CSA Week 4, and Cheesecake Squares with Roasted Rhubarb & Strawberry Coulis

CSA Week 4: 07.02.2009

What did our CSA share for last week hold? Still shades of green, with some new treats. Golden swiss chard, hakurei (salad) turnips, garlic scapes, daikon, leaf lettuce, field greens, kale, and basil (nice to have the latter this early in the season, thanks to the farm’s greenhouse!)

Daikon is fairly new to me; it’s a large, white root in the radish family, used often in Japanese cuisine. It looks similar to a large carrot that’s been sucked dry of its orange pigment, which always reminds me of the book Bunnicula (the whole series of which I read when I was young, and then subsequently read to my younger brother, too. We loved those books.) Anyhow, daikon tastes fairly mild and crunchy raw, and mellows even further when cooked; it keeps really well in the fridge for weeks. It’s a great addition to a slaw or sliced into a salad for some crunch, and sometimes I stir-fry it briefly with other vegetables.

Our fruit share this week contained probably the last of the season’s strawberries — with all the rain we’ve been having, the season won’t last much longer. Good thing we got plenty in our Fruit Bowl share to enjoy!

Finger Lakes Fruit Bowl Share: 07.02.09

Since freshly-picked strawberries are so fragile and perishable (and SO delicious!), after I’ve eaten some right from the container and made my requisite strawberry-rhubarb pie (yes, I made it again and no, sorry, I did not get a picture!), I’ve been pureeing the remainder with just a little sugar or honey, straining the puree to remove the tiny seeds, and using it as a strawberry coulis. We had the coulis last week over cheesecake squares that I topped with the last of the season’s rhubarb, which I had roasted with sugar.

sprinkle the strawberries with a little sugar; let them sit until juices develop

puree until smooth, then strain to remove any seeds

The strawberry coulis is also fantastic as a sauce for ice cream (particularly buttermilk ice cream!), or mixed with a little seltzer or sparkling water to create a homemade, natural strawberry soda. It’s so refreshing!

I recently saw Dorie Greenspan tweet about roasting rhubarb, and thought it sounded like a nice new way to prepare it. Sprinkled with sugar, mixed in a pan and covered with foil, the rhubarb tenderizes and caramelizes in no time.

I had seen these cheesecake squares on Epicurious recently, topped with a few fresh blueberries (also a great idea, now that blueberries will be coming into season!) The cheesecake itself is flavored with a little lemon zest, and it’s baked on a graham cracker crust.  The squares are super easy to make, easy to cut, and (topped with a fresh berry or two rather than the coulis) would make great transportable picnic food.  A nice base for many of the berries coming into season soon (yeah!!)

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Cheesecake Squares with Roasted Rhubarb & Strawberry Coulis

Adapted from Bon Appetit

view printable recipe

These would be terrific topped with any seasonal berry. They slice well and would transport well for a picnic!

Makes 9 squares.

Ingredients
For the cheesecake squares
9 whole graham crackers
5 tablespoons butter, melted
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
3 tablespoons sour cream
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the strawberry coulis
1 pint strawberries
1 tablespoon (or more to taste) sugar or honey

For the roasted rhubarb
1 pound rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
1/4-1/2 cup sugar (I used 1/4 cup because I had slightly under 1 pound of rhubarb)

Directions
To make the cheesecake squares:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place a piece of foil into an 8×8 baking pan (use enough so that the foil overhangs the sides.) Butter the foil in the pan.

Place the graham crackers in a large ziptop bag and smash them with a rolling pin until they’re crushed to fine crumbs. Stir in the melted butter with a fork until the crumbs are moistened, then use your hands to press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan. Bake until deep golden, about 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside (you can start preparing the cheesecake filling while the crust is baking.)

With an electric mixer, cream together the cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl  until smooth. Beat in the egg and sour cream, then lemon zest and vanilla.  Spread the batter over the crust once it comes out of the oven.

Bake cheesecake for 30 minutes, or until set and slightly puffed. Let cool completely on a rack, then chill for at least 2 hours until slicing into squares.

To make the strawberry coulis:
Trim and half the strawberries; place them in a medium bowl. Sprinkle sugar over the strawberries (I use about 1 tablespoon sugar for 1 pint of strawberries, but feel free to adjust to your taste) and stir to coat. Let them sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes, until juices form. Puree the strawberries in a blender or food processor until very smooth, then use a fine mesh strainer to strain out the tiny seeds. Store covered, in the refrigerator.

To make the roasted rhubarb:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Spread the sliced rhubarb out in a single layer in an 11×7 glass baking dish. Sprinkle the sugar over the rhubarb and stir to coat. Set aside for about 5 minutes to let juices start to form, then cover the dish with foil and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, peek under the foil to see if the sugar has almost melted. If not, replace the foil and roast another 5 minutes or so. When the sugar has almost melted, take the foil off the pan and roast, uncovered, 5 minutes longer. The syrup should be bubbling.

Remove the pan from the oven and let the rhubarb cool. You can store this, covered, in the fridge for a week.

To serve:
Spoon a little roasted rhubarb on top of a cheesecake square; drizzle the strawberry coulis over the plate.

CSA Week 3, plus Pizza with Kale, Roasted Garlic, & Four Cheeses

CSA Week 3: 6.25.09

Our CSA is doing  a nice job this year of mixing things up a little from week to week. We still get the same general categories of vegetables this time of year: some greens, radishes, turnips — but the other items have been varying a little from week to week, which makes for nice surprises when I open our share box.

So here’s the rundown this week: a nice head of romaine, a head of red curly kale, spinach, arugula, radishes, spring onions, salad turnips, and garlic scapes. Yum!

And in our fruit share, strawberries and rhubarb:

Finger Lakes Fruit Bowl Share: 6.25.09

I used the spring onions and arugula to make a dish I saw recently in Bon Appetit magazine — halibut with white beans, wilted arugula, and a brown-butter-caper vinaigrette. The original recipe uses fresh-caught trout, which oh boy, would I have loved to have used — but seeing as I hadn’t planned any fishing excursions, the wild Alaskan halibut I had was a nice substitute.

But the dish I really want to tell you about today was the pizza we had on Friday night…it was a white pizza, topped with little nubs of sweet roasted garlic, sauteed red curly kale, and four cheeses: fontina, asiago, provolone, and mozzarella. It was a winner!

Every time I roast a whole head of garlic I wonder why I don’t do it more often. I slice the top off a head of garlic so the tops of the cloves are exposed, place the head in a square of aluminum foil, drizzle some olive oil over the head, fold up the foil to make a little purse-like package, and bake it for about 45 minutes at 375 degrees F. I love the perfume of sweet garlic that wafts out of the package as I open it, and squeezing the soft cloves out of their papery skins is fun, to boot.

Curly kale can be a bit on the tough side, so I sauteed two big handfuls of it down in some olive oil until tender, then chopped it into small bits. I then layered this onto the pizza dough, mixing it with bits of the roasted garlic and grated cheese.

And out from the oven emerged…voilà!

Oooh, so tasty. It was like garlic-sauteed kale in cheesy, crusty form. A new favorite in our house!

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Pizza with Kale, Roasted Garlic & Four Cheeses

an Eggs on Sunday original

view printable recipe

Ingredients
pizza dough – your favorite or mine!
2 big handfuls of kale, sauteed in some olive oil until tender, then chopped
cloves from about half a head of roasted garlic,  thickly sliced
3 cups of grated cheese, a mix of fontina, asiago, provolone and mozzarella

Directions
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F with a baking stone inside (I place my baking stone on a rack, and place the rack on the lowest slot in the oven.)

Generously dust a pizza peel (or the back of a sheet pan) with coarse cornmeal or flour. Roll or stretch your pizza dough out to a 12 to 14 inch circle directly on the peel (or pan.)

Top the crust with half the grated cheese, then half the sliced roasted garlic and half the sauteed kale. Repeat with another layer of cheese, garlic, and kale.

Bake in the oven for about 8 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly and just starting to brown, and the crust is golden brown.

CSA Share, Week 2 – plus Garlic-Roasted Garbanzos & Chard over Polenta

CSA Share, Week 2

Our CSA share this week included some of the same things from last week, and some new pretty eye-catchers: kale, field greens, lettuce, golden swiss chard, French Breakfast radishes, salad turnips, and….greenhouse basil!

This also was the first week of our Finger Lakes Fruit Bowl share, in which we’ll be getting a sampling of seasonal fruit grown on farms in our region. We’re trying this share for the first time this year, and I’m super excited about it. Early June in upstate New York brings strawberries and rhubarb into season, and that’s exactly what we got in our Fruit Bowl share this week: a thick bunch of rosy rhubarb and a quart and pint of wonderfully sweet, ripe strawberries. Both of which I used in a strawberry rhubarb pie this weekend.

Finger Lakes Fruit Bowl Share, 6/18/09: Strawberries and Rhubarb

I wanted to pass along a tip I learned for storing herbs (learned a bit too late after many bags of herbs perished or rotted into oblivion in my fridge): I cut the stems fresh after bringing them home, stick them in a glass of cold water, place a plastic bag over the tops of the leaves — punch holes in the bag so air can circulate through — then secure the plastic bag onto the glass with a rubber band (sometimes you don’t have to do this if the bag fits pretty snugly). Stored in the fridge this way, the herbs will stay fresh for an unbelievably long time. I’ve had this fresh dill in the fridge for a few weeks and it’s looking as bright and fresh as the day I brought it home from the market. Since it’s cold, the water stays fairly clear of bacteria build-up (unlike when I used to keep herbs in a jar on the counter), though I do usually change it once a week or so. We’ll see how the basil fares, but so far, so good.

We’ve had a stretch of cool, rainy days here recently, which is great for the gardens and farms (as long as we get some sun and drier weather soon — don’t want things to start rotting!) but doesn’t exactly put me in a summery mood. In fact, last night it was in the 50’s, pouring rain, and as I pondered what to make for dinner I couldn’t help but think “I must have polenta.” (My relationship with polenta seems to have a direct correlation to the temperature and degree of precipitation outside, i.e. the colder and wetter it gets, the more I crave a bowl of the soft, comforting stuff.)

So I decided to make a recipe I came across on Epicurious the other day, when I was looking for a new way to use chard. I often like to make sautes of some type of bean, garlic, and chard together, sometimes served over pasta, sometimes over quinoa or brown rice, or even more often over soft polenta (or polenta triangles, if you make the polenta ahead, let it cool, and cut it into wedges.) The difference with this recipe is that the garbanzo beans are roasted in the oven with lots of garlic, shallots, fennel seed, bay leaves, and a generous amount of olive oil.

I used to despise garbanzo beans, having only ever really had them as the cold, mealy, hard nubbins served as part of lackluster salad bars. I really found a difference when I started buying organic canned garbanzos — they’re not mealy at all. This way of roasting them with spices, garlic, and oil rendered them velvety soft, almost melt-in-your-mouth, and unbelievably delicious! I had a hard time not eating most of them straight from the pan (I think I might also try roasting white beans this way…mmm, so delicious.)

Anyway, once the garbanzos are roasted, I started sauteing the chard with more garlic, shallots, and bay leaves, then braised the leaves in some chicken stock I’d made during the day (again, cool + rainy + time inside = Amy makes chicken stock.)

The resulting saute was earthy, garlicky, flavorful, and super, super delicious over a base of soft polenta (to which I’d mixed in a little fontina cheese.) So good! A great vegetarian main course, which we had with a side salad of our CSA field greens, salad turnips, radishes, and buttermilk dill dressing. You could also easily serve the garbanzos & chard over pasta, rice or another grain, or even lightly mashed as a topping for crostini. Yum!

(One last note: if you do serve it with polenta, the soft polenta sets up pretty quickly as it cools — so you can spread any leftovers on a sheet pan to let cool, then cut it into wedges to save for later.)

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Garlic-Roasted Garbanzo Beans & Swiss Chard over Polenta

Adapted from Bon Appetit

Instead of polenta, the garbanzo and chard saute would be equally delicious over pasta or any cooked grain.

view printable recipe

Ingredients
For the garbanzos:
2 15.5-ounce cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained (about 3 cups)
10 garlic cloves, peeled
2 large shallots
3 small bay leaves
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

For the chard:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 garlic cloves, peeled, chopped
3 small bay leaves
2 shallots, sliced
2 small or 1 large bunch Swiss chard, large ribs trimmed off, leaves coarsely torn
1 1/2 cups chicken stock (or storebought low-salt good quality chicken broth)

For the polenta:
4 cups water or milk, or a combination
1 cup polenta (coarse-ground cornmeal), not instant
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup grated cheese, such as parmigiano-reggiano or fontina

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a Pyrex baking dish (8×8 or 11×7), combine the garbanzos, garlic, shallots, and bay leaves. Sprinkle with coarse salt and black pepper, then pour the olive oil over the pan. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes, until the garlic cloves and shallots are soft. Set aside at room temperature until ready to add to the chard.

After you put the garbanzos in to roast, start your polenta. In a medium pot, bring 4 cups of water or milk and a teaspoon of salt to the boil. Stream in the polenta, whisking contantly, and continue whisking until the polenta thickens slightly and is suspended throughout the liquid, about 1 minute. Cover the pot, turn down the heat, and simmer for 1 hour. Stir the polenta occasionally; it should be cooking at a rate of a slow bubble.

About 15 minutes before your polenta is finished cooking, make the chard: Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add the garlic, bay leaves, and shallots, cover, and cook until the shallots are tender, about 10 minutes. Uncover and add the swiss chard, stirring to coat with the olive oil. Add the chicken stock, stir to combine, then cover the pot to braise the chard until it’s wilted and tender.

Uncover the pot and continue to cook until some of the broth has evaporated, then add the roasted garbanzo bean mixture. Stir to combine, cook over medium heat until heated through, a few more minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings with salt or pepper as needed.

At this point your polenta should be finished cooking. Turn off the heat and add the 3 tablespoons of butter and 1/2 cup of grated cheese. Stir until the cheese is melted, then divide among serving dishes (if you have any leftover, spread it on a sheet pan to cool.)

Spoon the chard & garbanzo mixture, with some of the juices, over the polenta.

Makes 4-6 main course servings.

CSA Share, Week 1

We received our first CSA share of the season this week: ceeeee-le-brate good times, come on!

CSA Share, Week 1

In this week’s share: kale, collards, lettuce, baby salad greens, garlic scapes, arugula, fingerling potatoes, radishes, and salad turnips.

I’ve been waiting for this week with quite a bit of anticipation. It’s our 4th year belonging to a CSA, and for the past 2 years, we’ve had shares in the Full Plate Farm Collective. This CSA is unique in that it’s a collective of 3 farms:

• Remembrance Farm, which is certified organic and biodynamic, and specializes in salad greens, onions, and root crops
• Stick and Stone Farm, which is certified organic, and grows a wide range of vegetables, including lettuce, cooking greens, summer and winter squash, heirloom tomatoes, beets and spinach.They also have a lovely U-pick section of the farm for shareholders.
• Three Swallows Farm, which is certified organic and biodynamic, and specialized in hot weather crops like eggplant, hot peppers, tomatoes, and melons.

We love the fact that this CSA allows us to support three local farms at once. They do a great job of providing a variety of produce throughout the growing season, and offer a few different pick-up and delivery options to give people all around the Ithaca area a way to conveniently get their shares.

We’ve found in our CSA experience that June in the cooler climate of the Northeast usually brings greens, greens, and more greens! The first year we belonged to a CSA, I was exposed to a few kinds of greens I’d never cooked before — kale, mustard greens, collards — but one of the best things about being a CSA shareholder (in my opinion) is the learning process of figuring out how and what to cook with the vegetables you get each week (and kale, incidentally, is absolutely one of my favorite vegetables now.)

One of the other things I had to learn fairly quickly was how to best store the vegetables we received and how I could space the vegetables out over the week. Greens are pretty perishable, but there are certain ones that keep longer than others. Here are a few tips that have worked for me:

• Salad greens, particularly baby greens and arugula, are quite perishable and should be used in the first few days after you bring them home. They’re best stored in the front part of the fridge, where it’s not as cold as the rear.
• We receive our baby salad greens in plastic bags, misted with water. I tried keeping them in this bag during the week, but ended up sacrificing a few that rotted from the moisture. Now, when I bring them home, I spin them dry in a salad spinner and transfer them to a dry ziptop bag; they seem to keep well in the fridge for a few days, sealed, this way.
• Kale and collards are sturdier and can be stored in the fridge for most of the week. Kale, especially, doesn’t mind colder temperatures and can take being pushed towards the back of the fridge if you’re cramped for space.
• Radish greens and turnip greens are delicious and shouldn’t be discarded. Both are, however, fragile and I usually try to use them the same day that I receive the radishes and turnips. They both have a peppery flavor, with turnip greens having a taste reminiscent of mustard greens (but not quite as spicy.) Radish greens are terrific mixed into a salad or sauteed, and turnip greens are delicious given a light braise or saute with garlic and olive oil.

The reason I was so thrilled to see all of these crunchy greens in our share is that we have been gorging on salads with dinner lately, now that local lettuce is in season, and I am positively obsessed with this buttermilk dill dressing that I mixed up one day, after picking up a gorgeous bunch of feathery dill at the farmer’s market.

come to mama

We’ve been eating this kind of salad non-stop lately with whatever I bring back on the weekend from the farmer’s market; recently, it’s been tender baby greens with salad turnips (more delicate and mild than the fall storage turnips, I love them!), radishes, and a few chive blossoms thrown in from the chives I have growing in a pot outside.

salad turnips

Easter Egg radishes

beautiful (edible!) chive blossoms

The tang of the buttermilk and fresh dill is a perfect match for the crunchy, delicate greens and thinly sliced radishes and salad turnips. On the day we brought home the share, I blanched the fingerlings in salted water, let them cool slightly, sliced them and tossed them in with the salad — the dressing is a wonderful topping for potatoes, too (you could try it on a potato salad – yum!) We’ve also had it as a sauce for poached salmon (delicious), served with some sliced greenhouse cucumbers that I picked up at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago. I’ve even used it as a dip for raw vegetables (just use less, or leave out, the buttermilk so it’s a thicker consistency.)

I’m a bit embarrassed to tell you how much of this I’ve made already this spring…I can’t get enough of it!

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Buttermilk Dill Dressing

an Eggs on Sunday original
view printable recipe

You can make this into a dip, instead; just reduce the amount of buttermilk used (or leave it out entirely, relying just on the sour cream and mayonnaise for thickness.)

Makes 2 cups of dressing (enough for quite a few salads!)

Ingredients

1 cup sour cream
2 Tbsp mayonnaise
1 small shallot, minced
1 tsp dijon mustard
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp coarse salt (plus any additional to taste)
freshly ground black pepper – at least 1/2 tsp
3 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 cup buttermilk

Preparation

In a medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream, mayonnaise, minced shallot, mustard, lemon juice, salt, and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Whisk in the chopped fresh dill. Slowly add the buttermilk in a stream, whisking constantly until it’s the consistency you like (I find the 1 cup makes a good consistency for a salad dressing.)

A little color therapy for winter…

It is still very much winter here. And tomorrow begins March, which is my least favorite month for its drippy, dreary days. Now’s about the time when I start craving crisp, crunchy things and bursts of color, the kinds of things we see a whole lot more of in the spring and summer months. How does a girl get through this last push to winter’s finish line?

How about starting with some watermelon radishes? Besides the obvious summer connotation — watermelon! — they actually do look a little bit like a watermelon slice. Pale green on the outer layer of skin, white just inside, and then: ta-dah! A gorgeous bright hot pink sunburst in the center. I smile every time I slice one of these open.

And besides their gorgeous color, they’re a great antidote to the winter doldrums. They’re crunchy, fresh, and lack any of the hot “radish-y” taste that some people dislike. We’ve been getting them in our winter CSA share each week (which actually just ended this past week; sniff sniff!) but I’ve also seen them in our local co-op. Why not hunt around for them in your area?

So this was lunch today: I combined some red leaf lettuce with some chopped kale, sliced roasted beets, and watermelon radish slices (all but the red leaf lettuce from our winter share.) I drizzled the whole plate with extra-virgin olive oil and a balsamic reduction, then sprinkled the salad with crumbled fresh local goat cheese and (sorry, unlocal) pistachios. And of course, finished it off with some flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Pink, gold, dark purple, dark green, light green…woo! This is winter color therapy.

We’re almost there, folks! As my friend’s father used to say: “sprint to the finish!” (That’s for you, M!)

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Winter Salad with Beets, Watermelon Radishes, Pistachios and Balsamic Reduction

an Eggs on Sunday original

view printable recipe

The balsamic reduction is a staple in our house; I love to top salads with it and it can elevate inexpensive, store-bought balsamic vinegar to something syrupy and sublime.

Ingredients
a mix of red leaf lettuce and kale (Lacinato kale is a bit less bitter than curly kale, but either will do)
a few slices of roasted beets – try using a mix of golden and red
sliced watermelon radish
crumbled fresh goat cheese
balsamic vinegar (start with about 1/4  to 1/3 cup for 2 servings; see directions below)
extra-virgin olive oil
flaky sea salt (I like the Maldon brand)
freshly ground black pepper
chopped pistachios

Directions

To make the balsamic reduction, place the balsamic vinegar (about 1/4 to 1/3 cup for 2 servings) in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and then reduce until it’s a syrupy consistency. This usually takes me a few minutes, and don’t leave it because it can reduce pretty quickly. Also, be careful inhaling directly over the reducing liquid – it’s potent! Test it with a spoon as it reduces and once it’s reduced by about half, to a thicker, almost syrupy consistency, turn off the heat.

Combine the lettuce, kale, beets, and radishes on two plates. Drizzle the plates with extra-virgin olive oil, then the balsamic reduction. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, then top with the crumbled goat cheese and chopped pistachios.

Simple Root Vegetable Slaw

So, as I fairly gushed about in my post earlier this week, we are indeed getting a winter share from our CSA, and it does not disappoint! Especially if – like me – you adore root vegetables. It’s like Christmas every week when I open our box; I’m amazed at the planning that must go into these shares and the fact that, in the dead of an upstate New York winter, these farmers can supply shareholders with what seems like a continuous supply of carrots, parsnips, beets, onions, garlic, potatoes, and other assorted winter veg. Often times we get some type of winter greens, like kale or baby collards, sometimes brussel sprouts still on their stalk (see the brussel sprouts in my blog header photo? Those are from our CSA…) and a variety of different winter squash, which in my mind, is one of the best parts!

this week’s share

gnarly, knobby and beautiful

Storing these root vegetables is admittedly easier than some of the more perishable produce we get in the spring/summer growing season. We don’t have a root cellar where we’re living right now, but a lot of the root crops store well for a few weeks, actually, in a drawer in our fridge. I keep our potatoes and winter squash out in bins in our garage, where it’s unheated but doesn’t reach freezing, and the onions and garlic in an open bin in our pantry closet, where it’s nice and dark. So far so good – things have been keeping pretty well.

Each week, our CSA coordinator sends out a list of what’s coming in the share that week, and some ideas for cooking each. She had a great idea this past week for making a root vegetable slaw, with grated carrots, beets, turnips, etc., dressed in any kind of vinaigrette. I love this idea because a slightly acidic, crunchy, raw side dish is a perfect antidote for some of the richer braises, casseroles, and just generally warm, rich foods we tend to gravitate towards this time of year. She suggested dressing the slaw with a little lime juice, sesame oil, and salt – and that would be delicious, no doubt – but for my slaw, I used a traditional vinaigrette with extra-virgin olive oil, apple cider vinegar, whole grain dijon mustard and some local honey for just a touch of sweetness.

You could certainly grate your veg by hand, but if you have a food processor with a shredding blade, by all means make use of it! I used carrots, parsnips, golden beets, turnips, and a rutabaga, and the shredding blade made quick work of them all. The sunset hues in the slaw are a feast for the eyes, don’t you think? Tossed with the vinaigrette and seasoned with additional sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, this is a great side dish or snack – I find it a bit addictive!

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view printable recipe

Inspired by Full Plate Farm Collective’s CSA coordinator

Ingredients
2 pounds mixed root vegetables, such as turnips, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, celery root, golden beets (if using red beets, keep them separate and mix in only at the end)
2/3 cup good quality extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1 tablespoon dijon mustard (I like whole-grain)
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Peel the skins off of your root vegetables and shred them either by hand or with the shredding blade of a food processor. Place all the shredded vegetables in a large bowl.

Make your vinaigrette: in a medium bowl, whisk together the minced shallot, mustard, vinegar, salt and honey. Whisking all the while, stream in the olive oil and keep whisking until you have an emulsion. Season to taste with a little more sea salt and pepper, as you like.

Pour the vinaigrette over the shredded vegetables and toss thoroughly. Taste and season with more sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, according to your taste. Let sit for 10-30 minutes to allow the flavors to blend.

Roasted Delicata Squash Stuffed with White Beans, Greens & Sage

Recently, we went to a “Harvest Dinner,” an event organized by Edible Finger Lakes, pairing local farmers with local winemakers and local chefs to create a menu and meal that celebrated the bounty from our area during the growing season. One of these Harvest Dinners occurred each month during the summer and fall, each featuring a different farm/winery/chef combination. As it so happened, the farms in our CSA were being featured in the early October Harvest Dinner! We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go — it promised to be a wonderful meal, and we were excited about supporting our CSA farmers and celebrating all the great local food resources we have available in our area. Plus, it was for a great cause  — proceeds from the dinner went to support Healthy Food for All, a program that partners with our local farms to provide subsidized shares to low income families.

I couldn’t resist sharing some pictures from the event with you here, as well as a recipe that I was inspired to create after the dinner: roasted delicata squash filled with a garlicky mixture of creamy white beans and sauteed greens, accented with autumn-y sage, dusted with a crispy topping of breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese.It was so, so delicious!

The Harvest Dinner was held in the main barn at Stick and Stone Farm; the large barn was filled with round tables topped with white linen, china, and a few plump butternut squashes and bouquets of wildflowers. What a great contrast between elegant dining and the rustic farm setting.

rustic and elegant – and absolutely lovely.

CSA Week #14, and Warm Cabbage, Apple & Onion Slaw

This week’s share was as colorful as always, maybe even a bit more so than usual, and I was delighted to find inside our box (a) a perfectly round, heavy, bowling-ball sized watermelon; (b) baby golden beets!; and (c) a return appearance of rainbow chard. Regarding the chard, we still have a lot of it growing in our garden, so it’s not like I’m particularly chard deprived, but I just love it so! We eat it sauteed, chopped into ribbons and tossed raw in salads, cooked and mixed into all varieties of dishes, and I’ve been blanching and freezing extra chard in vacuum sealed bags.

So, the share this week included:

• rainbow chard
• baby golden beets
• watermelon (sugar baby?)
• onions
• yellow squash
• garlic
• tomatoes
• salad greens

Really, this whole CSA share is just such a joy. I found out this week that we’ll continue to get vegetables into the early weeks of November (weather permitting), which is even longer than I was expecting, and makes me giddy to think of what winter squash/pumpkins/fall produce might be awaiting us! The farmers have done a really excellent job planning produce for the shares: it seems like they space things out so we’re not inundated with any one vegetable each week, we seem to get a steady supply of staples like onions, garlic, and greens, and there’s always interesting variety with the rest of the share…I really admire that, as I know it’s not an easy task. Heck, I have a tough enough time staggering things in our small kitchen garden so everything doesn’t come in at once — see above chard example — so I can’t imagine how much planning must go into providing for all the shareholders.

I really appreciate the fact that they’ve been giving us a steady supply of onions and garlic each week, since those are pantry staples that I cook with all the time. One of the ways I put the onions to use recently was in this warm cabbage, apple and onion slaw.

CSA Week #13, and Gazpacho Salsa

The theme for this week’s CSA Share: show a little love for the pattypan squash! We received 10 — count ‘em, 10 — pattypan squash. Now, I like summer squash as much as the next person, but I have to admit that I’m not brimming over with ideas for cooking with them. I did come across these two recipes in the August issue of Gourmet, which seem great for using all the vegetables we’re inundated with this time of year. Yummy!

This week’s share also included:

• spinach
• baby salad greens
• 2 Japanese eggplant
• 3 onions
• 2 plump garlic cloves
• oodles of carrots
• various tomatoes
• celery

On top of all the delicious vegetables above, we are now in prime pepper season here! One of my favorite stands at the Farmer’s Market has had gorgeous, gorgeous colored peppers for the past few weeks.

These literally stopped me dead in my tracks when I spotted them — they were all shades of red, yellow, orange, purple, and every sunset hue in between. They’re organic, too: how could I not buy a huge bag?? (Bell peppers are near the top of the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen” list of produce that retains the highest levels of pesticides…a very good reason to choose organic.)

The gorgeous colors in the peppers were echoed in the lovely, vibrant dahlias at a nearby cut flower stand, too.

The abundance of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and celery meant that I was finally able to try a recipe I’d kept filed away in the back of my mind all summer, waiting for the time when all the vegetables came into season: gazpacho salsa!

(Click “more” to continue reading and the recipe)

CSA Week 12, a great concert, and Chocolate Zucchini Cake!

Well, we’re back, and boy am I glad we have a three-day weekend to extend our vacation a little longer! Thanks for all your comments while I was gone; I’ll be responding to them this weekend…I’m glad you enjoyed seeing some of the things in our garden! I have more pictures to share, I just have been woefully behind on getting through all my image editing this summer.

Our refrigerator is now packed to the gills with vegetables. We picked up our last share before heading off on vacation, and while we brought some of the share vegetables with us (along with all those tomatoes from our garden), the reality was we couldn’t bring them all…so, we still have many of them waiting for us to use, along with the new share we picked up this week:

• watermelon!
• tomatoes
• pattypan squash
• zucchini
• green peppers
• leeks
• arugula!
• baby salad greens
• beets (to add to the entire time-zone in our refrigerator that is taken up by the beets from our garden and share)

And some additional vegetables I picked up at the farmer’s market this morning (gulp.) Hello, my name is Amy, and I am a summer produce addict! Incidentally, I was looking back through many of my recent posts — it really has been veggie central around here, hasn’t it? It’s gotten to the point where I actually have *dreams* about how I’m going to use the vegetables…one night while we were camping, I tossed and turned and drifted in and out of semi-consciousness puzzling through what I was going to make with some of the vegetables I knew were waiting back home for us. Yikes.

(click “more” to hear about the camping trip, and that cake recipe!)