3 red bell peppers
3 yellow bell peppers
4 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon matchstick-size orange peel strips (orange part only)
12 large fresh basil leaves
Char bell peppers over gas flame or in broiler until blackened on all sides. Wrap in paper bag and let stand at least 10 minutes. Peel and seed. Rinse if necessary; pat dry. Cut into 3/4-inch-wide strips. Place in bowl. Mix in oil, vinegar and orange peel. Season with salt and pepper. Let stand 1 hour. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Bring to room temperature before serving) Chop basil; mix into peppers and serve.
(Bon Appetit, 1991. www.epicurious.com)
Showing posts with label newsletter 17. Show all posts
Showing posts with label newsletter 17. Show all posts
Friday, February 19, 2010
Mashed Potatoes with Celery Root and Mascarpone
3 1/4 pounds potatoes, peeled, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 1/2 pounds celery root (celeriac), peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 whole peeled garlic cloves plus 1 tablespoon minced garlic
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
Place potatoes, celery root and whole garlic cloves in large pot. Add enough cold water to cover vegetables. Salt the water and bring to boil. Cover partially and boil until vegetables are very tender, about 40 minutes. Drain.
Transfer vegetables to large bowl. Using electric mixer, beat mixture until almost smooth. Add minced garlic, mascarpone and butter; beat until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be prepared 3 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature. Rewarm over medium-low heat, stirring frequently.)
(From: Bon Appetit Magazine, 1997. www.epicurious.com)
1 1/2 pounds celery root (celeriac), peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 whole peeled garlic cloves plus 1 tablespoon minced garlic
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
Place potatoes, celery root and whole garlic cloves in large pot. Add enough cold water to cover vegetables. Salt the water and bring to boil. Cover partially and boil until vegetables are very tender, about 40 minutes. Drain.
Transfer vegetables to large bowl. Using electric mixer, beat mixture until almost smooth. Add minced garlic, mascarpone and butter; beat until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be prepared 3 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature. Rewarm over medium-low heat, stirring frequently.)
(From: Bon Appetit Magazine, 1997. www.epicurious.com)
Open-Face Butter and Radish Sandwiches.
2 1/2 bunches radishes, trimmed
Unsalted butter, room temp.
20 1/4-inch-thick diagonal slices baguette
Maldon sea salt or coarse kosher salt
Place radishes in medium bowl of ice water and chill at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours. Drain radishes and slice thinly.
Spread butter generously over baguette slices and sprinkle lightly with sea salt or coarse kosher salt. Arrange radish slices atop buttered baguette slices and serve.
(Bon Appetit, 2008)
Unsalted butter, room temp.
20 1/4-inch-thick diagonal slices baguette
Maldon sea salt or coarse kosher salt
Place radishes in medium bowl of ice water and chill at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours. Drain radishes and slice thinly.
Spread butter generously over baguette slices and sprinkle lightly with sea salt or coarse kosher salt. Arrange radish slices atop buttered baguette slices and serve.
(Bon Appetit, 2008)
Eggs Buerre Noir
Eggs
Butter
Sage
Cider vinegar
Fry eggs in a buttered, covered skillet.
Remove when done and place on a platter in a warm (200 degree) oven.
Put a lump of butter for each egg in skillet and cook until brown.
Add ¼ teaspoon cider vinegar for each egg.
Mix and spoon over eggs with finely minced fresh or
dry sage
Butter
Sage
Cider vinegar
Fry eggs in a buttered, covered skillet.
Remove when done and place on a platter in a warm (200 degree) oven.
Put a lump of butter for each egg in skillet and cook until brown.
Add ¼ teaspoon cider vinegar for each egg.
Mix and spoon over eggs with finely minced fresh or
dry sage
Why was my Share Smaller Last Week?
This is the nature of a CSA- there are ebbs and flows in the growing season, and these translate into the ebb and flow in the size of your share. It’s what it means to be a shareholder in a farm. Your share is directly linked to production, which is directly linked to the weather and point in the growing season. We are all in this together, sharing both the bounty and the risks of agriculture. You, the community are supporting the farmers, and we the farmers are supporting the community. This season, because of all the rain and cooler than normal weather, a few of our crops are suffering, especially the tomatoes and basil. Other crops, like the bell peppers and summer squash, are slowing down earlier than usual because of the lack of the typical summer heat and sun. But just around the corner is a return of cool weather crops like the ones you saw in the spring, as well as new fall root crops like parsnips and rutabagas.
Where Does The Rest of the Food Produced at Henry Got Crops! Go?
By Nicole Sugerman
Although our primary mission is to serve our community shareholders (that’s you!), not 100% of the produce we grow ends up on your tables. There are several reasons for this. In order to succeed in our first season, we sold CSA shares cautiously, estimating how many shares we could fill based on a worst-case scenario. We didn’t want to sell shares too ambitiously and then not have enough food. So, we picked a number that we knew we could exceed in order to satisfy and impress our first-season community. Luckily, our yields are a bit higher than our worst-case predictions, meaning we have more produce than we need to give you all generous shares each week.
Also, we occasionally have bumper crops of a certain item. No matter how much eggplant we gave out this past July, we were inevitably left with a rather large amount. Ditto with greens in the early spring. Calculating how much of a certain crop to plant is a little bit tricky, since productivity varies based on time of the year, time of planting, and climactic conditions each season. So sometimes, we overestimate (or under, in the case of this summer’s much too rare salad greens) a little bit and end up with a bit too much of something.
When we have surplus of something, we distribute it through other means. Every Wednesday, we operate a small farmstand on Henry Avenue. We wanted to provide a venue for the Saul community to eat the produce they helped to grow even if they did not want the commitment of becoming season-long shareholders. Also, Saul has traditionally sold corn on the road in summers past, so we did not want to disappoint those expecting fresh Saul produce.
We also have a stand at the Manayunk Farmers Market on Main Street every Saturday. This is a new market this year, and we were excited to be able to support a new farmers’ market so near to the farm. Since these two farmstands are on Wednesday and Saturday, we conveniently do not have to harvest especially for them; we can use extras that we harvest for share pickups on
Tuesdays and Fridays.
After we satisfy our shareholders first and our markets second, the farm staff takes home vegetables for our own use. Mostly, we take home the slightly gnarly looking stuff, but everyone can take home as much as they can use; our interns and apprentices receive vegetables as a part of their payment. Also, I think it is important for the entire farm staff to eat the vegetables we grow, both as a measure of quality control (are the radishes woody? Are the winter squash ripe enough?), and so that we can knowledgeably answer questions about taste and preparation of each vegetable.
We also donate food to the North Lights Community Center, which runs a food bank twice a week. We donate food because Nina and I are ideologically committed to helping to make fresh, organically produced vegetables accessible to those who are food insecure. We are also required to donate food as part of our participation in the City Harvest program. Run by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, City Harvest is a really exciting, multi-faceted gardening program. Seedlings are grown at a prison in the Northeast, helping prison inmates learn about seedling production and gardening work.
Additional seedlings are grown at a greenhouse shared by Weavers Way Farm, of which our CSA is a part, and PHS, because the participation in the program is so popular that the capacity is now beyond that of the prison greenhouse. These seedlings are distributed throughout the season to community gardens and farms throughout Philadelphia. All of the growers who receive these seedlings donate a portion of their produce to food banks and cupboards. We are proud that the two coordinators of the City Harvest program are shareholders in the Henry Got Crops CSA, as well as a colleague in the Philadelphia Green program at Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. All three are invaluable sources of help to us in our first year!
Established in 1936, North Light Community Center is on Green Lane in Manayunk. In addition to their twice-weekly food cupboard, North Light offers tutoring, summer camp, and afterschool programs for children and teens, technology and job placement programs, neighborhood cultural events, and even grows its own vegetable garden/ entrepreneurial program through the city-wide, recreation-center based Teens For Good program. We are pleased to be working with them this season!
Although our primary mission is to serve our community shareholders (that’s you!), not 100% of the produce we grow ends up on your tables. There are several reasons for this. In order to succeed in our first season, we sold CSA shares cautiously, estimating how many shares we could fill based on a worst-case scenario. We didn’t want to sell shares too ambitiously and then not have enough food. So, we picked a number that we knew we could exceed in order to satisfy and impress our first-season community. Luckily, our yields are a bit higher than our worst-case predictions, meaning we have more produce than we need to give you all generous shares each week.
Also, we occasionally have bumper crops of a certain item. No matter how much eggplant we gave out this past July, we were inevitably left with a rather large amount. Ditto with greens in the early spring. Calculating how much of a certain crop to plant is a little bit tricky, since productivity varies based on time of the year, time of planting, and climactic conditions each season. So sometimes, we overestimate (or under, in the case of this summer’s much too rare salad greens) a little bit and end up with a bit too much of something.
When we have surplus of something, we distribute it through other means. Every Wednesday, we operate a small farmstand on Henry Avenue. We wanted to provide a venue for the Saul community to eat the produce they helped to grow even if they did not want the commitment of becoming season-long shareholders. Also, Saul has traditionally sold corn on the road in summers past, so we did not want to disappoint those expecting fresh Saul produce.
We also have a stand at the Manayunk Farmers Market on Main Street every Saturday. This is a new market this year, and we were excited to be able to support a new farmers’ market so near to the farm. Since these two farmstands are on Wednesday and Saturday, we conveniently do not have to harvest especially for them; we can use extras that we harvest for share pickups on
Tuesdays and Fridays.
After we satisfy our shareholders first and our markets second, the farm staff takes home vegetables for our own use. Mostly, we take home the slightly gnarly looking stuff, but everyone can take home as much as they can use; our interns and apprentices receive vegetables as a part of their payment. Also, I think it is important for the entire farm staff to eat the vegetables we grow, both as a measure of quality control (are the radishes woody? Are the winter squash ripe enough?), and so that we can knowledgeably answer questions about taste and preparation of each vegetable.
We also donate food to the North Lights Community Center, which runs a food bank twice a week. We donate food because Nina and I are ideologically committed to helping to make fresh, organically produced vegetables accessible to those who are food insecure. We are also required to donate food as part of our participation in the City Harvest program. Run by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, City Harvest is a really exciting, multi-faceted gardening program. Seedlings are grown at a prison in the Northeast, helping prison inmates learn about seedling production and gardening work.
Additional seedlings are grown at a greenhouse shared by Weavers Way Farm, of which our CSA is a part, and PHS, because the participation in the program is so popular that the capacity is now beyond that of the prison greenhouse. These seedlings are distributed throughout the season to community gardens and farms throughout Philadelphia. All of the growers who receive these seedlings donate a portion of their produce to food banks and cupboards. We are proud that the two coordinators of the City Harvest program are shareholders in the Henry Got Crops CSA, as well as a colleague in the Philadelphia Green program at Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. All three are invaluable sources of help to us in our first year!
Established in 1936, North Light Community Center is on Green Lane in Manayunk. In addition to their twice-weekly food cupboard, North Light offers tutoring, summer camp, and afterschool programs for children and teens, technology and job placement programs, neighborhood cultural events, and even grows its own vegetable garden/ entrepreneurial program through the city-wide, recreation-center based Teens For Good program. We are pleased to be working with them this season!
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