1 ounce hazelnuts (2 tablespoons)
3/4 pound green beans, trimmed and halved diagonally
2 1/4 teaspoons grainy mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon flaxseed oil
1 teaspoon hazelnut oil
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
Preheat oven to 325°F with rack in middle.
Toast nuts in a small baking pan until centers are golden, 15 to 20 minutes (cut one open to test for doneness). Cool to warm, then rub off any loose skins in a kitchen towel. Coarsely chop nuts.
Cook beans in a 6-quart pot of boiling salted water (1 1/2 tablespoons salt for 4 quarts water) until just tender, 4 to 6 minutes. Transfer to an ice bath to stop cooking. Drain and pat dry.
Whisk together mustard, vinegar, and sea salt in a bowl, then add olive, flaxseed, and hazelnut oils, whisking. Add beans, nuts, and onion and toss well. Season with salt and pepper.
From: www.epicurious.com, Adapted from Diane Carlson
Showing posts with label newsletter 10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newsletter 10. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Grilled Cucumber Spears in Asian Vinagrette
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 or 2 cucumbers
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp soy sauce
1 TBS chopped fresh mint (or 1 tsp dried)
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Cut the ends off of the cucumber. Slice crosswise into three sections, then cut each section lengthwise into 4 spears. In a bowl, mix remaining ingredients and whisk well.
Grill cucumber 2-3 minutes on each cut side. Remove from grill and place in the vinaigrette. Mix well and serve warm or cold.
From: http://dianasaurdishes.com/06/apartment-grilling-series-garlic-ginger-and-lemongrass-shrimp-with-grilled-cucumber-and-corn/
Ingredients
1 or 2 cucumbers
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp soy sauce
1 TBS chopped fresh mint (or 1 tsp dried)
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Cut the ends off of the cucumber. Slice crosswise into three sections, then cut each section lengthwise into 4 spears. In a bowl, mix remaining ingredients and whisk well.
Grill cucumber 2-3 minutes on each cut side. Remove from grill and place in the vinaigrette. Mix well and serve warm or cold.
From: http://dianasaurdishes.com/06/apartment-grilling-series-garlic-ginger-and-lemongrass-shrimp-with-grilled-cucumber-and-corn/
Baba Ganoush
-3 small eggplants
-2 tbsp tahini
-2 tablespoons lemon juice
-2 cloves garlic, minced
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-salt and pepper to taste
-some flat-leaf parsley (optional)
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Prick each eggplant a few times with the tines of a fork.
If you have a gas stove, turn on one of the burners and char the eggplants all over, turning them often as they blacken. (Skip this step if you have an electric stove, or do this on a grill if you have one and weather permits.)
Place the eggplants on a foil-lined baking sheet and roast until they are extremely soft and have collapsed in on themselves, about 30-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully cut a slit down the centre of each to allow the steam to escape. Leave the eggplants to cool to room temperature.
Scrape out and discard as many of the seeds from the eggplants as you can, then scrape the pulp into the bowl of a food processor. Add remaining ingredients, and process until you reach your desired consistency: some people prefer smooth, others like to leave it a little chunky.
Taste and adjust the seasonings. Chill for a few hours, and preferably overnight, before serving.
-2 tbsp tahini
-2 tablespoons lemon juice
-2 cloves garlic, minced
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-salt and pepper to taste
-some flat-leaf parsley (optional)
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Prick each eggplant a few times with the tines of a fork.
If you have a gas stove, turn on one of the burners and char the eggplants all over, turning them often as they blacken. (Skip this step if you have an electric stove, or do this on a grill if you have one and weather permits.)
Place the eggplants on a foil-lined baking sheet and roast until they are extremely soft and have collapsed in on themselves, about 30-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully cut a slit down the centre of each to allow the steam to escape. Leave the eggplants to cool to room temperature.
Scrape out and discard as many of the seeds from the eggplants as you can, then scrape the pulp into the bowl of a food processor. Add remaining ingredients, and process until you reach your desired consistency: some people prefer smooth, others like to leave it a little chunky.
Taste and adjust the seasonings. Chill for a few hours, and preferably overnight, before serving.
Plant Profile: Basil
By Nina Berryman
Basil is one of my favorite crops to harvest. Not only is the aroma amazing, but the cutting in itself is an art. Where you make a cut drastically affects the shape of the plant as it continues to grow. Much like pruning trees or bushes, cutting stalks of basil is a way of directing the energy of the plant in different directions. Always cut your basil just above a junction where a branch meets the stem. This way, when the plant sends energy up its stem and it dead-ends because of a cut, it can then use that energy in the existing branch that is right there. This will encourage the basil plant to get bushier, and produce more leaves, which are the desired part of the plant for cooking. If you cut your basil in mid-stem, the plant’s energy will be wasted moving nutrients and water to a place where it cannot be used.
Basil, Ocimum basilicum, is in the Lamiaceae family, also known as the Labiatae family. The name Labiatae comes from the Latin word for lip. If you look at a flower in this family you will see why. The flowers have irregularly shaped petals that are fused together in an upper lip and a lower lip. Mint, rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme, and lavender are all in the same family.
There are two possible roots for the name basil. One is from the Greek “basileus,” meaning “king.” The other is that is from the Latin “basilicas,” meaning “dragon.” Basil is very sensitive to the cold. If we store it in our walk-in refrigerator with all the other vegetables, its leaves will turn brown. The best way to store your basil is in a glass of water in a cool place- but not too cool!
Basil has much cultural significance. In present day Italy it is a symbol of love, while in ancient Greece it was a symbol of hatred. An African legend says it will protect against scorpions. Some say it was found around Christ’s tomb after his resurrection. In India it was placed in the mouth of the dying to ensure a safe journey to God.
Sources: Seed to Seed, Suzanne Ashworth
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil
Basil is one of my favorite crops to harvest. Not only is the aroma amazing, but the cutting in itself is an art. Where you make a cut drastically affects the shape of the plant as it continues to grow. Much like pruning trees or bushes, cutting stalks of basil is a way of directing the energy of the plant in different directions. Always cut your basil just above a junction where a branch meets the stem. This way, when the plant sends energy up its stem and it dead-ends because of a cut, it can then use that energy in the existing branch that is right there. This will encourage the basil plant to get bushier, and produce more leaves, which are the desired part of the plant for cooking. If you cut your basil in mid-stem, the plant’s energy will be wasted moving nutrients and water to a place where it cannot be used.
Basil, Ocimum basilicum, is in the Lamiaceae family, also known as the Labiatae family. The name Labiatae comes from the Latin word for lip. If you look at a flower in this family you will see why. The flowers have irregularly shaped petals that are fused together in an upper lip and a lower lip. Mint, rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme, and lavender are all in the same family.
There are two possible roots for the name basil. One is from the Greek “basileus,” meaning “king.” The other is that is from the Latin “basilicas,” meaning “dragon.” Basil is very sensitive to the cold. If we store it in our walk-in refrigerator with all the other vegetables, its leaves will turn brown. The best way to store your basil is in a glass of water in a cool place- but not too cool!
Basil has much cultural significance. In present day Italy it is a symbol of love, while in ancient Greece it was a symbol of hatred. An African legend says it will protect against scorpions. Some say it was found around Christ’s tomb after his resurrection. In India it was placed in the mouth of the dying to ensure a safe journey to God.
Sources: Seed to Seed, Suzanne Ashworth
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil
Frequently Asked Questions about the CSA
By Nicole Sugerman
This column has been sitting in my mind for a little while. It is meant to be a helpful explanation for many of the questions you all wonder about regarding the CSA. We know that CSA can seem mysterious or counterintuitive, so we hope this article can help to clear some of it up!
Q: Why are the beets/turnips/whatever vegetable smaller than last week’s?
A: We utilize a technique called succession planting to extend the season of many of the crops we grow. Instead of planting beets once and then using them up, we plant beets every other week, so that by the time we have harvested all the beets from one planting, there are new beets ready to harvest that we planted later. Within a planting of any vegetable, there are some individual plants that flourish more than others. When a planting is just starting to be harvestable, we pull the biggest ones first, to give the smaller ones a little more time to grow. Eventually, though, any plant’s production tapers off. For beets, we harvest the entire planting over the span of two or three weeks before moving on, while something like summer squash has fewer successions throughout the season so we harvest from one planting for over a month. So, the vegetable size varies depending on where we are within a planting. When we start harvesting from a new planting, the size of the vegetables will grow.
Q: Why is my share so much smaller/bigger than last week?
A: This is the nature of a CSA. Each harvest day, we harvest whatever is ready (making sure to leave an equivalent amount for the next pickup that week),for the next pickup that week), and then we calculate how much we can give each shareholder by dividing the total amount that we have by the number of shareholders. While we try to give a minimum of 10 items for a large share, as we promised in pre-season explanations, when we have a lot of vegetables, we give you more vegetables. That’s how you, as shareholders, get to share in the risks and bounties of the farm—because we had a really terrific early season of summer squash, we’ve been giving out a lot of summer squash! And because our lettuce heads have been bolting quickly in the summer heat, there has not been much head lettuce in the share lately. So, some weeks, we have more to harvest than others, so we pass those surpluses on to you.
Q: Why can’t I swap my kohlrabi for an extra bunch of carrots? Can I have an extra onion because I am splitting my share?
A: Because we structure the distribution so that we give out everything we harvest, we cannot let people substitute items they like more for items they like less (unless they use the swap box—that’s why it’s there!), particularly because these often tend to be the items that many people like more or less. We calculate how many carrots you can take by dividing the total number of carrots that we have by the total number of shareholders. So, if someone takes extra carrots, someone else will not get their carrots. The same goes for splitting a share; if something is hard to split, we recommend switching off who gets that item each week (cabbages, for example). But we cannot give people an extra cabbage, because then someone else will not get one.
Q: What does my money pay for in the spring?
A: Your money pays for all the costs associated with running the CSA. Most of this cost is labor; Nina and I both receive 75% of our salaries through CSA income, and apprentices receive a stipend funded partially through the CSA. We also order most of our seeds over the winter, as well as many of our inputs and supplies. An incomplete list of “inputs” includes dried fertilizer, compost (we order it in because we do not make enough of our own for all of our needs), cover crop seed, materials for making our own potting mix for seedlings (peat moss, vermiculite, perlite, compost), and organic-approved pesticides (including insecticidal soap, kaolinite clay, and horticultural oil). “Supplies” include everything else we need to grow vegetables: row cover, wire to hold up the row cover, black plastic to mulch some of the beds, drip tape and spare parts for the drip irrigation system, straw mulch, tools, tomato stakes to replace any that have broken over the past year, pruners, harvesting knives, vegetable storage bins, twine to tie up tomatoes, sharpie markers for labeling. . . it all adds up!
Q: Why is the CSA called “Henry Got Crops!”? Do you know that the grammar is not correct?
‘Henry Got Crops!’ was consensed upon as the name for the CSA by the agroecology class we worked with last fall to develop the concept of the CSA. The students wanted to convey how cool and unexpected they thought it was to have vegetables growing right beside Henry Avenue. We thought it was okay that it was not ‘correct’ grammar because we wanted to give the students some decision-making power. Since they named the project, we went with it!
This column has been sitting in my mind for a little while. It is meant to be a helpful explanation for many of the questions you all wonder about regarding the CSA. We know that CSA can seem mysterious or counterintuitive, so we hope this article can help to clear some of it up!
Q: Why are the beets/turnips/whatever vegetable smaller than last week’s?
A: We utilize a technique called succession planting to extend the season of many of the crops we grow. Instead of planting beets once and then using them up, we plant beets every other week, so that by the time we have harvested all the beets from one planting, there are new beets ready to harvest that we planted later. Within a planting of any vegetable, there are some individual plants that flourish more than others. When a planting is just starting to be harvestable, we pull the biggest ones first, to give the smaller ones a little more time to grow. Eventually, though, any plant’s production tapers off. For beets, we harvest the entire planting over the span of two or three weeks before moving on, while something like summer squash has fewer successions throughout the season so we harvest from one planting for over a month. So, the vegetable size varies depending on where we are within a planting. When we start harvesting from a new planting, the size of the vegetables will grow.
Q: Why is my share so much smaller/bigger than last week?
A: This is the nature of a CSA. Each harvest day, we harvest whatever is ready (making sure to leave an equivalent amount for the next pickup that week),for the next pickup that week), and then we calculate how much we can give each shareholder by dividing the total amount that we have by the number of shareholders. While we try to give a minimum of 10 items for a large share, as we promised in pre-season explanations, when we have a lot of vegetables, we give you more vegetables. That’s how you, as shareholders, get to share in the risks and bounties of the farm—because we had a really terrific early season of summer squash, we’ve been giving out a lot of summer squash! And because our lettuce heads have been bolting quickly in the summer heat, there has not been much head lettuce in the share lately. So, some weeks, we have more to harvest than others, so we pass those surpluses on to you.
Q: Why can’t I swap my kohlrabi for an extra bunch of carrots? Can I have an extra onion because I am splitting my share?
A: Because we structure the distribution so that we give out everything we harvest, we cannot let people substitute items they like more for items they like less (unless they use the swap box—that’s why it’s there!), particularly because these often tend to be the items that many people like more or less. We calculate how many carrots you can take by dividing the total number of carrots that we have by the total number of shareholders. So, if someone takes extra carrots, someone else will not get their carrots. The same goes for splitting a share; if something is hard to split, we recommend switching off who gets that item each week (cabbages, for example). But we cannot give people an extra cabbage, because then someone else will not get one.
Q: What does my money pay for in the spring?
A: Your money pays for all the costs associated with running the CSA. Most of this cost is labor; Nina and I both receive 75% of our salaries through CSA income, and apprentices receive a stipend funded partially through the CSA. We also order most of our seeds over the winter, as well as many of our inputs and supplies. An incomplete list of “inputs” includes dried fertilizer, compost (we order it in because we do not make enough of our own for all of our needs), cover crop seed, materials for making our own potting mix for seedlings (peat moss, vermiculite, perlite, compost), and organic-approved pesticides (including insecticidal soap, kaolinite clay, and horticultural oil). “Supplies” include everything else we need to grow vegetables: row cover, wire to hold up the row cover, black plastic to mulch some of the beds, drip tape and spare parts for the drip irrigation system, straw mulch, tools, tomato stakes to replace any that have broken over the past year, pruners, harvesting knives, vegetable storage bins, twine to tie up tomatoes, sharpie markers for labeling. . . it all adds up!
Q: Why is the CSA called “Henry Got Crops!”? Do you know that the grammar is not correct?
‘Henry Got Crops!’ was consensed upon as the name for the CSA by the agroecology class we worked with last fall to develop the concept of the CSA. The students wanted to convey how cool and unexpected they thought it was to have vegetables growing right beside Henry Avenue. We thought it was okay that it was not ‘correct’ grammar because we wanted to give the students some decision-making power. Since they named the project, we went with it!
Meet Farm Aarion Warren
Aarion Warren is a student at Saul and will be going into the 10th grade this fall. He is 14 years old and lives in Germantown. His major at Saul is Landscape Design. He is on the football team and next year will be joining the bowling team at Saul. His favorite vegetable is collard greens.
How to Can Tomatoes
I know this article seems like it’s jumping the gun a bit—we haven’t even eaten fresh tomatoes yet, so who is thinking about putting them up—but the paste tomatoes are nearly ready, and they are the best for canning. Paste tomatoes are generally smaller and have less water than other tomatoes, so they cook down really well and make good sauces or pastes. This article is included this week to give you time to get your canning supplies ready. . .
Materials:
-Tomatoes - about 7 to 8 lbs to make 3 quarts (7 large tomatoes will fill one quart jar.)
-lemon juice - fresh or bottled, about ¼ cup
-1 quart tomato juice (or plain water)
-1 Water bath Canner- this is a huge pot to sterilize the jars after filling (it costs about $30 to $35 at mall kitchen stores and local "big box" stores). You can also just use your biggest soup pot, if it can submerge a whole ball jar. . . Tomatoes are on the border between the high-acid fruits that can be preserved in a boiling-water bath and the low-acid fruits, vegetables and meats that need pressure canning
-1 large pot (to scald the tomatoes, step 3) and 1 medium sized pot to heat the tomato juice or water to add to the jars (step 6) and 1 small pot to sterilize the lids.
-Pint or quart canning jars (Ball or Kerr jars can be found at Publix, Kroger, Safeway and local "big box" stores - about $8 per dozen jars including the lids and rings)
-Lids - thin, flat, round metal lids with a gum binder that seals them against the top of the jar. They may only be used once.
-Rings - metal bands that secure the lids to the jars. They may be reused many times.
-Jar grabber (to pick up the hot jars)
-Lid lifter- (optional- can fish them out with tongs) has a magnet to pick the lids out of the boiling water where you sterilize them. ($2 at mall kitchen stores)
-Jar funnel (optional- can use regular funnel, or pour very carefully) ($3-Grocery stores, like Publix, Kroger and Safeway and local "big box" stores; sometimes even hardware stores)
-Large spoons and ladles
Canning!
1. Sterilize jars and lids
Jars can be sterilized in dishwasher without soap. Lids should be placed in pot of boiling water for several minutes.
2. Start boiling one quart of water in small saucepan (about one quart—you will use it to fill in air space after you fill your jars with tomatoes)
3. Fill the canner one-half full of water and heat on high, with lid on, to get water boiling.
4. Remove tomato skins
Put the tomatoes, a few at a time in a large pot of boiling water for no more than 1 minute (30 - 45 seconds is usually enough). Then, plunge them into a waiting bowl of ice water. The skins will slide right off.
5. Fill the jars with whole or cut tomatoes, to within ¼ inch of the jar’s top.
6. Wipe off contact surfaces (top and threads of jar) with a clean rag to ensure a good seal.
7. Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to each jar. This is very important, because creating an acidic environment is what prevents botchilism, a toxic bacteria that can grow in canned goods if they do not contain enough acid (NOTE: botchilism is very uncommon, and way overhyped. If done according to these directions, canning will not give you botchilism).
8. Fill each jar to ½ inch from the top with water.
9. Using a flat plastic or wood utensil (like a plastic spoon, up side down) free trapped air
bubbles by gently sliding it up and down around the inside edge.
9. Screw on tops and rings.
10. Slowly place jars into water bath. Make sure there is at least an inch of water covering them. Boil cans for at least 45 minutes—a little longer if you are above sea level.
11. Lift cans out with can grabber. Do not bump them. Let them cool. If you sit around while they are cooling, you can sometimes hear them self-seal with a pop. After they are cool, test the lids to make sure they have formed a seal—the center of the lid should be down, and should not make a popping noise when pressed. Sometimes, one or two will not seal. Put these in your refrigerator and use as you would any other opened jar. Store in a cool, dry place.
Canning is not very hard! It is fun!
These directions were mostly copied verbatim from: http://www.pickyourown.org/canning_tomatoes.
Materials:
-Tomatoes - about 7 to 8 lbs to make 3 quarts (7 large tomatoes will fill one quart jar.)
-lemon juice - fresh or bottled, about ¼ cup
-1 quart tomato juice (or plain water)
-1 Water bath Canner- this is a huge pot to sterilize the jars after filling (it costs about $30 to $35 at mall kitchen stores and local "big box" stores). You can also just use your biggest soup pot, if it can submerge a whole ball jar. . . Tomatoes are on the border between the high-acid fruits that can be preserved in a boiling-water bath and the low-acid fruits, vegetables and meats that need pressure canning
-1 large pot (to scald the tomatoes, step 3) and 1 medium sized pot to heat the tomato juice or water to add to the jars (step 6) and 1 small pot to sterilize the lids.
-Pint or quart canning jars (Ball or Kerr jars can be found at Publix, Kroger, Safeway and local "big box" stores - about $8 per dozen jars including the lids and rings)
-Lids - thin, flat, round metal lids with a gum binder that seals them against the top of the jar. They may only be used once.
-Rings - metal bands that secure the lids to the jars. They may be reused many times.
-Jar grabber (to pick up the hot jars)
-Lid lifter- (optional- can fish them out with tongs) has a magnet to pick the lids out of the boiling water where you sterilize them. ($2 at mall kitchen stores)
-Jar funnel (optional- can use regular funnel, or pour very carefully) ($3-Grocery stores, like Publix, Kroger and Safeway and local "big box" stores; sometimes even hardware stores)
-Large spoons and ladles
Canning!
1. Sterilize jars and lids
Jars can be sterilized in dishwasher without soap. Lids should be placed in pot of boiling water for several minutes.
2. Start boiling one quart of water in small saucepan (about one quart—you will use it to fill in air space after you fill your jars with tomatoes)
3. Fill the canner one-half full of water and heat on high, with lid on, to get water boiling.
4. Remove tomato skins
Put the tomatoes, a few at a time in a large pot of boiling water for no more than 1 minute (30 - 45 seconds is usually enough). Then, plunge them into a waiting bowl of ice water. The skins will slide right off.
5. Fill the jars with whole or cut tomatoes, to within ¼ inch of the jar’s top.
6. Wipe off contact surfaces (top and threads of jar) with a clean rag to ensure a good seal.
7. Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to each jar. This is very important, because creating an acidic environment is what prevents botchilism, a toxic bacteria that can grow in canned goods if they do not contain enough acid (NOTE: botchilism is very uncommon, and way overhyped. If done according to these directions, canning will not give you botchilism).
8. Fill each jar to ½ inch from the top with water.
9. Using a flat plastic or wood utensil (like a plastic spoon, up side down) free trapped air
bubbles by gently sliding it up and down around the inside edge.
9. Screw on tops and rings.
10. Slowly place jars into water bath. Make sure there is at least an inch of water covering them. Boil cans for at least 45 minutes—a little longer if you are above sea level.
11. Lift cans out with can grabber. Do not bump them. Let them cool. If you sit around while they are cooling, you can sometimes hear them self-seal with a pop. After they are cool, test the lids to make sure they have formed a seal—the center of the lid should be down, and should not make a popping noise when pressed. Sometimes, one or two will not seal. Put these in your refrigerator and use as you would any other opened jar. Store in a cool, dry place.
Canning is not very hard! It is fun!
These directions were mostly copied verbatim from: http://www.pickyourown.org/canning_tomatoes.
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