickening agent, if you skip that you may have a runny, yet delicious, mess. I mostly use wheat flour because it is handy, but I can go gluten free any time with instant tapioca, tapioca flour or potato starch – so make necessary substitutions but not ommission 😉
Member Mary sent me a couple recipes she was enjoying from the Times. Thanks Mary!
Summer Squash Fritters With Garlic Dipping
By Kim Severson YIELD About 18 fritters TIME 1 hour, 25 minutes
FOR THE FRITTERS:
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup shredded white Cheddar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 large eggs
¾ cup cold beer
1 cup grated zucchini (about one 6-
to 7-ounce zucchini), drained on
paper towels 15 minutes
1 cup grated yellow squash (about
one 6-to 7-ounce squash), drained
on paper towels 15 minutes
1 small yellow onion, halved and
thinly sliced
½ cup canola oil, for frying
Member Mary added a T parsley and a tsp dill, also noted it was evn better the next day and could have fried them in coconut oil 🙂
LINK TO RECIPE
She also recommended Cucumber Salad with Soy, Ginger and Garlic Looks great!
Member Carie sent me these recipes noting, “Another favorite for the kid who can’t eat corn on the cob. Stores well in the fridge for a quick veggie with lunch or to bring to a picnic/party.” Apologies i do not know who to give credit to for the recipes 🙁
Kale Corn Salad
Prep time, 20 mins, Total time, 20 mins
Serves: 2 entree-sized or 4 appetizer servings
Ingredients
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 Tbsp honey
• ¼ tsp salt
• 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large bunch black/dinosaur kale, stems removed
• 2 ears fresh corn, cooked until just tender
• 1 cup cooked quinoa or other grain
• ¼ cup sunflower seeds
Kale corn salad
Monday, July 9, 2018 7:56 AM
• 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large bunch black/dinosaur kale, stems removed
• 2 ears fresh corn, cooked until just tender
• 1 cup cooked quinoa or other grain
• ¼ cup sunflower seeds
Instructions
In the bottom of a large salad bowl, whisk together the lemon, honey, salt and olive oil. Chop kale leaves and add to the bowl. Toss to combine with the dressing and let sit 5 minutes.
Cut the kernels off the corn on the cob and add to the salad along with the quinoa and sunflower seeds. Toss salad and serve right away. Salad will keep in the fridge for 2 days.
Notes: Optional additions: golden raisins, dried cranberries or chopped apples.
Check out:
Fresh Salsa
Sharon’s Summer Arugula Wrap
Eggplant with Tomato Coulis
Farm Dirt
It’s been a weird week and I hope next week the kookiness stops. And it would be extra nice if everything worked, electronics, equipment AND humans too! Let’s leave it at that. Fun stuff? The corn has been outstanding (outstanding in the field, yuck, yuck), tomatoes and peaches are luscious, none of the produce in my CSA box was remotely spoiled, even though I was too much of a slug to unpack it and store it properly, I made pickles, we might be picking Paula Red apples this week, the bounty coming off the farm right now is awe inspiring 🙂
I think the guys are undercutting the garlic today. They will bring it in a greenhouse and let it cure before we send it to any markets or put in the CSA. Garlic is a crop that is planted in the fall, then grows all summer until ready to harvest. Remember the scapes in June? Those have to get removed so the energy goes into the garlic bulb and not a flower and seed production. There’s a lot of work involved to get a bulb of garlic, but it is worth it when there is a good harvest. I’m not actually sure what it costs us to grow it. One farmer-friend charges $30/lb for garlic!
We had a little wildlife activity in the house this week. Faith yelled to me there was a bat in her room. By the time I got up there the bat was in my room. I was excited to see it was a Large Brown bat and even more excited when it exited through one of the windows I had opened. I started to video the production, but after the third time I shrieked when it flew past me, I decided it was better to not memorialize my wienie-ness. This week I saw 4 vultures perched on someone’s house – weird, and the Red-Tail Hawks had their young out for flying lessons. Super fun! Oh, last week, or so, I wrote about the Barn Swallows not nesting a second time in the carriage shed. Well, don’t you know, they nested again! I guess they will get them fledged just in time to migrate.
Coming soon: apples, Chinese Cabbage, broccoli, garlic….
Eat well,
Geneviève Stillman
