R.A.G.B.R.A.I., Fishing, and other Summer Fun

8:58 PM Adrian 0 Comments

Hey folks!  Hope everyone has been enjoying some nice summer activities, in spite of the heat.  Maybe swimming at a pool or lake, some camping, perhaps fishing or canoeing...or gardening!  Some of our crew took a few days off to participate in R.A.G.B.R.A.I., (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Race Across Iowa) which seems like an awesome summer thing to do!  It was really hot one day (105!) and there was a bad storm in one of their stopping towns, but they all said it was great fun.  We sure wish a storm had hit us!  Seems like the last cold front that came through took a lot of pains to actually avoid raining on us, much to our frustration.  A bit of rain, even a little here and there, can be of some help and relief to us....but my, this drought continues!

All our garlic has long since been pulled, and is now stacked and stored, curing in our barn.  Our Sungold cherry tomatoes have really kicked in now!  We are pulling pints upon pints from our vines.  They are quickly becoming one of our main crops, along with our kale varieties.  Cherokee purple tomatoes have finally set and flushed their purple colors, the first of our round of heirlooms.  Several were picked just yesterday!  Broccoli continues to send up heads in considerable numbers, you'll notice some of the crowns this week have come out an interesting shade of deep purple and burgundy!  I've never seen this before and I don't know what causes it, but it is quite pretty!  On average the heads are getting smaller and smaller as the plant loses steam through the season.  We will have some medium-size crowns available for CSA members as well as some smaller florettes that we can distribute in an amount on-par to the size of the larger broccoli.  In a little while, however, our other patch or broccoli should be pushing up the same big crowns that we had available before!  Of course, size doesn't matter.  If you are a seasoned buyer of produce, you and I both know that typically the smaller-sized vegetables and fruits you can get are packed with more flavor!

Our CSA list may be a bit skimpy this week (and perhaps in the next couple weeks) as we make the transition from our main summer bulk to our cooler fall fare.  In fact, we have been at work planting the next round of seedlings in flats that we will be transplanting come September or October.  This includes head and leaf lettuces, bok choy, beets, and cilantro so far!  They have already sprouted and are spreading their little leaves out towards the sun in our starts houses.  We have to keep a close eye on them in this weather...a couple hours of neglect and they could dry right up!  Kale, brussel sprouts, broccoli, dandelion, and more are on the way.  Don't worry, some of our hot season crops have yet to kick in and will be (hopefully, despite heat/dryness!) pumping out fruit in no time!  Sweet peppers, hot peppers, and eggplants are already bearing and setting, but not in nearly the numbers we can muster to provide for all of you CSA folks.  We were able to get some of you our first round of green beans!  It's a bit uncertain as of now how our bean plants will do in the next couple weeks, but we hope to get more out yet, and we are taking great care to water them.  They are producing lots of flowers, so that is hopeful! 

Sadly, we had to pull the last of our zucchini and Yellow Zephyr squashes out of our greenhouses, they suffered too greatly from a combination of heat stress, mole damage and an enormous hatch of squash bugs.  No more summer squash.  And to add another sad note, the squash bugs went straight for our little cucumbers after they had nothing left to eat!  No cucumbers this year.  However, the two large plots of winter squash have been weeded and tended to well so we can be optimistic that there will be a round of winter squash for all of you in the future!

In spite of all the hard work we do, we take some time to relax and have fun on our off time.  Some of us go on fishing trips, others of us go on bicycle races.  We enjoyed a splendid dinner recently of local Iowan trout that one of our farmers Will caught last week, stuffed with feta, sunflower seeds and wild cherries with an anise hyssop plum sauce.  Simple yet decadent, but totally delicious.  We watch our big flock of kittens make friends with each other, play, chase us on farm walks, and settle old quarrels under big bright Iowa sunsets on relieving cool evenings.  Hope you're all enjoying the great things about summer, too!

What to expect this week:
  • Kale
  • Garlic
  • Sungold Cherry Tomatoes
  • Mint
  • Basil
  • Broccoli
  • Potatoes

Recipes

Garlic Red Potatoes (allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds red potatoes, quartered
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted
  • 2 teaspoons minced garlic
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 lemon, juiced
  • 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. Place potatoes in an 8x8 inch baking dish.
  3. In a small bowl combine melted butter, garlic, salt and lemon juice; pour over potatoes and stir to coat. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over potatoes.
  4. Bake, covered, in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

Spicy Brussel Sprouts with Mint (www.huffingtonpost.com)

(*If you're one of those people who still claims to hate Brussels sprouts, we guarantee you'll change your mind after trying this recipe. The sprouts are well browned, giving them a nice charred flavor!  They're then tossed with Rice Krispies (that's right, the snap, crackle and pop kind) and dressed with a sweet-and-spicy vinaigrette.)

Ingredients

Directions

  • 1. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil until shimmering. Add the Rice Krispies and togarashi and cook over high heat, stirring, until browned, about 30 seconds. Season with salt. Transfer to a plate and wipe out the skillet.
  • 2. In a small bowl, combine the fish sauce, water, sugar, rice vinegar, lime juice, garlic and chile and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the cilantro and mint.
  • 3. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil to the skillet and heat until nearly smoking. Add the brussels sprouts; cook over high heat, stirring, until charred in spots and heated through, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and toss with the vinaigrette. Just before serving, sprinkle the Rice Krispies on top and serve right away.

 Fusilli with Sausage, Kale, and Sungold Tomatoes (www.seriouseats.com)

Ingredients

  • 1 pound fusilli or other short pasta
  • 1 large bunch kale, leaves chopped and stems discarded
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 3/4 pound sweet Italian sausage, removed from skins and crumbled
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 2 tablepoons fennel seeds, crushed in a mortar and pestle (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 12-15 whole cherry tomatoes, such as Sungolds
  • 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, plus more for topping

Procedures

1. Bring two pots of salted water to boil: 1 for the kale, 1 for the pasta. Cook the kale in boiling water until tender, then drain well and set aside. Cook the pasta until al dente, reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking water before draining.
2. In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and crumble the sausage into the skillet. Cook, breaking up well with a wooden spoon, until the fat is rendered and the meat is starting to brown. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, and fennel seeds and continue cooking until the sausage is golden brown and caramelized.
3. Add the blanched kale and stir to coat well. Cook for 2-3 minutes, then add the cherry tomatoes and cook until they just begin to lose their shape. Add the drained pasta, tossing to coat in the fat, adding pasta water and Parmesan as necessary to create a silky sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper and divide among bowls, topping with remaining Parmesan.
 
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Please tell us if you can't identify something on the market table, don't know what to do with a particular item, have a food allergy we should know about, or if you have other questions or comments. We love to hear from you!


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Droughty Times

8:17 PM derek 0 Comments

Greetings all!  We're holding our own during this record-breaking drought.  Yep- the worst drought in four decades.  We've been struck by heat advisory after heat advisory.  It's pretty brutal out there for us farmers, but at the very least it seems that we got just enough rain in the times before the drought to pull us through...and looking at our conventional corn-farming neighbors, our last rain of about an inch (about three weeks ago) was enough to make their corn look way taller and heftier than corn in places that haven't gotten rain in months. 

Fortunately, most of our veggies are mature enough not to need too much help, getting ample amounts of water daily with our routine watering shifts.  Our Sungold cherry tomato harvest is really kicking in.  We've picked loads off our plants out here in the country as well as Derek's house on Ginter Ave.  Our green beans have been slow to flower and bud, but are now yielding the first wave that our CSA members will receive! Peppers and eggplants are coming on, though there aren't enough ripe fruits to pick for CSA shares quite yet.  We have yet to see our first big heirloom slicer tomatoes.  They've managed to produce plump green fruits that now only need to get that blush of ripeness from the sun.  Basil plants get bushier and bushier.  Our first patch of broccoli is toward the end of its first production but our second patch is only just starting to head up!  So there will be plenty more broccoli to come, although there may be a bit of a lull in between phases.  As usual, we have tons of kale.  We hope you're not sick of it yet!  Despite some maladies we faced, our kale is looking more big and beautiful than ever.  We are most stoked about our lacinato variety which we have never seen do so well!  Those Japanese beetles love the stuff so much to the point of leaving a row of kale skeletons in their wake.  None for us.

Speaking of Japanese beetles, we have heard from many farmers in the state that they are particularly bad this year!  We have been using consistent sprays of Pyganic and Oxidate (both organic-certifier approved!) on our beleaguered crops with much success, probably one of the reasons why our Lacinato kale (also called dinosaur kale) looks so good.  We have also had hard times with squash and cucumber bugs, and....moles!  Every day, our squash plants look worse and worse because there are moles in our greenhouse that are slowly taking them out!  Yes it seems for a while we may not have any squash for you folks, but on the plus side we've got a phase of cucumbers on the way, as well as an entire acre of several winter squash varieties planted.

We are beginning to prep our new seeds for fall!  It is about that time.  Flats of lettuce, mei choi (a kind of bok choy), and beets will be started for the end of the summer.  We also hope to see more broccoli, kale, and celery (!) get sown at the end of summer for the cooler weather.

This week for CSA we're featuring a couple of interesting culinary herbs lent to us from our neighboring organic farm friends over at Hue Hill.   They might seem a bit esoteric to some of you (tarragon may be familiar, perhaps hyssop not so much) but we will be happily providing you with some recipes to try them out.  For those of you interested in herbal medicine, hyssop tends to be a popular additive to herbal cough syrups used for colds and upper respiratory maladies.  Tarragon is an herb very frequently employed in French cuisine.

Well, that's all we got goin' on with us.  Stay cool, and stay hydrated!  See you next week!

On the table this week:
  • Kale
  • Sungold Cherry Tomatoes
  • Garlic
  • Basil
  • Broccoli
  • Potatoes
  • Hyssop
  • Tarragon
  • Green Beans

Recipes

Hyssop Cranberry Bean Salad (www.gardencentre.com) 

Ingredients

  • 20 oz. canned cranberry beans, drained
  • 8 oz. French beans, cut into 1 inch sticks
  • 2 large cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4 Tbsp. lemon juice
  • 4 sprigs fresh hyssop, finely chopped
  • 1 Tsp. salt
  • 1 Tsp. black pepper
  • 14 oz. precooked tender Thai rice, drained
  • 4 oz. Boursin cheese, cubed
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp. sunflower oil
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
  • 8 iceberg lettuce, shredded

Preparation

Combine cilantro, sunflower oil and lemon juice. Toss lettuce in dressing and arrange on a salad platter.

In another bowl, combine cranberry beans, French beans, garlic, lemon juice, hyssop, salt, black pepper, Thai rice and Boursin cheese. Spoon bean mixture on top of the lettuce salad. Serve cold with a light green salad and buttered sourdough bread.


Bacon Fried Green Beans (foodnetwork.com)

Ingredients

Directions

In a skillet, heat a drizzle of oil over medium-high heat, when hot add bacon and pepper and cook the bacon until crisp, 5 minutes. Add beans to bacon and cook about 3 to 5, tossing. Season with vinegar and sugar prior to serving.



Dijon-Tarragon Cream Chicken (allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon

Directions

  1. Melt the butter and heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper, and place in the skillet. Brown on both sides. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and continue cooking 15 minutes, or until chicken juices run clear. Set aside and keep warm.
  2. Stir cream into the pan, scraping up brown bits. Mix in mustard and tarragon. Cook and stir 5 minutes, or until thickened. Return chicken to skillet to coat with sauce. Drizzle chicken with remaining sauce to serve.


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    Please tell us if you can't identify something on the market table, don't know what to do with a particular item, have a food allergy we should know about, or if you have other questions or comments. We love to hear from you!
     
     

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Less Hot is Good

7:33 PM Adrian 1 Comments

Hey folks!  A little relief...finally!...has come our way this week.  Those blistering hot temps in the 90's and higher were really wearying us.  We've been enjoying the drop back into the normal summer 80 degree weather, and these cooler nights that have been adding onto our relief.  Now if we could only get some more rain!

We were a little worried what this would mean for our crops, some of them have already been affected a bit adversely.  There have been some plant deaths, as well as weird, wonky illnesses and diseases as a result of the intense dryness and subsequent intense waterings.  The newly-planted rows of asparagus we put a lot of effort into getting started this year have felt it pretty hard, and many of our new plants may have even died as a result of this intense heat wave.  Our broccoli crowns my have the tendency towards being more yellow than usual, although from some member's reports, they still taste delicious.  Some of our zucchini plants are dying at random.  Perhaps it's those squash bugs that bore into their roots, or some form of root rot, or not enough water, too much heat...or a combination of these.  It is hard to tell.  Either way, they are stressed out.  As a result we have less zucchini than expected, but still a lot of Yellow Zephyr squashes.  Some of the fruits they have produced are rather odd-shaped, but not in any way affecting their flavor.  Our kale varieties have been experiencing some strange rot issues and, of course, the average pest problems, which we have been working diligently to avoid the worst consequences.  In fact, we are reaping a plentiful harvest nonetheless.  We pull in and sell dozens of bunches that look beautiful and taste delicious on our order days, so despite these problems, nothing to worry about yet!  Less intense watering and cutting off kale leaves too close to the ground are great ways to remedy this, which we have been doing so far.   

If you receive produce from us that seems more lackluster than usual, has a strange shape, color, or constitution, please bear with us!  In general, the aesthetic appearance of vegetables (holes, spots, strange shapes, etc) has little to do with their flavor and nutrient content, with some major exceptions, of course. This is one of the facets of organic produce that some people don't understand (we deeply appreciate those of you who do).  No, we cannot procure the most flawless looking produce we can grow, like most vegetables you see in the produce section at the store.  Growing a bunch of kale completely free of holes is near to impossible.  Growing absolutely perfect-looking beets is also a challenge, unless we had those unnatural tools to eliminate those completely natural stress factors plants experience.  We sure don't kill what may effect or feed upon our vegetables naturally with the use of harmful chemicals, and we sure as heck don't grow from genetically modified seed and plants to somehow alter and "perfect" the appearance or "perishability" of our vegetables!  That's what being organic is all about.  And despite the obstacles, we find that the majority of what we harvest turns out looking gorgeous and tasting great. 

We can only do so much to prevent the scores of diseases and pests that are way more prevalent this year as a result of this past mild winter.  Sure, mild winters can be great, but the cold and icy winters typical to Iowa are one of our greatest helpers in keeping pest control down.  Subzero temperatures prevent the usual pests from reproducing in such high numbers by destroying some of their eggs, or disallowing them to reproduce as often altogether.  We are seeing abnormally high numbers of them this season, and we've been doing all we can to keep the worst at bay, as well as minimizing any damage we have experienced.  Such is the fight and plight of the organic farmer, lacking the aid of pesticides (yuck!)  We make this statement in the hopes that you understand what it means to be a CSA member, and to support an organic vegetable CSA in both times of bounty, as well as periods of struggle.  Additionally, we thank you for your patronage and support to make this business possible!  We will continue to do the best we can do to bring our produce successfully (and unscathed!) to your table!  We ask for your understanding in return.

Now, onto more positive things.  The past weekend's Garlic Party was successful and very fun!  A few people showed up, a lot of garlic was pulled and processed, and in fact we got through an entire field!  About an acre of garlic!  We thank all those who attended and helped.  Some folks camped right out here on the property in their tents, and woke up with us for a lovely waffle breakfast.  It was a hot couple of days, but very productive and fun.  In the evening after, delicious food was cooked by farmer Derek featuring our farm's produce, we had tasty desserts that featured the amazing amount of black raspberries that have been ripening out by our woods!  We have the high numbers of bees on our property this year to thank for this.  (Note: if you would ever like to come out and pick black raspberries, you are more than welcome!  We'll have a U-pick arrangement available, and the cost of picking and keeping will be very cheap, plus the berries are super delicious!)

Last week we may have surprised you with our first harvest of potatoes we planted in Spring!  They will be in the CSA box this week as well, and you can expect them from now on throughout the season.  We hope you enjoy(ed) them!

Thank you to those who read and follow us.  That's all in the Echollective's news this week.  Hope to see you at market!

On the table this week:
  • Potatoes
  • Kale (bunch)
  • Sungold Cherry Tomatoes
  • Yellow Zephyr Squash
  • Garlic
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Broccoli
  • Basil

Recipes

Sungold Tomato Nuggets (www.fourgreenacres.com)

Halve Sungold tomatoes (or another flavorful cherry tomato). Scoop out the seeds (and feed the seedy slurry to the chickens...)

Place the tomato halves cut side up on a baking tray.
 
For two quarter-sheet trays of tomatoes (or one regular cookie sheet), mix together a fluid paste of:
  • 3/4 cup good olive oil
  • 4 tablespoons of grated parmigiana cheese
  • 2 (or more, to taste) cloves of garlic, crushed and minced
  • fresh thyme leaves stripped off the stems (or oregano if that's more to your liking)
  • sea salt
  • ground pepper
With a little spoon, dribble the paste into each of the tomato cups.
 
Bake in a 250 or 300 degree Fahrenheit oven. Use your judgment. You want it to be a slow heat that will slowly caramelize the tomatoes into something like a tomato raisin -- a tomato raisin, that is, with an additional little explosion of juicy, savory olive oil.
 
 Freeze them in jars and keep them in an easily accessible bit of the freezer because you'll want to grab a few now and then to give a flavorful lilt to toast with ricotta cheese or a broiled slab of French feta or zucchini pizza or... The possibilities are truly endless.

Broccoli with Black Bean-Garlic Sauce (www.huffingtonpost.com)

Ingredients
Directions
 
1. Toast sesame seeds in a small dry skillet over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until lightly browned and fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl to cool.
2. Mix 1/4 cup water, vinegar and cornstarch in a small bowl. Add black bean sauce and stir until smooth.
3. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet or stir-fry pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and stir-fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add broccoli and stir to coat. Add the remaining 1/4 cup water; cover and steam just until the broccoli is tender-crisp, 1 to 3 minutes. Push broccoli to the sides and pour the sauce mixture in the center. Stir until the sauce begins to thicken, about 1 minute. Stir in the broccoli to coat. Serve immediately, sprinkled with the sesame seeds.

Ingredient Note: Black bean-garlic sauce, made from pureed salted and fermented black soybeans, is a widely used condiment in Chinese cooking and can be found with the Asian food in most supermarkets.
 
 
Roasted Zephyr Squash Medley with Fresh Basil Pesto (robotheartrecipes.tumblr.com)
 
INGREDIENTS

Pesto
  • 2 1/2 cups basil leaves
  • 2 large cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
Veggies
  • 2 large zephyr squashes, cut into medium pieces
  • 1 medium red onion, cut into large wedges
  • 6 large cremini mushrooms, cut into fourths
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
  • shaved Parmesan for serving (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

Step One: For the pesto, add basil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan, and olive oil to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until combined well and smooth in texture. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate at least one hour prior to using, preferably overnight.
Step Two: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place vegetables into a roasting pan; spread evenly. Toss with olive oil; season with salt and pepper. Place in oven and roast. Stir after 12 minutes. Return to oven and roast an additional 10-12 minutes, or until vegetables are golden brown and tender.
Step Three: Gently toss pesto into vegetable mixture. Serve topped with shaved Parmesan if desired.

Source: A Robot Heart Recipes Original.

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Please tell us if you can't identify something on the market table, don't know what to do with a particular item, have a food allergy we should know about, or if you have other questions or comments. We love to hear from you!


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Garlic Party This Weekend!

8:25 PM Adrian 0 Comments

Hi everyone!  Hope everyone has been successful at staying cool in this persistent summer heat as of late.  Nearly everyday, it's been 90 degrees!  And the hot nights don't help.  We at Echollective have been tending to take afternoon dips at a nearby waterhole during the hottest hours of the day.  Times have been sweaty and sticky, but we've been hanging in there.  Really early mornings and late evenings, even nighttime, have been our most comfortable work hours and we may all slip into siesta shifts.  It's just too hot in the middle of the day to get anything done!

The garlic pull rages on!  We appreciate everyone who has come out to help thus far.  Just today we have sold our first round of beautiful, pearly-white garlic cloves to the Co-op and the Motley Cow for their dinners.  Really good-looking stuff so far.  No problems with the dryness here!  And yes, this means you'll be seeing your first CSA garlic cloves.  Garlic will be in CSA this week!

Yup, the garlic party is still scheduled for this weekend!  Bring your tent, pants and gloves if need be, some food, maybe beer!  It'll be good times!  Garlic work will be scheduled for the evening, when it is less hot, and you may camp out here on the property.  The property is gorgeous and the firefly show is spectacular.  Everyone is invited, come out and join us for a farm day and night under the stars!

What else is new?  Rescued our bean bushes from a patch of nasty weeds, they are well on their way towards fruiting!  More eggplants have been transplanted into our greenhouses, and we have beds yet to prep for more pepper plants.  Our heirloom slicer tomatoes have just put out their first green fruits, we hope they set beautifully.  Last week we pulled up our first sizable Napa cabbage heads, a little surprise you all received last week at CSA.  Our kale plants have really flourished, producing enormous leaves!  This starts our kale bunching season, there will be plenty of bunches for quite a while now.  Our first broccoli crowns have formed and we have begun harvesting our largest ones!  Many of them look very nice, some of them a bit tinged with yellow due to the dryness.  A good crop so far.  Zucchinis, yellow squash, basil and sungold tomatoes are the crops really raking in the goods for us lately.  Cucumber sprouts are getting bigger!

This is our last call to those who might want a farm kitten!  All three available ones are being picked up July 10th by a very interested prospective owner.  After that, you've got a couple months to wait for our other litter to grow up!  However, it is on a first-come-first-serve basis, if you would like one come and get one before July 10th or they'll all be gone.  Please email us if interested.  These kitties really need homes, the sooner the better!

A big thank you to those who follow us in our Newsletter.  If you are just a passerby or casual reader, please feel free to sign up for this CSA Newsletter, especially if you are involved in our CSA!  We find that it has been very helpful to those who participate.

Hope to see you at market!

This week's CSA:
  • Kale bunch
  • Sungold cherry tomatoes
  • Napa cabbage
  • Zucchini
  • Yellow Zephyr summer squash
  • Garlic
  • Garlic Scapes
  • Basil
  • Pea Tendrils


Garlic Scape Recipes

This week we are dedicating our recipes to the eccentric, exotic, yet delicious garlic scape, thanks to one of our CSA members, Elizabeth Hinds, who took it upon herself to experiment with this unusual vegetable.  Not just anyone can say they know what to do with garlic scapes, but as Elizabeth put it, after messing around with it you wonder "what CAN'T I do with garlic scapes?"  These recipes are of her invention.  Thanks Elizabeth!


Beef Stirfry (with garlic scapes)
  •      ½ cup garlic scapes, roughly chopped
  •     1 med onion, halved and cut into 5mm slices
  •     1 lb stew beef, marinated in red wine vinegar* for at least 30 mins
  •     ⅔ cup peas (fresh or frozen)
  •     ⅔ cup broccoli (fresh or frozen)
  •     ¼ cup shoyu (can use soy sauce)
  •     ¼ cup hoisin (also called Peking sauce)
  •     1 tbsp raw sugar   
  •     3 tbsp butter

Melt the butter in a large wok and cook the onions over med-high heat until translucent, but still somewhat firm, about 5 minutes. Remove the onions, leaving as much butter in the wok as possible. Increase the temperature to high, add the meat (drain off most of the marinade first) and cook until just browned, about 2 minutes on each side. Remove the meat, leaving the juice, and add back the onions and other vegetables to cook for about 5 mins (if using frozen veg, add a few minutes for thaw time). Add back the meat and toss in the shoyu, hoisin sauce and sugar. Cook for 1 min, then serve over rice. Serves 3-4.
    *note: I usually make my own red wine vinegar from leftover wine. In a large mason jar, add red wine and spike with 1 tbsp  unpasteurized apple cider vinegar (Bragg’s works well). Cover with cheesecloth and screw on the band. Let sit on the counter for a couple of days before using and add red wine as available. 


Garlic scape pesto
  •     ½ cup garlic scapes, roughly chopped
  •     ½ cup snow peas, roughly chopped
  •     1 oz raw cashews
  •     1 cup olive oil
  •     ⅓ cup grated parmesan
  •     1 tbsp lemon juice

Pulse together the scapes, peas and cashews until they are chopped into small pieces. Add the olive oil, parmesan, lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Blend for about a minute, scraping down the sides as needed. Makes 2 cups.


Infused Olive oil
  • 2 garlic scapes, cut to fit container and sliced in half lengthwise 
  • Sprig of rosemary
  • 2 cups extra virgin olive oil

Wash the rosemary and garlic scapes and let dry completely before beginning (any water in the oil will encourage mold growth). Drop the scapes and rosemary into a clean, dry, sealable glass container (~16oz) and cover with the olive oil. Store in a cool, dry spot out of direct sunlight. Oil will be ready to use after about 2 weeks.


Spring vegetable soup
   
  •     2 turnips, sliced into 4mm thick disks
  •     2 radishes, sliced into 4mm thick disks
  •     bunch of spinach, stems removed
  •     ¾ cup barley
  •     3 qts garlic scape vegetable broth

Cook the barley in the vegetable broth until tender, about an hour. Spread the turnips and radishes in a single layer on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Add all of the vegetables to the broth and barley and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Add salt to taste. Serves 4-5.


Garlic Scape and Turnip Green Risotto
  •     ½ cup garlic scapes cut into 1cm rounds
  •     1 cup arborio rice
  •     ½ cup dry white wine
  •     4 cups vegetable broth
  •     2 tbsp olive oil
  •     ¼ cup chopped fresh sage
  •     greens from 2 turnips, chopped medium
  •     ½ cup freshly grated parmesan

Bring the vegetable broth to a simmer in a separate pot. In a medium saucepan, saute the garlic scapes in olive oil until lightly browned. Add the sage, turnip greens and rice, tossing to coat. Cook for about 2 mins before adding the wine. After the wine is completely absorbed, begin to ladle in the hot broth, about ½ cup at a time, and stir until absorbed. Repeat this until all of the broth has been added, then stir in the parmesan just before serving. Serves 4.

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Please tell us if you can't identify something on the market table, don't know what to do with a particular item, have a food allergy we should know about, or if you have other questions or comments. We love to hear from you!


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