CSA Report:  Blooming Glen Farm

Thursday, September 17, 2009

(Click photo to read notes at flick’r regarding names/quantities of share.)

The Blooming Glen Farm farmers gifted us with green tomatoes, tomatillos, arugula and butternut squash this week.  More potatoes, onions, peppers, garlic and greens were also waiting for us.  The weather may be cooling down, but we still had fresh herbs to pick, and even managed to put together a wild flower bouquet.

I’m excited to make a batch of Nanny’s (our farmer Tricia’s grandmother) green tomato relish with those tomatoes.  I’ve used this recipe for the last couple years and just love it. The quantities are to produce a big batch for canning (about 10 to 12 pint jars), so adjust as needed.

Nanny’s Green Tomato Relish

Put through chopper (or chop by hand), and drain:
1 peck green tomatoes (roughly 20apple size)
6 large onions
6 green peppers
6 red peppers

Make syrup:
3/4 pint sugar
2 pints vinegar
1 T whole cloves, in cloth or tea ball
1 stick cinnamon
Boil about 20 minutes, until sugar is dissolved, remove cinnamon stick and cloves.

In a big pot, pour syrup over over relish and add:
1 T Salt
1 T celery seed
1 T mustard seed
Boil 15 minutes, then process in boiling water canner for 15 minutes.

It’s always a treat to open a can of this sweet, crunchy and colorful relish in the dark days of winter!

Stuffed Vegetables

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Now that it’s cooler here and all my peppers are ripening at the same time, it seemed appropriate to mix up some good stuff and get stuffing. Like many gardeners, my peppers did not grow into nice, upright specimens. So, I laid them sideways and that worked just fine. Most of the stuffing was local and in fact used up bits and pieces of other items in the fridge: parsley and dill, some roasted tomato sauce I’d made, a few diced mushrooms, sauteed onion, pine nuts, tiny cubes of leftover cheeses, basmati rice (I soaked it for 15 mins. first), and some bacon. I coated the bottom of the casserole with olive oil, poured in about a half-inch of water, and covered the dish for half the baking time of 1hr 15mins. The next day, I made a similar filling (handful of currants added and walnuts instead of pine nuts) with small eggplant.

September Issue of Grid - Farm to Philly Pepper Recipes

Thursday, September 03, 2009

The September issue of Grid magazine is hitting the free newsstands today - rush out and find yourself a copy! Newly expanded to 48 pages and with a “Back to School” theme, this issue covers everything from earth friendly clothing, packed lunches, childhood nutrition education, and mattress recycling. A crew from Farm to Philly contributed recipes featuring the seasonal, and prolific,  pepper. Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, Fresh Basil and Goat Cheese Ravioli with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce, and Lamb Stuffed Peppers - yum!

Come and celebrate the new issue tonight at the Abbaye (637 N. 3rd St.) from 5-7pm for a special Grid happy hour. 1/2 price appetizers, $2 off of draft beers, and all kinds of good folks!

We’re in Grid Again! August issue

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Farm to Philly represents once again in the August issue of Grid Philly magazine. (Unfortunately, they gave all the credit to me and Nicole and left out Kevin.) Check it out online or look for free copies in independent shops around town.

We’ve Still Got Beets! and a great way to enjoy them

Friday, July 24, 2009

As everyone on the mid-Atlantic region knows, we’re still eating beets from our CSA! Cooler temperatures this summer meant that I got two big bunches in my box this week. I LOVE beets, so eating them is no problem for me, but I’m always looking for new ways to make them more palatable for folks who might not be so sure about them. This week when my friend Mike came over to reset some complicated internet gizmo that went off-kilter after a lightening storm, I made him this roasted beet pizza. I was excited to use candy onion and beautiful Chioggia beets and their greens from my CSA, rosemary from my garden, and low-fat feta purchased at my neighborhood middle eastern market. Even though I might have left it in the oven a little too long, he liked it. We ate it with a salad of fresh heirloom tomatoes (my first of the CSA season!) with mango, salt and balsamic. Savory -sweet, just like the pizza!

If you’d like my recipe, you can get it here!

CSA report Lancaster Farm Fresh

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

1 head green cabbage – certified organic – Goshen View Organics
4 green zucchini – certified organic – Autumn Blend Organics
2 green slicing cucumbers – certified organic – Elm Tree Organics
1 bunch Detroit red beets – certified organic – Farmdale Organics
1 bunch dandelion greens – certified organic – Hillside Organics
1 bunch shallots – certified organic – Busy Bee Acres
1 bunch Swiss chard – certified organic – Organic Willow Acres
1 head green leaf lettuce – certified organic – Back 40 Ranch

This week’s Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA offered a few new items. I’m not wild about the bitterness of Dandelion Greens, but I’m willing to give them a try. We got some beautiful zucchinis and bumpy slicing cucumbers, and more beets! I’m still not tired of them. Last week I tried a new recipe from http://www.epicurious.com (originally in the Sept. 1998 Gourmet) that utilized both the beets and the greens. I added extra horseradish for more kick and loved the rich color. I’ve reprinted the recipe below.

Beet and Beet Green Risotto with Horseradish

  *  1 small onion
  * 1 pound red beets with greens (about 3 medium)
  * 4 cups water
  * 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
  * 1 cup Arborio or long-grain rice
  * 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan (about 1 1/2 ounces)
  * 1 tablespoon bottled horseradish

Finely chop onion and trim stems close to tops of beets. Cut greens into 1/4-inch-wide slices and chop stems. Peel beets and cut into fine dice. In a small saucepan bring water to a simmer and keep at a bare simmer.

In a 3-quart heavy saucepan cook onion in butter over moderate heat until softened. Add beets and stems and cook, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. Stir in rice and cook, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Stir in 1 cup simmering water and cook, stirring constantly and keeping at a strong simmer, until absorbed. Continue cooking at a strong simmer and adding water, about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly and letting each addition be absorbed before adding next. After 10 minutes, stir in greens and continue cooking and adding water, about 1/2 cup at a time, in same manner until rice is tender and creamy-looking but still al dente, about 8 minutes more. (There may be water left over.) Remove pan from heat and stir in Parmesan.

Serve risotto topped with horseradish.

A Pair of Confessions

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

I have two confessions to make.  First, while I dearly love my CSA, I find the first (and last) weeks rather challenging.  By challenging, I mean that the variety of vegetables is rather narrow, consisting largely of greens.  I know greens are good for me, and that, as one of my CSA members pointed out, a little bacon can do wonders.  However, at some point, you start craving variety –in texture, flavor, and even simply color. 

Second – and this only seems unrelated – while I love Mark Bittman and his cookbooks and columns, I find some of his recipes too simple.  I know he is called “The Minimalist” for a reason, but sometimes I think the more accurate title would be “The Incompletist.” 

These two confessions came to a head one recent Sunday when my wife and I were faced with a refrigerator full of kale, swiss chard, spinach, and green onions.  Knowing that the greens would soon be headed for the compost (and feeling extraordinarily guilty about that), we turned to Bittman’s The Best Recipes in the World.  Not surprisingly, given the encyclopedic nature of the book, we found a solution: croquettes.  The fried texture, coupled with the cheese, provided welcome relief from all of the simple, sauteed greens we’d been eating lately.  The recipe seemed simple enough, but we were forced to make several adjustments as we went. 

Early- and Late- Season Croquettes

2 lbs. leaves of mixed greens (Spinach, Kale, Swiss Chard, etc.)
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup cow’s milk cheese, grated (I would use a raw-milk cheddar)
2/3 cup fresh breadcrumbs, plus extra
Salt and Pepper
Oil or butter

1.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Salt the water and then add the greens.  If you are using a mix of greens, add them in order of coarseness (i.e., start with kale, end with spinach).  Cook until just wilted, no more than a minute or ninety seconds.  Drain thoroughly, gently pressing the leaves against the sides of the colander.  Allow the greens to cool, and then roughly chop.
2.  In a mixing bowl, combine the greens, onion, eggs, cheese, pepper, and approximately half of the breadcrumbs.  If the mixture is too wet to form cakes, gradually add more bread crumbs until it is possible to mold the mixture.  Form small patties, roughly the size of a small hamburger, and set aside.
3.  Put a plate in the oven and set the oven to low heat.  Over medium heat, cover the bottom of a cast-iron skillet or nonstick pan with oil or butter.  Add a few of the cakes to the pan, being careful not to overcrowd it.  (The amount of cakes you add depends on the size of the pan.)  Cook for approximately five minutes, or until browned, flip the cakes and cook an additional five minutes to brown the other side.  Remove the cakes to the plate in the oven and continue with the next batch.  Repeat until cakes are cooked.

Red Earth Farm CSA weeks 2, 3, 4

Friday, June 26, 2009

I’m not doing too well with the CSA updates! I tend to get repetitious with the vegetables I order so that I know that my 3 year old will eat at least some of them. Over the past 3 weeks we’ve gotten:

3 bunches Swiss Chard
3 small yellow squash
4 medium zucchini
2 bunches green onions
1 bunch green garlic
4 red tropea onions
3 pints snap peas
1 bunch red russian kale
1 bunch beets
1 bunch basil
2 bags garlic scapes
3 heads of baby Pak Choy

We were supposed to get cherries and a dozen eggs through our fruit and egg shares last week but didn’t. Hopefully they’ll make up for that later in the season. We also ordered two quarts of Pequea Valley Farms Yogurt- plain and strawberry through the buying club, and now that it’s summer we can pick up our meat order from Meadow Run at the same site as our Red Earth Farm pickup in Roxborough instead of driving to Mt. Airy to get it.

To make room for the new vegetables I made Zucchini Fritters with a side of snap peas for dinner the other night. The zucchini fritters are a summer favorite since they don’t heat up the kitchen too much. The snap pea recipe is one I modified from the recipe I submitted to the June/July issue of Grid Magazine. I substituted green garlic for the green onions.

Zucchini-Bacon Fritters

1 medium zucchini, grated (Red Earth Farm)
2 spring onions, chopped, including 1-inch of the green parts (Red Earth Farm)
Six slices thick cut bacon (Meadow Run Farm)
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg, slightly beaten (Meadow Run Farm)
1 and 1/2 tbs. maple syrup
1/2 tsp salt
black pepper to taste

Use a kitchen towel to squeeze as much of the moisture out of the zucchini as you can.

Pan fry,  or cook the bacon in the microwave between paper towels to soak up grease, for about five minutes or until crisp.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Crumble the bacon into the mixing bowl adding the other ingredients. Mix to combine. Mixture will not seem like it will hold together, but it will. I forgot to drain the zucchini and the mix was very wet, but it still worked.

Heat a non-stick skillet on medium heat, sprayed with cooking spray. (Or use the pan that you fried the bacon in.) Spoon batter into the skillet about a tablespoon at a time for small fritters. Flatten slightly to cook. Cook each batch about 2 minutes per side, til golden and cooked through. Makes about 10 small fritters or 6-8 medium. Serve with sour cream or plain yogurt.

Sugar Snap Peas with Bacon and Green Garlic

4 slices thick cut bacon (Meadow Run Farm)
2-3 spring garlic, chopped small (Red Earth Farm)
1 pint sugar snap peas (Red Earth Farm)
1/4 cup cold water
Salt and pepper

Brown bacon in a medium skillet over medium high heat. Remove with slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Crumble when cool. Remove all but a tablespoon of drippings from the pan, add garlic and saute until tender, about 3 minutes. Add sugar snap peas and water to the pan, lower heat to medium low, cover and cook for 3 minutes. Uncover and cook off most of the remaining liquid. Stir in crumbled bacon and remove from heat. Salt and pepper to taste.

Green Pea and Pecorino Custard

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Green peas have been plentiful this rainy, early summer. Looking for a classy first-course recipe, I adapted the Green Peas and Parmesan Custard from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian to make it bit lighter, but still full of flavor. A good quality pecorino will make all the difference!

Green Pea and Pecorino Custard
serves 6

1 1/2 cups shelled fresh green peas
1 1/2 cups milk or rice milk
1/2 cup grated pecorino
3 local, organic eggs
2 Tbs. chopped fresh mint (from your garden, if you have it)
1/2 tsp. salt

1. Preheat the oven to 300F, and a kettle of water on the stove to boil. Combine the peas, pecorino and milk in a small food processor and pulse until the mixture is primarily smooth.

2. Place the eggs, mint and salt in a medium bowl and whisk until well combined. Slowly add the milk mixture while whisking to blend. Pour the mixture into 6 small ramekins (about 4 ounces each).

3. Place the ramekins in a baking pan and pour in the boiling water to surround the ramekins withing 1/2 inch of the ramekin tops. Bake until the custard is almost completely solid - 45 minutes to one hour. Cool slightly, and garnish with fresh peas and pecorino shavings. Can be served warm, cold, or at room temperature.

Spring Pea Soup Update!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Yesterday I posted about my Keystone Farm CSA and put up a “spring pea soup” recipe from Alice Waters. Tonight I made the soup. I’m going to repost the recipe and provide a few notes in bold print about my experience in making the soup. This is a very delicately flavored soup. With the simplest of ingredients, the flavor is both subtle and complex. Creamy, but not heavy. The original recipe claims to serve 4-6. I can imagine getting 2 1/2 to 3 servings out of my batch - partly because I am eating very large bowls of this soup as an entree. It will stretch farther if you have an additional dish to serve.

Spring Pea Soup
from Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food

3 tbsp butter
1 large onion, sliced thin
2 tsp salt
5 cups water (Because I had fewer peas, I used 4 cups. In general I think max 4 and 1/2 cups should be used even with a full 3 cups.)
3 cups shelled sweet peas (ca 2 pounds) (I had about 2 and 1/2 cups of peas. These took FOREVER to shell, but it was worth it….)

Heat butter and over medium heat cook onion and salt, stirring often. When soft but not brown poor in water and bring to boil. When boiling add peas. Cook at simmer, stirring occasionally until tender, ca 5 minutes. Purée soup in blender (in batches) or carefully (very carefully and make sure to remove pot from hot burner) with immersion blender. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve. OR: pour puréed soup into bowl and set over ice bath to preserve color (I would most likely pour into bowl and throw in freezer for 10 minutes, as I have no ice [I realize what a waste of electricity this would be and therefore filled the sink with cold tap water and called it an ice bath]). Stir frequently when reheating to prevent scorching. You can serve this soup hot or cold.

I think this soup would be really good cold, with just a tiny bit of yogurt or creme fraiche dolloped on top. I sprinkled some fresh parsley on top of mine, but other herbs could work too.

Enjoy!!

Keystone CSA Week 3

Sunday, June 21, 2009

I’m sure no one else has noticed that this has been an incredibly rainy spring. But it’s summer now, so let the sun shine!!
On yet another rainy Saturday, I picked up my half vegetarian share from Keystone Farm at Clark Park. I still have cheese from the last few weeks, so I skipped the cheese and got extra strawberries. Additionally, my share had lettuce, a zucchini, tomatoes, shelling peas, granola and half a dozen eggs. I still have a few peas from last week and a LOT of onions from the winter shares (oops! but they last forever, along with the garlic I’ve been collecting all winter). I think I am going to try to make a “spring pea soup” à la Alice Waters. I meant to make it today, but didn’t get around to it. I’ll post the recipe today, and I’ll report back when I actually make the soup!

Spring Pea Soup
from Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food

3 tbsp butter
1 large onion, sliced thin
2 tsp salt
5 cups water
3 cups shelled sweet peas (ca 2 pounds)

Heat butter and over medium heat cook onion and salt, stirring often. When soft but not brown poor in water and bring to boil. When boiling add peas. Cook at simmer, stirring occasionally until tender, ca 5 minutes. Purée soup in blender (in batches) or carefully with immersion blender. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve. OR: pour puréed soup into bowl and set over ice bath to preserve color (I would most likely pour into bowl and throw in freezer for 10 minutes, as I have no ice). Stir frequently when reheating to prevent scorching. You can serve this soup hot or cold.

note: I doubt I have 3 full cups of shelled peas, so I will be dialing back the water when I make this.

Enjoy!!

Fourth Charlestown Farm Pickup

Friday, June 19, 2009

This week at Charlestown Farm, we got lots of greens again - mixed loose leaf lettuce, Asian greens, arugula, two heads of butter lettuce and some baby bok choy. We also took home more turnips, radishes, and garlic scrapes. We also picked a pint of strawberries. New for this week, the share featured beets. My husband and I aren’t really beet people, but we seem to be in the minority. There are many beet dishes that we’ve tried, and generally we like them just fine - the first time. It’s the leftovers that get us. However, I haven’t given up hope yet (and of course we can always make pickled and canned beets for my mother-in-law). These are small baby beets, and I’m planning on roasting them and serving them on a salad - something we haven’t tried yet.

The bok choy have already been eaten - in a risotto.

Bok Choy and Pinto Bean Risotto
1/2 - 1 lb of bok choy (or cabbage)
1/2 c pinto beans (or other red beans)
1 c arborio rice
1 onion, diced
2 oz pancetta, diced
1/2 c carrot, diced
4 garlic scrapes, diced
1/2 c white wine (preferably dry)
3 c stock
3 T oil
2 T butter
1/4 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Fresh Sage Leaves

1. Soak the beans for 8 hours or overnight.
2. Drain the beans and cook in about 6 cups of water with a handful of fresh sage leaves for 45-60 minutes until done.
3. Slice the bok choy in to 1/4 inch ribbons
4. Either steam the bok choy separately, or be lazy like me and put them in a metal colander over the simmering beans (it’s the environmentally friendly way - just keep in mind that this will turn the water a not-so-attractive color). Steam for 5 - 10 minutes until bright green, keeping the stems crisp.
5. Heat up the oil in a large sauce pan. Add the pancetta and cook for 5 - 10 minutes until brown. Add the onions and carrots and cook until soft. Add the garlic scrapes and cook 2 more minutes.
6. Put stock into a small sauce pan and bring to a simmer.
7. Add the rice, and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes making sure the rice is coated with oil.
8. Add the white wine, and simmer until the liquid is almost gone.
9 . Add 1/2 cup of the stock, the beans, and bok choy. Cook, stirring frequently until the liquid is almost gone. Repeat the stirring until liquid is absorbed process with the rest of the stock, 1/2 cup at a time.
10. Test the rice to make sure it’s done, then add the butter and Parmesan cheese, cook until melted.
11. Serve. Makes excellent leftovers.

Farm to Philly in the June-July GRID magazine!

We were pleased a couple of months ago to have been asked by GRID, a new and really quite excellent magazine about sustainable living in Greater Philadelphia, to contribute a few recipes to the June-July issue. It’s now out and available online (free!) and in independent retailers around the region (also free!). And you can try out more recipes in the August issue available in, well, August. A big hand to our ringleader Nicole for making this all happen!

Rose Ice Cream

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

We have a lovely climbing rose at the corner of our house. Every spring it starts the year by covering its self in beautiful flowers. The variety is called Joseph’s Coat because the buds start off orange, then change to sunset, peach, rose, and eventually a deep ruby as the flowers unfold and age. This rose also grows about 4-6 feet a year (we planted it two years ago and it’s almost to the roof!), so this year we had an 8 foot tall avalanche of roses. Once they all started to fade, I decided to do something with all of the petals. After clipping all of the flowers and removing the petals I had a gallon zip-lock bag full.

We decided to use them to make rose ice cream - and it was fantastic! It had an extremely complex and rich taste - we really couldn’t eat more than a scoopful at a time. I highly recommend it! We did have to use a drop of food coloring though, the mixture of pick and red petals with yellow egg whites was not at all appealing.

Rose Ice Cream
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz (excellent book!)

1 c whole milk
3/4 c sugar
2 c heavy cream
pinch of salt
2 - 4 c lightly packed rose petals
5 egg yolks

1. Warm the milk, sugar, 1 c of the cream, and salt in a sauce pan. Add the petals and stir until they are slightly wilted. Cover, remove from heat and let stand 1hour.
2. Strain the petals out of the mixture, pressing to extract as much flavor as possible. Discard petals.
3. Put remaining 1 c of cream into a separate bowl. Put the egg yolks into yet another bowl and whisk. (The bowl with the cream will eventually be in an ice bath, so prepare now!)
4. Rewarm the rose infusion, and slowly pour the rose mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Put the yolk-rose mixture back into the sauce pan.
5. Stir the yolk-rose mixture constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens and coats your spoon or spatula.
6. Pour the yolk-rose mixture into the remaining cream. Stir until cool in an ice bath. Add food coloring if necessary.
7. Chill thoroughly in the fridge, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the directions.

You can make this with any other infusion - we also tried it with chocolate mint from Charlestown Farm - it was divine! (That also needed food coloring - very pale green + orange-ish yellow do not mix well).

Second Charlestown Farm CSA Pickup

Sorry I’m a bit late with this one - camera issues. Last week I brought home two heads of lettuce, 1/2 lb of leaf lettuce, 1/3 lb of arugula, 1/3 lb of mixed Asian greens, one bunch of turnips, and 1 1/2 quarts of u-pick strawberries. I also picked up some mint. Amazingly we managed to eat all of the greens in the week! I know many of us struggle with eating all of the greens that come in most CSA boxes - and we were the same last year.  However, I recently figured out a way to eat them all - and without eating huge salads for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!  My secret - Tabbouleh! This tasty Middle Eastern salad works as well with arugula as it does with parsley.  My recipe is below - you can use any flavorful greens that are edible raw (so arugula, mustard, tat soi, and mizuna are in, but this won’t work well with lettuce or kale). Enjoy!

Mixed Greens Tabbouleh
* = optional ingredients

I prefer my Tabbouleh to have equal amounts of bulgar and greens, feel free to adjust the proportions if you’d like.

Ingredients
2 c bulgar wheat
~2 1.2 c boiling water
2 roasted red peppers* (I used some we have packed in oil from last year, you can use canned if you like)
6 T oil
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 T lime juice* (or use lemon)
2 T lemon juice* (or use cider vinegar)
2 T mint, chopped*
3-4 green onions, chopped* (use any allium)
8 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
salt and pepper
1 lb mixed greens, chopped finely (I use the food processor)

1. Put the bulgar in a boil and cover with the boiling water to reach about 1 inch above the buglar. Let soak up to an hour, until most of the water is absorbed and the bulgar is al dente.
2. Whisk the oil, garlic, lemon, and lime juices together.
3. Mix the olives, mint, onions, red pepper, and greens.
4. Combine the greens mixture, bulgar, and dressing.
5. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Adjust the oil and acid if necessary.

As it gets later in the season you can add tomatoes and cucumbers to this as well.