Week 6 and time is flying...

Hi everyone,

Week 6 is here, and we're already at the end of July! I can't really believe it... I feel like I've missed huge chunks of the summer, even though I've been working long days outside everyday since the beginning of May. You'd think the summer would seem longer than usual when so much gets crammed into every single day. But things are going well. The bags are nice and heavy this week as the full summer bounty is coming on now. Generally, most of the crops are producing very well.
Here's what you have:
Salad mix
Summer Squash
Green & Yellow Beans
Sugar Snap Peas
Carrots
Swiss Chard
Scallions
Tomatoes
Cucumbers

So the meal possibilities are pretty much endless at this point. Despite that, I've been mostly eating tomato sandwiches for lunch and dinner. Now that the tomatoes are finally here, I can't get enough of them! I can hardly imagine something more satisfying than a toasted slice of my molasses oat bread with mayonaise, a fat slice of a Striped German tomato (the rainbow-colored ones) and some salt and pepper on top. It's heavenly!

So feel free to email me or post to the blog any recipes that you'd like to share. And if you find you can't eat everything, try freezing some of it. Beans, Peas, and Summer Squash all freeze very well and can be a welcome addition to a winter meal in soups, pasta sauce, casseroles, whatever. A tip I learned last year to help me remember what I have in my freezer upstairs and my chest freezer in the basement, I keep a list on the fridge of what I have frozen and stashed away. Whenever I use something up, I cross it off the list. It's very handy if you're like me and if it's out of sight, it's out of mind.

Peas and Beans are usually better blanched (submerged in boiling water for a minute or so to help slow the enzymes that break food down and cause it to spoil). My cookbook says to blanch squash, too, but I find that it freezes very well without that extra step by just slicing it and freezing it on a cookie sheet and then putting the frozen slices in a zip-lock bag. I'm definitely still learning about how to preserve food (freezing, canning, drying) and if any of you have any tips or methods to share, I for one would love to hear them. Here are two links to a blog and a website about how to freeze vegetables and other preservation techniques:
http://annieskitchengarden.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-16-2009-blanching-and-freezing.html

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/freeze.html

Hope you all are enjoying your summers to the fullest! They fly by too quickly...
All the best,
Sarah VanNostrand for Lucky Moon Farm

Week 5

Hello again,
Week 5 is here and summer is in full swing. Which means it's really really hot. But despite the hot weather, we were able to get a wonderful assortment of veggies together for you this week.

Here's what's in the bags:
Salad mix- talk about a perfect summer meal! No hot stove or oven, just nice cool crunchy lettuce...
Summer Squash
Snow peas & Sugar Snap peas (the first is flat, the second is fat)
Yellow & Green beans (some people call the yellow ones Wax beans, but they don't taste like wax... I promise)
A White Onion
Red Beets
... and (drum roll please) TOMATOES! Some people got cherry tomatoes and some got sandwich tomatoes, but don't worry- everyone will get the full spectrum before we're through.


I had many similar things on hand for my dinner this evening, so I put this together. It was super tasty:
Sarah's Summer Pasta
Ingredients:
Olive oil, diced onion, thinly sliced summer squash, chopped mushrooms, peas (I grow shell peas), basil, tomatoes, pasta
1) Heat about 2+ Tbsp olive oil (or vegetable oil; it's not a big deal) in a large skillet on medium heat. Dice one medium onion (or the equivalent) and add when the oil is heated. Saute for about 5 minutes until the onion begins to soften.
2) Add the summer squash (make sure the pieces are about the rough size of a quarter) and saute another 3 minutes or so
3) Add 2 Tbsp butter and add the chopped mushrooms. After a few minutes add the peas.
4) Boil water and cook the pasta of your choice until al dente, meanwhile turn the heat on the saute down to low.
5) While the pasta is cooking, roughly chop the basil and add it to the saute. Once it begins to wilt, turn off the heat. Cover if your pasta isn't close to being done.
6) Serve the pasta with the vegetable saute on top, add some diced fresh tomatoes (cherry or sandwich), drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and salt & pepper to taste.

Very yummy, and quite pretty, too (I wanted to take a picture, but my camera isn't working, so here's a stock photo to get you the idea...). And the beauty is you can experiment with whatever you have on hand. Sliced green beans would have worked really well instead of the peas, and mushrooms are optional (though delicious). Good food doesn't take a lot of dressing up.

I Also wanted to let you know that this Saturday, Madison County is organizing an Open Farm Day for lots of farms throughout the county. Lucky Moon will be taking part, and if you'd like to stop by, say hello, get a tour and see where your vegetables come from, we'd love to see you. The farms will be open from 10 AM to 4 PM. The address is 4976 Lincklaen Rd, Cazenovia, NY. Hope to see you there!

Week 4 in brief

Hi everyone,
So this is going to be short and sweet, because I can barely keep my eyes open...
But the contents of your bags this week include:
Arugula (smallest bag of greens, leaves are bright green with a peppery flavor)
Asian Greens (medium bag, different colored leaves in many different shapes- spicy and great in a stir-fry!)
Summer Squash (yellow, green, or in between, it's still summer squash)
Snow peas (flat pods)
Sugar Snap peas
Salad mix (biggest bag of greens)

Feel free to email me (luckymoonfm@gmail.com) with recipe ideas or post them as a comment to this blog post.

All the best,
Sarah
for Lucky Moon Farm


Thursday, July 14th
Here are two recipes from Lars that work with many of the veggies you're getting in your bags.

Arugula Pesto (from simplyrecipes):

INGREDIENTS

· 2 cups of packed arugula leaves, stems removed

1/2 cup of shelled walnuts

· 1/2 cup fresh Parmesan cheese

· 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

· 6 garlic cloves, unpeeled

· 1/2 garlic clove peeled and minced

· 1/2 teaspoon salt

METHOD

1 Brown 6 garlic cloves with their peels on in a skillet over medium high heat until the garlic is lightly browned in places, about 10 minutes. Remove the garlic from the pan, cool, and remove the skins.

2 Toast the nuts in a pan over medium heat until lightly brown, or heat in a microwave on high heat for a minute or two until you get that roasted flavor. In our microwave it takes 2 minutes.

3a Food processor method (the fast way): Combine the arugula, salt, walnuts, roasted and raw garlic into a food processor. Pulse while drizzling the olive oil into the processor. Remove the mixture from the processor and put it into a bowl. Stir in the Parmesan cheese.

3b Mortar and pestle method: Combine the nuts, salt and garlic in a mortar. With the pestle, grind until smooth. Add the cheese and olive oil, grind again until smooth. Finely chop the arugula and add it to the mortar. Grind up with the other ingredients until smooth.

Because the pesto is so dependent on the individual ingredients, and the strength of the ingredients depends on the season or variety, test it and add more of the ingredients to taste.

Serve with pasta, over freshly roasted potatoes, or as a sauce forpizza.

Yield: Makes 1 heaping cup.

-Note: Lars suggested using the hot peppers (if you still have any from last week) in the stir-fry. I also often add peas and sliced summer squash to stir-fries. Happy cooking!

Stir Fry (modified from food.com):

Ingredients

· 1 lb chicken breast, cut into 1 inch cubes

· 11-14 ounces mixed Chinese greens

· 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

· 1 tablespoon sesame oil

· 1/2 tablespoon thinly sliced ginger

· 1 clove garlic thinly sliced

· 4 scallions, finely shredded

· 2 tablespoons oyster sauce or hoisin sauce

· 1 tablespoon soy sauce

· 2 pinches of sugar

· juice of 1 lime

· salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Put the oil, garlic and the ginger into a very large, hot wok or other suitable pan and cook for about 30 seconds. Add the chicken stirring constantly until the outside is cooked. Add the scallions and the rest of the ingredients apart from the greens and seasoning. Stir, then add the oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, lime juice and greens and toss so that everything is coated in sauce. The oyster and soy sauce will reduce, just coating the greens, which will begin to wilt. At this point season to taste with sugar, salt and pepper. Stir-fry for a further minute and serve immediately over steamed rice.

Week 3, July 2011

Hello again
Week three is here and so is the hot weather! Things are coming along very well for the most part, and your bags this week reflect the somewhat odd timing that we have this year. It's not typical to be giving out peppers with peas!
But there are plenty of tasty meals to be made with the veggies for this week:
Salad mix
Swiss Chard (think "quiche" !)
Lucky Moon Garlic
Snow Peas
Hungarian Hotwax Pepper (milder than a jalapeno)
raspberries

While I was helping to pack up the garlic, snow peas and pepper, I couldn't help but think what a tasty stir-fry that would make. And that made me hungry, so I made one myself that night with a few things I had on hand.

Besides a quiche, here's another interesting idea for using the Swiss Chard. The recipe calls for Ruby Chard, which is simply a kind of Chard with red stems and veining. The bag you have is a mix of Ruby Chard, Bright Lights Chard (rainbow colors) and some green and white veined chard. But it all works the same.

This is another recipe from the Moosewood's "Cooking for Health"
Pasta w/ Ruby Chard and Cherries
1/2 C dried cherries
16 oz chunky-shaped whole grain pasta
1 Bunch Ruby Chard
1/4 C olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 tsp salt
ground black pepper
pinch of red pepper flakes (optional for added spicyness)
1/4 C chopped toasted walnuts
grated parmesan or crumbled ricotta salata cheese (optional)

1) Bring a large covered pot of salted water to a boil. When the water comes to a rapid boil, ladle a few tablespoons of it into a bowl, add the dried cherries and set aside to soak. Cook the pasta until al dente and drain.

2)While the water is heating, rinse the chard and remove the bottom 1/2 inch or so of the stems. Cut any of the large ones in half again (to make them thinner). Chop the leaves. Set aside.

3)While the pasta cooks, warm the oil in a large skillet on high heat. Add the chard stems a saute for a minute. Add the garlic and chard leaves and cook uncovered, stirring often, until the chard is limp but the leaves are still bright green, about 5 minutes. Stir in the salt and a sprinkling of pepper and add the red pepper flakes, if you wish.

4) Toast the walnuts

5) Drain the soaked cherries.

6) Put the pasta into a serving bowl and top with the garlicky chard, plump hot cherries and toasted walnuts. Offer cheese at the table if you like.

Bon appetite!