Week 11 and the Sweetness of Summer

Hi everyone,
Hope you're all doing well. The days aren't quite as long and the nights are getting cooler. I always have mixed feelings this time of year- I love the beauty of fall and watching the seasons change, but it's sad to see summer fade. It rushes so quickly to its peak of growth and color and vitality, but no sooner does it get there, than it begins to fade away. At Lucky Moon, we took out a bunch of the broccoli and cauliflower plants today. All those plants that produced such beautiful heads of green or white now are old and decaying. It's over so quickly! But they all got chopped up and added to one of the compost piles which in turn will be added back to the fields to feed the soil for next year's crops. Cue the Elton John "The Circle of Life!" Are you hearing him belt out that chorus in your head? Perhaps a bit over the top for the compost pile...

Anyways, you have wonderful bags of veggies this week:
Sweet Corn
Summer Squash
Cucumbers
Swiss Chard
Yellow onion
Sweet Peppers
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Carrots (orange, white and purple: "Mokum, White Satin and Purple Haze")
Basil
Bronze fennel (the single frond)
Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes

Pretty nice week, if you ask me :>)
Here are a couple recipes to try:

Swiss Chard with Chick Peas (aka Garbanzo beans) and Fresh Tomatoes from Allrecipes.com Serves 4
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 shallot or small onion, chopped
2 scallions, chopped
1/2 cup chickpeas, drained
salt and pepper to taste
1 bunch Swiss chard, rinsed and chopped
1 tomato, sliced
1/2 lemon, juiced

1) Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Stir in shallot/onion and scallions. Cook and stir for 3-5 minutes until soft and fragrant. Stir in garbanzo beans, season with salt and pepper, and heat through.
2) Place chopped chard in the skillet, and cook until wilted. Add tomato slices, squeeze lemon juice over greens and heat through. Serve immediately.

Zucchini & Carrots with Walnuts
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 medium zucchini (or any summer squash)
2 large carrots, peeled
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/8 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper

1)Toast the walnuts in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat (or in the oven- check your basic cookbook) stirring often, 3-4 minutes, until lightly browned and fragrant. Tip out onto a plate and set aside. Wipe out the skillet.
2) Halve the zucchini lengthwise and cut the halves crosswise in two. Cut each piece into thin strips lengthwise. (I didn't write that- just copying from a recipe, I promise)
3) Use a vegetable peeler to cut long strips from the carrots (save the cores to use in another dish)
4) Heat the oil in the same skillet over medium heat. Add the carrots and sprinkle with the thyme, salt and pepper. Cook, tossing often, for 3 minutes or until nearly tender. Add the zucchini and cook, tossing, for another 3-4 minutes or until tender. Sprinkle with the walnuts.


I'd love love love to hear what you're doing with your vegetables! Don't worry about sending a whole recipe, just send me a note with a few things you've done that you particularly liked-
my email is luckymoonfm@gmail.com
Thanks and enjoy summer to the last drop!
Sarah, for Lucky Moon Farm

Week 10

Hello again,
Here's what is in your bags this week:

Sweet Corn!
Beets
Cucumbers
Summer Squash
an Ailsa Craig onion (sweet white onion)
garlic (little bulbs this week)
Hot peppers (a variety of types: Small shares have one Hungarian Hotwax and one Chilipeno, Large shares have 1 Poblano, 1 Chilipeno and 2 small Czech black peppers- remember to wear gloves when cutting them!)
Cherry tomatoes
Tomatoes
Red-skin potatoes ("Chieftan" variety)
Eggplant for some people
Cabbage for some people
-again, if you didn't get it this week, you'll be getting it soon!

If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed by cucumbers, check out these recipes. Refrigerator pickles are a great treat, and you don't have to worry about everything that goes into canning, in case you're a hesitant about trying that. You can cut this in half, or whatever fraction works out for the amount of cucumbers you have.

Refrigerator Pickles

7 cups sliced cucumbers

1 cup sliced onions

1 green or red pepper

2 cups sugar

1 cup white vinegar

1 Tablespoon salt

1 Teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon mustard seed

May add dill seed, garlic or hot peppers

Combine cucumbers, onions and peppers in a large bowl

And add sugar, vinegar, salt and seeds.

Mix well, cover and refrigerate for 24 hours before ready to eat.

May put in quart jars; keeps 3 months or longer in refrigerator.

Makes 2 quarts, double for a gallon

I posted this last week, but I did it a bit late, so perhaps you missed it:
Pineapple Cucumber Gazpacho serves 4-6
"Sweet-tart pineapple adds a nice balance to a classic gazpacho. A garnish of macadamia nuts lends body and richness to the fresh, cooling soup"

3 cups chopped pineapple
3 cups chopped, seeded and peeled cucumbers
1 1/2 cups pineapple juice
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp lime juice
1 jalapeno, halved and seeded
salt to taste
1/2 cup thinly sliced onions (white parts only)
2 Tbsp finely chopped macadamia nuts (optional garnish)
2 Tbsp finely chopped cilantro (optional garnish)

1) Put pineapple. cucumber, pineapple juice, oil, lime juice, jalapeno and salt into a blender and puree until smooth. Add green onions, and puree until just combined.
2) Transfer soup to a bowl, cover and chill for at least 2 hours.
3) Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with macadamia nuts and cilantro

Happy cooking!

Sarah

PS: here's another recipe from one of our CSA members! Looks very very tasty:

Gallo Pinto

Ingredients (for 2 servings)

1 cup of cooked rice
1 cup of cooked black beans
1 chopped onion (small)
1 small chopped red pepper
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1 tbs oil
¼ cup chopped cilantro
4 Tbs. Salsa Lizano – (can substitute Worcestershire and Tabasco)
Salt and pepper, to taste

How to prepare
1. Fry onion, red pepper, garlic, cilantro in the vegetable oil, about 3 minutes.
2. Pour in the beans and add the sauce, and seasoning. Let it cook for a few minutes, but don’t let it dry out.
3. Pour in the cooked rice and mix it with the beans

Enjoy with:
Sour Cream
Platanos maduros - sliced plantains coated in sugar and fried
Eggs (fried or scrambled )

Week 9, August 2011

Hello again,
Hope you all are enjoying your summers! I sure am- along with all the special things that come with the season: tomatoes and peaches and melons and blueberries and sun and birds and flowers.... I could go on for a while. :>) But it's a great time of the year.

Your bags this week include:
Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Sweet Peppers- various colors and shapes
Broccoli or cauliflower (if you haven't gotten it yet, you will!)
Summer Squash- the bushes are starting to wind down their production... so enjoy it while it lasts-
Cucumbers
Salad Mix
Italian red onions (called "Rossa di Milano"- maybe Rose of Milan? they are a very pretty pinkish-red color)
Carrots
Fennel

If you missed last week's post, you might want to check it out because I added some interesting recipes that someone gave to Sue at the end of the week.

Here's one that uses up some of the cucumbers, and it's supposed to be really good!
Pineapple Cucumber Gazpacho serves 4-6
"Sweet-tart pineapple adds a nice balance to a classic gazpacho. A garnish of macadamia nuts lends body and richness to the fresh, cooling soup"

3 cups chopped pineapple
3 cups chopped, seeded and peeled cucumbers
1 1/2 cups pineapple juice
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp lime juice
1 jalapeno, halved and seeded
salt to taste
1/2 cup thinly sliced onions (white parts only)
2 Tbsp finely chopped macadamia nuts (optional garnish)
2 Tbsp finely chopped cilantro (optional garnish)

1) Put pineapple. cucumber, pineapple juice, oil, lime juice, jalapeno and salt into a blender and puree until smooth. Add green onions, and puree until just combined.
2) Transfer soup to a bowl, cover and chill for at least 2 hours.
3) Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with macadamia nuts and cilantro



I've been canning and freezing and drying like crazy the past few weeks. I'm excited about it because I'm still learning how to do a lot of these things, and it's fun to experiment and see what works. So far I've made raspberry jam, peach preserves, bread & butter and dill pickles, canned a bunch of tomatoes, dried zucchini, frozen a bunch of summer squash in slices and shredded, frozen shell and snow peas, frozen blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries and strawberries, frozen corn, peppers and beans.

It's really fun to put food away for the winter. It's such a nice feeling to pull out some fruit or canned tomatoes in February when you feel like spring will never come. It's also nice to have some food security. I don't think we hardly ever buy anything from the produce section except some fruit once in a while. So just remember that if you're feeling overwhelmed with produce right now, try freezing a bit of it and putting it away for the time when the closest tomato is coming to you from the southern hemisphere :>)

Enjoy your week,
Sarah

Week 8 and sorry it's late...

Hi everyone,
Sorry I didn't get this up sooner. I'll fill in the details later, but here's the list of what's in the bags this week:
Salad Mix
Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Beans
Basil
Summer squash
Cucumbers
White onions
Broccoli
Sweet Peppers for Large shares and Poblano peppers (medium spicy) for the small shares
Eggplant (long & skinny, fat and purple, or creamy white!)
Cauliflower

Note: Not enough of the eggplant ripened at once for everyone to get an eggplant this week, but we'll make sure you all get one soon. Same with the cauliflower- things ripen at different times, and rarely is there 75 eggplant or cauliflower that are ready to pick at the same time.

And if anyone is interested in making some pickles, we are having a bumper crop of cucumbers this year, and have extra for sale. Contact Sue if you're interested.

Here are some recipes that were given to me by someone in the CSA- they look very tasty! Some of them use ingredients from this week, and the ones that call for things you don't receive this week, you might want to stick it away in your recipe box to use later.

Here's another great way to eat summer squash:
Zucchini Parmesan
Several good-sized summer squash (zucchini, yellow, patty pan, etc)
2 beaten eggs
2-2 1/2 cups Italian style bread crumbs
Olive oil cooking spray
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 jar spaghetti sauce

1) Preheat oven to 425 and spray cookie sheets with cooking spray.
2) Slice squash into 1/4 inch thick rounds. Dip slices in the beaten eggs, then coat with the bread crumbs and place on the cookie sheets. Spray tops with oil
3) Bake for 10 minutes, flip the slices over and bake another 10 minutes
4) Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with cooking spray and spoon a small amount of sauce into the pan.
5) Alternate layers of squash, mozzarella, Parmesan and sauce. For the last layer, just use sauce and top with Parmesan.
6) Cover with foil and bake at 375 for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake fore 10 more minutes.

Swiss Chard with Chick Peas (aka Garbanzo beans) and Fresh Tomatoes from Allrecipes.com Serves 4
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 shallot or small onion, chopped
2 scallions, chopped
1/2 cup chickpeas, drained
salt and pepper to taste
1 bunch Swiss chard, rinsed and chopped
1 tomato, sliced
1/2 lemon, juiced

1) Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Stir in shallot/onion and scallions. Cook and stir for 3-5 minutes until soft and fragrant. Stir in garbanzo beans, season with salt and pepper, and heat through.
2) Place chopped chard in the skillet, and cook until wilted. Add tomato slices, squeeze lemon juice over greens and heat through. Serve immediately.

Green Beans & Tuna with Basil serves 4
1 lb green beans, trimmed and cut into 3-4 inch lengths
1 small red pepper, cut in half lengthwise, seeded and de-ribbed
salt & pepper
1/3 cup diced red onion
2 Tbsp finely chopped basil leaves
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice, or to taste
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 can tuna, drained
1-2 Tbsp capers, depending on taste, rinsed and drained

1) Fill a large saucepan 3/4 full of water and bring to a rapid boil. Add the green beans, bell pepper halves, and 2 tsp salt. Return to a boil and cook uncovered until the beans are just tender but still firm, about 4-5 minutes. Drain well.
2) Place the beans in a large bowl. Cut the pepper halves lengthwise into strips 1/2 inch wide. Add to the beans, along with the red onion and 1 Tbsp of the basil. Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp lemon juice and a little salt and pepper to taste. Toss to coat the beans well with the lemon juice. Drizzle the 3 Tbsp of olive oil and toss again.
3) In a separate bowl, break the tuna into small chunks. Add the capers and the remaining 1 Tbsp of basil. Season to taste with lemon juice, olive oil, salt & pepper as needed. Toss gently to blend.
4) Arrange the beans on a serving platter or individual plates and mound the tuna mixture in the center. Serve at once.


Sarah

Week 7 and Happy August!

Hello-
It's already August! Where has the time gone? Full days fly by, I guess.
Your bags are nice and heavy this week and filled with summer goodies.

Here's the list:
Summer Squash
Cucumbers (some of them may be white or yellowy-brown... they're supposed to be that way, I promise :>)
Salad Mix
Arugula (small bag of spicy greens)
Green & Yellow Beans
A bunch of young red onions
Sweet Peppers (long wrinkly Italian fry peppers or regular blocky sweet peppers)
Tomatoes!
Cherry tomatoes
Herbs- Cilantro and Summer Savory. The cilantro has a strong pungent flavor, and it's excellent in many dishes, and the savory looks vaguely like rosemary, and is reported to be especially nice with beans.

Cilantro (above) & Savory (below)

If you're curious what varieties of tomatoes you're receiving, check out my post from last year to see pictures and descriptions of many of the kinds of tomatoes we grow. There are so many beautiful colors and such diverse flavors! Make sure you have a few of them on toast with a little mayonnaise and salt and pepper- nothing else quite sets off a tomato's natural flavor as well, in my humble opinion.

Also, I was thinking of trying to make Gazpacho sometime, and I was wondering if any of you had a recipe for it that you would recommend.... Sounds like a tasty dinner on some hot August night.

I was making some salad the other night and I realized how much I use my handy dandy salad spinner. Many people never invest in a salad spinner, but it's a great kitchen tool, especially when you're getting lots of greens through a CSA. On the CSA days (Tuesday & Thursday) Sue, Kelli and I cut all the lettuce, spinach, beet greens, baby swiss chard or asian greens that will be going into the Salad mix, and quickly rush the fragile greens to the shaded porch to get it out of the sun and heat. There are a couple sinks on the porch, and we soak all the greens in those sinks to cool them off, help them stay crisp and wash off any dirt that might have splashed up on them out in the field. Then we spin the greens to dry them in large industrial salad spinners that look like this:

Once they are relatively dry, we mix all the different greens together in large bins, then weigh and bag them, and rush them down to the cooler to keep them in pristine condition until it's time to pack them into peoples' bags. Anyways, what I'm leading up to is that although we wash them once at the farm, a second rinse might be necessary before putting them in the salad bowl to make sure nothing gritty is left on the leaves. And after washing them, to avoid having soggy salad, a home-sized spinner comes in handy. They are available at the hardware store, in many grocery stores, and places like Target. They often look like this:

Kelli Johnson gave me this recipe and raves about how tasty it is! It also uses many of this week's veggies if you want to give it a try:

Wegman's Arugula Peach Salad
Serves: 4
Active Time: 20 mins
Total Time: 20 mins
Ingredients

1 pkg (8 oz) sliced green beans
1 pkg (5 oz) Arugula
Cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 or 2 small red onions, peeled, thinly sliced
1 peach, wedged
Juice of one fresh lemon (2-3 Tbsp)
3 Tbsp Wegmans Basting Oil
3 Tbsp Wegmans Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 tsp salt
Directions

1. Steam or boil sliced green beans until tender-crisp. Transfer to bowl of ice water 2 min. Drain well.

2. Combine beans, arugula, tomatoes, onion, and peaches in large bowl.

3. Whisk together lemon juice, basting oil, olive oil, and salt in small bowl. Toss with salad.


And here's a dessert cake that uses some of the leftover zucchini (or any kind of summer squash)
Chocolate-Zucchini Snack Cake
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
3 cups semi-sweet chocolate

1) Pre-heat the oven to 350. Grease a 11 x 8 baking pan.
2) Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
3) Whisk the eggs, sugar, yogurt, oil and vanilla in a medium bowl. Add the zucchini and 1 1/2 cups of the chocolate chips. Stir into the flour mixture until just blended. Spread in the pan and bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned and a toothpick into the center comes out clean.
4) Remove from the oven and sprinkle the remaining 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips over the cake. Spread with a spatula as they melt to form an icing, placing it back in the warm oven for about a minute to melt them completely.
Eat!