Louisville Community Supported Agriculture: Farmer Posts

Week 4 - Stealthy Summer Squash

Tina

For week 4, we got 2 heads of red lettuce, one head of butter lettuce, onions, beets, summer squash, zucchini, and cucumbers.

We have a problem in our house. None of the kids eat squash of any kind. Not winter squashes, not zucchini, not summer squash. Yes, they think it is akin to making them eat something slimey stuck to the bottom of a shoe.

Yeah, well, whatever. They love squash and they've been eating it for years. They just don't know it. Maybe the teens have figured it out and just don't care because it's so well disguised. But I think at least one of the 18yos is still in the dark.

One of my favorite ways to use summer squash is in a blended soup. It's originally from the Moosewood Cooks at Home book. I always add tons more squash than the recipe suggests, which makes it a bit thicker than the recipe intended. I think it says to add one summer squash.

Golden Cheddar Cheese Soup

1 cup chopped onions
2 tbsp olive oil
2 potatoes, chopped
2 or so carrots, chopped
Several summer squash, chopped
1/2 tsp black pepper
pinch of turmeric
2 cups veg stock
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup graded sharp cheddar cheese
salt to taste

Sautee the onions in the oil until they begin to soften. Add the rest of the vegetables, the pepper & the turmeric. Add the stock and simmer until the vegetables are soft. (Around 20 mins.) Stir in the buttermilk and cheese. Puree until smoothe. You can top with scallions, chives or parsley.

The next recipe doesn't do as good of a job at hiding the vegetables, but they're so good the kids don't seem to mind - Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins. The recipe is already on this site. You can also use summer squash. They freeze really well.

If you're still inundated with summer squash & zucchini, you can always shred them and freeze them. I like to use two cup increments. You may get tired of zucchini muffins in July, but they're a nice treat come January. :)

Week 3 - Blueberry Bonanza

Tina

I know. It would be more helpful if I posted more regularly, but I get so busy cooking that I forget to write about all the yummy things I've made.

In our share for Week 3, we recieved assorted lettuces, onions, beets, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers aaaand a bag of blueberries.

The blueberries are easy. We popped them into our mouths like candy and ate them before my husband even got home from work. (Shhhh.) It's not that there weren't a lot - there were. But my nearly 5yo and I were so happy to see them that we just couldn't stop ourselves. We gorged on them.

The following weekend we went blueberry picking at Bryant's. We went a little bit crazy and picked nineteen pounds of blueberries. The first thing I did when we got home was to make two beautiful Blueberry Cream Pies. I follow their recipe pretty much exactly, except I think I add more blueberries.

Then I made two batches of the most delicious blueberry lime jam. That recipe is why we picked so many blueberries. Last year, my family went through that jam so fast that I had to hide a jar in the vegetable drawer behind less popular produce so I could get some of it. I've done a fair amount of canning in the last 3 years and I've found that blueberries are one of the easiest things to can. There's pretty much no prep work. You don't have to peel and slice them. Since they don't spray at Bryant's I didn't even wash them (completely out of character for a germaphobe like myself). So trust me - if you've ever wanted to try canning, take the opportunity to start with this recipe. It's from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.

Blueberry Lime Jam
Makes about 6 8-ounce jars)

4 1/2 cup crushed blueberries
Grated Zest and juice of 1 large lime
1 pck regular powdered fruit pectin
5 cups granulated sugar

1 Prepare canner, jars, and lids.
2. In a large, deep stainless steel saucepan, combine berries, zest & juice. Whisk in pectin until dissolved. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Add sugar all at once and return to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil hard, stirring constantly, for 1 minutes. Remove from heat and skim off foam.
3. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot jam. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
4. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

CSA Weeks 1 & 2: Bok Choy & Broccoli

Tina

On Thursday May 27th we got our first CSA box - delivered straight to my front door since we're now Misty Meadows pickup site. It was a overflowing with goodies: a quart of strawberries. a bag of snowpeas, several heads of lettuce, kale, 2 big bunches of bok choy, green onions, collard greens. Some shares had swiss chard, but they ran a littie short on that so we got our bunch the following week.

I've always struggled with how to use bok choy. It's in the cabbage family and commonly used in Asian recipes, so I've often just chopped it up and thrown it in a generic stir fry. Since we had quite a bit of it, I wanted to find something different. I searched the interwebs looking for the perfect recipe. I didn't quite find it so as often happens, I patchworked a recipe and a little ingenuity together to create a really good dish. My main issue with the bok choy salad recipes was that they called for baby bok choy. We have great big grownup bok choy, so I solved that problem by simply cooking it first.

I used this recipe as a base, but ended up with the following:

Bok Choy Salad

2 tblsps olive oil
2 heads bok choy
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tblsps honey
1 tblsp soy sauce
1/4 cup butter
2 pcks ramen noodles (crushed)
2-3 scallions (chopped) or several sprigs of chives (chopped)

Clean well and roughly chop bok choy. Sautee in olive oil until the leaves are wilted and the white stalks are tender. In a separate frying pan, melt the butter on medium heat, add the crushed ramen noodles and stir until the noodles turn golden brown. (Resist the urge to eat them all like candy.)
In a bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, honey and soy sauce. At this point I just threw everything together in the large pan that still held the bok choy. I supposed you could put it into a pretty bowl to make a nicer presentation. This is equally good warm, room temperature, or even cold.

Even my very picky teenagers ate it and didn't complain, which says something. My 4yo, however, only ate the ramen noodles. Maybe next time...

The second week we got green onions, beautiful purple speckled lettuce, two more heads of bok choy, and a bunch of broccoli. I wasn't above making the Bok Choy salad recipe again, so I just needed to figure out what to do with the broccoli. That's not generally an issue around here, but I wanted to do something a little more special than simply chopping it into pieces and serving it with dip.

I found a lovely broccoli cheese soup recipe. Again, I modified it simply because I can't leave well enough alone. You may notice that I doubled the original recipe, as well. We have a big family. Making small amounts of soup doesn't make any sense to me.

A word to the wise - check the broccoli very carefully. I soaked mine for a long time in a big vat of salt water and I was still picking out worms. The last thing you want is to boil a pot of broccoli and find worms floating to the top.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Several carrots, roughly chopped
4 cups broccoli, chopped
2 cups water
1 vegetable bullion cube (mine are big, you may need 2)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
ground pepper, to taste
4 cups milk
3 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
4 ounches (or so) Neufchatel cheese or cream cheese

Combine carrots, water, broccoli, and bullion in a sauce pan. Cook until the veggies are tender.
In a large soup pot, melt the butter, add the onions and cook until they soften. Add the flour and ground pepper. Stir for a minute or so. Stir in the milk, bring to a boil. Turn down heat and add cheeses. Stir until melted, then remove from heat.
Reserving some of the broccoli florets, add the vegetables to the soup pot. Blend using stick blender or whatever you have available. Add the reserved florets.

All the kids loved this one - from the picky teenagers and even the picky 4yo.

Styrian Pumpkin Muffins

Tina

Last Tuesday in our Misty Meadows CSA share, we received a Styrian pumpkin, aka a Naked Pumpkin. It's a cute little thing. Ours was about the size of a slightly large sugar pumpkin with orange and green stripes. The "naked" designation refers not to the pumpkin shell, but to the seeds.

Being curious about the background of this unusual vegetable, I ran several internet searches. The sites that came up most often referred to the oil that is extracted from the seeds. The oil is definitely not cheap - I found it on Amazon for $26.15 for 2 8.5 ounce tins - but it packs a nutritional wallop with Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Zinc and the essential fatty acids Omega 3 and Omega 6.

Since the pumpkins are grown for their seeds, there aren't a lot of Styrian-specific recipes that use the flesh of the pumpkin. Growers often simply discard the flesh. I was determined to use the whole thing.

First I chopped the thing in half to see what I was dealing with. Inside were the glistening seeds - green rather than cream-colored like other pumpkin seeds.

I removed the seeds and scraped out the stringy pulp. I oiled the flesh and placed the halves cut side down on a cookie sheet. It took about 45 or 50 minutes at 350 degrees for the flesh to be fork tender. After allowing it to cool for a few hours, I scooped the flesh out with a spoon into a measuring cup. After all was said and done, I had about 3 cups of pumpkin flesh and one cup of seeds.

I bit into a seed - I had half expected it to be filled with a pocket of oil, but it was just a tender, slightly crisp, pumpkin seed. What was most striking was missing. I like roasted pumpkin seeds, but I'm not terribly fond of the outer hull that feels a little like you accidentally bit into a stick along with your seed. The cooked flesh itself was just a mild, bland pumpkin-y flavor. Even my 4yo took a bite and said it was fine.

So I pulled out some cookbooks and my favorite recipe sites and spliced together a pumpkin muffin recipe. I wouldn't bother making this pumpkin into a pie - I think it's too bland. But breads are just fine. I didn't bother to puree the flesh, I simply mushed it up a little with a fork.

They turned out really yummy. My husband loved them. My 4yo took a bite and said she didn't like the seeds. Then the next time I turned around she'd eaten the entire thing and was chewing on the muffin paper. The teens weren't around at the time, but when I got up the next morning one of the two containers of muffins I'd left sitting on the kitchen counter was empty so I'm assuming they went over well. I think next time I'll add more raisins and fewer chocolate chips.

Pumpkin Seed Muffins
(yield - approximately 24-30)

4 large eggs
1 cup canola oil
1.5 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups cooked pumpkin flesh
2 cups all purpose white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 cup Styrian pumpkin seeds
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix eggs, oil, brown sugar & vanilla. Stir in the pumpkin.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder, salt & spices.

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

Fold in the pumpkin seeds, chocolate chips & raisins.

Spoon into oiled or lined muffin tins and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. A knife inserted into the center of a muffin should come out clean.

My Favorite Spaghetti Squash Recipe

Tina

I've never been a super big spaghetti squash fan. I never hated it, I just didn't really like it. I think my problem was trying to treat it like pasta. Sure it has individual strands and looks kind of like spaghetti, but it doesn't have the same texture. And frankly, it tastes just like squash.

Since I wasn't particularly happy with the flavor, the kids sure weren't. No matter how much cheese and sauce I piled on, they picked the toppings off and left the squash underneath. My general go-to recipes for hiding less favored vegetables won't really work for this. I like to hide things in soups - after a trip through the blender, if I say it's cheese soup and it's orange, how are they to know it's really butternut squash? I also like to sneak vegetables into fritattas and muffins. Even pancakes.

Finally I stumbled onto a recipe for Spaghetti Squash Pie. I almost didn't try it - it sounds pretty weird. I'm soooo glad I did. It's very much like a chess pie or even a pecan pie without the pecans. The kids (picky teenagers and 4yo alike) have been happy to eat it from the first time I made it. After a while I threw in a handful of chocolate chips and then they actually fought over it. It's even been a hit at potlucks - I've never returned with anything but an empty dish when I take this pie.

We've been getting spaghetti squash in our CSA share for the past few weeks. The good thing is that spaghetti squash tends to have a long shelf life so if I get a few of them in my share in one week I can let them sit on the counter until I'm ready to use them. However, now in this house they don't last long.

New Season Starting Soon (and various)

Kathy

Some of you saw us this week at Phoenix Hill Farmers' Market standing out there in 102+ weather. It was almost unbearable to set up, tear down, etc., but we did it. Unfortunately, it was about all we could do last week. 8 a.m. in the mornings starting out at 90 degrees all week did not help our plan to plant this week. We did plant lettuce last week and we've lost it already due to the excessive heat, watering makes it even worse. Rain would be awesome again at this point.

We really need a week to plant so that we can have lots of fall items for our CSA members. So we have made a very important decision: We will start CSA one week later than planned. Tiuesdays will start August 21 and Thursdays, August 23rd. This will put us into 12 weeks on November 6th and 8th. We will go longer than that if we can. With the cooler weather expected next week, we are sure that we can get a lot seeded, so please bear with us. (We will still be at the farmers' markets, but we often buy items from our neighbors to sell at the farmers' market, so please don't think that we are selling your goodies.

Our Fall "soupfest" and annual meeting is now set. Mark your calendars for Thursday, November 8th at 6:00 p.m. at Bardstown Rd Presbyterian Church, 1722 Bardstown Road, Louisville. There is no cost and you can bring your family. As we get closer, I'll ask how many you'll be bringing with you, so I can be sure to make enough soup. Bring an appetite, this is our way of thanking you for being so supportive of Misty Meadows Farm. This is also the time that we will talk about the year's CSA and ideas for the next CSA. This is where we start taking memberships for the following year and of course there is always a discounted price to pay early and even more if you pay for the Spring and Fall session at one time. We will have door prizes and surveys and if anyone else has things they'd like to say... well, let us know and we'll put you on the Speakers list (not that we really have one, but we always welcome your views, ideas, suggestions, etc.)

Many blessings,

Ralph and Kathy Packard

Phoenix Hill Farmers Market Festival

Kathy

We'll be there tomorrow.

LEMONADE AND WATERMELON WILL BE FURNISHED BY PHOENIX HILL FARMERS’ MARKET ASSOCIATION.