Blue Gate Farm News – Volume VII , Number 5
– July 1, 2008
In
this week’s box:
Assorted
Young Beets: Blankoma (white),
Broccoli:
Pac Man florets first group starting with
the beginning of the alphabet
Lettuce
(assorted heads)
New Potatoes: Red Gold
Peas: Sugar Snap (round pod) or Snow (flat pod) next group from the end of the alphabet this
time
Zucchini: Eight Ball (green, round) or Sebring
(yellow), first group starting with the
“L’s”
For
those with the Egg option: one dozen free-range eggs (assorted colors)
For
those with the Cheese option: Roasted Red Pepper Chevre & Chive Chevre
For
those with the Herb option: Basil, Pineapple Mint & Anise Hyssop (see Herb Book for info and recipes)
Featured Recipe(s) (see
below): Gingered Sugar Snap Peas
Crispy Smashed Roasted Potatoes
Fragrant Beets and Greens
Rain this week: 2.75” (from 6/24 - 6/30)
What’s up on the farm?
As I write this, I
am reveling in a bowl of homemade chocolate ice cream topped with farm-fresh
strawberries. We had lots left over from Sunday’s Ice Cream Social and those of
you who couldn’t make it missed out on a beautiful (if a little windy) day at
the farm. Big thanks to Susan and Bill
for making the trip out and for helping us make a dent in the tasty treats.
The great tomato trellising
project began this week. As many of you
know, we use a system of posts and twine woven between plants to support our
tomatoes. Well this year in addition to
our normal crop of tomatoes, we are participating in a field trial of three
different tomato support systems, including our regular trellising. So in our test beds we now have 20 heirloom
Cherokee Purple tomatoes each in cages, trellised on livestock fencing and
woven with posts. It will be interesting to compare how the various supports
affect the tomato plants’ health and yield.
Now with the 60 trial tomatoes all set up, we can move on to our main
crop tomatoes. We finally got the right
weather to get the sweet potatoes all planted this week. We are trying a new mulching technique with
them this year, so hopefully it will work well for us.
With the sun finally shining
this week, we saw the explosion of blooms begin on the beans, cucumbers and
summer squashes. The beans are looking
fantastic (all five varieties!) so you should start seeing them in your boxes
in a couple of weeks. The cukes and
patty pan squash are really showing the strain of the wet weather, but we think
the majority of them will pull through. The
zucchini are looking great, if a little slow, but don’t worry, before long you
will all be seeing plenty of squash in your boxes.
Speaking of patience, we
certainly appreciate yours! We know the
season has been off to a slow start and we haven’t been able to fill your boxes
to our normal standards. We are trying
to ensure that everyone gets at least one opportunity to enjoy each variety of
produce, but in some cases it is taking several weeks to work through the
entire membership. It will be much
easier and more fun for everyone involved when the real bounty starts rolling
in.
What to do with beets: Cut off any greens,
leaving an inch of stem. Refrigerate the unwashed greens in a closed plastic
bag. Store the beet roots, unwashed, with the rootlets (or “tails”) attached,
in a plastic bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator. They will keep for several weeks, but their
sweetness diminishes with time. Just
before cooking, scrub beets well and remove any scraggly leaves and rootlets. If your recipe calls for raw beets, peel them
with a knife or vegetable peeler, then grate or cut according to your needs. The included beet recipe is one of Jill’s favorites,
but especially if you find beets “challenging” do give them a try in their
simplest form, sliced, raw. When young like these are, beets are mild and sweet
and we enjoy them as a snack.
As you receive your broccoli over the next couple of
weeks, you may get either a full head, or a bag of florets. It may show a few yellow areas, this is due to
the excess of moisture in the soil. We
decided to overlook this discoloration in the interest of getting some broccoli
to you and we hope you will enjoy it anyway. Wrap broccoli
loosely in a plastic bag and keep it in the vegetable bin of your
refrigerator for up to a week. Immediately before cooking, soak broccoli, head
down, in cold, salted water (1
teaspoon salt to 8 cups of water) for 5 minutes. Any [organic] critters will float to the top
where you can rescue them or allow them to suffer a salty death. (Note: If you
soak broccoli in salt water before storing, it will become too rubbery and wilted
to enjoy.) Slice the juicy, edible stems
and use them wherever florets are called for. Peel particularly thick skin before using.
The new potatoes will have some dirt still clinging to
them. As they are freshly-dug, their
skins are very tender and don’t like water. Please store them in a cool dark place and
wash gently, just before using.
Herb share folks, the basil is in a different form for
this first time, the plants needed pruning, so we thought you might enjoy a
little early taste. They will likely keep best in their plastic bag, opened
slightly in a cool part of your kitchen. Please use them within the next few
days.
Best from the
farm,
Jill & Sean
Gingered Sugar Snap Peas
1 tbs canola oil
1 tbs grated fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
8 oz sugar snap peas (or snow
peas)
¼ c. water
¼ tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black
pepper
Heat oil in a large skillet
over medium heat. Add ginger and garlic, cook 30 seconds or until fragrant,
stirring constantly. Add peas, sauté 2 minutes. Stir in water; cook 1 minute or
until most of water evaporates. Stir in salt and pepper; cook 30 seconds or
until peas are crisp-tender.
Recipe Source: Cooking Light, July 2008
Crispy Smashed Roasted Potatoes
Serves 4 as a side
dish
12 to 15 baby red or yellow
potatoes (1 ½ - 2 ½ inches in diameter)
2 ¾ tsp kosher salt
½ cup olive oil
Put the potatoes in a large
saucepan (preferably in one layer) and cover with at least an inch of water. Add 2 tsp kosher salt to the water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat,
reduce to a simmer, and cook the potatoes until they are completely tender and
can be easily pierced. Make sure they
are cooked through, but don’t overcook. The
total cooking time will be 30-40 minutes. While the potatoes are cooking, set up a
double layer of clean dishtowels on your countertop. As the potatoes finish cooking, remove them
from the water and let them sit for just a minute or two on the dishtowels.
Fold another dishtowel into
quarters, and using it as a cover, gently press down on one potato with the
palm of your hand to flatten it to a thickness of about ½ inch. Repeat with all the potatoes. Don’t worry if some
break apart a bit; you can still use them.
Cover a large rimmed baking
sheet with aluminum foil; put a sheet of parchment on top of the foil. Transfer the flattened potatoes carefully to
the baking sheet and let them cool completely at room temperature. If making
ahead, cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
Remove the pan of potatoes
from the refrigerator, if prepared ahead. Heat oven to 450°. Sprinkle the potatoes with about ¾ tsp salt
and pour olive oil over them. Lift the
potatoes gently to make sure some of the oil goes underneath them and that they
are will coated on both sides. Roast the
potatoes until they’re crispy and deep brown around the edges, about 30 – 40
minutes, turning over once gently with a spatula or tongs halfway through the
cooking. Serve hot.
Recipe Source: Fine Cooking. January 2007
Fragrant Beets and Greens
1 bu. Medium beets with greens
½ tsp. Anise or fennel seeds
½ tbsp. Butter
fresh lemon juice.
Preheat oven to 375. Trim off beet greens, leaving 2 inches of stem; reserve. Set each beet on a square of foil large enough
to enclose it. Divide fennel seeds or
anise evenly between all the packets, and sprinkle on each square. Crimp each packet tightly shut. Set beets in roasting pan and bake until
tender when pierced through with knife tip, about 40-60 minutes. Meanwhile, rinse beet greens in several
changes of water until all grit is removed. Cool beets or not, as convenient. Keeping them wrapped up,
gently squish each beet, sliding the skin back and forth so that it loosens. Open foil and still holding the beet with it,
slip off skin and stem. Discard with spices. Halve beets. Set greens on a rack in a steamer over boiling
water. Cover and cook until tender,
about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat beets in a pan with butter.
Toss greens with lemon juice. Arrange in a ring on serving dish. Nest beets in
center. Serves 4-6.
Recipe source: The Splendid Table, www.table.npr.org