Good Eats Newsletter - September 28, 2011

This Week's Vegetable Share Contains:

Spinach; Banana Fingerling Potatoes; Romanesca Cauliflower; Mixed Colorful Carrors; Broccoli; Red Torpedo Onions; Beet Greens; Green Peppers; Cayenne Peppers, Cilantro plus....

2 Sugar Dumpling Winter Squash

Localvore Offerings Include:

Crooked Mile Chevre with Roasted Garlic and Red Pepper

Red Hen Cyrus Pringle Batard

Pa Pa Doodles Farm Eggs

Onions Drying on the Porch

Storage and Use Tips

Sugar Dumplings Winter Squash-

Oh how I love these sweet little fall delicacies. These beautiful squash deserve to occupy prime real estate on your dinner plate. Or in your dessert bowl! An oh-so simple recipe below calls for baking with a little butter, a little sweetener to take it up a notch and some spices. When you finish scraping the inside of the rind, you will be looking for more.

Romanesca Cauliflower - A very striking vegetable, the Romanesca variety of cauliflower has a beautiful light green color with pointed florets instead of the usual rounded. Originally from Northern Italy, its taste is somewhat milder than the traditional cauliflower as well. Cook as you would a regular specimen. Consider blanching the florets and adding to a crudite platter. Store unwashed in a loosely wrapped plastic bag in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator.

Good Eats Fall/Winter Share

Sign Up Now to Reserve Your Share!

Are you ready for winter? We will have such a great share this year. Pete is planting the greenhouses with baby greens now and getting succession crops lined up to keep us all in something green in the weeks and months ahead. We have preserved an amazing abundance of summer crops in the last month and we'll be doling out this summer goodness all winter long.

The Fall/Winter Veggie Only Share is designed to give you something fresh and green each week as well as a selection of stored, frozen or processed crops from the summer. We'll have a mix of summer and fall vegetables into November. Hardy greens and some other cold tolerant field crops will be included well into December, and then the later weeks of the share will feature more storage favorites like potatoes, carrots, onions, winter squash and cabbages along with the our winter greens mix and frozen summer goodies. Our newly re-assembled on-farm kitchen has allowed us to process and freeze many items for the winter veggie share like corn, cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers ... and even watermelon (yes watermelon!).

Join the Localvore Share and, in addition to your vegetables, receive eggs, cheeses, staples and other locally produced value added products from Pete's Greens and other great businessees around the area.

And for the kind hearted carnivores out there check out our Fall/Winter Meat Share including Pete's Pastured meats and sustainably produced meats and seafood from the area.

Check our website for more details about Fall/Winter Share details, pricing, pick-up locations and sign up information.

Changes to Your Delivery?

If you will be away some upcoming week, and need to make changes to your share delivery, let me know at least 1 week before the change. You can have your share donated to the Food Pantry, or I can stop your share delivery and you will retain a credit on your account toward the purchase of your next share.

Localvore Lore

Crooked Mile Fresh Chevre - Here's something scrumptiously decadent and new for you to try! Roberta Gillot of Crooked Mile Farm makes her chevre from the goats that she and her family raise on the Waterford farm they are restoring. It all started just four years ago when her then 9 year old daughter Lauren had the urge to milk. So they bought her two goats. And then the goats kidded and they had more goats. And more milk. So they learned to make cheese! They use only the milk from their 12 milk does to make their cheese - a real micro dairy (Roberta said she was begging the does over the weekend to produce enough milk to finish our CSA order!). Roberta's 12 year old son Benjamin is now the farm herdsman. They take care to grow high quality pasture and hay for their goats, in order to make the best tasting cheese. They make several goat cheese spreads, this roasted garlic and red pepper variety (made with garlic from their farm and local peppers); a fresh ginger chevre which is really interesting, different and delicious; a black pepper chevre and several others. This one I love and I hope you enjoy it too! Please send feedback about this cheese, it's the first time we have featured it!

From Red Hen Baking Co. we have Cyrus Pringle bread, made entirely with VT grown wheat flours. Randy developed this delicious bread in 2009 following Tom Kenyon's (Aurora Farm, Charlotte) first successful harvest of a hard red winter wheat variety required for bread making. He has modified the bread a little since he first baked it, adding a little of Ben Gleason's whole wheat for a better flavor profile. Both the Aurora Farm organic white flour and a sifted version of Ben Gleason's whole wheat flour have been included in your shares this summer. The bread is named after Cyrus Pringle, a reknowned wheat breeder who lived and farmed in Charlotte in the late 1800s. The wheat varieties that he developed for our region are becoming popular again today with farmers who are returning to growing wheat locally..

Eggs again this week too from Pa Pa Doodles Farm!

Recipes

Simple Baked Sugar Dumpling Squash
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Cut the squash in half, and remove the seeds and extra bits with a spoon. Turn upside down, and poke some holes in the skin with a fork. Turn it back over, and place each half into a baking dish filled with an inch or so of water.

In each squash half, put the following ingredients, sprinkling spices on the top edge, too:

1 tablespoon pure maple syrup


1/2 teaspoon cinnamon


1/8 teaspoon nutmeg


1/2 tablespoon butter


1 teaspoon brown sugar or maple sugar

Bake uncovered on the middle oven rack for 40-45 minutes, or until tender.

Quick Moroccan Vegetable Couscous
Bon Appétit January 1996. Serves 2 but can be doubled.

1/3 cup sliced almonds
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cups mixed cup-up vegetables (such as red onion, carrots, cauliflower or broccoli)
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup golden raisins (or chopped apples)
3/4 cup vegetable broth

1/3 cup sliced almonds

One 5- to 7-ounce box couscous and lentil mix or other couscous blend

Place almonds in heavy medium skillet. Stir over medium heat until almonds are pale golden, about 4 minutes. Transfer almonds to bowl. Add oil to same skillet.Increase heat to medium-high. Add vegetables, cumin and coriander; sauté until vegetables just begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add wine and raisins. Boil until wine is reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Add broth. Partially cover skillet; simmer until vegetables are tender, about 6 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, prepare couscous according to package directions.

Mound couscous on platter. Spoon vegetable topping and juices over. Sprinkle with almonds and serve.

Mixed Vegetable Curry - Sabzi Bhaji

2 large potatoes, cut into thin julienne strips
2 carrots, cut into julienne strips
1 onion, finely chopped
1/2 to 1 cayenne pepper, seeded and finally chopped
1 tablespoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne
dash of amchoor powder (if you have it)
dash of mace (if you have it)
1 teaspoon of sea salt
freshly cracked black pepper

2 tablespoons of ghee, or a mixture of butter and oil
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped or grated
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 large tomato, finely chopped
1 cup of caluliflower or broccoli or chopped beet greens
a generous handful of freshcoriander, chopped
2/3 cup of plain yogurt
juice of 1 fresh lemon
1/2 cup of water
1 tablespoon of chickpea flour (optional)

In a medium bowl, combine the potatoes, carrots, onions, chillies, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, amchoor powder, mace, salt and black pepper. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for an hour.

Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium heat. When hot, toss in the ginger, cumin seeds. Stir and fry for a few minutes. Add the potato and carrot mixture to the pan and cook for a few minutes, stirring often. Add your cauliflower or other green veggies now along with the tomato, lemon juice and most of the freshly chopped cilantro. Cook, stirring often, for another 5 minutes. Gradually stir in the yogurt and add 1/2 cup of water. Cover and cook for 30 - 40 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. Add more water if necessary to achieve your desired consistency or a bit of chickpea flour if the dish has excess water. Garnish with the remaining cilantro or add to the cooking pot and stir.

Beet Greens and Potato Frittata

2 cups finely chopped potatoes (about 1 pound)

1 cup chopped beet greens

1/3 cup fat-free milk

2 tablespoons grated fresh Parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

6 large eggs

1 teaspoon butter

1/3 cup (about 1 1/2 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

4 beet green leaves, optional

Preheat broiler.

Place potatoes in a medium saucepan, and cover with water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 8 minutes. Add chopped beet greens; cook 2 minutes or until tender. Drain.

Combine milk and the next 5 ingredients (milk through egg whites) in a large bowl, and stir with a whisk. Stir in potato mixture. Oil a skillet. Melt butter in a medium skillet over medium heat, and tilt to coat pan. Pour the egg mixture into skillet; cook 15 minutes or until top is just set. Sprinkle with mozzarella.

Wrap handle of skillet with foil; broil 5 minutes or until golden brown. Garnish with beet green leaves, if desired.