Good Eats Weekly Newsletter 05/20/20

Around the Farm We were channelling the spirit of summer today at the farm. We had the windows open, allowing the warm fresh air to circulate throughout our office and packing facility. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed to bring a lightness and sense of joy amongst our staff! At our 3pm break, our staff stood outside in the sun, chatting (from a distance!) and savoring the warmth of the afternoon sun. Not only was it beautifully warm and sunny in Craftsbury today, but I also happened to find a small amount of my favorite summer food (hint: the photo below was taken today!). The idea that tomatoes are around the corner brings me such joy! I cannot wait to be able to include these in your shares this summer! -Kate This week in your share: Fancy / Localvore Mesclun Spinach Arugula Butterhead Lettuce **Basil** Cucumber Gilfeather Turnip Sunchokes Ramps OR Dill  **Packed with your mesclun** Take a purple bag! Everyday Standard Mesclun Spinach Chard Carrots Parsnips Ramps Take a yellow bag! Lean & Green Spinach Arugula Red Russian Kale, Mizuna, OR Broccoli Rabe Carrots Cucumber Take a green bag! Pantry/ Localvore Shares and Pantry Add-Ons This week's pantry/ localvore pantry items are VT Tortilla Co. Tortillas, Jasper Hill Chef's Shred, and Pete's Greens Tomatillo Salso. Please read more below. Cheese Shares: Cheese is OUT of the bag. This week's cheese share is Landaff from The Cellars at Jasper Hill. The cheese is labeled with your name.  Egg Shares: These are delivered OUT OF THE BAG. You'll find your dozen labeled with your name. Note that for the next several weeks your eggs will be a mix of full size eggs and smaller eggs. This won't last long! Axel's young hens have begun to lay and pullets lay small eggs for the first few weeks. They will size up over the next few weeks. Bread Shares: These are delivered OUT OF THE BAG. This week's bread share comes from Elmore Mountain Bread. Milk Shares: These are delivered OUT OF THE BAG. They are in a cooler. Our milk share comes from Sweet Rowen Farmstead in West Glover. Paul used to work at Pete's Greens years ago, but now he is milking a small herd of heritage Lineback cows. His milk has a delightfully grassy flavor, as his cows are pasture-raised. He leaves it cream-top, and pasteurizes it over very gentle heat in order to reduce human interference as much as possible! This milk is bottled fresh for you on Tuesday nights! These are delivered OUT OF THE BAG. They are in a cooler. Store orders: Everything ordered from the store is packed separately. A Few Notes... To help us plan out our veggie availability and schedule with our non-veggie producers, we need to have all orders for the coming week placed by Friday night for the next week's delivery. The Sunday night deadline is just too tight for us! If you ordered any bulk items in the store this week, they will be OUT OF THE BAG. They will have a label with your name on it. Store orders must be placed by Friday night of the week before delivery.  Continuing your Good Eats CSA into the summer? No changes are necessary to your member account! If you are on auto-renewal, your deliveries are ongoing no matter what season we are in. No waitlist is necessary! We encourage new or returning members to let us know if they want to switch their share as soon as possible as space may be limited at some sites or for some shares. If you are interested in helping us spread the word about our CSA, let us know! Need some help getting the hang of our online member portal? Check out our tutorial below! Settings Instructional Video Access your member account here! Pantry/ Localvore Items VT Tortilla Co. Tortillas: These tortillas are made in the traditional way! They nixtamalize the corn before they press their masa into tortillas. This means that the corn kernels are soaked in a lime solution in order to break down the outer husks of the kernels. This results in a more nutritious, better tasting tortilla! The nixtamalization process also frees the bound niacin in corn into a form of niacin that the body can readily absorb. Jasper Hill Chef's Shred: This pre-shredded cheese from Jasper Hill is a carefully crafted blend of cheeses with flavor and meltability in mind! This cheese will work well for anything that needs melted cheese. It has a great depth of flavor and will improve any dish that you include it in! Pete's Greens Tomatillo Salsa:  (salsa verde) from the kitchen here at Pete's Greens will make a great addition to any Mexican-inspired dish. It also makes a great addition to eggs, burger meat mixtures, filling (mixed with cheese) for jalapeño poppers, and sandwiches. Visit our blog for more storage tips and recipes! STORAGE TIPS  Mesclun: Store your mesclun in an airtight food storage container lined with a paper towel. Cucumbers: These long, skinny cukes taste like a burst of summer. Ideally they like to be kept at about 50 degrees or they may go soft in a couple days. Keep them in a paper bag in the crisper drawer so they stay warmer! Basil: Welcome back, basil! It's a sure sign of the seasons when basil starts to appear. Who else is excited to have it back?! Use basil as a way to add extra flavor to your pizza or pizza sauce. It's also a staple in Thai, Vietnamese, and Laotian cooking. It's best to add basil in to your dish near the end of the cooking process so it retains 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. Your basil will be packed in the same bag as your mesclun. Don't forget to take it out when you get home! Chard: Store your bunched greens wrapped in plastic in your crisper drawer. Ramps: These delicate and delightful wild garlic leaves are a special spring treat! We buy these from a local business in Craftsbury. They take great care to harvest one leaf per plant to ensure that plant vitality remains so that the patch can be preserved for years to come. Store your leaves wrapped in a damp paper towel in a plastic bag. Visit our store! Do you need some pastured chicken, cheese, yogurt, dried beans, flour or cornmeal or oats next week?  All of these are available in our online store, you can add these items and have them delivered along with your share next week!  Orders must be placed by Friday at midnight for the following week’s share. In stock today: Morningstar Farm dried beans in 6 varieties Organic Flours - All purpose Part white/part wheat flour Whole wheat flour Whole wheat pastry flour White high-gluten flour for bread baking Various cheeses Rolled oats Pearled barley Cornmeal Whole chickens from Pete’s Greens and lots more! Check it out! RECIPES We know a lot of you are baking and cooking up a storm these days! If that's you and you've found a great way to use your CSA ingredients, we want to know! Share with us in our Facebook group or email us your recipe (pictures, too)! We'd love to feature it in a future newsletter, and to know what our members are eating these days. Cream of Spinach Soup: Ingredients: 1 pound spinach, well washed, thick stems trimmed 3 spring onions or 3 bunches scallions, trimmed and roughly chopped 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock  Small grating of nutmeg  Salt and pepper 1 cup heavy or light cream, half-and-half or milk To Prepare: Combine spinach, onions and stock in a saucepan, and turn heat to medium high. Bring to a boil, and lower heat so mixture barely bubbles. Cook, stirring occasionally, until spinach is very tender, about 10 minutes. Turn off heat, add nutmeg and a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and let cool at least a few minutes. Pour soup into a blender, in batches if necessary, and carefully purée. Return to pan, add cream, and, over medium-low heat, reheat gently, stirring occasionally. When soup is hot, adjust seasoning, and serve. Sautéed Chard, Salmon, and Couscous: You can easily substitute any bunched green or spinach in this recipe and it will taste just as good! Ingredients:   For the Lemon Chive Beurre Blanc: 2 shallots, chopped fine 1 cup white wine 1/4 cup lemon juice 1 tablespoon heavy cream 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cubed Salt and white pepper to taste Snipped chives For the Swiss Chard, Salmon and Couscous: 1 bunch Red or Rainbow Chard 1 tablespoon Olive oil 1/2 Onion, chopped Salt and Pepper to taste 1 8 ounce box Israeli couscous 2 6 to 8 ounce center cut salmon fillets, skinned 1/2 tablespoon olive oil 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter To Prepare: For the beurre blanc: Add shallots, wine and lemon juice to a saucepan and cook over high heat until it is reduced to about 1/4 cup. Add the cream and heat until it bubbles. Reduce the heat to low. Add the butter a few cubes at a time and whisk on and off the heat until incorporated. Continue with a few cubes at a time until all of the butter is added and the mixture is fully emulsified and has a creamy consistency. Season with salt, white pepper and chives. This will stay warm if you are using it within a 30 minute period. Just whisk it occasionally. For the Swiss Chard: Wash the chard thoroughly i a sink full of cold water. Remove the stems and chop the greens. Drain the greens. Using some of the stems, chop them along with the onion. Sauté stems and onion in a skillet coated with olive oil until onion and stems are softened. Add the drained greens and salt and pepper to taste. Cover the skillet and cook the greens just until they are wilted. For the Couscous: Follow the instructions on the box or cook couscous in a pot of boiling water for about 10 minutes or until it is cooke through. Drain and season with salt and pepper. For the Salmon: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Sprinkle salt on top side of salmon fillets. Heat oil and butter in a skillet over high heat. When very hot, add salmon fillets salted side down and cook over high heat until browned and crisp. Turn fillets over. Place pan in oven and roast until they are just flaky, about 5 to 6 minutes. Assemble: This dish is best plated in 2 large individual bowls. Add couscous to each bowl. Top with greens. Place salmon fillet on top of each. Drizzle beurre blanc around the edges. Garnish with additional chives if desired. Pasta with Ramp and Basil Pesto: Ingredients: 4 ounces ramps, greens separated Kosher salt 12 ounces spaghetti ¼ cup walnuts, toasted ⅓ cup olive oil 2 tablespoons grated Pecorino, plus more for serving Lemon wedges, for serving To Prepare: Blanch ramp greens in a large pot of boiling salted water until wilted, about 10 seconds. Using a slotted spoon or spider, transfer greens to a bowl of ice water; drain and squeeze out liquid. Bring same water in pot to a boil again and cook spaghetti, stirring occasionally, until al dente; drain, reserving 1 cup pasta cooking liquid. Meanwhile, coarsely chop ramp bulbs and stalks (save or pickle the rest) and walnuts in a food processor. Add ramp greens, olive oil, and 2 Tbsp. Pecorino; process to a coarse paste. Season with salt. Toss spaghetti and ½ cup cooking liquid with pesto, adding more cooking liquid as needed until pesto coats pasta. Serve topped with more Pecorino and with lemon wedges. Sunchoke Tacos: Ingredients: 2 potatoes, diced into small cubes 3 medium sunchokes, diced into small cubes 1-2 tbl olive oil 1 small shallot 1 tsp Creole seasoning 1 tsp garlic salt salt + pepper to taste 1/2 tsp coriander (optional) 1/2 tsp smoked paprika (optional) 1/3 cup shredded cheese 8 corn tortillas fresh cilantro, optional tomatillo salsa, optional lime wedges, optional To Prepare: To dice the sunchokes, cut them just like potatoes. I like to slice them down the middle and then cut small cubes/squares from there. Place all your diced potatoes and sunchokes into a large bowl. Add 3 tbl of water. Mix. Cook on high for 10 minutes. While the potatoes are cooking, place onions in a large frying pan with 1 tbl of oil. Cook over medium heat for 5-6 minutes. Turn off if potatoes are not done. If they are done, add potatoes/sunchokes. Once potatoes and sunchokes are in the plan, add the other remaining oil and spices. Turn the heat to medium-high, cook for 90 seconds then flip, cook another 90 seconds. Continue this until you get a sear you like. Once that is done, add in the cheese and set aside. Warm the tortillas in a skillet, top with the sunchoke mixture, salsa, cilantro, and more cheese, if desired! Braised Short Ribs with Root Veggie Mash Feel free to use any combination of root veggies you have on hand! Ingredients: For the Short Ribs: 2 pounds trimmed boneless beef short ribs, cut into 8 equal pieces   Kosher salt Pepper  All-purpose flour, for dusting  2 tablespoons canola oil  4 tablespoons unsalted butter  3 slices of bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces  1 head of garlic, halved crosswise  2 onions, quartered  4 shallots, quartered  3 thyme sprigs  2 bay leaves  2 cups dry red wine  1/4 cup ruby port  4 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth Veggie Mash: 5 tablespoons unsalted butter   1/2 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces  1/2 pound turnips, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces  1/2 pound parsnips, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces  1/2 pound celeriac, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces  6 garlic cloves, crushed  3 thyme sprigs  2 bay leaves  3 tablespoons honey  1 tablespoons chopped parsley, plus more for garnish  Kosher salt Pepper To Prepare: Season the short ribs with salt and pepper and lightly dust with flour. In a large enameled cast-iron casserole, heat the oil. Add the ribs and cook over moderately high heat, turning, until browned all over, about 8 minutes. Transfer the ribs to a plate. Add the butter, bacon, garlic, onions, shallots, thyme and bay leaves to the casserole and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the bacon fat is partially rendered and the vegetables are golden, 5 minutes. Stir in the red wine and port and cook over moderate heat until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Return the short ribs and their juices to the casserole, add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook over low heat until the meat is very tender, about 2 hours. Transfer the short ribs to a plate. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve set over a bowl, pressing on the solids; discard the solids. Return the sauce to the casserole and simmer until reduced by one-third, about 15 minutes. Add the ribs and simmer gently until warmed through, 5 minutes. Meanwhile, make the mash: In a large saucepan, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter. Add the vegetables, garlic, thyme and bay leaves and cook over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to soften, 10 minutes. Stir in the honey, cover and cook until softened, 15 minutes. Add 1 cup of water, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until almost all of the liquid is absorbed, 20 minutes longer. Discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. Stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and mash with a fork until chunky. Fold in the 1 tablespoon of parsley and season with salt and pepper. Keep warm. Spoon the mash onto plates and top with the short ribs. Garnish with parsley and pass the remaining sauce at the table. Arugula and Cucumber Smoothie: Ingredients: 1/2 cucumber 1/2 apple granny smith 1/2 pear 1 banana ripe, peeled 1 tbsp ginger fresh 3 leaves Kale 2 cups arugula (or spinach) 1/2 cup parsley 1/2 lemon 1/8t celery seed To Prepare: Peel the cucumber. Chop into bite-size pieces. Remove core from apple and pear. Chop both into bite-size pieces. Peel ginger. Coarsely chop the kale and arugula. Squeeze the juice from the lemon, removing seeds as needed. Place all the solid ingredients into the blender bowl, starting with the hardest ingredients on the bottom. Do not press down on the ingredients in the bowl. Roll the leaves into tight wads before placing them in the bowl.  Add the lemon juice to the blender bowl. Add four cups of water to the blender bowl. Blend on low for 20 seconds, then on high for 30 seconds (or use the Smoothie program on your blender if it has such an option). Drink immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.