CSA Week 24 – Roots and Greens

CSA Week 24

• Sweet potatoes
• Bell Peppers
• Arugula
• Lettuce Mix
• Komatsuna
• Mustards/mizuna
• Radishes
• Turnips
• Dill
• Beans or okra

Farm Update:

Hello friends!   The fall is finally upon us, and we get to welcome yet again another month together.  What a fun thing it is for me to get to share a new month with you all full of new vegetables.  However, for some of you all the vegetables will not be “new”, they will be repeats of what the first few weeks of the CSA looked like.  The season of vegetable farming is finally coming full circle.  As we say goodbye to the fruits of the summer we will be welcoming in many great leafy greens and roots of all types.

Seeing the season come full circle is not only being represented in your share with the endless varieties of greens you all will receive, but various tasks on the farm are starting to resemble those of late spring.  I shared with you all a few months ago about my first week on the farm in March when we planted hundreds of feet of garlic that would turn into the ever flavorful green garlic that you all received for many weeks.  Well, all of last week was spent anticipating the unveiling of 4 new garlic varieties that would soon be planted on Thursday.  Thursday came around and I spent all morning prepping the beds that the garlic would be planted into while the others broke apart hundreds of heads of garlic to reveal thousands of large cloves to be punched into the ground.  We ended up with 16 rows all at 75 feet each with 5 very unique types of garlic.  The neatest part about planting garlic is that it will stay in the ground all winter and will not be harvested until late May to early June.  It is a crop that gets planted once and harvested once, and turn into cherished moments among us farmers.  So, with the long growing time in mind, we spent Friday afternoon mulching the garlic and our dear friends from the Montessori school in Serenbe helped us mulch.

Planting the garlic became my “ah-hah” moment for the fall in realizing all of the things that are being repeated from the spring.  The last few weeks have been spent weeding the kale and broccoli beds along with thinning and weeding the carrots and more radishes.  Simple tasks that felt so tedious and strenuous in the spring, but I now welcome their interruptions from our monotonous summer crop harvests.  Also we have been planting many leeks and bunching onions, two alliums we know you all have missed.  During the spring we spent many hours harvesting, cleaning, and bunching those crops that the simple act of planting them brings much anticipation of the tasks the next few weeks will bring us.

Overall, it is rather exciting and nerve-wracking to be aware of what the next few weeks will bring due to the circular ways of the vegetable farming season.  However, no two plants are the same and no two seasons will be the same, but the tasks will be similar and the meals will be plentiful.  I am elated to share the next 6 weeks of fall vegetables with you all and wrap up 8 great months with you all in November.

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Recipes!

These past few weeks for me have been filled with me making tons and tons of soups.  I have made 4 different types of soups (multiple batches of each type) within the past 3 weeks.  Soups are rather easy for me to whip up when I know the chilly weather is upon us.  I will share links with you all to the soups that I have been making, but would like to share a few more different recipes with you all more in depth.  Soups are wonderful, but with the next week being only semi-cold I will share with you all semi-cold weather type foods to ease you all into the chilly weather without going full on soup frenzy.

Potato and Green Chile Soup

Winter Squash and Pear Soup (which I also made with apple this past week)

Spanish Garlic Soup (I shared with you all in the newsletter for week 15)

 

Daikon Radish Cakes

This week you all will be receiving the most beautiful daikon radishes you ever laid eyes on.  I want to share with you all a recipe for tasty daikon cakes that would pair well with this cooler weather that is moving in.  I will warn you all that I have not made this recipe before, but they remind me of Vietnamese fried rice cakes – a dish with tons of great memories attached.  I will try this dish sometime this week, I hope you all will too.  Also, if you are stuck with tons of leftover radish, go back in time on our blog and check out the recipe for quick pickles and pickle your extra radish.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups white rice flour, preferably from China or Thailand
¼ cup wheat starch
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
10 to 12 small or medium dried shrimp, soaked in hot water to cover for 30 minutes
1 pound daikon radish
1 link Chinese pork sausage (la chang), chopped very fine (about ⅔ cup)
3 scallions, chopped fine

DIRECTIONS

1.  Make the Batter: Combine the rice flour, wheat starch, salt, and pepper in a large bowl and set aside.  Drain and finely chop the shrimp.

2.  Peel the daikon and grate it through the small holes of your grater onto a kitchen towel.  Bring together the ends of the cloth and twist to squeeze out as much of the liquid as you can into the bowl.  Measure out the collected juices and add enough water to the juice to make 3½ cups.

3.  Pour the daikon liquid into a medium pot.  Add the grated daikon and bring to a boil over high heat.  Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 5 minutes.  Mix in the sausage, scallions, and chopped shrimp, cover, and cook for 5 minutes longer. Remove from the heat. Slowly add the rice flour mixture and whisk continuously until free of most large lumps.  The batter will be thick and sticky and a little lumpy.

4.  Steam the Dumplings:  Place the steamer rack in the pot, add 1½ inches of water to the pot, and bring to a boil over high heat.

5.  Brush both cake pans with a little oil and divide the batter between the 2 pans.  Dip a spoon into cool water and use the back of the spoon to smooth out the surface of the batter.

6.  Carefully place one of the filled pans on the steamer rack, cover, and steam for 40 minutes.  The other filled pan should be covered and left sitting at room temperature while the first one cooks, or it can be cooked simultaneously in another pot.

7.  Remove the pot from the heat.  Carefully lift the pan out of the pot, place it on a folded kitchen towel, and allow the cake to cool to room temperature.  Cook the other filled cake pan.

8.  Unmold the cake and gently turn it onto a cutting board.  Cut each dumpling into 8 equal slices. (Do not slice the cake if you are planning on serving it later.  They can be refrigerated, tightly wrapped, for up to 3 days.  Slice and fry just before serving.)

9.  When ready to serve, coat a large skillet with oil and heat over medium heat.  Carefully place the slices of sliced dumplings in the pan and cook until their bottoms are crispy and golden brown, about 4 minutes.  Turn them over to brown the other sides.  Serve with a side of oyster sauce or hot sauce.

 

Sweet Potato Hash and Kale Frittata

In my opinion, there i s no better vegetable combination than that of sweet potato and kale.  I could go even further and add black beans to the mix; there is no need to overwhelm you all just yet with all of my favorite recipes, I still have one more newsletter to write this season!  This frittata is simple yet flavorful – try it out!

Adapted from Cookie + Kate

INGREDIENTS

• 8 eggs
• ½ cup milk
• Sea salt and black pepper
• 2 small sweet potatoes
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 green onions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
• 2 cups kale leaves (give it a few chops with a knife if you’d like)
• ⅓ cup goat cheese (about 3 ounces, use regular or herbed goat cheese)
• Chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish
• Hot sauce (I recommend Cholula)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, a pinch of salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper. A couple dashes of hot sauce would be a good idea, too.
2. Wash the sweet potatoes and then chop them into ¼-inch cubes. In a 10-inch sauté pan (or well-seasoned cast iron skillet), warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the potatoes and toss to coat, then sprinkle with cumin and ½ teaspoon salt and stir. Cook the sweet potatoes, stirring occasionally, until they are cooked through and have brown marks, 10 to 15 minutes (add another little splash of olive oil if the potatoes start sticking to the pan).
3. Sprinkle the green onions on top of the potatoes, then the kale. Cover the pan with a lid or cookie sheet if you have one, and cook until the spinach wilts, a minute or two.
4. Turn the heat down to low. Whisk the eggs one last time and pour them over the spinach. Crumble the goat cheese with your fingers or a fork over the top of the frittata. Put the pan in the oven and bake until you can shake the pan (wear oven mitts!) and see that the middle is just barely set, about 12 to 18 minutes.
5. Set the frittata aside for a few minutes before slicing it. Sprinkle with pepper and cilantro. Serve with hot sauce on the side. Toasted whole grain bread is a good idea, too.

Winter Squash Slaw

This past Saturday at market, Farm Burger performed a cooking demo and prepared this bright and flavorful slaw.  This was the first time I had ever eaten winter squash raw and I really liked it, so I thought I would share this fun and new way to eat a vegetable that is rather abundant this time of year.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pound winter squash, grated
• 1 cup arugula, roughly chopped
• 2 small radishes, grated
• juice of 1 lemon
• salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix all ingredients together
2. EAT.