Storage Tips and Recipes
Every week we'll send you snapshots of veggies in your share. You can always find more recipes and storage info on our blog and website.
Mesclun / Spinach: Lots of good fresh greens! We pre-wash both bagged spinach and mesclun but recommend giving your baby greens a nice rinse before eating. Purple bags will get mesclun and spinach. For yellow bag members, you'll receive either mesclun and spinach or 2 bags of spinach or spinach AND extra fiddleheads!
Fiddleheads: This time of year we try to gather foraged food for members to mix it up. We are dependent on our foragers and whatever they bring us we pass along to you. Fiddleheads are the tightly coiled tips of ferns, usually the ostrich fern. Fiddleheads have a grassy, spring-like flavor with a hint of nuttiness. Many people agree that they taste like a cross between asparagus and young spinach. Some detect an artichoke flavor as well, and even a bit of mushroom. Prepare your fiddleheads for cooking by running them under cold water and rinsing free the brown soft skin around the heads. To cook them, bring a pot of salted water to a boil, and toss in the fiddleheads for one minute. Then remove them and run cool water over them to stop the cooking. This blanching step will tenderize them uniformly, and you can now toss them into any other dish you are making, pastas, alongside rice, sauteed with garlic and crushed red pepper as a side, etc.
Chard or Pac Choi: Yellow bags will receive either Barese chard or pac choi, and it might be hard to tell the difference! The Barese variety looks similar to pac choi and can be used like pac choi or Swiss chard. You can enjoy it chopped up and added to salads, boiled, steamed, or sauteed. Store up to 5 days in the fridge in a tightly sealed plastic bag.
European Cucumbers - These long, skinny cukes taste like a burst of summer. In an ideal world they like to be kept at about 50 degrees or they may go soft in a couple days. I keep mine bagged and toss them in the crisper drawer and they keep a few days longer than that. But this time of year, they get eaten too fast and storage isn't an issue. This is our first crop of them - enjoy!!
Basil: This versatile herb is a member of the mint family. It is a staple in Mediterranean cooking as well as other cuisines. The herb is highly aromatic, or put another way, the oils in basil are highly volatile. Thus, it is best to add the herb near the end of the cooking process, so it will retain its maximum essence and flavor. Basil should be kept in a plastic bag or kept stems down in a glass of water with plastic over the leaves for about a week with regular water changing. Keep your basil out of the extreme cold as it could damage the fragile leaves. *Basil is in the MESCLUN*
Recipes
Quick- Cooked Pac Choi
1 bunch pac choi
3 Tbsp peanut or neutral oil (like grapeseed or corn)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Cut the leaves from the stems of the pac choi. Trim the stems as necessary then cut into roughly 1-in pieces. Rinse well. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add the stems and cook, stirring occasionally, until they lose their crunch (about 3 minutes). Add the greens and about ½ cu water or vegetable stock.
Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates and the stems become very tender, about 10 minutes. Add more water if necessary. Sprinkle with S&P and serve immediately.
Fiddleheads Pasta
Here's a simple recipe for fiddleheads. If you don't have fiddleheads, you can toss mustard greens or chard ingo the saute instead. Different dish, still delish. If using fiddleheads, use angel hair pasta or orzo, or Israeli couscous or some other light pasta that isn't too thick and heavy.
In a large pot of boiling salted water, blanch the fiddleheads until they are crisp-tender, about 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the fiddleheads from the water and shock them in a bowl of ice water (unless you are going to use them immediately).Drop pasta into the same pot of boiling water used for fiddleheads. Boil for 3 to 5 minutes or until al dente (depending on kind of pasta you have available).
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat olive oil. Saute fiddlehead ferns (or fresh greens), green onions, and red pepper flakes for 2 minutes. Drain pasta and add to skillet. Toss with truffle oil (or olive oil) and salt and pepper. Divide pasta among 4 plates and garnish with grated cheese and black pepper.
Penne with Wilted Greens, Cheese and Fresh Basil
This is more of a suggestion than a recipe. Substitution opportunities are endless!
1 lb penne pasta (or any shape pasta)
Olive oil
3-6 Cloves garlic, minced
3-8 cups of greens, tough stems removed, greens chopped (spinach, mustard, mizuna, Pac Choi)
1/2 to 1 cup of tomato sauce
Goat cheese or Willoughby!
Fresh chopped basil
Put a large pot of salted water on and bring to boil for the pasta. While water is heating, mince the garlic, chop the greens and any other vegetables you have on hand that you'd like to throw in (see options below). Once the veggies are all chopped and prepared and water is boiling, add pasta and cook to al dente (8-12 mins depending on pasta type).
While the pasta is cooking, put a large saute pan over medium heat. Once the pan is hot, add 2-3 TB of olive oil and the garlic to the pan and stir to coat and cook for a minute or two. Add the tomato sauce (or fresh tomatoes or sun dried tomatoes). Add other optional veggies in order of necessary cooking time and cook until not quite tender. Add the greens and cover pan until greens are just wilted at which time other veggies will now be tender. Remove cover. Drain the pasta, and in a large bowl or in the original pasta pot mix together the pasta and veggies saute and the fresh chopped basil. Serve on plates with crumbled goat cheese and the optional toasted nuts on top.
Optional Ingredients:
2-3 TB Toasted Pine Nuts, Walnuts, Pecans, or Almonds. Toast on a dry skillet (cast iron ideal) on the stovetop over medium heat until they become fragrant. Don't let them burn. Remove from heat to a bowl.
Sundried tomatoes - use just 2-4 as too many can overpower a dish. Soak in hot water if they are very dry, and once softened, chop/mince them.
Other fresh veggies - 1-2 fresh tomatoes, broccoli, asparagus etc. Add these to the saute as necessary to cook til just tender
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