2014 CSA Week 10

Hello everyone,
Welcome to another week of beautiful veggies. I love the produce right now- the colors are so vibrant, and the plants are so productive! The tomatoes are flourishing in the greenhouse, though unfortunately, we did have to pull out and destroy the outdoor tomatoes due to an attack of Late Blight (for more information, see below). The summer squash is going at it full tilt, and the eggplant are producing a staggering amount of incredibly beautiful fruit. It's a nice time of year to be working on a farm growing food.

In your bags this week:

Salad Mix or Mixed Asian Greens
Summer Squash
White Onion or Purple Scallions
Basil
Green and Wax Beans
Carrots
Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes (remember to wash these and the large tomatoes before eating! We're spraying an organic agriculture-approved product to protect them from the blight. But you still don't want to eat it...)
Eggplant-all the regular shares on Thursday got it this week

Some recipe ideas to share:

Eggplant... a lot of people assume they don't like eggplant, but if you're like me, you probably just haven't been exposed to it very often, or in one of it's tastier forms. Recently, I've become an Eggie convert. When cooked long enough, it becomes incredibly tender and flavorful. Here are some ways to try preparing it:

1) Slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch thick rounds or slices, brush with olive oil, then coat with (spiced) bread crumbs. Bake them on a cookie sheet in a 400 degree oven until tender and browned. Serve with pasta and tomato sauce, or just eat them up as a side dish!

2) Make a simple version of ratatouille by layering sliced summer squash, tomatoes and eggplant in an oiled casserole dish, adding a little olive oil between each layer, then top with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Bake in a hot oven until all the layers are cooked through and tender. 400-450 degrees for about an hour? But check it sooner in case I'm not remembering correctly.

3) You can also take the whole eggplant, skip peeling it, but rub it with oil and poke it a few times with a fork. Stick it under the broiler and cook it about 20 minutes, turning it occasionally, until it's charred on all sides and the insides are soft. Remove it from the oven, allow it to cool, then cut it open and the insides can be scooped out and used to make Baba Ghanoush (Greek) or Baingan Bharta (Indian), both of which are excellent.

Asian Greens... I'll admit, I don't always know what to do with greens. But whenever we harvest the Asian Greens, I munch a few leaves and I feel like there must be some excellent ways to prepare these highly flavorful, zingy greens. I was speaking with my friend (who's an excellent cook and also a Lucky Moon CSA member) and he recommended this recipe:

Asian Greens Stir Fry

2 Cloves Garlic, minced,

1 Hot Pepper Sliced in rings (optional)

1 big handful of Green/Yellow beans, trimmed

2 summer squash/zucchini sliced thick (too thin and they get mushy)

2 large handfuls of Asian greens rinsed (make sure to spin or shake off excess water)

Sauce:

1 TBSP Oyster Sauce

1 TBSP Soy Sauce

1/2 TBSP Rice Vinegar

1/2 tsp ground fresh Galangal or Ginger

1/2 tsp Sesame Oil

1 clove minced garlic

3 shakes/dashes cumin

1. Mix all sauce ingredients in small bowl

2. Heat 2 Tbsp Veg. Oil (oil with high smoking pt) over medium high heat in wok.

3. Add garlic, beans, and pepper (if using)

4. Let brown 1-2 minutes. Stir, let brown 1-2 minutes. (DONT OVERSTIR ,just a quick stir to keep it from sticking. Once is fine)

5 Add Zucchini and Squash, stir brieflly

6. Let brown 1-2 minutes. Stir, let brown 1-2 minutes.

7. Add Greens and turn heat to Medium Low. Stir constantly, and after 3 minutes taste the greens until they're cooked enough that the texture and spiceyness are to your liking.

8. Add sauce and serve over rice or lomein noodles.

9. Lomein noodles can be started after the greens have been added. If you add them to the wok, add them after the sauce and stir.

Late Blight

So Late Blight has officially hit Central New York for 2014. If you're a home gardener, please pay attention to this information, because it is up to all of us to do what we can to keep this nasty fungal disease at bay. First of, tomatoes can get a few different fungal diseases (commonly Early Blight and Septoria) which are detrimental to the plants, but won't usually kill them outright. These are characterized by brown spots and patches on the lower leaves, including yellowing and a bulls-eye effect on the leaves. Septoria is notable for its thousands of tiny black dots that appear all over the leaves and sometimes the stems. These are all bad. But Late Blight is really bad. It appears as black splotches on the leaves and black patches on the stems. It spreads incredibly quickly, especially in wet, humid, cool conditions (sound familiar?) and it will kill the tomato (or potato) crop. Once you see the black splotches on the stem, and on more than just a few leaves, you should pull the plants and put them in garbage bags and leave them in the sun to heat up. DO NOT compost the plants or leave them lying around. The spores of the fungi are airborne, and can spread miles around to infect your neighbors and neighboring farms. It's really disappointing to pull out what see like mostly healthy tomato plants, but it needs to be done. It's pretty impossible to save the plants once they've been hit, and especially with the weather conditions we've been having lately.


Also, potato plants are susceptible to the disease, but it can be harder to tell with them because often by the time they catch it, the plants are starting to die back anyways, as they normally do as the potatoes grow and mature underground. Because of this, it's best to always avoid putting potato plants or actual potatoes into your compost pile, because they could be carrying the disease and any volunteer potato plants that grow out of your compost pile could be broadcasting the fungal spores. Also, it's really necessary these days to plant seed potatoes that are certified disease-free. In the old days, you could simply save some extra potatoes from the previous year's harvest to plant in the ground for more potatoes. But that was before Late Blight occurred in the area. Now that it's here, planting your own seed potatoes is a really good way to accidentally spread the blight.

For more information, check out some articles on the Cornell Cooperative Extension Website.

Hope this was helpful- and thanks for taking the time to read it and put the methods into practice!

Be well and make good food for each other!
Best,
Sarah VanNorstrand
for Lucky Moon Farm

2014 CSA Week 9

Hello,
I can't believe it's already August! The weeks are flying by...
As you probably have heard, we've been having some ups and downs at the farm recently. It looks like we're going to have to pull all the outdoor tomato plants because of late blight (a really nasty disease!). So that's been a real bummer. Tomatoes are our most time-intensive crop, so losing so many is really disappointing. But if we don't pull them soon, the disease could spread to the greenhouse tomatoes or even the potatoes, which we want to avoid at all costs. So it goes- 

But other crops are doing well. The beans are really producing, the summer squash is up and running, and the indoor tomatoes are looking great! We have the first ones to distribute this week. 

In your bags:
Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Summer squash
Green/Yellow (Wax) beans
Spinach
Kale
Salad mix
White onions or Purple scallions
Some people received eggplant

Lots of nice stuff! 
Here's a recipe from one of our members- tried and tested on her family of 6.

Savory Spinach Salad

1 1/8c. cooked Einkorn wheat
2 T. spicy brown mustard
2 T. red wine vinegar
4 T. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 yellow squash, halved lengthwise, then cut crosswise 1/4 in. thick (I used zucchini, too)
1 c. button mushrooms (I left these out)
2 c. fresh baby spinach
4 scallions, thinly sliced
salt and pepper to taste

In a bowl, whisk together mustard, vinegar, 2 T. oil, salt and pepper.  In a skillet, heat remaining 2 T. oil.  Add onion and cook until golden brown.  Add squash, mushrooms, and spinach.  Cook, stirring until tender.  Remove from heat; transfer to a bowl.  Add cooked einkorn, scallions, and vinaigrette; gently toss.

2014 CSA Week 8

Hello,
This is going to be a short post because it's been a long day and I'm beat.
But you have a nice assortment of veggies this week:
Salad Mix
Arugula or Mixed Asian Greens
Green/Yellow Beans
Summer Squash (!)
Garlic
Basil
Bell Pepper (green or purple)

Large Shares have an Eggplant this week
(don't worry, everyone gets them, but we don't usually have 75 eggplant ready all at the same time, so we stagger their distribution)

So make some tasty food! I don't have a great recipe to share this week, but I imagine you can think of some nice options with this mix of veggies.

Also, a quick note:
This Saturday, July 26th, is the annual Madison County Open Farm Day!
It's a day where participating farmers open up their operations to visitors for a sort of "open house." It's quite a lot of fun, actually. You get to visit a bunch of different farms and try some samples and ask the farmers face-to-face about what they do to produce your food.
For more information, visit the website: http://www.openfarmdaymadisoncounty.com/passport/

Lucky Moon Farm will be participating, so if you have some time on Saturday, come by and say hi! It'd be great to show you around the place and answer any questions you might have. Plus, it's a beautiful place and the weather is supposed to be pretty nice, too. Hope to see you there!

Best,
Sarah VanNorstrand
for Lucky Moon Farm

2014 CSA Week 7

Hi everyone,
Hope you all are doing well. Things at the farm are super busy- between rain storms we've been catching up on weeding projects, pruning and clipping-up tomatoes, and keeping up with harvesting the peas. The summer squash and zucchini are just starting up. We had the first picking the other day, so you can expect to start seeing them in your bags soon. And the beans are right behind them! Also, a few cherry tomatoes are ripening up and it won't be long before we're giving out tomatoes and eggplant, too!

Your bags this week include:
Spinach
Parsley
Young Onions
Salad Mix
Snow Peas
Sugar Snap Peas
Hot Peppers (either Poblanos, which are a dark green, Czech Black, which are wicked-looking little black peppers, or Hungarian Hotwax, which are a light, yellowy/green- see pics below)

Poblano Pepper

Czech Black (they eventually turn red)

Hungarian Hotwax (go from green, to yellow, to orange to red)

One of my favorite kinds of food is a good curry- Indian, Thai, whatever- I love it. And curries especially are great for using some of the veggies from this week and last. Here's a simple dish from Joy of Cooking:

Coconut Chicken (Or Tofu) Curry

4-6 Servings

2 lbs chicken thighs or breasts

Salt & pepper to taste

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 large carrot, sliced (or multiple smaller ones)

Snow peas, sliced in thirds

1 hot pepper, seeded (if you wish) and chopped

1 Tbsp finely chopped peeled ginger

2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk

1/2 cup golden raisins

1 Tbsp curry powder (or more, to taste)

1 tsp salt

cooked rice

1) heat the oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat, add the chicken and brown on both sides. Remove from the pan.

2) Add to the same pan the onions, carrots, peas, hot pepper, ginger and garlic and cook until the veggies are soft, about 5 mins. 

3) Add and bring to a boil the coconut milk, raisins, curry powder, and salt. 

4) Add the chicken back, reduce the heat and simmer 20 minutes for breasts, 25 minutes for thighs, or until the sauce is thickened and the chicken is cooked. 

5) Serve over rice (Basmati is especially nice)

Best,

Sarah VanNorstrand 

for Lucky Moon Farm

2014 CSA Week 5

Hi everyone,
Happy 4th of July! I hope you all have a great weekend celebrating-

Life on the farm continues- we've had some major thunder storms this week that have brought on more torrential rain that we would like. Since the whole farm is on a hill, working to prevent erosion is a constant struggle. But things are still doing pretty well. We got the cabbage and the first of the broccoli transplanted this week, the first picking of peas went well, and the indoor and outdoor tomatoes look very healthy and have little tomatoes on their way!

In your bags this week:

Salad Mix
Kale
Snow Peas
Garlic
Cilantro or Mixed Basil

The garlic is still a bit young, which means it's extra flavorful. We'll be harvesting all of it in a few more weeks, but we were able to pull a few on the early side. I used a few cloves in a spinach sauté I made last night, and it was delicious! I really love garlic, and when it's this fresh, it's hard to beat.

Here's a kale recipe that looks pretty good (and it's quick and easy!)

Garlicky Mushrooms and Kale
Ingredients
1 teaspoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
4 ounces cremini or button mushrooms, sliced (about 1 cup)
1/2 pound kale, coarse stems removed, leaves sliced or torn into pieces

Directions

Preheat a large skillet over medium heat. Sauté the garlic in the oil for about 2 minutes, being careful not to burn it. Spray it with a little nonstick cooking spray if needed. Add the mushrooms and sprinkle on the salt. Let them cook for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring often, until the moisture has released and the mushrooms are lightly browned. Add the kale and pepper, and use tongs to sauté for about 10 more minutes. Add splashes of water if the pan seems dry. The kale should be tender and cooked down pretty well. Serve immediately.

Here's another from the Martha Stewart website for a Kale and Chorizo soup (aka Caldo Verde)

Be well,

Sarah VanNorstrand

for Lucky Moon Farm

Lucky Moon CSA Week 4

Hi everyone,

Happy Summer! We've passed the solstice, and now it's official. I hope you all have some fun plans to get out and enjoy it. CNY has some rough winters, but we also have beautiful summers.

We had quite the rainstorm at the farm, but luckily without too much erosion damage. Sue and Claude use a network of cover crop strips to hold the soil and keep their hillside intact. There are very few flat areas on the farm, so erosion control is very important. And the peas and beans and summer squash plants soaked up the water and are growing rapidly!

In your bags this week, there is a nice assortment of veggies:
Spinach
Salad Mix
Baby Carrots
Radishes (small but quite spicy- they pack a punch!)
Garlic Scapes (garlic flower stalks cut before they bloom- chopped up they sauté much like garlic cloves)
Pea Shoots

So the first things that comes to mind is a stir fry. The radishes sliced up really thinly, the garlic scapes chopped up in little bits and the pea shoots chopped in half and added at the last second- sounds tasty to me! The pea shoots will need only a tiny bit of cooking. They are very tender and also would make a nice salad topping just raw. The flowers are pretty and edible, too. If you'd like to try something else, here's a blog with a recipe: Cooking with Alison

The baby carrots are candy-sweet and if you can use them for anything before they just get eaten out of the bag, I'm all ears!

Last night my husband made us a quick dinner by sautéing some garlic and onions in a little olive oil until they were soft and translucent, then he added the spinach and let it wilt down with a little salt and pepper on top. Then he added some whisked eggs to scramble in the same pan, then topped it all off with a little goat cheese we had on hand (we joined a cheese CSA ourselves this summer!) and let it melt as the eggs cooked. This might be my new favorite quick summer dinner. Very satisfying, and really delicious with the greens and cheese. Give it a try! Other cheeses would work well, too, I'm sure.

More and more I'm getting away from using recipes and just trying to make food. The simpler, the better. Of course, I still have my go-to recipe books (Moosewood collection, Joy of Cooking) and I'll use the internet to research some methods and get some inspiration. If you have any recipes that work well, please let me know- I'd love to share them with the other people in the CSA. You can post them as a comment to this blog or send them to me via email. sarahcvannorstrand at gmail dot com

Have a great week and happy cooking!

Sarah VanNorstrand
for Lucky Moon Farm

2014 CSA Week 3

Hi everyone,
Apologies for no blog entry for last week...  I was gearing up for a big event I organize and some things fell through the cracks. 

Anyways, this week I do have time for a quick update. 

So the weather has been a bit challenging- first a long spell of too-dry weather that kept things from getting going like they should, and now we've had some rain, which is great, but the storms were strong enough to create some erosion issues. Nothing major, but it did have an effect on the veggies this week. 

In your bags:
Salad Mix
Spinach
Rhubarb
Mixed Basil

Please note that this is an unusually sparse week and is 
not the norm. 

We do have some carrots that are getting close, and the tomatoes are setting fruit in the greenhouse, and the potatoes are all up in their field. A lot of great produce is on its way!!
Farming is all about delayed satisfaction; you plan, you plant, you weed, you hope, you cultivate, you nurture and finally after a certain amount of time, you get to harvest and enjoy. But there's a lot that goes into that final product. Anyways, thanks for hanging in there with us! Farming is an adventure, and we appreciate our members sharing the ups and downs with us.

It's salad season, and I always look forward to those first salads after a winter of dried, canned or frozen produce (we put up a lot of our own food and don't often buy much in the produce section of the grocery store). After a bland, cold, grey winter, a fresh, colorful bowl of salad greens is just the ticket. I often forget to buy things like salad dressing, so I make my own. It's very simple, and I learned it while staying with some farming folks in Southern Germany.

Maple Vinaigrette
Olive Oil
Apple Cider Vinegar
Maple Syrup

I start with a dollop of olive oil, add about an equal dollop of vinegar and then a smaller dollop of maple syrup. I usually mix these up in a jam jar and then taste them to see what needs a bit more added. If it tastes too oily, I add more vinegar, and then usually a tad more maple syrup to sweeten it up. You can also use honey or sugar, but I like the maple flavor.

Here are a few more recipes:
Ethel's Rhubarb Pie
"Here is my grandmother's Rhubarb Pie; very sweet, and very good, especially after it has been refrigerated." 

3 cups Rhubarb, cut into 1/2" pieces before measuring
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 T flour
large pinch of salt
Mix sugar, flour, egg and salt. Add to rhubarb and bake between crusts.(I have made the pie with just a bottom crust successfully). Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes to brown the top crust, then turn oven down to 350 F for 30 minutes. 

Rhubarb Bread

1 cup milk
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil (or applesauce)
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour 
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 to 2 cups chopped rhubarb
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnmon
1 Tbsp butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans. In a small bowl, stir together milk, lemon juice, and vanilla; let stand for 10 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, oil and egg. Combine the flour, salt and baking soda and stir into sugar mixture alternately with the milk mixture until just combined. Fold in the rhubarb and nuts. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans.
3. In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup brown sugar, cinnamon and butter. Sprinkle this mixture over the unbaked loaves. 
4. Bake for 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. 

Spinach Salad w/ Strawberries & Pecans

-actually, this is more like a salad template. Spinach and strawberries go especially well together, especially with a poppy seed dressing, but adding different fruits, fresh or dried, nuts, cheese, meat or herbs are a great way to turn your side salad into a satisfying meal all on its own. I often use golden raisins, chopped up dried apricots, an apple, a pear, any kind of nut I have on hand, bits of cheese, a radish or a carrot- if it sounds good to you, give it a try!


Spinach Salad w/ Strawberries and Pecans
8-oz Spinach
1 c. strawberry halves
1 c. pecan halves (or walnuts, or almonds)

Dressing:
1/2 c. cider vinegar
1/3 c. oil
1/4 c. sugar
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 small onion
2 tsp poppy seeds

In a large bowl, combine spinach, strawberries and pecans.
Dressing: mix cider vinegar, oil, sugar, dijon mustard, salt pepper and onion in a food processor until smooth. Add poppy seeds and mix. 

Spinach Quesadillas (From the Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health cookbook)
- yields 4 quesadillas
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 cups finely chopped onions
1 fresh chile, minced (or a sweet pepper, if you prefer)
~5 cups chopped fresh spinach (coarsly chopped with large stems removed)
pinch of dried oregano
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
4 whole wheat tortillas, or your favorite kind
1 cup grated cheese (such as Montery Jack)

1) In a large saucepan on medium-high heat, warm the oil and cook the onion and chilis for about 4-5 minutes, or until softened. Add the spinach, oregano, salt and pepper. Stir until the spinach had wilted, a minute or two. Remove from the heat and drain.
2) Place one of the tortillas in a dry skillet on medium heat. Sprinkle on 1/4 cup of the cheese. After about a minute, when the cheese has begun to melt, spread 1/4 of the drained spinach mixture over 1/2 the tortilla. Fold the tortilla over the spinach and cheese to make a 1/2 circle and cook for a minute. Turn the quesadilla over and cook until the cheese is thoroughly melted.
3) Remove tortilla, slice into wedges, and dip in your favorite salsa. Repeat with remaining tortillas.

2014 CSA Week #1

Hi everyone-
Welcome to the 2014 season at Lucky Moon Farm! We're so glad you've decided to join us for another adventure in farming and food. All of you returning members, welcome back! And to anyone who's new, thanks for giving it a try. Local, sustainable farms are only possible with the support of local consumers, and we really appreciate that you've chosen to invest in our farm and in the area's local food network. And we promise you beautiful, healthy, naturally-grown vegetables in exchange for your patronage. So let us begin!

First of all, my name is Sarah VanNorstrand, and I work at Lucky Moon Farm for Sue & Claude Braun, who own and run the farm and CSA. I help out with whatever they're doing (planting, harvesting, weeding, etc) as well as try and keep up a basic blog to let you know what's in your bags and some ideas about how to use them.

This week, you have a nice assortment of spring produce:
Salad Mix
Spinach
Shallots (part of the onion family- they cook up amazingly in butter or olive oil)
Rhubarb
Purple Viking Potatoes (purple skin, white flesh)
Arugula (spicy greens, often used in Italian cooking, or just look up some of the many recipes on line- it's very popular right now as a salad with roasted beets and goat cheese, just to give you an idea- it also makes a great zippy pesto)

I love rhubarb. It's perennial (meaning it comes back every year- plant it once and feed it, and it will live a long, long time), it's one of the earliest things ready to eat in the spring, and it makes a lot of food. Not to mention, I love how it tastes, especially when combined with strawberries. They balance each other out- tart and sweet and perfect!
Of course, there's the classic Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie, which in my opinion, can't really be beat. But you can use it in quick breads, in a crisp, in jam, cakes, muffins or as a sauce to put on ice cream, pancakes or French toast. And it's really pretty- the bright, cheery greens, pinks and reds are a nice splash of color early in the spring.

So part of joining a CSA is experiencing new foods. There will probably be something you'll get in a bag along the way that you have never eaten or don't know what to do with it. That's ok! I'll try to post some recipes with my list of vegetables for the week, but also feel free to dive into some cook books (my favorites being Joy of Cooking or any of the Moosewood cookbooks) or explore some of the many recipe websites with literally thousand and thousands of recipes to try. I often use Allrecipes.com when I really have no clue. Also, please feel free to send me any of your tried and true recipes. I'll be happy to post them here for other people to try- the best way is to email them to me at sarahcvannorstrand at gmail dot com
Here's a recipe for Rhubarb Muffins from Joanna Frittelli:
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups diced rhubarb
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
Topping:
1 teaspoon melted margarine or butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinammon

Preheat oven to 400. Grease muffin tins. Combine sugar, oil, egg, vanilla and buttermilk; beat well. Stir in rhubarb. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda and powder, and salt. Mix dry ingredients in rhubarb mixture just until blended. In a separate bowl, mix topping ingredients. Spoon batter into tins, sprinkle with topping and press lightly into the batter. Bake 20-25 minutes until muffins are golden brown and a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Makes 20 muffins.

Enjoy!