CSA Weekly Report:  Blooming Glen Farm

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

It’s mid-September and so the board list is getting shorter:

(Click photo to read notes at flick’r regarding names and quantities of this week’s share.)

Congratulations and celebrations to Blooming Glen founders and farmers, Tom and Tricia, who are getting married this weekend. Lots of love and peace to you both! <3

Birchrun Blue

The other day I wandered into DiBruno’s and asked for what they had that’s locally produced.  Despite getting the new guy in the cheese cave, he immediately pulled out the Birchrun Blue.  I have been happily munching on it since then.

Birchrun Blue is an aged, natural rind, raw cow milk (from pastured cows) blue cheese produced by Birchrun Hills Farm in Chester Springs.  Birchrun Hills is relatively new to cheesemaking, only cranking out cheese for a few years now.  Of course, they’ve been the dairy business much longer than that.  It’s an absolutely wonderful blue cheese that will even appeal to those that are not blue cheese fans.

The Birchrun Blue has a lovely creamy texture and a delicate blue cheese taste, nice and earthy.  It’s perfect with slices of apple, and a fantastic melting cheese.  I made burgers using some ground beef from Natural Acres and melted some of the Birchrun Blue on top - it was delicious!  The rind is vaguely brie-ish, although pretty intense, flavor-wise.

Birchrun Blue can, as I said, be found at DiBruno Bros., and also at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market, as well as several farmer’s markets in the area.

Baking the Green Zebras

Monday, September 10, 2007

I was trying to think of some way of using the Green Zebra tomatoes that didn’t involve putting them in a salad. As much as I love fried green tomatoes, I’m trying to cut down on fried foods, so that also wasn’t an option. I decided to bake them, thinking that the high heat would temper the tartness.

I sliced the tomatoes, put them in a baking dish, sprinkled them with salt and pepper, and drizzled some olive oil. In a saucepan, I sauteed an onion, a clove of garlic, and a bell pepper (all from a previous CSA share) in a little olive oil until they were soft, then I spread them over the tomatoes. I then covered the top with grated Pecorino Romano cheese and put it in a 400-degree oven to bake for 25 minutes. When they were done, I sprinkled some chopped fresh basil (also locally grown) and served the tomatoes as a warm side for dinner.

To my surprise, baking the tomatoes brought out the tart taste rather than mellowing and sweetening them. They were still delicious, though. Green zebras might just be better for pickling if you like sour pickles, I think, but give them a try if you can get hold of them.

Challenge update - week 1

The first week of the September Eat Local Challenge is over!  How did we all do?

• Anj and her partner, Sue, made an amazing looking frittata with bread salad!  And everything was local except the salt, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar - impressive!
• Sue made Baba Ganoush using some lovely eggplants from Livengood Farms.  The recipe sounds delicious!
• Naomi and her dad went on a canning free for all!  They put up “applum” jam (apple and plum), grape-ginger jam, raspberry-lime jam, and apple-tomatillo chutney - most from locally grown ingredients!  Additionally, Naomi made herself a locally grown meal - salad, a cabbagey marinated salad with SE-Asian style dressing, and roasted potatoes. Yum!
• Jeanne had a huge week in local food!  She shopped at the Rittenhouse Square Farmer’s Market for the first time, and she swung by the Schuylkill River Park Wednesday Farmer’s Market where she found honey crisp apples from Highland Orchards.  She froze chopped zucchini, chopped onions, and rasperries, and plans to freeze carrots and more zucchini this week.  Jeanne’s local meals sound excellent - local bread with homemade strawberry jam; oven fries with local potatoes and BBQ baked local tofu (commercial BBQ sauce); panzanella with local heirloom tomatoes and Metro Bakery bread.  And last but not least, she found some locally produced foods at Whole Foods - Severino Pasta, made by a family-run business in Haddonfield, NJ, and ZenSoy chocolate pudding, made by a family-run business also in NJ.
• I made raspberry jam out of raspberries my husband and I picked at Linvilla, and I made some really excellent tomato sauce last night using the huge glut of tomatoes from the CSA share and my garden.  I also roasted and froze bell and hot peppers, and made baked, breaded eggplant cutlets to freeze.  Eight ears of corn were also boiled and de-kerneled, and then frozen.  And the local meal for the week was steaks from Natural Acres and honey roasted Delicata squash from the CSA.

Missed the report deadline for last week?  Add your progress report in the comments!

Baked eggplant cutlets

Eggplant was a foreign thing in my household growing up.  They were certainly available, but my mother had no idea what to do with one.  In fact, she still doesn’t - last Summer she called and asked how to make eggplant parmesan for my vegetarian cousin.  My people just don’t know from eggplant, I guess.  And while I like eggplant and do know how to prepare a mean eggplant parm, my experience with eggplant is still so limited my first instinct is always to go with what I know when faced with eggplant.

It should come as no surprise that the eggplants that came in my CSA share last week are on their way to becoming eggplant parm.

Well, sort of.  Who wants eggplant parm when it’s 90 degrees outside?  Not me.  So the eggplants are now hibernating in my chest freezer, made into baked and breaded eggplant cutlets.  So they’re halfway to eggplant parm.  I imagine that one day this Winter I will want to hug myself for thinking to have locally-grown, organic eggplant cutlets put up.

Making breaded eggplant cutlets is a breeze, but you do need to plan ahead a little.  Eggplant has a way better texture for cutlets if you salt and press the slices before breading and baking.  So slice up the eggplants about a 1/2 inch thick.  Put down a plate covered by a paper towel and put down a single layer of eggplant slices.  Sprinkle salt on the eggplant slices (I like to use sea salt for this).  Put down another layer of paper towel on top and another single layer of eggplant and salt.  Repeat until you run out of eggplant and end with a paper towel.  Now put another plate on top of that and weigh it down with something.  You don’t want to use anything too awful heavy, but something that’ll weigh down the top plate a little.  The salt will draw the water out of the eggplant and the paper towel sops up some of the extra water.  Just walk away for about an hour.

In the meantime, preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

OK, whisk and egg or two with a bit of water blended in.  Put out a plate of bread crumbs.  Depending on how much salt you used, you might want to brush some of the salt off your eggplant cutlet prior to dipping it in the egg.  And after you dip the eggplant in egg, coat the cutlet in bread crumbs.

Bake in a 450 degree oven for five minutes.  Flip the cutlets and bake another five minutes.

Let them cool, layer them on wax paper, and freeze in a freezer bag.  There you go: baked eggplant cutlets for a snowy day.

Gleaning Day is at hand

Don’t forget about City Harvest’s Gleaning Day coming up this Saturday!  Through Philadelphia Green’s City Harvest project, home and
community gardeners can “glean” from their gardens this Fall and donate extra produce to help needy families in our region. To participate, bring your extra garden produce to one of the following locations between 10am-1pm:

• Aspen Farms, 4837 Aspen St, 19139 (West Phila., 49th & Aspen Streets, off Haverford Ave)
• Bel Arbor Community Garden, 1012 Kimball St., 19147 (South Phila., between 10th & 11th Sts. just south of Carpenter)
• Garden RUN, 242 Monastery Ave., 19128 (off Ridge Ave. in Roxborough)
• Liberty Lands Garden, 913 N 3rd St., 19123 (Northern Liberties, entrance off Bodine & American Sts.)

Those who donate produce will be entered in a raffle to win tickets to the Philadelphia Flower Show!

For more information email or call Eileen Gallagher at 215-988-8880.

Picked a peck of roasted peppers

Sunday, September 09, 2007

The other day I mentioned to a friend that I planned to roast peppers this weekend (my kitchen is overrun with bell and hot peppers).  She was confused.  “Why would you bother?” she asked. “That’s so much work for something you can just buy in a jar at the store.”

This weird idea that cooking or canning takes so much effort and time is pervasive in people who don’t do either.  And yes, you can certainly make a bigger production out of cooking or canning than is necessary - but it can also be a simple, quick thing, too.  And roasting peppers is one of those simple, quick things.

Realizing that not everyone in the city has the space for a grill, I’ll discuss oven roasting, gas range-top roasting, and grilling for the purposes of making roasted peppers. 

Grilling.  Turn your grill up to high and coat the peppers with olive oil.  Sure you can be genteel and use a brush, but I generally just pour a little oil on my hands and rub the peppers.  It’s quicker and you get the benefit of a little olive oil bath for your hands.  Toss the peppers on the grill and wait for the peppers to get charred.  Turn the peppers so all sides get charred.

Gas range.  Turn on a burner or two on your stove top.  Make sure the flames just reach the trivet.  As with grilling, coat the peppers with oil.  Place them directly on the trivet over the open flame on the burner.  Wait for them to char and keep turning the pepper until all sides are charred.

Oven roasting.  Preheat your oven’s broiler.  Coat the peppers with oil and arrange them on a cookie sheet.  This will generally take a little longer than roasting over an open flame, but keep an eye out for the peppers to start getting charred.  Turn the peppers so all sides are charred.

In all cases, this is your next step: grab a ziploc bag and seal the hot peppers inside.  Wait at least 10 or 15 minutes and then peel the peppers - the charred skin should come off pretty easily.  Discard seeds and membrane and pepper stems.

They can be stored in a few different ways.  If you plan to eat them immediately, you can store them in oil in the fridge.  They’ll last for maybe a week or two.  For longer term storage, freeze them.  It’s easiest to freeze them in a single layer on wax paper.  Or peppers can be canned - pack jars with peppers, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace and pour in hot water and a smidgen of canning salt.  Process in a water bath for 30 minutes.

Linvilla Orchards - raspberries!

Saturday, September 08, 2007

The Linvilla website reported this morning that raspberry picking was “excellent”.  The guys working the Pick-Your-Own stand were less enthusiastic.  “These raspberries are pretty picked out.  Jump on the back of the tractor and we’ll take you up to a patch hidden next to the apples,” they advised.

Of course, the man driving the tractor had yet another opinion.  According to him, it was the last couple of rows of the regular raspberry patch that we wanted.  “No one ever looks there!” he declared.

Happily, the tractor man was right.  The husband and I picked four quarts of gorgeous raspberries this morning.  And we amazed the guys working the stand in the bargain.  “We haven’t seen that many raspberries come out of there in at least a month,” they said.  Never underestimate the picking power of two determined people with a yen for raspberries!

One of these quarts will be frozen for a nice snack mid-Winter, but three of those quarts are now raspberry jam.  And, in a nod to the September Eat Local challenge, I used a new canning method.  Well, new to me, at least.  Short cuts tend to make me a little nervous, but the idea of skipping the water bath and simply sealing cans by inverting them was too irresistible. 

All my jars of raspberry jam have sealed correctly (I heard the “ping”!), so it seems to have worked.  It took such a small amount of work that I think this would be an ideal first foray into canning for the novice.

Here’s how to do it and what you’ll need:

3 lbs. raspberries
5 cups sugar
3 oz. liquid pectin
a mess of small canning jars

OK, start with your canning jars.  Separate the lids from the jars and put everything in the dishwasher.  Set your dishwasher to its hottest setting and put them through a cycle.  Alternatively, you can give your jars a wash in hot, soapy water and keep them warm in a 200 degree oven, and placing lids in a bowl of boiling water.  The point is that you need your jars to be hot when you start packing in the jam.

Place raspberries in a sink full of cold water.  Swish your hands around in there a few times and make sure all the stems and assorted stuff is removed.  Lift the berries out of the water gently and drain.

Puree the raspberries in a blender or food processor for about 15 seconds.

Put the berries in a large saucepan with the sugar and bring to very full boil and be sure you stir constantly.  Add the pectin and return to a full boil.  Boil hard for one minute and keep stirring!

Remove the pan from heat and skim off the foam that’s floating on the top.  Immediately ladle the jam into the hot jars (you should leave about 1/8 of an inch of headspace).  Wipe off any jam that gets on the threads of the jar and screw on the lids tightly.  Turn the jars over so they’re resting on the lid for about five minutes.

Turn the jars upright and be sure to test the lids to make sure they sealed within one hour.  There you have it: homemade raspberry jam!

And if you have a jar or two that doesn’t seal, you can always put it through a water bath for five minutes.  This made five half pints and two pints of raspberry jam.

Coincidentally, if you want to try to make jam minus the pectin, I found a recipe here.

Oak Shade Farm pepper jack

Monterey Jack cheese is supposed to be pretty mild.  I must admit that I found the Pepper Jack from Oak Shade Farm in Nottingham, PA extra bland.  The cheese, that is.  The peppers that are in the cheese are good and spicy, which totally redeems the cheese for me.  Twenty minutes after eating a few slivers, my mouth still burns!

I can’t help but think about the stellar grilled cheese sandwich this cheese would make.

Oak Shade Farm cheese is available in the dairy case at Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal.

The skinny on figs

Friday, September 07, 2007

I was delighted to see lots of figs when I picked up my CSA share yesterday at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal.  Of course, I snagged some of Becky’s famous figs (straight from the tree in her South Philly backyard).  They are green figs of an unidentifiable variety.  They’re much juicier than other varieties I’ve tried.  Normally, juicier would be better, but these seem watery rather than juicy.  Don’t get me wrong: these figs are good.  They just wouldn’t be the first figs I’d pick up.

There were also a few boxes of these figs.  I can’t for the life of me remember whose farm they came from, but I think they are organic or low spray or something.  These figs are amazing!  They’re about the size of a quarter or a little bigger and have a great taste.  They’re not any less juicy than the green figs, but they’re less watery.  That carton of figs did not last the night!

For the green figs, I may dry them and see how that goes.  It would be great to have some figs preserved!

Cucumber Salad, and About My Heritage

Thursday, September 06, 2007

As promised, here’s the cucumber wakame salad that I make every summer. The recipe is on a slip of paper that I had transcribed from talking to my mom, many years ago.

Ingredients:
1 long cucumber (preferably one with minimal seeds. I used the cucumber I got from my CSA)
4 T rice vinegar
4 T soy sauce
1/4 t salt
1 1/2 T sugar
a handful of dried wakame (found in Asian groceries, or health-food stores)

Directions:
Soak the wakame in a bowl of cold water. The seaweed will expand-- be sparing with the amount you put in.
In another bowl, combine the vinegar, soy sauce, salt, and sugar until blended.
Peel, de-seed (if necessary), and thinly slice cucumber. Add to the vinegar mixture.
Drain and squeeze wakame and add to the cucumber. Lightly toss, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Serve cold.

**********
I am a second-generation Japanese-American. My parents and I came to the States when I was very little. My mom often cooked washoku (Japanese food) for meals, and I learned a lot of her recipes by watching her cook. There are some things I can cook that almost taste like my mom’s, and there are some things that I just can’t quite make the way she does.

One thing about cooking Japanese, or really any Asian cuisine, is that many dishes call for ingredients that just aren’t readily available here, let alone locally produced. There was a time when my grandmother used to send us care packages of seaweed, tea, and other foodstuffs because they were difficult to find here. Nowadays, more interest and awareness of Asian culture makes it easier to get many of these items at a neighborhood grocery store. However, I haven’t heard of or seen items like wakame, like Asian short-grain rice, being locally harvested. And to be honest, I would be loath to give up things like these for the sake of being a pure locavore.

As it says in my description on the About page of this site, I do enjoy many cuisines from all over the world. I am often creative in the kitchen, mixing and matching tastes. When it comes to the food that my mom made, my comfort food, I choose to use local items when I can, and the ingredients of my culture’s cuisine when needed.

CSA Weekly Report: Lancaster Farm Fresh

In this week’s Lancaster Farm Fresh share:

3 red bell peppers grown by Meadow Valley Organics
6 heirloom tomatoes grown by Riverview Organics
1 pt grape tomatoes grown by Farmdale Organics
3 lbs Russet potatoes grown by Green Valley Organics
6 ears sweet corn grown by Countryside Organics
1 pound onions grown by Scarecrow Hill Farm
2 butternut squash grown by Hillside Organics
1 bunch basil grown by E. Zook
1 bunch Swiss chard grown by Meadow Valley Organics

It’s a relief to see the butternut squash, and the other Winter squash we’ve been getting over the last few weeks.  I hope that as September rolls on, we see many different vegetables.  I love tomatoes, corn, and peppers as much as anyone else, but I’m overrun.  I’m sick to death of looking at them.  I’m pulling a dozen huge tomatoes out of my own garden every week, let alone getting inundated every week through my CSA share.  I’m going to start smelling like tomatoes soon.  Not that it’s a bad thing necessarily, but I fear for my sanity.

And so I will do what I have done for the last many weeks with the corn, peppers, and tomatoes.  The peppers will get roasted and frozen for a rainy day.  I’ll cook the corn, remove the kernels, and freeze them...and I will have a huge abundance of corn over the Winter for corn chowder, corn fritters, and creamed corn.  In addition to my oven-dried tomatoes, roasted tomatoes, canned tomatoes, frozen tomatoes, salsa, bruschetta, tomato sauce, etc., I will seek out yet another way to preserve tomatoes.  I will be the Pvt. Benjamin Buford ‘Bubba’ Blue of corn and tomatoes, able to tell you every imaginable way to serve corn and every imaginable way to preserve tomatoes.  People will run from me.

I shouldn’t complain - it will be wonderful in the middle of Winter to have so much locally grown food in my pantry. 

Restaurant Week with sustainable choices!

Restaurant Week begins in Philadelphia in a few short weeks.  For $30 you can get a three course meal from some of Philadelphia’s best restaurants.  I was delighted to see a few restaurants focusing on local ingredients are participating!

City Grange in the Westin Hotel, for instance.  Their Restaurant Week menu features Lancaster County chicken noodle soup, salads that include locally made cheese, Atlantic salmon, and vegetables from Jersey.  This is a perfect time to try the food at the newly opened City Grange.

FARMiCia is also participating this time around with a menu full of seasonal, local ingredients, and even Cuba Libre is getting in on the act with a salad of Jersey tomatoes.

Don’t miss out!

CSA Weekly Report: Red Earth Farm

Today’s Red Earth Share contained

1 quart of Yukon Gold potatoes
1 quart of green snap beans
1/2 pint of cherry and grape tomatoes mixed
quart of mixed bell peppers
4 heads of garlic
1 bunch of swiss chard
1 head of red summer crisp lettuce

and from the buying club

1 block of Oak Shade cheddar
1 block of Oak Shade smoked cheddar

My friend Jen, who I was splitting the share with, became overwhelmed by all of the produce once she started grad school and suggested that instead of splitting the share equally I take 7 items and she take 3. I thought about making it seem like a hardship just to give her a hard time, but I’m actually thrilled. This means less to buy at the farmer’s market each week. It also means I need to stop slacking and start cooking more. I’ve still got a bunch of leeks left over from last week as well as four poblano peppers. I bought a quart of potatoes from the farmer’s market last week without remembering I’d be getting more today and haven’t used those yet either.

Any suggestions for something to do with the leeks that isn’t leek and potato soup? How about any good Chiles Rellenos recipes to use up the poblanos?

Cooking Straight from the Farm

If you’re a self-proclaimed localvore or just someone interested in unusual farm produce, you won’t want to miss this opportunity.  On Saturday, September 29th, Weavers Way Farm, in coordination with the Mt. Airy Learning Tree, will host a unique cooking workshop that starts with students strolling rows of heirloom tomatoes, okra, squash, pumpkins, flowers, herbs, swiss chard, beets, carrots, peppers, and more to learn about natural growing practices and local urban farming as well as how to take advantage of seasonal crops at home.  Students will talk with the farmer and volunteers to understand how much effort and passion goes into naturally grown/organic food.  Once students have gathered this farming knowledge, they will then help harvest some vegetables (and buy more to take home if they wish) to take into the kitchen.

In the kitchen, the farm’s food blog host will demonstrate how to prepare three or four quick dishes using the farm’s more unusual produce (including marjoram pictured above).  Dishes will be determined by seasonal availability, but are almost certain to include quesadillas with tomatillo sauce and squash blossoms, sorrel almond pesto, seasonally filled empanadas and other delectable and super fresh treats.  After the cooking demonstration, students are encouraged to stick around to feast on the harvest dishes and participate in a round-robin discussion on buying local resources and urban farming in Philadelphia. 

To sign up for the workshop, visit Mt. Airy Learning Tree’s site for online registration.