Good Eats Weekly Newsletter - June 7, 2017



LAST WEEK OF THE SPRING SHARE!!!


THIS IS A MEAT WEEK!


Localvore Members 
& Full Veggie Only Share Members
take a LIGHT GREEN BAG

This week your bag contains:

Spinach or Mesclun, Lettuce Head, Chard, Flat Parsley, Scallions, Celeriac, Yellow Onions, Mixed Baby Potatoes, and

And OUT of the Bag:
TOMATOES!





Half Veggie Members
take a YELLOW BAG containing:
Lettuce head or Radishes, Basil, Scallions, Kale, Rainbow Carrots, and Mixed Baby Potatoes






Localvore / Pantry Offerings


Pete's Greens or Elmore Mountain Pizza Dough
Pete's Greens Tomato Sauce
Jasper Hill Farm Party Harbison

For every season...

The end of this Spring Share is a turning point for two CSA sites. 

We want to offer a HUGE THANK YOU to
Robin & Andy (Chase St) and Jordan & Kate (Bayview St) for hosting our weekly veggie deliveries.

Both houses have hosted our CSA every week for many years. In fact, Robin & Andy were the VERY FIRST CSA hosts in Burlington!! 

Jordan & Kate's home is also one of our oldest sites. They're heading to Austin, so wish them well!

For Bayview members, we're setting up a new site on 13 Kilburn St at the Burlington Natural Health Center.

We salute you!
SUMMER CSA STARTS NEXT WEEK!

If you are a Spring or Late Spring Share member, this is your LAST delivery! 
THANK YOU for joining us during this transition season and hope you join us again for Summer!

Join HERE to keep your weekly veggie deliveries coming! If you sign up for any of the veggie shares and send in your payment by Friday, June 9, we'll send you a FREE thank you gift - a special Pete's Greens coffee mug!

Find out more about what you can expect from a Summer CSA.

Summer Season - June 14 - October 5, 2017


VT GIVES THIS WEEK

Vermont Gives is THIS WEEK: 6pm Wednesday the 7th through 6pm Thursday the 8th – a 24-hour giving day to celebrate the work of nonprofits and encourage folks to donate to their favorite Vermont-based nonprofit orgs (more info here).

There are a lot of great nonprofits working in Vermont today, but we want to give a special shout out to Salvation Farms. Salvation Farms is fundraising to support its work managing wholesome but un-marketed crops in ways that serve farms, connect our communities to our farmers, and strengthen our state’s food system -- a mission that germinated 13 years ago when Theresa Snow was an employee at Pete's Greens... her time there being a key part of our origin story!

Here’s Salvation Farms’ giving page if you’d like to read more. Pete's Greens works closely with Salvation Farms throughout the summer to ensure no food gets left behind and help make sure Vermont can feed itself.


Around the farm...

This is it - Spring is over and we're on to Summer! Sign up today to keep your weekly veggie deliveries going all summer long! Look for a survey later this week about the Spring Share. We want to hear from you so we can continue to improve our Good Eats program.
There's a lot of news in this newsletter and a lot of good eating to be done - so go forth and enjoy the food! If you're in the Craftsbury area this summer, we'd love to see you at our Craftsbury Farmstand. Starting this weekend, we'll have Alejandro Angio cooking up fresh Argentinean cuisine using ingredients from our farm. Or come visit us during our Open Farm Day on August 19. Bookmark this page as more info is added! 
As always, thanks so much for joining us and supporting our local agricultural economy!

~ Taylar


Mother Earth News Fair - June 10 and 11!

For the first time, the Mother Earth News Fair is coming to Burlington! This weekend, stop by the Mother Earth News Fair at the Champlain Valley Expo Center. Find out more info here: http://www.motherearthnewsfair.com/vermont/

It's a weekend full of demonstrations, workshops, speakers, and more! For your FREE voucher as a member of Pete's Greens Good Eats CSA, click here.

Workshops include: Regenerative Agriculture Organic Gardening Holistic Health Building with Mud & Other Natural Materials Livestock and More! Plus a homestead marketplace with more than 150 local and national exhibitors!



Storage and Use Tips 
Greens: It's a mixed bag this week! Every share will receive something a little different, due to the wet wet weather we've been having. Pete's report this morning was "Usually we are drowning in all kinds of greens by this point, instead we are just drowning. More sun coming." So, some shares will receive head lettuce: a scalloped panisse, tender red leaf, sturdy Romaine, or a standard green head. This lettuce makes a great salad or adds some crunch to a sandwich. Store it in the fridge in a large plastic tub with a piece of paper towel to absorb excess moisture and condensation. If you store wet lettuce in a produce bag, it will likely only last a couple days.
Others will receive a bag of mesclun mix or spinach. Some shares may even receive a bunch of radishes! We're cleaning out the greenhouse and fields as best we can but at this point in the day, we're still harvesting and washing greens so I can't be as exact as normal.
Tomatoes (full shares): Heirloom tomatoes are here! So beautiful! You may find your tomatoes are red, pink, yellow, or another shade of heirloom altogether! Store at room temperature (never in the fridge!). Enjoy raw, on salads, on sandwiches, with eggs, sliced on a pizza, with a slice of crusty bread and dollop of Harbison... possibilities are endless this early in the season!

Chard (full shares)Chard is a dark leafy green with ruffled leaves and stems that may be brightly colored crimson red, orange, yellow. It's actually related to the beet, whose greens can be used like hard. Try chard on its own or in quiches and omeletes. Young and tender leaves and stems can be tossed into salads. Store wrapped loosely in plastic in the refrigerator; it will last several days. To prepare it, wash it well and tear or chop the leaves. If the stems are very thick, strip the leaves from them before proceeding so you can cook the stems a couple minutes longer. Steam, braise, and saute chard. Cook the stems longer than the leaves by starting them a minute or two earlier. Try chard in crecipes that call for beet or turnip greens or spinach.
Scallions: aka green onions, are a young onion with a small, white tip and a bright green, tall stem. You can use the whole thing in a recipe or chop off the very bottom of the bulb and keep chopping up the stem until the chopped parts become less moist/ crisp and more fibrous/ leafy. The remaining parts make an excellent addition to soups or salads, bringing a mild onion flavor and nice hint of color.
Kale: We have a variety of kales that may appear in your bag this week. You may find the long, dinosaur-like lacinato kale, the tender Red Russian Kale, a curly red kale, or a typical green kale. Kale is in the super veggie club and is just about the healthiest vegetable you can eat, packed with vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, and anti-inflammatories. And, it's tasty and an easy addition to so many dishes. Keep kale loosely wrapped in a plastic bag in your crisper drawer. Strip the leaves from the stems and wash them well before chopping & cooking.
Onions: Some shares are receiving the tail end of our onions. We've stretched our onion supply out to last to June (!) but it comes with some challenges. I've lowered the price on onions because you may find a few that aren't so perfect. You may find some layers inside the onion that are spoiled. The rest of the onion is typically good; just remove the spoiled scale and use the rest of the onion as you normally would. We are doing our absolute best to find flawed ones. We hate sending out flawed onions (or any veggie), but we also hate the thought of not sending any and wasting these. Thanks for your understanding - one of the challenges of farming in a variable climate.

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.


Need to Skip a Week?

If you're ever not able to pick up your share, please let us know at least one week in advance. We can either skip your share and give you credit, send it the next week, or donate it to the food pantry. It's up to you!

Sorry, we cannot skip a share or change pick-up sites after noon on Monday.


Localvore Lore

This week's localvore / pantry items are:

Pizza Dough! From our friends Blair and Andrew at Elmore Mountain Bread. This is a large ball with enough to make 2 medium pizzas, or 1 large one. The dough is made with Fresh Stoneground Redeemer Wheat, Milanaise white flour, water, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and yeast. The dough is coming to you frozen so you can thaw it out for dinner that night or throw back into your freezer for a future pizza week.

Here are some tips for cooking your pizza. Use within four to five hours of thawing (ready to go the night you pick up share or store in freezer for later use). Coat a smooth surface with flour and cornmeal (just flour is ok) so that the dough does not stick to the surface. Form dough into ball and flatten with heels of palms. Stretch dough with hands or use a rolling pin to form shape of baking pan (I use a cookie sheet so I form it into a square). Once dough is slightly stretched on surface you can stretch dough in the air with hands by making two fists held together with dough on top. Move each hand up, down and out turning the dough clockwise. Each dough can be stretched to a 16" round, for thicker crust make smaller. If you like light fluffy crust I put my baking sheet on the top of my oven while preheating and let rise. Otherwise set aside in neutral area till oven is ready at 425F. Cook 12-14 minutes until crust is golden brown and cheese bubbles.

To accompany the pizza dough is Pete's Greens Pizza Sauce. It's made with our own organic tomatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, salt, sugar, oregano, thyme, basil, & black pepper.  It's also coming to you frozen for easy delivery.  You can defrost and put on your pizza right away or freeze it for later use.  You  may want to thicken it some by letting it simmer in a pan for about 30 minutes. Excess water will evaporate. You can of course use this on pasta too.

And, a wheel of Party Harbison from the Cellars at Jasper Hill! I was so excited to take a tour of the Cellars a couple weeks ago - it's an impressive operation where the utmost care for cleanliness, sanitation, and the cheese comes first. We're truly fortunate to have this business in our neighborhood, making delicious cheese and establishing a "taste of place" in the NEK. Jasper Hill's cheese are all GMO-free and made using milk from pasture-raised cows. Make sure to gently slice off the top of this wheel of cheese before eating. It's wrapped in strips of spruce cambium, the tree's inner bark layer, harvested from the woodlands of Jasper Hill, giving it a woodsy aroma. Once opened, use within a couple days. It's best paired with oaked white wines or barrel-aged sour ales. It's great with crackers or bread - or dig in with a spoon!



Meat Share

This month, you're receiving a variety of meats for all your summer grilling needs!

Chicken breast from Maple Wind Farm (Huntington/ Richmond) - perfect for lightly marinating before going on the grill.

Ground beef from Greenfield Highland Beef (Greensboro Bend and Plainfield - hence the name Greenfield) - see Janet's recipe for the best burgers! (Highland cattle are the big, shaggy steers you see throughout Vermont! Here, Ray comes face to face with one of his calves.)


Cheese Sausages from VT99 (Craftsbury/ Greensboro) - eat whole in a hoagie roll or slice up to add to any number of dishes.


Sandwich Steak from McKnight Farm (East Montpelier) - so many options for cooking!

All these meats were raised with animals on pasture. If you've never had a grass-fed beef burger, you're in for a real treat! Greenfield Highland Beef uses only grass-fed techniques, making their meat lean, juicy, and with a marbling you don't often see from grain-fed meats.


Recipes

You can find more recipes by searching our website and/or our blog

Kale Chips
If you haven't made them yet, do try.  They are delicious, fun, super easy to make.  They come out crispy with a very satisfying potato chip like crunch.  You can try different toppings ...  chili powder, parmesan cheese etc, to flavor them further, but the simple oil and salt I have given below really is great.

1 large bunch kale (any kind, but Lacinato is great), tough stems removed, leaves torn into pieces
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt

Position racks in upper third and center of oven; preheat to 400°F.

If kale is wet, very thoroughly pat dry with a clean kitchen towel; transfer to a large bowl. Drizzle the kale with oil and sprinkle with salt. Using your hands, massage the oil and salt onto the kale leaves to evenly coat. Fill 2 large rimmed baking sheets with a layer of kale, making sure the leaves don't overlap. (If the kale won't all fit, make the chips in batches.)

Bake until most leaves are crisp, switching the pans back to front and top to bottom halfway through, 8 to 12 minutes total. (If baking a batch on just one sheet, start checking after 8 minutes to prevent burning.)

Janet Shatney’s Burger Recipe
Janet and her husband Ray run Greenfield Highland Beef. Here's her perfect recipe for burgers!

​Form patties lightly with hands. Press thumb into the middle to make an indentation. Heat grill or heavy skillet to med-high. Cook burgers 5 minutes on the first side, 4 minutes on the second side. Season grilled side when turned if desired. Do not pat or turn more than ones. I set an oven timer to be sure I do not overcook! Enjoy!

Simplest Steak Sandwich
Lots of variations possibly with this simple sandwich. Sauté grilled onions or peppers, and toss those on. Or skip the Dijon and add to the basic sandwich tomato, pesto and fresh mozz or another melted cheese. 

1 ciabatta loaf or baguette
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
sandwich steak
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked (or thyme, or parsley)
olive oil or sunflower oil
juice of 1 lemon
1 -2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
thinly sliced onions
1 handful of mesclun

Place your ciabatta just to warm in the oven for a few minutes at 100C/225F/gas 1/4.

Season your steak and then sprinkle it with herbs. If any of the slices are thick, place them in a plastic bag and then bash the bag with a kitchen mallet or cleaver or back side of a heavy pot to thin the meat to 1cm thick or less. Rub with a little olive oil, place on a very hot griddle or frying pan and sear each side for a minute. This will cook the meat pink, but you can cook it less or more to your liking. Remove to a plate, squeeze over the lemon juice and allow to rest.

Cut your ciabatta in half lengthways and drizzle the cut sides with a little e.v. olive oil. Smear a massive dollop of Dijon mustard over the bread, put your steak and onions and mesclun on top, then drizzle over any juice from the meat. Squeeze together and eat! 

Scalloped Celeriac and Potatoes
Here’s a variation on a classic that just might be better than the original. Traditionally, scalloped potatoes are cooked in milk or cream; here, however, we cook them in stock, and the result is a more flavorful and delightfully lighter dish. The celeriac adds a brightness that assertively sets the dish apart from its classic cousin. Friend of the Farm.


butter for greasing the baking dish
1 pound celeriac, peeled, halved, sliced about 1/8 inch thick
1 pound baking potatoes, peeled, sliced about 1/8 inch thick
salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup grated Gruyère or domestic Swiss cheese, divided
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 cups chicken, beef, or vegetable stock
2 tablespoons butter

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Grease a 2-quart baking dish with butter.
2. Place the celeriac and potatoes in alternating layers in the baking dish, seasoning every few layers with salt and pepper. At about the halfway point, add 1/3 cup cheese in an even layer; sprinkle with the thyme. Continue with the celeriac and potatoes, until you have used all of your slices (don’t go all the way to the top edge; leave a little room to allow the liquid to boil).
3. Pour the stock over the celeriac and potatoes. Dot with butter. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for 15 minutes more. Sprinkle the remaining 2/3 cup cheese over the top layer, add several grindings of fresh pepper, and bake until the cheese turns golden, about 15 minutes.
4. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Pasta with Chard
Here's a recipe from the Moosewood collective - simple, quick, and easy, yet a tasty way to get your greens. Adding dried cherries and foregoing the cheese makes this recipe an excellent source of iron.

Use ziti or another chunky pasta and a big bunch of chard. While the pasta water comes to a boil (always salt your water - it should taste like sea water), cut the chard stems into 1/2 inch slices and chop the leaves. Saute the stems first for a minute or two before adding the garlic and leaves. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the leaves are wilted but still brightly colored. Season with salt and pepper and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Top the pasta with the chard and grated Pecorino Romano, Parmesan, or Asiago cheese or crumbled ricotta. Another nice addition to pasta with chard is dried cherries soaked in a few tablespoons of hot pasta water while the pasta cooks, plus some toasted walnuts.


  

Comments

Popular Posts