Good Eats Newsletter - November 6, 2013

Meat share members - it's a meat week! Localvore Members  & Regular Veggie Only Share Members take a LIGHT GREEN BAG This week your bag will contain: Mesclun; Potatoes; Beets; Sugar Beet Greens; Napa Cabbage; Celery; Lettuce; Dill; Onions And OUT of the bag: Acorn Squash Garlic- look for it in large paper bag - take 2 heads Localvore and Pantry Offerings Include: Red Hen Bread Baguette Pete's Greens Tomato Sauce VT Creamery Creme Fraiche Organic Black Beans Half Veggie Only Members take a YELLOW BAG containing: Mesclun; Beets; Sugar Beet Greens;  Dill; Napa Cabbage OR Lettuce OR Celery And OUT of the bag: Acorn Squash Garlic- look for it in large paper bag - take 2 heads

Are you confused about which bag to take?  Localvore and Regular Veggie only members take the light green/tan bag on the left.  Half share members take the bright yellow bag to the right.   This new half share was formerly called the Small Veggie Share. This week is a meat share week and those shares are packed in a bright red bag in the cooler. We have a new share starting called the Roots Cellar Share!  This is a half veggie share minus the salad greens.  Next week there will be yet another bag for these members to choose from (not sure which color yet) so please be mindful in picking up your items so everyone gets their goodies!

Changes to Your Delivery? If you will be away some upcoming week, and need to make changes to your share delivery, let us know at least 1 week before the change. You can have your share donated to the Food Pantry, or you can skip your share delivery and you will retain a credit on your account toward the purchase of your next share. Storage and Use Tips Acorn squash is a winter squash with distinctive longitudinal ridges and sweet, yellow-orange flesh.  It's a good source of dietary fiber and potassium, as well as smaller amounts of vitamins C and B, magnesium, and manganese.  It's excellent baked or roasted, steamed or stuffed with rice, meat, or vegetable mixtures.  The potatoes for the large share this week are a mix of baby Nicolas and Red Golds.  Both are truly all purpose and are great for boiling, mashing or roasting and are plenty waxy enough to make excellent potato salad. Our red beets have a smooth round shape and deep red color. You may also have some chioggia beets thrown in.  Chioggias are absolutely gorgeous red and white striped beets.  Both kinds may be eaten cooked or raw. Grated beets make a fabulous addition to salads and slaws. Grate some early in the week and place them in a tupperware and then sprinkle them into salads all week.  Roasted beets are extra delicious, roasting carmelizes the sugar in the beets. Cube beets and roast them in the oven with a drizzle of oil at 400F until they are tender and just browning at the edges. If you don't eat them all right away, cool and toss into a container and add these to salads.  The red beets will bleed when cooked so if preparing with other veggies be mindful of that fact that you will end up with a uniformly technicolor dish (they will ruin the beautiful striping of a Chioggia). Sugar beet greens are a bunch of greens with no beets on the end.  They have a smooth, green leaf and are in the chard family, but even sweeter!  Use these greens just as you would chard.  Napa cabbage is an Asian vegetable that resembles regular green cabbage, but is much more tender with large crunchy ribs and has a long, slender shape. Napa cabbage has slightly more protein and fewer calories than regular cabbage and a unique taste like a mild celery or bok choy. It is delicious raw or cooked, and can be substituted for regular cabbage in most recipes.  It is extremely popular in China partly because of its versatility. In Korea it is pickled, salted, and flavored with ginger and chili peppers to make Korea's national dish kim chi. Store in a sealed plastic bag in your refrigerator for 2-3 weeks. This is beautiful celery and smells great!  There will be some leafy stuff at the top - save this for future use.  Though you may not use it this week for fresh eating or whatever dish you are making, celery leaves make a great flavorful addition to soups so chop tops and then freeze in plastic bags for use this Fall.  This week's lettuce is more panisse.  I love to throw this mild lettuce on a sandwich or in my morning smoothie. You may find some black spots on your dill.  They were starting to get frost damage but are still great tasting and fine to use.  If you don't use it right away keep an eye on it.  If you see further signs of decline you can remove those black spots to keep it fresher, or you can also freeze it in a plastic bag for later use. Dill perks up soups, salads, casseroles. It pairs really well with cucumbers, potatoes, eggs, beets, fish, salads and sald dressings, tomatoes, yogurt. Large share members are getting 2 kinds of onions this week - yellow onions and red torpedos.  Torpedo onions are included in the class of roasting onions, though they are also great for grilling, sautéing, or pickling.  Torpedo onions originated in the Italian town of Tropea, where the Phoenicians introduced them more than 2,000 years ago.  These onions are very pungent, with a sharp note which balances out the sweet flavor. Because the red torpedo onion does not store well, it is generally a seasonal delicacy, available only in the Fall.  Keep them loosely wrapped in a plastic bag in your refrigerator. We're trying something new with the garlic this week.  At each site there will be a large paper bag filled with enough garlic for your site.  Please take 2 from the bag.  Veggie Storage and Use Tips are on our website too, so please bookmark the recipe and storage tip section.  I am sure you will find it useful. Localvore Lore Randy at Red Hen Baking Co is baking up baguettes for you this week.  Pete's Greens Tomato Sauce is made right here on the farm with fresh organic tomatoes, onions, fennel, garlic, sunflower oil, basil, oregano, thyme, salt, black pepper and lemon juice. It is great for pizza, pastas or dipping. VT Creamery Creme Fraiche is a French style cultured cream.   It is made with fresh, high quality Vermont cream from the local St. Albans Cooperative, a coop of 500 family farms in Northeast Vermont. Crème Fraîche is exquisitely rich, with a cultured, nutty flavor and creamy texture. A staple of French Cuisine, Crème Fraîche can be used as an ingredient for sauces, pastry, custard, or as a topping on pie, fruits and soups.  This is great added into chili! This week we have organic Black Turtle Beans for you.  These organic beans come from the Potenza Farm in NY.  Please give your beans a rinse in water and scan for little rocks/stones!  There may be a few.  The black turtle bean has a dense, meaty texture and is very high in protein, which makes it popular in vegetarian dishes. It is an excellent choice for making into soups and chilis as it broth cooks down to a paste like consistency. You can also cook and add to salads, rice or use in a tamale pie. It is common to keep the boiled water of these beans and consume it as a soup with other ingredients for seasoning (known as sopa negra, black soup), as a broth (caldo de frijol, bean broth) or to season or color other dishes. Here are some of my tricks and instructions for cooking these little black nuggets. Number one, some sort of pre-soak is required to cook beans and will significantly reduce cooking time. Cover with 2 inches of water and soak overnight or for 6-8 hours. Drain and cover with fresh water and simmer until beans are soft, about an hour. In warm conditions, refrigerate black beans while they soak to prevent fermentation. A quick-soak method involves covering beans with water, bring to a boil for 2 minutes and then remove from heat and let sit for 2 hours. Drain, cover with fresh water and simmer until soft, about an hour. The beans may prematurely break up with a quick-soak method. Use the overnight method for dishes where it is essential the beans stay whole, such as salads and relishes. Do not add salt or acidic ingredients such as lemon, vinegar, wine, and tomatoes until the beans are finished or nearly done cooking. Adding earlier can cause the beans to toughen. If additional water is needed during the cooking process, use boiling water rather than cold water. Addition of the herbs known as summer savory and epazote can help reduce the flatulence suffered by many who eat beans. Once the beans are cooked you can enjoy them right away or freeze them.  I like to cook up a large batch at once, use some that week in dishes or a salad, and freeze the rest in 1 cup  increments.  Then when you need some black beans just pull out a bag, thaw and enjoy! Meat Share We have a large Pete's Greens Pastured Chicken for you.  These birds were just put in the freezer in the last couple weeks.  The first few weeks of their life was spent in the barn, protected from elements, their diet supplemented with our greens.  As soon as they were feathered up at 4 weeks old they headed out to the field and they spent the next weeks grazing and foraging, protected by electric fencing from predators.  Their meat is wonderfully flavorful and very nutritious.  These birds are somewhat large so you can make a few meals out of them.  Roast it the first night, turn leftovers into chicken pot pie (my kids' new favorite meal) or chicken salad, then boil the carcass down to make soup broth. Here's a refresher on chicken safety facts to ensure proper handling of your chicken. Thaw in the refrigerator, not on the counter or in the microwave Make sure to cook all poultry thoroughly to avoid any food-borne illness.  Cook until the juices run clear and the internal temperature gets to 165, or 180 to be even safer. Don't cross contaminate - make sure to thoroughly wash knives, cutting boards, and anything you touched while dealing with raw meats. We also have grass fed Delmonico Steaks from North Hollow Farm in Rochester, VT.   The cows that these steaks come from are treated extremely well.  Everything they eat is produced on the farm and they're never fed any hormones or antibiotics.  The beef is lean, moist and delicious and is dry aged for two weeks before it's ready for consumption.  Grass-fed beef has more beta-carotene, vitamin E and Omega-3 fatty acids than beef produced using conventional cattle-feeding strategies," according to a research review conducted by University of California Cooperative Extension and California State University, Chico.  Enjoy these steaks! We're also sending out a package of Applecheek Farms Organic Veal/Pork Andouille sausage.  Applecheek Farms is a certified organic, diversified and sustainable family owned farm located in beautiful Hyde Park, Vermont. Their farm produces organic dairy, grass-fed beef, humanely raised veal, pasture-raised poultry, raw milk and emu oil.  These sausages are wonderful added to chili, cooked whole, or added to soups or stews. John and Rocio Clark are very proud of how they run their farm and raise their animals. Their meat is all certified organic.  Although not in the business of raising veal, male calves are part of the reality on their organic dairy.  Males don't have a place in the milking line so a lot of times they are sold extremely cheaply to another farm but not at Applecheek Farm.  According to Rocio, "Our veal is raised the old fashioned way, with plenty of milk from their mothers.  They nurse whenever they choose; with plenty of grass in our certified organic fields and with plenty of fresh air and sunshine.  As a result, their meat is rosy pink with a robust flavor and great tenderness and is very high in nutrients. The calves are born in the spring and slaughtered in the fall." Recipes Roasted Beet and Onion Salad If you are one of those folks who have never developed a love for beets, try roasting them.  Roasting sweetens them and deepens their earthy flavor.  Roasted beets keep well in the fridge for 4-5 days and are great tossed onto daily green salads.  This recipe brings together roasted beets and roasted torpedo onions and tops them with dill, all in the share this week.  The original recipe is adapted from one by Clifford Wright.  You could roast the onions and beets together but please watch the onions closely, they will be bitter if they blacken too much.  The beets will take longer to roast. 2 medium size torpedo onions, sliced across the grain in 1/4 " rings 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 lb beets, roasted, peeled and sliced (roast all of your beets and save remainder for other salads) Salt and freshly ground pepper 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar 1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar 2 to 3 tablespoons finely chopped dill 1 ounce toasted almonds, chopped (2 tablespoons chopped) Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Place beets in a glass baking dish and add 1/4 inch of water and cover tightly and place in oven.  Large beets over 8 oz will take 50-60 means to roast.  Roast til they are easily pierced with a fork. Toss the sliced onions with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and salt to taste, and place on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Toward the second half of the roasting of the beets, place the onions in the oven and roast 15 minutes, turning the onions over halfway through. They should be nicely browned and just beginning to blacken around the edges, but not charred. Remove from the heat. Remove beets carefully when roasted, and the skins will slip from them easily (you can run them under cool water briefly if too hot to handle when removing skins, they will still retain some warmth.  Slice beets into discs. Arrange the sliced beets on a platter. Arrange the onions over the beets. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Whisk together the vinegars, salt and pepper to taste and the remaining olive oil. Drizzle over the onions and beets. Sprinkle on the dill and the almonds, and serve. Creme Fraiche Potatoes Gratin This recipe comes from VT Creamery and looks amazing. 1 ounce butter lightly salted 2 medium onions, sliced thinly 2 cloves garlic, minced Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste 1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped, or 1 tsp dried thyme 1½ cups whole milk 8 ounces crème fraîche 4 pounds potatoes, peeled and sliced thin 1 cup cheddar or gruyère, grated Preheat oven to 400°F. Melt butter in a large sauté pan over medium heat.  Add onions and garlic, stirring occasionally to allow the onions to become somewhat translucent and caramelized. Add salt, pepper, thyme, and milk, and allow to come to a boil, stirring frequently. Lower heat and stir in the crème fraîche. Add the sliced potatoes and allow to simmer for a few minutes. Make sure to gently stir the potatoes so all are coated. Butter a 10- x 14-inch gratin or casserole dish, and pour the potatoes and cream sauce into it. Sprinkle with the cheese, and bake for 1 hour, until potatoes are soft. Dilly Potatoes This is a great dish.  I like to serve it warm  like a German potato salad. 1 pound potatoes, cut into 1" pieces 1/2 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard 2 tablespoons white-wine vinegar 3 teaspoons dry vermouth or dry white wine 4 tablespoons olive oil 1/4 cup minced fresh dill Cut the potatoes lengthwise into fourths and in a steamer set over boiling water steam them, covered, for 7 to 10 minutes, or until they are just tender. In a bowl whisk together the mustard, the vinegar, the vermouth, and salt to taste, add the oil in a stream, whisking, and whisk the dressing until it is emulsified. Add the potatoes while they are still warm to the dressing and toss them gently with the dressing, the dill, and pepper to taste until they are coated well. Let the potato mixture stand, tossing it occasionally, for 30 minutes and serve it at room temperature. The potato mixture may be made 1 day in advance and kept covered and chilled. Let the potato mixture return to room temperature before serving. Napa Cabbage and Caraway Slaw This is a nice refreshing salad- not too elaborate, but still easy and tasty. 2 teaspoons white-wine vinegar 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 tablespoons finely chopped scallion 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds, chopped fine 3 cups thinly sliced Napa cabbage In a bowl whisk together vinegar, oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Add scallion, caraway, and cabbage and toss well. Marinated Veggies with Mustard Dill Dressing All the veggies can be prepared a day in advance and thrown together easily.  The dill adds a whole new element to the dish! For marinade 2/3 cup white-wine vinegar 2/3 cup water 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons dill seed 2 garlic cloves, forced through a garlic press 1 teaspoon salt 2 pounds beets, scrubbed and trimmed, leaving about 1 inch of stems attached 2 pounds potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1 1/2-inch cubes 5 sticks celery, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes 1 onion, peeled and cut into cubes For dressing 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons white-wine vinegar 1 tablespoon water 1 tablespoon sugar 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup olive oil 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill Make marinade: In a small saucepan bring marinade ingredients to a boil stirring until sugar is dissolved and cool. Preheat oven to 400°F.  Wrap beets tightly in foil and roast in middle of oven 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until tender. Combine potatoes, celery, and onion on a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil.  Roast in the oven until tender. Unwrap beets carefully and cool. Slip off beet skins and slice beets, transferring to another bowl. Add potatoes, celery and onions and marinate, covered and chilled, at least 4 hours. Vegetables may be prepared up to this point 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Make dressing: In a bowl whisk together mustard, vinegar, water, sugar, and salt and add oil in a stream, whisking until dressing is emulsified. Whisk in dill. Just before serving, drain beets, potatoes, celery, and onions. Arrange vegetables decoratively on a platter and drizzle with dressing. Mapley Acorn Squash This is my favorite way to enjoy acorn squash.  2 acorn squash (each about 1 1/2 pounds), halved crosswise and the seeds and strings discarded 2 TBS  unsalted butter, softened 1/4 cup pure maple syrup 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice, or to taste 2 tablespoons dried currants Spread the cavity of each squash half with about 1/2 teaspoon of the butter, sprinkle the halves with salt and pepper to taste, and arrange them, cut sides down, in a large baking pan. Add enough water to reach about 1/4 inch up the sides of the squash halves and bake the squash in the middle of a preheated 400°F. oven for 30 minutes. While the squash is baking, in a small saucepan combine the remaining butter, the maple syrup, the allspice, the currants, and a pinch of salt and heat the mixture over moderately low heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the currants are plumped. Remove the squash from the oven, turn it cut sides up, and brush it generously with some of the maple mixture. Return the squash to the oven and bake it, brushing it with the maple mixture occasionally and adding more water to the pan as necessary to keep the bottom covered, for 20 to 30 minutes more, or until it is very tender. Season the squash with salt and pepper.   Beets with Stout and Sauteed Greens If you don't feel like using a beer in this recipe you can sub balsamic vinegar. 1.5 pounds beets, trimmed, leaving 2 inches of the stem ends intact  3 tablespoons Guinness stout  1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar  1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter  1 bunch of beet greens, coarse stems discarded and the leaves washed well, spun dry, and chopped very coarse In a kettle cover the beets with 2 inches cold water, bring to a boil, and simmer the beets, covered, for 20 to 35 minutes (depending on their size), or until they are tender. Drain the beets and under the cold running water slip off and discard their skins and stems. In a skillet bring to a boil the stout and the vinegar and whisk in 2 tablespoons of the butter. Stir in the beets, quartered, add the salt and pepper to taste, and keep the beets warm, covered. In a large skillet heat the remaining 2 tablespoons butter over moderately high heat until the foam subsides, in it sauté the reserved beet greens, stirring, for 5 minutes, or until they are tender, and stir in the salt and pepper to taste. Arrange the greens around the edge of a platter and mound the beets in the center. Black Bean Chili Chili is also one of those dishes you can add other veggies and ingredients to very easily. I like to add diced carrots (cook like potatoes), frozen corn (add at end) and pickled jalapenos (add to taste) to mine at home.   1/4 cup olive oil 2 cups chopped onions 1 2/3 cups coarsely chopped red bell peppers (about 2 medium) 6 garlic cloves, chopped 2 tablespoons chili powder 2 teaspoons dried oregano 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper 3 15- to 16-ounce cans black beans, drained, 1/2 cup liquid reserved OR 4 1/2 cups cooked beans, 1/2 cup broth reserved 1 16-ounce jar tomato sauce Chopped fresh cilantro Creme Fraiche or Sour Cream Grated MontereyJack cheese Chopped green onions Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onions, bell peppers, and garlic; sauté until onions soften, about 10 minutes. Mix in chili powder, oregano, cumin, and cayenne; stir 2 minutes. Mix in beans, 1/2 cup reserved bean liquid, and tomato sauce. Bring chili to boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until flavors blend and chili thickens, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle chili into bowls. Pass chopped cilantro, creme fraiche, grated cheese, and green onions separately.