|
Dear Common Thread CSA Members,
Madison County Open Farm Day is this Saturday, July 30 from 10 am to 4 pm! We'll be giving tours of the farm and we'll have a small vegetable stand on site. If you would like to learn more about our growing methods and see the farm, please join us for a tour!
Fall shares start in just a month and we have plenty available! We are also still pro-rating shares for folks who want to start before that. Please help us spread the word to friends who might be interested in joining.
The picture above shows the flowers in the pick your own, which are very pretty right now with lots of variety . We also have green beans, snap peas, basil, parsley, dill, cilantro and cherry tomatoes are starting. The basil is very plentiful, enough to pick quantities large enough to make pesto.
We picked a round of big, beautiful cabbages the other day. Cabbage is wonderful as coleslaw, sauteed with other vegetables and sliced thin in salads. They can also be roasted in discs or wedges. I especially like it sauteed with mushrooms from Fruit of the Fungi. Cabbage is very good for you, high in anti-oxidants, vitamin C, vitamin K, and several B-vitamins.
Cantelope is tough to grow in cool CNY but we have a nice round coming in right now! The heat and relatively dry conditions have been good for them. Our first round of watermelons have been swallowed up in weeds though so we're not sure if we'll get any, but we do have later rounds that look more likely to produce.
Carrots have also had some weed problems so we don't have very many early carrots, but we do have a few, and there are more coming for late summer and fall. We are picking those early carrots now. We have a mix of orange, purple, yellow and white varieties.
The eggplant is starting to produce well. It is one of my absolute favorite foods. I didn't grow up eating eggplant and when I first started cooking it was put off by some attempts at stir-fries that contained unpleasantly squeaky eggplant. I have since learned that the secret to delicious eggplant is making sure it is cooked until mushy, whether that be stir-fried, roasted, grilled or baked. Friends who spend time in India taught us to cook whole eggplants on the flame of the gas stove until the outside is charred and the inside is mushy and then peel it to make babaganoush. Prepared this way, it has a wonderful smoky flavor. Here is a link to a recipe on the food network that uses the same method.
Red Long of Tropea Onions are ready now. This elongated red onion is named for a town in southern Italy where the onions are grown. We like to cut them into discs and roast or grill them.
Since we have a lot of cabbages, onions and beets right now, beet borscht is a fitting recipe to include. Here is my favorite recipe, from the Moosewood cookbook:
Russian Cabbage Borscht
- 1.5 cups thinly sliced potato
- 1 cup thinly sliced beets
- 4 cups water
- 1 to 2 Tbsp butter
- 1.5 cups chopped onion
- 1 scant tsp caraway seeds
- 1.5 tsp salt (or more, to taste)
- 1 stalk celery or half a celeriac, if available
- 1 medium sized carrot, sliced
- 3 to 4 cups shredded cabbage
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp dill, plus extra for garnish
- 1 to 2 Tbsp cider vinegar
- 1 to 2 Tbsp brown sugar or honey
- 1 cup tomato puree
Toppings: sour cream or yogurt, extra dill
1. Place potatoes, beets, and water in a medium-sized saucepan. Cover, and cook over medium heat until tender (20 to 30 minutes).
2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a kettle or Dutch oven. Add onion, caraway seeds, and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent (8 to 10 minutes).
3. Add celery, carrots, and cabbage, plus 2 cups of the cooking water from the potatoes and beets. Cover and cook over medium heat until the vegetables are tender (another 8 to 10 minutes).
4. Add the remaining ingredients (including all the potato and beet water), cover, and summer for at least 15 more minutes. Taste to correct seasonings and serve hot, topped with sour cream or yogurt and a light dusting of dill.
Yours in the field,
Wendy and Asher
|
