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!