CSA

week 4

2011-07-12T17:08:00.001-07:00

I picked my first tomato a week ago. That’s so early! What’s going on with this year?! I picked my first tomato and my first summer squash on last Tuesday and by Friday pickup, the squash plants had surged into production and were again loaded.

I’ve been picking them with their blossoms still on so if you come up with a good fried squash blossom recipe, let me know.

There’s a few different types of summer squash including the familiar zucchini along with some striped zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, and some flat odd shaped squash called patty pan that look a little like the ghosts in the pac man game. They all can be cooked the same, however some find the skin of older crookneck and patty pan squash to be distasteful and so they peel them. I eat them either way, finding the skin to be just fine.

I love the flavor of the little pattypans and often just cut them in half, scoop out a little of the seeds and put a scoop of sausage and spices in there and bake for about a half hour and then drizzle with some maple syrup.

Those are not grapes, they’re little tiny asian plums. Mmm. Watch for seeds. Peaches are next along with giant blackberries. The red raspberries and black raspberries are almost done. I didn’t get a chance to make it back to the blueberry bushes at my bosses house this week.

The odd vegetable in your baskets this week is kohlrabi. It reminds me of 1950s movie space orbs with it’s bulbous swollen edible stems and antenna like leaves. It’s often used in German or Thai cuisine, but quite a few old time Ohioans remember cooking up this member of the cole-crop family straight out of their victory gardens. Remove the leaves and cook them up like spinach. The orb shaped swollen stem can then be peeled and roasted or added to a salad for a little extra zing. It’s usually described as a cross between a cabbage and a turnip, or a brussel sprout and a parsnip, or a little bit of a radish mixed with… well, you’ll just have to taste it and let me know.

I like to peel it and then take my veggie peeler and make long ribbons to add to salads. Or it can be sliced and roasted using the recipe from last week. Once you smell it when you start peeling, you know exactly what it’s going to taste like. Eat it fresh if you like the zippy smell of it or tone it down by roasting it in the oven with garlic and olive oil.

Here’s a great recipe for coleslaw… or more appropriately named kohlslaw.

Kohlslaw Recipe

- 1-2 kohlrabi

- 1 carrot

- 2 tablespoons vinegar

- 1 tablespoon sugar, or to taste salt

Peel and chop carrot and kohlrabi into match sticks or grate finely. Toss with vinegar and sugar salt to taste and refrigerate for a half hour for the flavors to meld before serving.

Anyway, I finally got all the melons in the ground, I’m still planting some shelling beans, the potatoes are all in the ground and we’re assessing all the seeds that are left and determining how many growing days are left in the season. Eek, is the end of planting time near? Is it really the middle of July? Soon the grass will turn that midsummer shade of burnt light brown and I’ll start dreaming of curling up by the fire and decorating the Christmas tree. But right now, I’m enjoying playing in the dirt in the hot sun and then jumping in the pool to cool off while picking squash bugs and squash from the beautiful gardens about to reach the height of their production. Ohio is really beautiful sometimes. -janeé

week 3

2011-07-12T17:07:00.001-07:00

Now begins the epic battle to keep the bugs off the cucurbits; the cucumbers, squash, melons, and zucchini.

We have squash bugs. We have squash vine borers. Then we have the cucumber beetles that my sister calls Steeler’s beetles for their nice black and white stripes. The cucumber beetles spread cucumber mosaic virus, which of course kills the plant. Or if it’s hot and dry, they get powdery mildew. Or the deer hop the garden fence and eat the whole plant…

We keep one step ahead of the pests with rotational planting. I used to try spraying organic controls, but it’s of no use. These little guys are really tough, so we hand pick in the early morning and hope we get a decent harvest before the plants succumb to the pressure.

We’ve got cucumbers coming on – pickling cukes are the earliest. Then we’ve got some burpless and some straight 8s that take a bit longer. The squash are blossoming and I haven’t looked at the back garden in a few days, but we might have a couple summer squash already. So prepare thy zucchini recipes. They’re coming.

Berry picking has to be one of the most time consuming harvests of the season. Beans are a close second, but that’s offset a bit by the fact that raspberries have massive thorns and I always say I’m going to clean up the patch and make rows…. But I still haven’t gotten around to it yet. Which means long pants wearing as I dive into the thorns to find the berries as they’re turning the perfect colors. I pick a few and then eat one to remind myself why I’m getting my tshirt ripped up like I’m a cat’s scratching post. I almost stepped on a turkey setting a nest while in the red raspberries. Amazingly enough she wasn’t eating the delicious red berries that were framing her nest.

That also reminds me, wash your berries before you eat them.

There’s only a cup or so per basket, not enough to make a pie, but sure enough for fresh eating in season. I’m just happy to see my patches starting to produce that I’ve put in the past few years. I get to compare varieties for flavor and watch things grow, which is one of my favorite pastimes.

Anyway, I’m sneaking beets in your baskets. I love beets. I like to roast them in the oven to soften them and then throw them in whatever sautéed onion dish I’m cooking.

I’m also slowly harvesting our radish patch. I’m not too fond of radishes. I found that if I slice them up in half inch slices and wrap them in tin foil with a pad of butter and some salt and throw them in the oven for about 10 minutes, it takes their bite away and they’re not bad. If you like the bite of radishes, do not put them in the oven. My grandma just eats them with bread and butter, which I never really understood.

So for the beet newbies, make some beet chips if you’d like. We’re also pulling up new potatoes soon as they’re just starting to flower now. This recipe works for both. I’m going to try it with turnips too and see how it goes. I’m sure it will work for kohlrabi, which should be ready in the next few weeks too.

Oven Roasted Veggie Chips

1 Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2 Using the slicing blade of your food processor if you have one. If not, take a sharp knife and cut a slice out of the end of a beet to make a flat surface on one side. Then put the beet flat side down and slice as thin as you can.

3 Spread evenly on a cookie sheet, spray with nonstick spray and season with salt.

4 Roast 45 minutes to 1 hour, turning halfway through, until crisp. Check often to make sure they don't burn. You may need to roast for a shorter or longer period of time depending on your oven and how crisp you want them - so keep an eye on them.

Another option that a lot of people like for beets is to use brown sugar along with the salt to sweeten them up a bit. Keep this recipe for sweet potato chips, turnips, kale greens, apples, maybe zucchini? The possibilities are endless.

Herb people, don’t forget to take herbs. Take as many as you can use each week. ~janeé

week 2

2011-07-12T17:06:00.001-07:00

I completely forgot to say last week, please bring back your baskets week to week. We reuse them.

Anyway, welcome to week two. After pickup last week, we walked the gardens and scratched our heads. Um…. Hmmm…. The chard is just still kinda little. The cucumbers are coming slowly. There’s some berries kinda starting, the lettuce is dying in the heat and I really need to plant more kale.

So that left us with, hmm, beans aren’t quite big enough, potatoes aren’t even flowering yet for new potatoes. We actually started to consider green tomatoes already. Sheesh. Weird year.

So I ran into my seed bin and found some organic lentils and radishes and thought, sprouts!

Seeds are completely amazing. They contain the energy needed to catapult a dormant little cocoon into life with just a little water. When seeds are sprouted, the nutrition content has some of the highest vitamin and mineral count. And they’re tender and delicious as well.

We sprouted organic lentils. They should be very small in order for best flavor so take these home, rinse them and then put in the fridge and use within the next week or so.

The organic radishes are a bit zestier and are amazing on salads, like the recipe for the week.

So, here’s a little recipe for the lentil sprouts and tender spring veggies in your baskets. If you were lucky enough to get peas (they don’t produce for as much as I plant) then throw those in this salad too or garnish with the edible flowers as well. You can use the same dressing recipe as before or add the middle eastern twist in this one. By week three, you will be a salad dressing making mad chemist, mixing different spices in with your own homemade salad dressing. Let me know what you come up with.

Sprouted Lentil Salad with Super Herbed Yogurt Dressing

Herbed Yogurt Dressing:

1 bunch High Mill Park herbs

1/2 cup Greek-style yogurt or sour cream

1 squeeze fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ teaspoon spicy mustard (optional)

1 teaspoon sugar or honey

Salt & pepper to taste

1. Prepare dressing by washing and setting out your herbs. Smell each herb to determine which ones would best fit your taste. Fennel smells like black licorice. Lemon balm smells very citrusy and can be overpowering so use sparingly. Mint… well, smells like chewing gum. Thyme smells like an Italian restaurant. And cilantro is the whispy one that smells either fresh or like soap depending on your smelling palate. Use only the herbs that you like out of this bunch and it’s totally up to you on creativity. I threw them all together, with only a pinch of fennel to my taste.

2. Remove herb leaves from stems, dice fine and whisk together with yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil, honey, and mustard.

3. Cut up a couple of cucumbers or whatever other fresh veggies you have in your basket like radishes, green onions, garlic scapes, peas, beet leaves or thin sliced beet roots. You could add lettuce if you have it.

4. Rinse and throw the lentil sprouts with the veggies in a bowl.

5. Toss dressing on the vegetables and chill for a half an hour to let the flavors meld.

6. Swear off all other salad dressings as you enjoy the delicious fresh herbed dressing on your favorite salads.

Send recipe ideas on or other creative ways you’ve used these fresh, early summer vegetables. Enjoy this beautiful weather… the calm before the 90degree days. ~Janee

weeeeeeek 1.START!

2011-07-12T17:05:00.001-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 1

Welcome to High Mill Park’s 4^th CSA season. I can’t believe it’s our 4^th year. Anyway, for the next few months, we’ll follow the crazy Ohio weather through our short and sweet growing season. And what a start it’s been so far. We were pummeled with rain so much during the spring that we’re a bit behind on planting, but that’s what CSA is all about. You really get to experience eating at the peak of freshness no matter what the weather throws at us.

A few rules before we get started.

1. Bugs happen. If there aren’t bugs or rabbits or deer trying to eat your food, then you should question whether or not you want to eat it. We don’t spray harsh chemicals, which makes it safer for you, but there will be bugs. Which brings me to my next point….

2. Wash everything. Twice. Just because we grow organically doesn’t mean that you don’t have to wash your fruits and veggies. We integrate raising animals with plants for the best ecosystem and farm sustainability and we do not triple wash with a chlorine finish like your bagged lettuce so it’s up to you, your strainer, and your sink to get your vegetables and fruits rinsed.

3. If you cannot make it for pickup, please find someone to pick up your basket in your place. Vegetables don’t keep week to week and we plant for how many members we have and so there’s a limited number of vegetables, especially in the beginning, slow part of the season. Or email me and we can setup another time.

With that being said, wow, it’s been quite an odd spring. The good news is that none of our fruits got frosted so we’ll have some plums in a few weeks. The bad news is that we couldn’t work the soil for a few critical months and now we’re starting really behind. The root crops didn’t like the wet and the lettuce didn’t like the heat. It felt like the gardens were an unruly class of second graders where no one could agree and all hell was breaking loose – the beans refused to sprout, the potatoes hated the wet soil, the lettuce and kale was going to seed, and the tomatoes set little green tomatoes in their pots before we could get into the garden to plant them

So we’re starting out with the perennial crops. They are the old reliable friends of the garden. The rhubarb came back with it’s big, beautiful, poisonous leaves held up by deliciously tart and zippy, edible stalks. They’re a bit green by this time in the season, but still hold all that powerful rhubarb flavor so many love to slip into fruit pies.

The garlic is really thriving. In your baskets this week are the secret deliciousness of garlic – the garlic scapes. Garlic sends up seed heads in the spring, which zap the plant of it’s energy that should be put into making big, delicious bulbs. So we go through and cut off these seed head “scapes.” They are delicious! They’re light with garlic flavor and a bit like green onions. You can use them in this recipe, or just chop them up and sauté them as you would regular garlic.

Another star of your perennial spring basket is horseradish leaves. And yes, they kinda taste like horseradish so chop them up really fine and mix them in with a lettuce mix.

We’re going to start out with a nice, light, Gourmet Salad.

1. Wash and chop up your horseradish leaves fine and add them to a lettuce mix in a large bowl and set aside.

2. Mince up the rhubarb from your baskets, which should be about ½-1 cup and sauté in a sauce pan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. While that’s simmering, chop up the garlic scapes really fine and add them to the saucepan as well. When the rhubarb begins to lose it’s color and turn amber yellow, remove from heat and add 2 tablespoons of honey and stir well.

3. Take the rhubarb mixture and put into a small bowl. Add ½ cup white vinegar, 1 cup of olive oil, a squirt of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

4. Let the rhubarb salad dressing cool in the refrigerator before tossing on the lettuce mixture.

5. Add edible flowers on top of the salad along with any fresh spring fruit and serve.

The edible flowers in your baskets are chosen based on taste. Some roses don’t have a nice flavor, but these petals from rosa rugosa have a nice light flavor with a slight fragrance. Remove them from the stem and toss them in your salad. There are also small edible violas and tiny blue flowers, which is Borage. The flavor is bright and kinda like a cucumber. You can remove the petals or eat the whole flower if you don’t mind the fuzzy texture. The leaves are a bit fuzzy and can be enjoyed in salads or sautéed like spinach. Anyway, this is the fresh, albeit timid start of the season. We’re looking forward to more things to come as we begin cooking in season. ~Janeé

week 15

2010-09-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 15

So I’m pretty sure it wasn’t picking the jalapenos that burned my hands, face and eyes last week, but a random pepper row in my boss Marty’s garden with “semi-hot” something peppers that turned out to contain quite a bit more capsaicin than expected. I had a bowl of Marty’s wife’s pasta with just half of one of those peppers chopped up in it and it heated up the whole giant pot. Wow. Maybe I’ll be pickling those with some super gloves on for cutting without injury. My sister cut them in half and stuffed them with cream cheese, sausage and cheddar on top. Delicious! So hot though that I had to keep eating them for the burning to subside.

Our first round of picking and crushing at my vineyard went amazing last weekend! It was a couple 14 hour days (thanks Janice for helping) with two different picking and crushing crews, but we made it and the wine is happily fermenting in giant vats, releasing happy yeast blurps (I call them yeast farts) as we speak. Round two is this weekend and after popping out a rib somewhere in between getting attacked by the 700 pound sow a few weeks ago and climbing in and out of fermenting tanks, I feel like I’m being held together by a shoestring. The good part about this time of the season though is bittersweet: soon the hard work will be over… but then comes the depressing snow and long winter.

Speaking of which, it’s winter squash season finally. We’ve got carnival squash, spaghetti, acorn, and a couple butternuts. I had some blue hubbards, but the chickens snuck into my garden and hollowed them out. The carrots are coming in now too, which makes for perfect soups. Add in some onions and sweet potatoes and it’s really starting to feel like fall with winter soups quickly on the horizon. I got some peppers from Greenfield Organic near Wooster after loving their tomatoes last weekend and am very pleased again. Red peppers take so long to ripen that they tend to be on the top of the list for pesticide laden crops on supermarket shelves so very worth it to buy organic, just as a sidenote.

Sweet corn is here again. I don’t even know what round this is but my bosses are really on top of staggering their plantings. The yellow type is Bodacious, which I am very not impressed with. The stalks only got 4 feet tall (anyone want mini corn shocks?) and only one out of every 4 stalks produced an ear. You’d think after all that, they’d taste amazing, but they’re just ok. I think they’re getting shucked and going in my freezer to be brought out when I forget how good fresh sweet corn is. And I’m never planting that again. The bi-color is from Nick’s garden is Now That’s Delicious, and it lives up to it’s name. I picked it last night and it’s still fresh and sweet. - I tell you all the names and when they were picked because you have no idea when you go to a roadside stand what type it is and how long ago it was picked or if it was in the prime or too old or what. It’s quite a gamble and knowing you like yellow, white or bi-color really isn’t enough. So this year the winners were Now That’s Delicious and the early batch of Temptation was amazing, so now if you stop at a stand, you can ask the type and when it was picked and hopefully you’ll avoid some mealy mix of sweet and feed corn like I’ve been subjected to in the past. Next year is another round of trial and error in the race for the best sweet corn. So much to learn!Oh, and my sister went to the grocery store and confirmed allegations of a shortage in pumpkin pie filling, so take those pie pumpkins and harken back to an earlier time before canned pumpkin pie filling began. My grandma says fresh pumpkin pie tastes terrible, but she likes green beans from a tin can so what does she know.

Hopefully you all have been squirreling away the extra veggies from the past 15 weeks and throwing them in the freezer, in cans, or in a root cellar. It’s been a really great year, although the end usually has been far more productive but I think lack of rain really has us limping to the finish line this year. Our lettuce is up and the winter crops are growing well. Our hens lay a little bit through the winter and then kick into high production in the spring time, so email me if you’d like some eggs in the off season and I’ll try my best to keep up.

Next week, no newsletter and it’s BYOB – bring your own basket. Take only what you like and what you can use. We’ll pull up everything we’ve got left that’s ready for you all.Thanks for joining this year! It was another great season. Email me if you want any garden help this winter… or just want to chat. I go through CSA withdrawal when pickup stops. Yes, I’ll miss you all. Have a great winter. -Janee

week 14

2010-09-15T06:42:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 14

Thou shalt not rub your eye whilst picking jalapenos. – ouch!

There’s bulbs on the shelves at the garden centers. The tips of the maples are losing their chlorophyll. The grass is choking with no rain. The autumn wind is both amazingly fresh, but also blows a twinge of regret as summer comes to an end. It seemed like I spent this summer hiding from the heat so much that I missed it. I didn’t even get sick of zucchini this year. Weird.
Anyway, I spent about 4 hours straight at my work garden picking beans. 4 hours and I barely got halfway through my first planting. I harvested soybeans which were supposed to be endamame, but because of the drought, they only filled out when the pods started to dry. So I’m not sure if they can be prepared like endamame, which is steamed in the pod and then removed from the shell and eaten, or if they could be dried. Or if you’re real adventurous, perhaps try to make your own tofu or soymilk? I still have my second planting coming on and it’s incredibly time and labor intensive for such a little handful of beans that I’d like to hear from you if it’s worth it. I just wanted to try something new and figured you all wouldn’t mind playing around with some fun recipes. And honestly, how often do you see soybeans for sale on grocery store shelves. I just shelled them and put them in a bowl with a little water in the bottom and put them in the microwave for one minute and thought they were rather delicious. I often drive around watching the fields of soybeans dry into their sticks with beans all up the side. My little plot is surrounded with soybean fields, but the deer came to my tiny plot constantly and nipped off the tops of my soybeans and ate half of my second planting down to the ground. 85% of soybeans grown in the US are genetically modified. Most are modified to withstand weed killers that are usually sprayed at least twice on the fields. Then these soybeans are ground up and a lot of them end up in animal feed. Mine aren’t genetically modified. I think the dang deer figured that out fast. I wonder if cows in a feedlot would prefer my soybeans over the GM soybeans too. I hand weeded though, which I don’t think is possible for those larger fields.

Anyway, enough about soybeans, on to the pretty beans – first round is ready! I have Jacobs cattle, which are white with red spots, and Vermont appaloosa, which is white with brown and light brown spots like an appaloosa pony. I like to shell these beans and make sure they’re dry (should shatter when crushed) and put them in a mason jar to throw in soups or side dishes later. Hopefully everyone who wants some will get enough at least to try them. Dry beans should be soaked overnight before use, which cuts down on their boiling time when added to soups.

I made a deal with my boss where I took all his tomatoes and in return, he gets some spaghetti sauce. I picked until my trunk was totally full of tomatoes that I could have opened a roadside stand out of it. I also stocked up from Greenfield Organic Farm down in Amish country with enough canner tomatoes to hopefully put back one can per week of delicious pasta sauce. I cook it down in a crock pot for a day with spices before I can it. Looks like I have a lot of cutting ahead of me, but it’s all worth it in the winter when I have delicious tomato sauce from Ohio grown tomatoes picked in season. My sister canned whole tomatoes a few weeks ago and used a can for her chili, which got excellent reviews. Tomatoes take a long time in a boiling water bath, but they are pretty easy to preserve if you just make up your sauce and throw it in some freezer bags not too full and freeze them right away.

Alright, I’ve sat in front of a computer long enough (I swear, not checking my fantasy football scores or anything) but now it’s time to get down to the orchard and see what apples I can find. Here is a wonderfully simple apple sauce recipe from member Kim Applegate.
-4 apples, peeled
-¾ cup water
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
In saucepan, combine all ingredients. Cover and simmer for 15 – 20 minutes or until apples are soft. Allow to cool, then mash with a fork or potato masher.

Only a couple weeks to go! Email me with soybean ideas and inspiration if I should keep harvesting them. -Janees -

week 13

2010-09-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 13

I am completely exhausted. I got back at 2am last night from a fast trip down to North Carolina for their picking, crushing, pressing, and first fermentation of grapes. I spent all weekend following a master wine maker like a little puppy dog, constantly asking –what’s that- what are you doing – why does that smell – questions. My head is going to explode with everything I learned. I’m running on low sleep and high stress. The grape harvest season is impending at my vineyard up here along with apple crushing, pressing, fermenting and AGH! Why does everything happen all at once?

While down in North Carolina, I got fed incredibly well, including okra from the winery’s organic garden. I haven’t found as many okra pods as in past years as I think my grandma has been stealing it slowly and accumulating a “mess” which is the term for a bunch of okra… enough okra to mess with fixing. Small pods can be sliced and pan fried, covered in flour or corn meal and a pinch of salt with quite a bit of oil. Larger pods can be split open and as long as the seeds are still white and not terribly hard, scoop them out and add them to the top of a salad for an interesting treat. But I’m having trouble getting enough messes for all the baskets, so hopefully within the next few weeks, if you want to try it, there’ll be a basket with it in there. I do not like the slimy gumbo style okra that’s in soups. Fried is the way to go.
The eggplant is still doing well in the back garden. The tomatoes and ground cherries are collapsing in on themselves. The peppers are loving this heat and drought, but the lettuce I just seeded looks like it’s crying. The potatoes are just confused, but growing through it. Our squash is getting eaten from every pest that squash can be eaten and we’ve lost 75% of our melon crop this year because of rabbits, squash bugs, drought, and that damn peacock taking a peck out of every melon just to make sure they’re all not ripe yet. What a jerk.

When I worked as the cook for a vegetarian restaurant, my specialty was soups and namely, my fall / winter special soup called “Sunshine Soup.” Pretty much, I would take everything the color of sunshine and put it in a pot. There’s a lot of margin for personal preference, but my mom is on a new food restriction program where she’s pretty much a vegetarian to detox and hopefully heal her condition that has her rendered pretty much vegetarian. Her dietician recommends eating winter squash and sweet potatoes, so I whipped up a batch of sunshine soup and it was gone in one day. She loved it. (Even without the copious quantities of butter I used to use for the restaurant.)

Anyway, start with the acorn squash in your baskets. Take a meat cleaver and a mallet, rubber or wood is fine. Press the cleaver down a bit into the squash and then start tapping the back of the cleaver with the mallet. That’s the easiest way I’ve found to open up winter squash without really hurting your hands or almost losing a finger.Scoop out the seeds and put in the oven set to medium heat to soften the squash. While that’s in the oven, put on a pot of water and cut a couple of onions in half with some lentils (optional) and start them boiling. In another skillet, sauté up some diced onions with garlic and anything else yellow or orange such as just a few apples, pears, or shredded carrots, corn or red or yellow peppers. Meat eaters could throw in some ham chunks or brown some sausage with your onions. Next, move onto the sweet potatoes, cutting them into one inch slices. Put them on a cookie sheet with a bit of a rim and drizzle with vegetable oil and put them in the oven too. Take out the squash, let it cool for a bit then scoop it out. Remove the halves of onions that are probably soggy by now and put the scoops of squash in with the boiling lentils. Once the sweet potatoes have softened a bit, cut them into cubes and add them to the boiling pot as well. Add the sauté pot about 10 minutes before serving. Finish it off with a little bit of ginger, salt and pepper.

This soup turns out warm and hearty, which makes it a perfect winter soup. I prefer sautéing the vegetables separate and adding them just at the end so they don’t lose all their flavor through hours of boiling. This recipe works with any winter squash or you could add red potatoes instead of sweet potatoes.

This week I am going to a bunch of local orchards to pick up apples for our cider at work, so I’m sure the apple pies will start getting put up in the freezer very soon. So delicious. I don’t remember seeing too many orchards in North Carolina. Score one for Ohio! - Janee

week 12

2010-09-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 12

My kitchen has been invaded. There is a small, red and orange army gathering on my windowsills and countertops and it seems to grow by the day. I go to my mom’s kitchen and she’s been infested as well, and my boss’s house has tons of them too. It’s not bed bugs, it’s…. tomato season!It’s a sigh of relief for us tomato lovers (or a groan of anguish for non-tomato lovers) but it looks to be an excellent year for tomatoes. Travis’s well constructed tomato cages made out of wire fencing which started out at three feet, then five, then six and he’s talking 8 feet tall next year because they turned into a tomato forest… or a tomato jail, if you’re trying to pick them and the fence is a bit tighter than a hand can get through. But I’m glad that this year we finally are getting a good crop. The real question is, after at least two tomato sandwiches a day, what to do with the leftovers.

I roast mine. It’s similar to sun drying, but a bit faster. Slice small or roma tomatoes in half. Larger ones are best if you cut the ends off and use the middle for fresh use. Put the tomatoes cut side up on a parchment lined cookie sheet, sprinkling your favorite chopped herb (mine is garlic, basil, or thyme) and drizzle with a bit of olive oil, or use an olive oil spritzer for full coverage and less mess. Make sure to cover the herbs with olive oil and make sure they are inside the tomato “cups” or else they dry out. Then put them on a very low oven. I mean the lowest it will go. It will take about 3 hours of bubbling at 200 degrees to get the water out, but it’s completely worth it to get these amazing, lycopene packed treats. After roasting, pack in olive oil and they’ll keep in your fridge for the next 2 weeks or pack tightly in a freezer bag and freeze. Or, you could do my favorite – roasted veggie lasagna. You know how sometimes if you try to add fresh tomatoes to lasagna, you end up with a bunch of runny water after you scoop out your lasagna and mushy noodles? Try this – slice long slices of eggplant, garlic, onions, zucchini, or peppers and roast them in the oven with your tomatoes in the same fashion, but only for an hour. Then place in a lasagna pan, a layer of sauce, a layer of noodles, a layer of roasted vegetables and tomatoes, then a layer of ricotta and cottage cheese mix and top with sauce. Repeat until your pan is full, which is usually only about one and a half times. Yes, this is a veggie lovers lasagna with not a lot of noodles in the end. Top with shredded cheese and from there, either bake or cover and put in the freezer to pull out a piece of the garden in the dark days of winter.

I got another batch of lettuce, kale, peas, and mustard greens that are up now and I’m looking at my last planting of sunflowers wondering if they’ll bloom before frost. And then I think, geez, I’m already thinking about frost. And on the same token, if anyone wants squash blossoms from the late planting of winter squash, request them and we’ll pick em as they probably won’t make it to maturity, but will make an excellent squash blossom soup. Oh, and this batch of corn is my boss’s pride and joy – Now That’s Delicious. It’s a super sweet type that I’m proud of him for not spraying insecticide on for corn ear worms. I picked it yesterday so cook it soon!

So my mom got a super great recipe for Bruscetta, but the piece of paper got lost in transit, so here’s her rendition of what she could remember of Donna’s Best Bruscetta.

Put some red wine vinegar in a sauce pan and turn on low heat to reduce out some of the water. Slice ciabatta bread into inch and a half slices then butter & garlic both sides of the bread.Slice open the tomato & pull out pulp then diceBroil the bread for a few minutes until slightly crisp.Place tomatoes, basil, and feta cheese on the bread. Broil again for a few minutes and then drizzle with reduction and serve right away.

We’re looking forward to more winter squash, pumpkins, apples, grapes, peppers, carrots, and ground cherry pie. Started seeds for winter broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and purple kohlrabi. Watching football and seeing the tips of the maples turn as this summer starts slipping into September, I’m happily already planning my Thanksgiving feast. Maybe a pear crumble or sausage stuffed acorn squash or sweet potato cakes or… any suggestions?

Until then, enjoy - Janee

week 11

2010-08-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season

Week 11

The slight chill in the air is both happy relief from the stifling heat but also a twinge of pain that the summer season is rounding to a close. With the windows open at night, the quilt came back out and picking is now not such a sweat-laden endeavor.

I have some grapes from the lady I got the alpaca from, complete with seeds and that Ohio grown grape flavor I’ve really grown to love. I’ve seen grape seed extract on health food shelves and I can’t help but wonder why we spend so much effort to propagate plants that have decreased health benefits. I was chatting with a bread baker that said she takes the tart, wine type grapes and folds them into a ciabatta bread that’s baked just until the first grape pops and the seeds mellow out in the oven into something beautiful. I love canning grape juice, where I think it’s one cup grapes, one cup sugar and the rest of the quart jar is filled with water and processed. The jars are beautiful and even if the seals break, we found that was the fastest way to make some darn good home-made wine. Oh, and speaking of wine, with the extra peaches from last week, I have a batch of peach wine in my fermenter right now. I’ve never made it before, but it already smells delicious!

My mom was lucky enough last week to swipe a basket. I think it’s her first full basket and I watched that basket through this week to try to see at what pace everything in it was used and how to make our baskets better. The peaches went first, followed by the tomatoes, which made a delicious salad with very little lettuce and mostly tomatoes with a light lemon dressing. The apples and pears slowly disappeared, leaving a very small pile of dragon tongue beans and one lonely patty pan squash. It’s Tuesday and she’s had it for a week now, which is fine because patty pans last a few weeks in the fridge, but it helped me see how one fruit and veggie lover goes through the baskets.After my little learning study, I think we’re going to cut back on what we load up in the baskets and concentrate quantities like in the beans so that you actually have enough to make for dinner. I also think that we will have a table dedicated to extras, for those tomato lovers (and tomato not-lovers) to take as many or as few of some of our veggies as you’d like. I also know that canning season is upon us so I don’t want to short anyone who puts food back. Take from the extras table, only as much as you can use. LATE SWEET CORN GETS MORE BUGS THAN USUAL!!!! BEWARE!

I got some really good pie recipes sent on and my mom still can’t believe she gave away her secret pie crust recipe (for which reason I probably will not post that on the csa blog) but I promised a ground cherry pie recipe so here it is. Sent in by Roberta Martin, who testifies to its deliciousness, I still have yet to bake one myself, but we’ve got plenty so I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

Ground Cherry Pie II Submitted By: JBS BOX Cook Time: 40 Minutes Servings: 82 1/2 cups ground cherries1/2 cup packed brown sugar1 tablespoon all-purpose flour2 tablespoons water1 (9 inch) pie shell3 tablespoons all-purpose flour3 tablespoons white sugar2 tablespoons butter
1.Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2.Husk and wash ground cherries and place in unbaked pie shell. Mix brown sugar and 1 tablespoon flour and sprinkle over cherries. Sprinkle water over top. Mix together 3 tablespoons flour and 3 tablespoons sugar. Cut butter in until crumbly. Top cherry mixture with crumbs.
3.Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, reduce temperature to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) and continue to bake for 25 minutes.

Enjoy - Janee

week 10

2010-08-18T08:24:00.000-07:00

Cooking in SeasonWeek 10

The bright red tomatoes clinging onto giant green bushes, warm from the sun and completely packed with flavor are what makes the boring winter tomatoes green with envy. There is nothing quite like walking through the garden and picking a ripe tomato and biting into it with it’s warm juices set at the perfect blend of acidity and sweetness. The quest for the best tomato has begun.We’re now taste testing the fruits from the heirloom mix seed packet we got from Fedco and the random varieties we collected along the way as well. The great whites are massive. The mortgage lifters are almost living up to their name... but not quite paying off my credit card bills, and the big rainbows are showing all beautiful hues of reds, yellows, and greens. In the garden fresh taste tests, the black krims are squeaking up to the top of the list with their gorgeous layered green skin over dark red flesh that’s not quite black, but something that has the warmth of a dimly lit room with a warm fireplace, or those old paintings of king’s tables. We’re saving seed, so if there’s one that you especially like, send me a picture of it (even if it’s half eaten) or scoop out a few seeds and bring them in next week.

Another vine ripened, warm from the sun beauty that made it into the baskets this week are peaches from Mount Hope. I’m thinking of all the delicious ways to put them in the freezer, in pies, in jams, and in cobblers just to keep a slice of summer to break out on a cold winter day.
The beans are not as stellar this year as they were last year, but they’re still vying for a spot in the baskets. Regrettably, the purple ones turn green no matter how you cook them, much to the dismay and frustration of one member last year. But we grow them because they are easier to pick as the purple doesn’t blend in as well as green beans do.And speaking of beans, I have quite a few shelling beans that will start making their way into baskets next week. I’ll try to mark the different types, but we have all colors, shapes and flavors. Shelling can be a pain, but these beans will repay you in protein and keep for a long time when stored properly. (More on this when they come in.)

Anyway, the apples are starting to come in along with the pears and soon the grapes. The ground cherries are really coming on as long as we keep scooping them off the ground as they fall. I’m going to start concentrating them into quantities in some baskets for those interested in making ground cherry pie. My mom has this amazing pie crust recipe that she got from Georgia Wilson. It’s an old amish recipe that is just amazing, no matter what the filling.

********* secret recipe omitted **********************

week 9

2010-08-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

The heat of August has sweat dripping into my eyeballs on the morning feeding rounds. The turkeys are getting bigger by the day and the meat birds happily waddle around the back yard, soaking up the sun and chasing bugs. The printout from last week after computer problems is on highmillpark.com/csaI’m at a loss for lettuce and asian greens this year. I had two bok choy plants that lived through the heat and I was so excited that after years and years of just watching them go to seed before I could get a good looking stalk together, these two plants held up through the heat and the sun of summer. All they had to do was flower at the same time to cross pollinate and I’d save the best bok choy seeds for years to come, but one flowered this past week but the other didn’t. No cross pollination. No super bok choy seeds. But one lucky basket might be the winner of the remaining bok choy that looks amazing. If you get it, let me know how it cooks up and I’ll try my little experiment again next year, pulling up all the ones that go to seed to early to find that one perfect bok choy, or I could just start watching the Jersey Shore and eat Mac ‘n Cheese. Seems like a more normal hobby.

Ah, the smooth sailing time of the year when the rush of tomatoes come in along with peppers, winter squash, snap and shelling beans, and the real bounty of the harvest. Sweet corn this week is Incredible. Now we’re working on our fruit cellar for winter storage for potatoes and a super apple crop. I manured the orchard last fall to protect the roots from winter cold and it’s broken down into amazing soil and the apples are thanking me for the food with a super crop. This year I’ve only done dormant sprays on them so they’ve got some surface blemishes, but aren’t covered in chemicals or pumped full of Miracle grow, which makes them taste all the better. Some spots wash off easily. We’re planning for winter already and instead of going dormant, we’re planning on planting winter gardens with all the leftover lettuce and asian greens seeds we didn’t use. Email me if you’re interested, it probably wouldn’t be once a week, but whenever we have enough for a basket of fresh greens, sweet carrots, turnips, broccoli, winter apples and the like, we’d make up a basket and send it your way. Just throwing that out there if you’re interested. Also, last week to signup for meat share, oh, and we’re almost sold out of Thanksgiving turkeys.

This week, garden fresh Baked Vegetable Penne
1 (16 ounce) package penne pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 - 4 summer squash, chopped - 1 onion, chopped - 2 peppers, chopped
1 tablespoon crushed garlic
3 tomatoes, chopped into strainer to drain off excess liquid.
1 (28 ounce) jar chunky style pasta sauce
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Once the water is boiling, stir in the penne, and return to a boil. Cook the pasta uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta has cooked through, but is still firm to the bite, about 11 minutes. Drain well in a colander set in the sink, place the pasta in a large bowl, and set aside.
2. While the pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat, and cook and stir the zucchini, squash, onion, red and green peppers, and garlic until the vegetables are tender, for about 10 minutes. Pour in the tomatoes, pasta sauce, and corn, and stir to mix. Sprinkle with red and black pepper to taste, and bring the mixture back to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
4. Pour the vegetable mixture into the bowl with the cooked penne pasta, stir to mix well, and spoon into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese over the top, and bake in the preheated oven until the cheese is melted and the casserole is bubbling, 20 to 30 minutes.

Until next week… Enjoy! - Janee

week 8

2010-08-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

First week in August and the tomatoes are really coming on. We grow many different types of heirloom tomatoes in all colors and some standard modern hybrids as well. We do not plant genetically modified tomatoes. Modern hybrids are made by removing the male parts off some plants and pollinating them by hand with a paintbrush to get a cross that brings out the best of the parent plants. Burpee has made this big business. Don’t try to save the seeds from your Burpee Big Boys as they do not breed true from seed. But our Mortgage Lifters will be true if you save the seeds. As far as self sufficiency, heirlooms are the best. We’re creating new heirlooms as well by saving the seeds of the best plants that produce the sweetest fruit with the most disease resistance. They might not have names yet, but if we keep saving the seeds from the best plants that grow in our climate, eventually we’ll have something really amazing that’s well suited for our area. Take that, Burpee.

When storing tomatoes, do not put them in the fridge. Leave them in a sunny window until you’re ready to use. Any that have blemishes should be used right away. Heirlooms are best when picked slightly green and then ripened in a sunny windowsill… but some are green zebra, a striped green and dark green variety that is perfect when green but will ripen into a mushy yellow and green ball if allowed to overripe. So use your judgment and let the BLT’s begin.
Anyway, it’s another mishmash week of a whole lot of different things. Some of you will be experimenting with pattypan squash and some baskets will be loaded with tomatoes of all colors. There’s more potatoes as well for the roasting, steaming and smashing, or just saving them for later along with some delicious onions that I can’t get enough of. Okra is starting to come in now, but if you don’t know what to do with it but you got it, just email me and I’ll give you my grandma’s fried okra recipe. Delicious. I’m not big on gumbo so I like my okra to be crispy and not mushy.

Blackberries are done. Blueberries are in a lull (or someone else got to them before I did this week) but we do have some beautiful little Shiro and Red Ace plums from a farm down by Apple Creek.

Oh, and you’ll find some little paper lanterns popping up in some baskets. Those little delicious bites are called husk tomatoes or ground cherries. If they’re green, give them a few more days in a sunny window. They are perfect when the husks are thin as paper and brown and the little tiny tomato inside is a nice golden color. Remove the husk and eat, or throw it in a salad. They’re called ground cherries because they are ripe when they fall to the ground. If you husk them, they keep in the fridge for a couple weeks and I’ve got some nice ground cherry pie recipes for anyone interested.

Apples are ripening well. Grapes are turning and setting their sugars. Our first wave of sweet corn was Temptation bi-color. This week we’ve got some Incredible and next week the winery neighbor said his Bodacious might be ready. I’ve never had it but he swears it’s the best. I’ll let you all be the judge.
- Janee

darn computers

2010-08-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

printer broke and now my internet at my house won't work. i just can't win!

here's some info on ground cherries

and when my computer likes me again, i'll post more.

week 7

2010-07-29T14:46:00.001-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 7
As I stare into the great weed patch of a garden at work with the wind blowing the tall ragweed to and fro, I find it a good time to reflect on what went wrong and where I did go right. 50 pounds of seed potatoes and a sore back tell me that it is a bad idea to plant potatoes in the low spot of the garden in the heaviest soil there is. Bad idea. Oddly enough, two rows over, my carrots are thriving and I’m not sure why. I tied a few sheep to graze on where my potatoes were and pulled as many out of the ground as I could. My tomatoes aren’t doing too bad, but nowhere near as well as my sister’s tomatoes that got 6 foot tall cages and are still growing out of the top of them. I know I planted peppers in there somewhere but I think the thistles overtook it. My boss’s corn in the one corner is sticking it’s thumbs in its ears and sticking out it’s tongue like a taunting second grader as it grows above my failed garlic experiment and weed choked white beets. Where I did go right was with beans. I have about 5 different types of gourmet dry soup beans growing which I inoculated, a technique touted by Rodale to reintroduce beneficial bacteria to help the roots grow and the plant to produce more. Said beans look amazing. The dry dirt around it just thrives with life as they stretch toward the sun, outstretching the grass growing around them, but not by much. I hope someone likes Edamame, edible soybeans, because I hand weeded them at least twice by now and they should be coming on soon. I also tried growing garbanzo beans as I love hummus and would love it even more if it came out of the garden…. Buuut they aren’t as easy to grow as other beans and there’s only one per pod. So out of the one pound of seed I planted, I only got about 3 ounces of beans. Something didn’t work out well there.Another thing that is really doing well is my carrots. Every year I am determined to get good carrots and every year I get a little bit closer to figuring it out. I am not sure what I did right at my work garden, maybe it’s the 10 hours of hand weeding that they likes or maybe it was getting planted as filler in between winter squash, but they are looking amazing. The problem, however is that carrots get sweeter as the temperature drops. This is why I am so baffled as to how carrots grow in California and are sweet. Maybe I don’t want to know, but there’s got to be some trick to get them to ripen at the right time without turning hard as sticks, get big and nice and long, and get sweet. I think I’m close this year, but I’ll let you all decide. Oh, I think I might harvest some, put them in sawdust and ice and see if that works. I guess that’s the fun thing about growing your own food. Yes, there is probably a chemical that would make this process easier, but it’s more fun to figure it out naturally.
The blackberries are here, however not for much longer. The blueberries at work are starting to come on, but I don’t think that I will have enough for all the baskets at once so if you get some one week, let someone else try them the next week. Peaches are ripening now along with some early apples. And we have baby melons coming on now too.Anyway, the blackberries are hit or miss. The wild ones are smaller and I can’t pass them up when they’re in season, but they aren’t the best for raw eating. I highly suggest you put them in something to tone down their acidity. Cobblers or on ice cream works really well or here is a simple blackberry jam recipe.
1 pint blackberries1 pint sugar
Put berries in a small saucepan and mash with potato masher on medium heat. Once the berries are at a boil, add sugar slowly into the saucepan, stirring constantly. I like to add a little bit of lemon juice for some added flavor. Return to a boil to dissolve sugar, about 2 minutes. Store in the refrigerator and eat immediately. Enjoy! - Janee

week 6

2010-07-29T14:45:00.003-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 6
I just drove to the far corner of Pennsylvania to look at soybeans. Not just any soybeans. Organic soybeans. And tractors. So needless to say the organic field day at Rodale Institute is not what I expected, but I did get a healthy appreciation for the hardship of soybean farmers. I did learn about soil fungi, which are often overlooked and so quickly destroyed. And I got to talk to other people who are into local foods and growing their own fresh vegetables.

Anyway…Zucchini Cookout Sunday July 25th at 2pm

Invite your friends, bring a covered dish, and join us this Sunday for all the different ways to cook up summer squash and enjoy local foods. We’ll be grilling straight out of the gardens and maybe have some lamburgers from here and some delicious beef burgers from my work.
Right now it’s blackberry season and it looks like I’ve been fighting with a pack of wild house cats. Every year I think – this winter I’m going to clean up this patch. And every year I forget when it’s no longer blackberry season. We do have a patch of thornfree blackberries that we’re propagating as much as possible for the love of my skin. When my sister wanted to plant everbearing strawberries this spring and I was not sold on the idea. When I worked in a greenhouse, we had everbearing strawberries that would just produce tiny little berries twice a year, but I figured why not give it a try. We ordered Seascape strawberries from Indiana Berry Co and I’m completely happy with the second crop we’re getting on the new plants from this spring. Wow. I’m sold. More strawberry jam soon!The apples are coming on. Travis has a cute, baby melon. The unique shelling beans at my work garden are blooming along with some edamame and garbanzo beans. I’ve never grown them before so we’ll see what happens. The raccoons found the sweet corn in the back garden. Little brats. So we’re low on the unique red corn this week. Oh, and a note about sweet corn – the sugars start turning to starches as soon as it’s picked. Fresh off the stalk, we like to just eat it as it doesn’t need boiled, salted or buttered at all. So cook your ears as soon as possible. Lightly boiled is fine or I like to take the silks out and shuck it, leaving a few husks left, put a pad of butter inside the remaining husks and fold them back over the ear and grill for a few minutes. So delicious.
Zucchini this year has not been as crazy prolific as past years, but we’ve still got enough for some zucchini bread and fresh grilling. Here’s a zucchini pancake recipe recommended by member Roberta Martin from the Zucchini Cookbook. She says an excellent variation is to put pizza sauce, cheese and toppings on top for a delicious take on pizza. Delicious!
Zucchini Pancakes1 medium zucchini, grated and drained1 egg, beaten1 teaspoon cooking oil1 cup pancake mix¾ cup milk2 tablespoons Parmesan cheeseLightly combine all ingredients and allow to rest for ½ hour. Add more milk for a thinner pancake. Cook on lightly greased hot griddle. Enjoy! - Janee

week 5

2010-07-29T14:45:00.001-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 5
I have two exciting things. First – Piglets! Finally. 6 of them and cute as little buttons. We had pork chops to celebrate my first success in pig husbandry. Now I just need to get my timing right.Second, this Friday we’ve gathered a small group together to travel to the equivalent of organics Mecca; the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania. This is the place where they research the most cutting edge new trends in organic agriculture while still keeping with some tried and true practices that will never go out of style. This is the place where if you pick up an organic disease and pest management book, they probably wrote it. They are having a field walk on Friday and we’re all pretty excited to make a camping/road trip out there to learn as much as we can in one day of staring at dirt and plants. This might sound boring to some, but we’re really excited about staring at dirt.
Anyway, the sweet corn has tassled and is getting close to being ready for round 1 of our multiple plantings. The cherry tomatoes are turning, but they keep mysteriously disappearing on the same days my mom makes amazing marinated cucumber and mixed veggie salads. Hm, that’s weird. There’s a few little cucumbers in your baskets that are very spiny. They’re actually an edible bitter gourd appropriately named hedgehog and so slice them up and use them like a cucumber. There’s also the traditional zucchini appearing in baskets, which is pretty much a staple right about now along with some strange shaped summer squash such as patty pans, starships, and eight balls. Most of them are great on the grill or I like to scoop out the seeds of the patty pans and fill them with sausage (or very moist rice and onions for the vegetarians) and bake them for about an hour, lightly brushing them with butter so they don’t dry out.With all the summer squash rolling in and sweet corn and peppers on the way, I hope grilling out is part of your plans. It’s usually a fast way to get rid of a lot of veggies at once. The baskets are a bit scattered this week with no real universal staple for the week, just whatever’s in season. The eggplant are coming in and if you have tried eggplant and hated it before, try slicing it into half inch sections and putting it on paper towels to sweat out the bitterness. I throw a pinch of salt on there to encourage it to sweat and flip it over a couple of times to let the paper towels really absorb. And if you’re sautéing eggplant, add some water to your pan or else it will soak up your oil with a sponge. After sweating, it’s great to just throw it on the grill with an herbed butter brushed on top. Here’s a simple herbed butter recipe that you can throw on top of most any veggie that you are grilling.
Herbed ButterIngredients:1 stick unsalted butter½ cup finely chopped parsley2 Tablespoons minced onion2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice½ teaspoon minced garlic1 teaspoon salt¼ teaspoon black pepperPut in food processor and blend. It’s easier if the butter is soft. Variations include basil instead of parsley for some Italian grilling butter with a pinch of oregano. Or send me your favorite variations. Enjoy! - Janee

week 4

2010-07-29T14:44:00.001-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 4
I try not to complain about the weather. I don’t like it when people complain that it’s too hot and can’t wait for winter or too cold and wish summer would hurry up and get here. I like the seasons. I like Ohio. It’s hot, cool, rainy, frigid, sweltering, hailstorms, thunder, and a few perfect 70 degree days in there somewhere. The weather is what it is. The problem comes when the vegetables go on strike along with the chickens. The pig is wallowing in the cool water that’s being pumped out of the pool. The sheep are grazing only in the shade and then coming out to eat at night. The gardens are stalling. We’ll water and then there will be a little growth spurt for a bit, but then once it gets over 90, things stop growing. They look stressed. They want more water, but the roots need to breathe, but it’s too hot to breathe. Even the warm weather loving tomatoes and peppers are on strike from growing while the temps climb over what they like.
So here we are, mid-July in Ohio and pulling up what we can. There’s some squash, some cucumbers, and I can’t believe it… still some broccoli that’s not bitter and I’m watering the lettuce to see if I can pull some of that up as well.
Also, there’s an odd shaped veggie creeping in season now that old time Ohioans love – kohlrabi. It reminds me of a flying saucer or a seed pod that would slowly float around finding for a new spot to plant itself. I use the leaves like kale and slice the bulb up, really thin works in salads like water chestnuts, or I like to sauté it and throw it in squash.Today I cooked up some baby onions in a skillet with some olive oil. Then once they were clear I threw in sliced zucchini, yellow squash and peeled and sliced beets with some water, put the lid on and steamed for about ten minutes. I put them over egg noodles with a little bit of butter and garlic salt and that was lunch. In hindsight, I probably should have done a cold salad as cooking in a hot kitchen is… um, hot.
Here is the best cucumber recipe from member Linda Chen. This is the recipe for the Taiwanese cucumbers - I'll give my mother-in-law credit & call them 'Betty Chen's (Taiwanese) Pickled Cucumbers'!
~ 1 cucumber, cut into 2 inch sticks or cut to your preference (but not too thin)~ 1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt ~ 1 TBsp apple cider vinegar~ 1/2 - 3/4 tsp brown sugar~ garlic, 2 cloves minced or to taste~ 1 tsp sesame oil~ tiny bit of hot chili bean paste (doe ban jan) - you can probably substitute with chili oil, dash hot sauce, or red pepper flakescut cucumbers & sprinkle with salt - let sit for 15 min - mix vinegar, sugar, garlic, sesame oil, & chili bean paste - pour over cucumbers, toss & eat!It tastes just as good if the cukes don't sit for 15 min.
*sesame oil* - Not all sesame oil is created equal, I've tried several. My & husband I agree that Kadoya is the best! - thumbs down on Ty Ling brand - I always refrigerate my sesame oil since it's not used quickly. This will retain freshness & prevent rancidity.
Stay cool and enjoy your veggies this week. Looking forward to eggplant that are the size of baseballs now, tomatoes that are starting to turn already, giant Marconi peppers that are still green but getting huge, and ground cherries that are getting eaten by us as soon as they get ripe. But for now, we’re off to go swimming. - Janee

week 3

2010-07-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 3
It’s July 4th weekend already. I walked out this morning to look at the gardens and I saw our squash plants, laden with happy, yellow flowers… but only two zucchini for all the cookouts this weekend. So I went to Holmes County to see what’s happening and got some zucchini and summer squash. The farmers down there are watching the impending doom of late blight on tomatoes. Right now, the big demand for local tomatoes has everyone growing in hot house greenhouses to try to beat the killer late blight. It’s in the soil, can spread up to 5 miles, and nothing can stop it. Super scary, but home grown tomatoes are so delicious that we all try anyway. And if we pull together, grow heirlooms, and save seeds from the few that make it through, we just might find a crop that will beat it. My grandma snatched up the first tomato that blushed already this year. We’re hoping there’s more to come before the blight hits, but there’s only so much we can do. Oh, and the ground cherries are starting to turn for acidic sweet deliciousness soon.
It’s cucumber season as well. We will be canning pickles next week, probably on Tuesday night after CSA pickup at my parent’s house if anyone would like to join. We trade working in the kitchen for jars of delicious pickles, or any empty canning jars you might donate for a couple jars full of pickles. Now if my dill would just hurry up and grow!
And I wish that I had sweet corn for all your picnics, but we put it in as early as we could and it’s just not ready yet. The corn at roadside stands right now is from Southern Ohio… or Florida The super early sweet corn we planted at my work got nipped by that mid-may frost. Oh well, maybe in a few weeks we’ll have some. The blueberries are coming on up there as well but my boss really likes his fertilizer so… not organic. The bushes are taller than I am and just about as old as I am too. We’re gleaning some blackberries and wild black raspberries from our canes here, but I never have enough so some are hand-picked from a farm in Navarre. They’re so sweet no sugar needed. And the ground cherries are coming soon…
Anyway, here’s a cucumber – green onion salad recipe that will cool down any hot 4th of July party. I peel my cukes if they’re larger in long stripes, leaving just a little green in between to hold them together. I’d put the green onion tops in this salad and save the tender baby onions for a sauté’ on the grill with some garlic spiced butter and summer squash. The beets can be roasted on the grill with a modification from the recipe from last week, wrapped in aluminum foil.
3 cucumbers
1 bunch green onions
MARINADE:
1/2 c. white wine vinegar1/2 c. sugar1 tbsp. dill weed1 tbsp. salt1/2 tsp. white pepper
1. Slice cucumbers – thin or thick, depending on preference. They keep their crunch at about half inch slices.2. Slice green onions diagonally as thinly as possible. Add to the cucumbers. 3. In small bowl, mix vinegar, sugar, dill weed, salt and pepper. Whisk with fork until blended. Pour over onions and cucumbers. Turn with spatula to coat all pieces. Marinate 1 hour or more. (overnight works well) 4. Lift cucumbers from marinade and serve – slotted spoons work great to make for not so soupy plates

- a modification of this would be adding a scoop of yogurt and a squeeze of lemon for Greek pickles. Or send me your favorite marinade (or zucchini recipe) . Happy 4th everyone! - Janee

week 2

2010-07-29T14:42:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 2
We have little green tomatoes already. My sister and grandmother, anxious to get tomatoes after a disappointing no-tomato season last year due to early blight, started planting tomatoes in late March. One or two tomatoes would sneak out of the greenhouse and get planted and covered. When the cold got too much, they would wait for the thaw and then try it again. I’m not sure how long the ones that are bearing have been in the ground, but I’m pretty sure they got a decent head start. And I can’t wait for fresh, vine ripened tomatoes. We also have baby peppers already.The squash are starting to flower. The cucumbers have baby pickles with flowers on the tips as they climb the fence. The lettuce sighs at the thought of getting harvested and wilts immediately and the kale is under attack from some leaf munchers. The broccoli has all but given up the fight. We’re hoping for the warm weather crops to pick up the slack.
Watch your baskets as garlic is sneaking in soon. We grow a bunch of different types and although I had all hopes of labeling, something got lost in translation. We have at least 6 different types and then after I couldn’t find any more in the dead of winter this year during a thaw, some grocery store garlic went in the ground as well. We have a native American red, some strong German red, softneck white, hardnecks, Music Pinks, and a few I’m sure I’m forgetting. We are harvesting from the past 4 years of planting garlic, so some head up better than others, but all are pretty much delicious.
Anyway, this week is just for the beets. The year before we started doing the CSA, Jason and I had a much smaller garden with a little beet patch that ended up yielding 38 quarts of pickled beets! We tried to eat one jar per week, but when we were burnt out on beets, we realized that we needed help eating all of our veggies. Hence the CSA.Anyway, beets as a vegetable are very under appreciated. It seems as though most of the people who really value them have lived through the depression and savor them at the early bird salad bar. I would just ask you all to give them another chance with this recipe, greens and all. They are high in folate, manganese, iron, potassium and fiber and I love that the green are also edible and delicious.Here’s a recipe from cooks.com that’s great. You also have peas in your baskets (most of you) and the larger ones can be shelled and thrown in the skillet when the greens are added. Smaller sugar snap peas can be added whole.
Ingredients1 bunch beets with greens 1/4 cup olive oil, divided 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons chopped onion (optional) salt and pepper to taste 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (optional)
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (175 degrees C). Wash the beets thoroughly, leaving the skins on, and remove the greens. Rinse greens, removing any large stems, and set aside. Place the beets in a small baking dish or roasting pan, and toss with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. If you wish to peel the beets, it is easier to do so once they have been roasted.
2. Cover, and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, or until a knife can slide easily through the largest beet.
3. When the roasted beets are almost done, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and onion, and cook for a minute. Tear the beet greens into 2 to 3 inch pieces, and add them to the skillet. Cook and stir until greens are wilted and tender. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the greens as is, and the roasted beets sliced with either red-wine vinegar, or butter and salt and pepper.
Email me if you need help shelling peas. They’re way better than out of a can! - Janee

week 1

2010-06-16T04:03:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
Week 1

Every year I ponder when the CSA should start. I usually start up mid-June to catch the strawberry and asparagus. We’re out of asparagus for the year and our strawberries were in high production two weeks ago and got made into jam. Today we have strawberries from a family farm in Navarre along with just a few of our own that are left. Trying to trick the cool weather vegetables into production this year has been next to impossible. We’ve had nothing but heat and rain, which made the brussel sprouts not grow and the broccoli I had growing at my work go to flower, but the flowers are edible. We do have radishes, fresh hand-picked lettuce and turnips, which should be enjoyed for their nutritious greens and delicious roots. I slice the roots thin and add them to a salad. The larger roots should be cubed and put into soups.

As we start up the season, here are a few things to remember.

1.Wash your veggies! Wash everything. Twice. We do not chlorine bathe our veggies like most prepared bagged salads or coat them with stay-fresh sprays, which is good. But there’s still dirt and we do use sprays that should be washed off.
2. Please come at the pickup time. Tuesdays 6-8pm or Wed. from 8-10am. I can make an extra pickup time if you email me, but baskets will not be ready at 5pm on Tuesdays as we pick everything fresh and only throw everything together right before everyone gets here at 6. If you come early, we’ll probably just still be running around like crazy, which could be good for a laugh, but we won’t have anything ready.
3. Use the veggies as soon as possible. Everything in your baskets is very perishable. Eat, freeze, can, dry, or give away your baskets each week. Not much will keep past a week. If you can’t use it all in a week, try to pick the baskets that are not as full or find someone to share with. This isn’t a problem for most members. We also include odd fruits and vegetables so if you don’t know how to prepare something, just ask.
4. If you’re on vacation, please find someone else to pickup your baskets. For the same reasons you should use your veggies fast, we can’t keep them for a week here either. Hopefully if you aren’t around to pickup, you know someone that can help you out and pickup for you. Just have them say your name on pickup day and you’re fine.
5. There will be bugs. Perfect food does not happen naturally. There is a reason that no bugs can be found in supermarket produce – they are sprayed with insecticides like crazy! If food is delicious, everything will want to eat it. We handpick bugs off (yes, very time consuming) and we use very light, organic, least-harmful sprays when we can’t handpick. What we grow is delicious and we’re constantly fighting everything else to get a crop including bugs, spores, groundhogs, bunnies, and even chickens. One of our seed catalogs listed crop failure on their seed crop of soybeans because the bunnies couldn’t resist, even though their soybeans were surrounded by Genetically Modified soybeans. The bunnies know what’s good. But that makes it harder for us. Wash everything. Salt water soak your broccoli too.
6. Return your baskets each week. We recycle them so return them when you pickup next week.
7. We could use your help. Even if you don’t have the time to hand weed the gardens with us, there’s other ways to help out. We always are in need of egg cartons or berry cartons that you might have. Flat trays or nursery pots are always useful around here along with any old leaky hoses or old gardening supplies you might be getting rid of. In the fall, we use bagged leaves to amend our gardens – we’ll even pick them up! I’ll also be updating canning dates (pickles are up next!) and everyone that helps gets to take home some of what we can. Or email me recipes that you love, which come in handy when summer squash is in full production or during what looks to be a productive tomato season.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Usually I include a recipe here, but it looks like the contents of this basket would lend well for a summer salad. We’re starting out light so we can ease our way into the season.

Email me with any questions. Enjoy! - Janee

new year, new season.

2010-06-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

First pickup is June 15th!!!!

Welcome new members and we can't wait to catch up with old members! We're ready to start easing into the growing season with light spring baskets of greens, fresh radishes, and berries.

We're really sold out this year thanks to excellent references from returning members and a lot of people wanting to know where their food comes from. I love all the interest, now I've got my work cut out for me!

Now it's back to the gardens. The plants are loving all this rain... but so are the weeds. Email with any questions to janeehouston@gmail.com

Finished for 09

2009-11-12T10:57:00.001-08:00

We are done for this season. Whew. What a lot of work and a lot of fun. More veggies than last year. More farmer friends. Super great members. Aaand I got to hang out with my sister and her new husband a lot.

The garlic is in the ground for next year. We're trying onions from seed for next year and we are re-evaluating our plan of attack for the CSA as a whole.

New next year - we got some cranberries in the ground to try them again for next year. We also planted currants, serviceberries, and gooseberries so hopefully we'll expand our unique fruits in the baskets.

Members, please email us what you would like to see different for next year.

Also, we're starting our orders so check out High Mowing and Johnny's or Seed Savers Exchange for what we should order. We're always open to suggestions from other catalogs as well.

Bundle up for the winter and email me if you'd like to be put on the notification list for when signups start in the springtime.

week 15

2009-10-16T13:00:00.001-07:00

Cooking in Season

Final Week

September is rounding out the end of the season and this will be the last cooking in season newsletter. Next week is a BOYB - bring your own basket. We'll pull out everything we have left and let all our members stock up for the winter. Bring your own containers and take only what you like. We’ll have keeper squash, potatoes, maybe some sweet potatoes, apples, possibly a few carrots (I’m still terrible at carrots) and whatever else we can pull up.

Our first grape harvest at the vineyard is this weekend and I will be driving the grapes down to North Carolina to watch the first pressing, which means I might not be back to bid you all farewell, so I swiped a couple bunches of Marquettes, which are the grapes set to be harvested and put a few in the baskets. They are almost good enough to be a table grape, very sweet but also very seedy. I also have some more no spray apples, which my mom is whipping into pies as we speak for the freezer. And the corn is no spray and it’s bud worm season so do not be alarmed. Just cut off the ends and enjoy not eating chemicals.

I feel as now is a good time to break the bad news... our tomatoes are all but dead. The best part about fall is being able to walk outside the back door to pick a fresh, red ripe tomato from the vine and put a big slice on, well, pretty much anything and everything. The sad part about this year is that with the weather being cool, a late blight is wiping out all tomatoes that aren't heavily sprayed with fungicide. The blight started with plants shipped out of New York to big box stores and there's not much that anyone can do right now. It's depressing and spreading like wildfire so if you have tomatoes at home (and they're still alive) look for black spots, which is an early sign, and the organic treatment is copper, but you should use according to the directions and with caution. With how interconnected our food distribution system is, it’s amazing that this doesn’t happen more often or get more attention. Sometimes the world seems so small when diseases spread this quickly with trucking and distribution. Oh well, at least we’re taking a step in the right direction as we hope to start more of our own plants next year in our own greenhouse using our own seeds we’ve saved this year.

Actually, that sounds kinda exciting, but I think it might be too early to think about next year already.

Anyway, with next week being our last week, it's time to really start thinking about putting veggies away for the winter. I am very partial to freezing as with most small batch veggies, it’s easier than canning and leaves a lot of the vitamins. Just make sure to mark everything well while you still know when you put it away to avoid the freezer burnt beans in the back corner of the freezer from –who-knows-when. Maybe even some of your basket will make it from storage to the thanksgiving table (oh, especially the sweet potatoes) and you can enjoy autumn with the most delicious holiday and think of us.

Peppers Preparation – Select crisp, tender, green or bright red pods. Wash, cut out stems, cut in half and remove seeds. If desired, cut into 1/2-inch strips or rings.Heated – Good for use in cooking. Water blanch halves 3 minutes, strips or rings 2 minutes. Cool promptly, drain and package, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Seal and freeze.Unheated – Good for use in uncooked foods because they have a crisper texture, or in cooked foods. Package raw, leaving no headspace. Seal and freeze.

Melons Preparation – Select firm-fleshed, well-colored, ripe melons. Cut in half, remove seeds and rind. Cut melons into slices, cubes or balls. Syrup Pack – Pack into containers and cover with cold 30 percent syrup. Leave headspace. Seal and freeze. Unsweetened Pack – Pack into containers, leaving headspace. Seal and freeze.

Beans Preparation – Select young tender pods when the seed is first formed. Wash in cold water, snip and cut into 2 to 4-inch lengths. Water blanch 3 minutes. Cool promptly, drain and package, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Seal and freeze.

Squash Preparation – Select firm, mature squash with a hard rind. For spaghetti squash, mashing the cooked pulp is not necessary. Cook until soft in boiling water, in steam, in a pressure cooker or in an oven. Remove pulp from rind and mash. To cool, place pan containing pumpkin in cold water and stir occasionally. Package, leaving ½-inch headspace. Seal and freeze. Or….. Pumpkins and most winter squash should be harvested when mature, before frost. You can tell if they are mature as the skin will be hard and difficult to scratch with a fingernail. Leave an inch of stem on when cutting, then “cure” near a furnace or warm area (80 to 85 degrees F) for 10 days. This will harden the rind further, and heal any cuts. Then store dry between 50 and 60 degrees. Below this and they can get chilling damage. Above this and they can get stringy. Acorn squash should be handled similarly, only don’t cure as such warm temperatures will make them stringy.

It’s been a great season. Glad you all joined in. Check the website for updates and winter laments. I hope to be back by next week but if not, enjoy the last of the bountiful harvest.

~janee

week 14

2009-10-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
week 14

I am so happy. It has been a few months of searching through the massive amount of apple trees at work, taking a bite out of each tree to find plenty of cider apples or wild apples with that mealy texture and mild taste, thinking maybe they’re not that bad. This tree is it. Laden with a bunch of juicy but crisp apples, these are the apples I was searching for. I know I asked the name and it’s one of those combo names that’s escaping me right now like jonafree or jonagold. In any case, they are delicious and no spray… but I still strongly advise as I always do to wash before eating. Most blemishes are only skin deep, but with all apples, a small hole can mean someone already found the tasty fruit and might still be inside. Oh, and we should be pressing cider soon, which is always exciting.

We also have a couple grapes too scattered throughout. They all have seeds. I have a concord seedless planted, but at the rate it’s growing, it will be years before I start picking the fruit. If the seeds are too much for you, you could always enjoy some juice, although one bunch really won’t give you that much. The internet has some creative ways of extracting juice like boiling and straining, but if you just want a glass of very fresh grape juice, just wash and stem the grapes, put them in a ziplock bag, mash, and then strain. You don’t get a lot of juice, but it’s delicious and no seeds to worry about..

Anyway, on to the veggies…
I remember the first time I ever cooked eggplant. It was at the start of my culinary explorations when I was young and I picked up an eggplant out of the produce aisle for it’s beautiful purple color and lovely shape. I figured it couldn’t be that hard and it reminded me of zucchini so sliced it up and sautéed it in a pan all by itself. Excited to try my new dish, I shoveled the first flimsy piece in my mouth only to spit it back out. The texture was like a raw fish, it soaked up all the oil like a sponge, and there was this overwhelming bitterness to it which made me vow never to cook it again.
I have since gotten over that with a simple tip I plucked out of a vegetarian cookbook – an hour before cooking, slice your eggplant, lay it on a paper towel and flip it halfway through with a dash of salt and it will sweat out all of the bitter juices. So that was one problem solved. The next was how to cook it without saturating it completely with oil and loosing the firm texture. I find that with all super absorbent veggies, when sautéed I used half water and half oil, allowing the water to soak in first and then adding the oil so it doesn’t stick. A step up from this is throw it on the grill and brush with seasoned oil or butter. In the end, I find it has a firm texture which reminds me of steak or a good portabella mushroom.
After the initial fear of eggplant left me, I found it is great stacked into a lasagna or sautéed with squash on a bed of scalloped potatoes. This recipe is simple (and would be great with a grilled half of a sweet pepper too) and with the sweating preparation out of the way, it might make you look at this beautiful vegetable in a different light. If not, well it’s always great breaded, deep fried and covered in cheese like a good eggplant parmesean.

Grilled Eggplant Sandwich
4 teaspoons Olive Oil
1 clove Garlic, finely chopped1 1/2 teaspoons chopped, Fresh Basil2 small Eggplants sliced1/2 cup Cream Cheese, Low-Fat Whipped, or Goat Cheese4 pieces Focaccia or other good quality bread, sliced in half, lengthwise2/3 cup kale or other greens, washed and dried4 slices Tomato
Preparation:Preheat grill to medium heat. Add olive oil, garlic, salt, and fresh ground pepper and ½ teaspoon fresh chopped basil to small bowl. Stir to combine. Brush both sides of eggplant slices with olive oil mixture. Grill eggplant over direct heat, 3 minutes per side. Mix cream cheese, 1-tablespoon fresh chopped basil, salt, and fresh ground pepper in small bowl. Spread 4 halves of focaccia bread with cheese mixture. Top with kale, slice of tomato and focaccia bread slice.

See you next week ~janee

week 13

2009-09-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season

week 13

The tips on the leaves are starting to turn now but the weather is holding at the same –not really too hot- level it’s been at all summer. The pumpkins are crawling along and a few are hinting at oranges through their green veins. The tomatoes in the back garden got blight and are now toast, but the romas and heirlooms at work are doing just fine so far surrounded by ragweed in bloom. (sneeze.) I see local plums and peaches at the farm up the street and wonder how the heck they manage that. I’ve been looking for local cherries but this season has been a bust. Exotic fruit growers in the area said we had an extremely ground chilling winter last year and everything took a hit. We’re planting new peach trees in hopes of production in the future.

The grapes are hanging airily on the vines at work and I’m testing them every three days and charting them to see when the chemical compounds are just right for harvest. It’s so funny how something as earthy and basic as growing things can turn so scientifically complicated.

This past week I’ve eaten out of the garden more than ever. Wed night I grabbed a leftover basket and chopped up some turnips, squash, beet greens, potatoes and fresh tomatoes and put them in a light tomato sauce and it turned out amazing. I feel as though I’ve overlooked turnips unjustly as their mild flavor was just the perfect surprising zing to the dish. Last night for Labor day my sister cooked up a green / purple / yellow bean and tomato dish that was amazing and we had steamed sweet corn and ribs. I loved the red corn, which turned an odd shade when cooked but still was sweeter than I thought it would be. I would plant it again.

And I already feel this year winding down a lot as we start to tuck up the gardens after another very odd Ohio growing season. Last year we had so many tomatoes we didn’t know what to do. This year was the year of the summer squash. I wonder what next year will be like…

Anyway, now is the time for some much appreciated feedback. Throughout the season we hope that we are providing what our members are looking for; weather and growing conditions permitting. Here’s your chance to let us know how we did and what we could do better. Also, if anyone feels so inclined to post on our localharvest page, we’d much appreciate it and offer up a free dozen eggs for your time.

You can email me your feed back or fill it out and bring it in next week.

On a scale of 1 to 5 for your CSA preferences, how important are the following with 1 being not at all and 5 being extremely important:

__ Diversity of fruits and veggies __Flexibility in pickup

__ Organic __ Local

__ Recipes __Heirloom varieties

__ Fruits included

Anything you would have liked to see more of?

______________________________________________________________________________________

Comments or suggestions for next year? ______________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________

Any feedback is always helpful. Thanks and see you next week…. ~janee

week 12

2009-09-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
week 12

The

The nights are really dropping temperature now and the morning feeding now requires long sleeves. It seems like as soon as I put my sweaters away it’s time to get them back out again. We just tilled for our winter gardens and are about to plant garlic for next season… and lots of it! We never have enough. Also to keep us through the winter, we’re planting more kale, carrots for next year, turnips, spinach (which I usually have terrible luck with), along with any other root veggie seeds we still have around. Soon it will be time to press the apple cider, which is always a really good time and very messy. The winter wheat is going in soon as well.

The melon patch has officially been picked! After months of waiting and grandma telling us every week that we were a month away, we’re finally pretty confident that they are ready. Use them right away or cut them up and freeze them for great smoothies to beat the winter blues. Our sugar baby melons took a blue ribbon at the Randolph fair, our tomatoes, flower arrangement and shelled beans got second. We’re already planning for next year and I’m kicking myself for not entering stark county’s fair. Oh well, there’s always next year.

Outside my mom’s kitchen window we’ve been watching a volunteer squash / pumpkin looking vine crawl its way among the volunteer sunflowers under the bird feeder. It’s been the mystery plant for months with big leaves and beautiful yellow flowers with spotted green fruits forming. I was worried that it was a squash cross pollinated with a gourd and it would be bitter, but it turned out to be completely delicious. I love stuffed squash. Here’s a recipe that will use up the winter squash that are just now coming in. It calls for sausage, but it is just as delicious with a sticky wild rice or some cooked down pinto beans as well.

Stuffed Acorn Squash with Molasses
· 4 small acorn squash or 1 spaghetti squash
· 1 tablespoon butter
· 1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
· 2 large green onions, thinly sliced
· 1 pound bulk breakfast sausage (or substitute wild rice or julienned green beans or cooked beans)
· 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
· 1/2 cup canned beef broth (or veggie broth)
· 1/2 teaspoon pepper
· 1/4 teaspoon salt
· 2/3 cup mild-flavored (light) molasses (or I loooove to use real maple syrup)
Preparation
Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut two 3/4-inch-thick slices from center of each acorn squash for a total of 8 slices (reserve ends of squash for another use). Scoop out seeds and fibers from center slices and discard. Arrange squash rings in single layer in 15x10x2-inch baking dish.
Melt butter in heavy medium nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add bell pepper and green onions; sauté until tender, about 3 minutes. Transfer to large bowl; cool. Mix in sausage (or substitute), breadcrumbs, broth, pepper and salt. Mound mixture in center of squash rings, using about 1/3 cup for each. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)
Brush squash with half of molasses. Bake 15 minutes. Brush with remaining molasses and bake until squash are tender and sausage is cooked through, about 25 minutes.

Enjoy,
~Janee

week 11

2009-08-25T15:52:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season

week 11

These are the glory days of gardening, when buckets are over flowing with fresh picked goodies from the garden and after picking barefoot in the morning dew with the sunrise warming my back, I ran inside to throw a chicken in the slow cooker nestled in among juicy fresh tomatoes and fresh parsley and spices. The pickles from a couple of weeks are ready and disappearing fast. The winter squash are growing and growing and climbing all over their neighboring weeds. The sweet corn at work is among ragweed as tall as me and so picking ended up being allergy hell as the subtle pollen drifted in the wind… right into my nose. The sweet corn here is on it’s second wave, a new variety we’ve never tried that was supposed to be a super sweet red but it cross pollinated with the super sweet incredible corn next to it and is a weirdly tinted combo of the two.

The tomatoes are ripening on the vine, taking their good sweet time. I just submitted a bunch of veggies to the Randolph fair up by my work and I giggled when I saw that many of the “red tomato” entries were not yet red, but blushing greens. Then I didn’t feel so bad for my sun kissed entries. We also entered a giant version of a CSA basket along with some shelled beans and two sugar baby melons, which grandma contends are still not ripe yet.
I love tomato season. I had tomatoes with my eggs this morning. My slow cooker is filled with my chicken, tomato and lentil dish and my mom is working on onions, peppers, tomato, and sausage for Wed night dinner. I have tomatoes in my lunch, on every sandwich, and Travis admitted to picking one and eating it right there in the middle of the garden. The sauce tomatoes are coming on well and I look forward to canning pasta sauce and salsa, though my cilantro never really cooperates.

We were talking at work about how supermarkets have made everything be by the pound and made to look pretty, which leaves the consumer with pretty produce with empty taste. Wine grape growers are having a similar dilemma – if the suppliers sell by the ton, it is to their benefit to grow a lot of over fertilized, over irrigated grapes of lower quality because no one wants to pay for a product done right. That makes me sad, but I know often in the supermarket I am looking only for a good deal too, but usually it’s at the cost of taste. Enter our pears. (Make sure to wash them!!!!) They are not much to look at to be sure. You’d probably pass them over at the supermarket, but they are completely delicious. The skin is so thin it’s like cutting through butter and they are so sweet and delicious it makes me swear off those hard green pear-rocks at the store. It takes a long time to make sure they are just right and we do not get the yield that commercial growers get –same thing with our tomatoes, corn, beans, pigs, turkeys… pretty much everything around here! It takes a long time and a lot of work, but I think it’s worth it.

… maybe I’m just getting nostalgic with autumn coming and school back in session. We’re already saving seeds for next year, taking about what we’re planting where. Only 5 weeks left in CSA including today. It sure is flying by!

Anyway, I love America’s Test Kitchen. Here’s a great salsa recipe that they tested to be a sure fire winner.

Fresh Tomato Salsa
1 ½ pounds firm, ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into 3/8 inch dice - about 3 cups (I throw in tomatillos as well for some zip)
1 large jalapeno chile, seeds and ribs removed and set aside, minced (option in my opinion)
½ cup minced red onion
1 small garlic clove, minced
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves (sorry, mine all went to seed)
½ teaspoon salt
Pinch of ground pepper
2 – 6 teaspoons juice from 1 to 2 limes
Sugar to taste (up to 1 teaspoon)
1. set a large colander in a large bowl. Place the tomatoes in the colander and let them drain for 30 minutes. As the tomatoes drain, layer the jalapeno, onion, garlic and cilantro on top. Shake the colander to drain off the excess tomato juice. Discard the juice and wipe out the bowl.
2. transfer the contents of the colander to the now empty bowl. Add the salt, pepper, and 2 teaspoons of the lime juice; toss to combine. Taste and add the minced jalapeno ribs and seeds, sugar and additional lime juice to taste.

See you next week,
Janee

week 10

2009-08-18T17:11:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season

week 10

The middle of August is the perfect time for sweet tea and I have to remind myself to do all those summertime things that I’d been too busy to do during the crazy early days of summer. The cicadas are out and the nights sound a bit more eerie now as the dusk is sneaking up closer and closer each night. The pumpkins at work are flowering, but with all the fungus that’s hit the cucumbers, I’m worried it’s going to jump over to the winter squash and pumpkins.
Welcome the tomatoes to the scene and I am about ready to walk down to the orchard to taste test to see if the pears are ready. Travis found a cool caterpillar in the carrots. Turns out it’s going to be a black swallowtail. Good thing he didn’t smash it!

The okra is coming along well, the beets are at all different stages of getting ripe, and we’re testing melons weekly to see if they are ready. I am sure it looks very scientific – all of us out in the melon patch, holding each one up to an ear and knocking on it to hear a thud. I am not sure what a thud sounds like, but I hope they are ready soon.

Also, if anyone is a home bread maker, I have organic wheat from a local farmer that I’d like to share. I think its soft winter wheat and I got it to put some in the ground for next year and use some for beer making. Let me know if you’d like some. Also, if anyone would like to buy in to a pig share, let me know. We have their date set in mid September and if you’d prefer different cuts, we can do that as well. Also just ordered second batch of meat birds, which should be ready in October if you’re interested.

Our recipe was submitted by our member Tracy Weiner for a dense casserole that uses everything in season right now. It’s completely delicious and very easy to make, and a great way to use corn off the cob if you so desire.
CORN, ZUCCHINI AND TOMATO PIE
3 cups fresh or frozen defrosted corn kernels
5 small zucchini, cut into matchsticks 5-6 cups
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 TBSP fresh dill weed
2 TBSP melted butter
3-4 vine ripe tomatoes, cut into ½ inch thick slices
½ cup freshly grated parmesan 2-3 cups
½ cup dry bread crumbs 3 cups
2 TBSP olive oil
I also added some sautéed onions, green peppers and mushrooms
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In 13” x 9” baking dish, combine the corn, zucchini, 1 tsp salt ½ tsp. pepper, dill and melted butter, tossing to coat the vegetables. Cover the vegetables with the tomatoes. Sprinkle with the remaining salt and pepper.
In small bowl, combine the cheese and the breadcrumbs. Sprinkle the mixture over the tomatoes and drizzle with the olive oil. Bake the pie for 30 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling. Remove it from the oven and let it stand for 5 minutes before serving.
See you next week,
Janee

week 9

2009-08-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
week 9

Every single window is open, screened or unscreened. The ceiling fans are on. The dogs are swimming. Even the turkeys took a wade through the creek to cool off. It is August.

As with every season in Ohio, this one has been an unpredictable roller coaster ride. Every year we break records and every year we fight a different problem. Last year, we had a hot, dry July, which made the peppers go crazy and the kale weep. This year we are having trouble with all the rain and humidity. The vineyard has mildew that spreads like wildfire and a fungus wiped out our peach trees early this wet spring. The potatoes are really disheartening as there are types that have just rotted in the ground while others are holding up pretty well. Our tomatoes look weepy. The garlic is puzzling me as to what’s going wrong. Our cucumbers are getting hit with all different cucumber diseases, but they keep growing through it. And I am holding back a green tomato recipe.
But the good thing about a CSA vs. a regular farm that only grows two crops is… well, the potatoes are struggling, but man, the turnips and melons are happy. I am walking through, picking the few ripe tomatoes and cursing that the zucchini are still producing… but the recipe this week will bring everything in your basket together in total delicious bliss. I am going to try to freeze some batches to see how it does because this casserole really tastes like summer.

A quick walk around the orchard makes me happy as the Liberty apple tree has a triple crop this year and they are the most delicious apples! The early Lodi tree is a bust this year, but the pears are looking good… if we can only keep the blights off of them with this warm weather.

The wait is over and to pick or not to pick the sweet corn has been decided. Fire up the grill! First round of butter and sugar corn is in the baskets this week along with some of whatever they planted at work. The corn we grow here is organic and being that corn is so delicious, lots of other things might have found it first, so I apologize for any uninvited guests. But then again, I’d take an occasional worm over dousing it with Sevin or any other harsh chemical. My favorite way to cook corn I think I learned from Martha Stewart – remove the silk and shuck the corn down, leaving a couple of husks left to cover the cob – then grill adding a little bit of water and butter just to keep it from drying out. I haven’t tried it again yet this year so I might be forgetting a step and I think she tied her corn husks in a perfect little bow, using the stem as a handle, but I’m not that fancy.

Anyway, here is a delicious and easy recipe from my mom’s friend Kim that will throw all the veggies in your basket together for a great meal. Leftovers are great too and it goes great with eggs. Simple and delicious!

Squash-Rice Casserole
8 T rice
4 small squash, sliced
6 tomatoes, chopped
2 small onions, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 green peppers, diced
3 t salt
1 t pepper
4 T butter, sliced
5 T brown sugar
9x13 baking dish

Throw the rice in the bottom of the pan, uncooked. Layer everything in order listed on top of rice. Cover tightly with foil. Cook at 300 degrees for 2 hours.

The rice cooks itself and everything melds together amazingly If you have a recipe, email it to me. Now I am going to get back to waiting for the tomatoes to turn red… and gold, and purple, and striped orange. My sandwiches just seem dull until then.
Janee

week 8

2009-08-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season week 8

Week 8 is upon us and we are halfway through the season. It is at this point in the season where the back garden is really starting to make an appearance along with a great contribution this week from gardens around where I work. My boss who lives with just his wife planted about 10 crookneck squash plants and has only eaten squash once this season! His plants are huge and producing perfectly warty summer squash that are begging for a home. The black raspberries in his woods are a bit smaller than the ones up around here, but delicious all the same.

The great debate today is whether or not the sweet corn is ready. I like it young and tender but Jason is saying it is still too small to pick. Our first batch is Butter and Sugar, which a neighbor at the vineyard proclaims to be the best. Our second planting is That’s Delicious S2, a super sweet type, which my boss says will make you swear off all other sweet corn. I am not a great connoisseur of sweet corn. What I do know is once it is picked, the sugars start to change into a different carbohydrate and it looses its deliciously sweet flavor. The sooner you eat it the better. I just got another laboriously long story from an old farmer about how disgusted and outraged he was at this one local market when he saw the sweet corn being packed up at the end of the day only to be refrigerated and sold the next day. Sweet corn doesn’t send me into a rage or anything, but I know the fresher the better.

Oh, and the pickles are here! Now is the time to start thinking about putting some veggies back for the long (and boring) months of winter. We have been freezing beans and zucchini bread like crazy around here. Now we are about ready to jump into canning and inviting anyone who would like to join. I got some bulk cucumbers that are begging to be pickled and a recipe to die for. (email if you’d like it.) I highly suggest refrigerator pickles if you are not into the whole hot water bath canning thing. Anyway, we are taking helping hands in our canning kitchen. Come if you’re a canning master or would like to learn. $20 for all the supplies and you take home a portion of whatever we make. Jars, lids, vinegar or any contributions are welcome. Probably will be Wed or Thursday night… might be Sunday if the cukes will keep that long. Just email me if you’re interested. janeehouston@gmail.com

Appearing in this week’s basket and probably popping up in the ones to come are tomatillos. This cousin of tomatoes is used in South American cooking and is loved for its tart, tomato-like flavor. They keep in the fridge for about 2 weeks, husked. If you didn’t catch some in your basket this week, don’t worry. There are plenty more on the way….

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
• 5 or 6 fresh tomatillos
• 1 fresh pepper
• 1 garlic clove, unpeeled
• 1t fresh cilantro
• 1/4 onion, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
Remove husks and rinse under warm water to remove stickiness. Broil peppers, garlic, and fresh tomatillos on rack of a broiler pan 1 to 2 inches from heat, turning once, until tomatillos are softened and slightly charred, about 7 minutes.
Peel garlic and pull off tops of chiles. Purée all ingredients in a blender.
See you all next week,
Janee

week 7

2009-07-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season

week 7

It is the end of July now. I feel like I have to say that to remind myself not to complain about the heat. If this year was like every other year, it would be sweltering and 90, but perhaps I am heaving a sigh of relief too soon. We still have all of August…

While picking today, I fear it might be a light week. The melons just keep growing and growing, the tomatoes are sooo slow, the peppers are still rather small, the squash is dying like a Shakespearian actor, and my boss picked all the blue berries at work for her pies. Our first tomato turned red, a nice roma ox heart type. Our second tomato turned yellow, a golden jubilee. Prepare thy tomato recipes. We are about to get bombarded.

I did pull some turnips up yesterday while a neighbor farmer told me turnip stories and how to cook them – cut them in cubes and boil them like potatoes until they are no longer crunchy, then drain the water and add heavy cream and spices (not sure what spices he meant) and put back on the heat, stir constantly until the flavors meld together. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but this is just the first pass through the field, thinning out the ones that are too close together. Usually you can eat the leaves but I picked them yesterday and they lost a lot of water with the heat.

In good new, the cucumbers are coming on now. I think that nothing is better than just peeling and slicing a cucumber and putting garlic salt or soy sauce on it and eating it fresh. I have no idea what is going on this year but some of the skins are a bit bitter. It depends on the fruit but it seems to only be skin deep, which is easily remedied with peeling.

Here is a recipe submitted last year by Linda Chen. Simply delicious!

-----This is the recipe for the Taiwanese cucumbers - I'll give my mother-in-law credit & call them 'Betty Chen's (Taiwanese) Pickled Cucumbers'!

~ 1 cucumber, cut into 2 inch sticks or cut to your preference (but not too thin)

~ 1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt

~ 1 TBsp apple cider vinegar

~ 1/2 - 3/4 tsp brown sugar

~ garlic, 2 cloves minced or to taste

~ 1 tsp sesame oil

~ tiny bit of hot chili bean paste (doe ban jan) - you can probably substitute with chili oil, dash hot sauce, or red pepper flakes

cut cucumbers & sprinkle with salt - let sit for 15 min - mix vinegar, sugar, garlic, sesame oil, & chili bean paste - pour over cucumbers, toss & eat!

It tastes just as good if the cukes don't sit for 15 min.

*sesame oil* - Not all sesame oil is created equal, I've tried several. My & husband I agree that Kadoya is the best!- thumbs down on Ty Ling brand

- I always refrigerate my sesame oil since it's not used quickly. This will retain freshness & prevent rancidity.

Enjoy….

~Janeé

week 6 extra pics

2009-07-21T13:46:00.001-07:00

My morning basket

Here is the kale picked with the dew still on it along with some beet tops, chard, and fresh basil.

Throw it in the skillet!
Add some fresh eggs... thank you ladies for all your hard work.

Breakfast is served.

week 6

2009-07-21T13:45:00.001-07:00

Cooking in Season

week 6

Today I feel like such a hunter – gatherer. With my dog at my side and thunder clouds rolling overhead, I dove hands first into the wild black berries in the orchard which are flourishing this year after we cleared out some non-productive filbert trees. They seem very happy and vigorous now, so laden with berries that they bend down to the ground. I am grateful for the few years I invested in ballet as a kid as I tip toe, balancing on one leg to avoid the prolific brambles. I am also shocked that the birds have not found these wild gems as well yet.
There are a few things in this world that I have the hardest time growing but completely love. One is melons, which Travis is taking care of this year. Another is onions that never get big, but my sister planted them and hers are doing very well so far. And my biggest envy of the garden is carrots. Even as a kid, the only thing that I ever wanted to plant was carrots. Every year I would fuss with the tiny seeds, fight with the weeds that always grew faster than the tiny carrots, and at the end of it all I would harvest these gnarled little roots that has all the flavor of a stick. Carrots have been my white whale and I always wonder who can get their carrots to grow in the perfectly straight perfectly orange way that ends up in bags at the supermarket.
This year I tried again, going for the short growing orange ones and branching out to some cosmic purple carrots and some sweet yellows. I pulled one up to see how it tasted and was pleasantly surprised. It must be the chill in this July air. They still look a bit gnarled, but they make up for it in taste.
This morning I had the most delicious breakfast. I woke up and picked the greens that are enjoying this mild July. I am shocked at how long the cool weather veggies have been producing and even this morning our new fire loose head lettuce looked good enough to pick. The kale is doing well as I snipped off the tender leaves still covered in dew. I pulled up a couple garlic cloves that, while very small, are still pretty delicious and also grabbed a yellow crook neck squash. I went to the hen house, thanked the ladies and took out a couple eggs.
Here is my simple recipe for delicious fresh greens omlette.
1 onion, sliced thin
1 clove of garlic
2 sprigs of basil
A handful of greens chopped thick- anything from beet tops to chard to kale will do
1 summer squash, sliced
2 eggs per person, scrambled
Salt and pepper to taste
Sautee the onions and garlic together until the onions start turning clear. Add the summer squash and cook for another few minutes. Chop the greens coarsely and the basil fine. Add ¼ cup of water carefully so not to splash the oil and then add the greens and the basil. Cover with a lid and allow to steam until the leaves wilt, about 3 minutes on medium.
Uncover and drain any excess water. Stir up eggs and add to the pan. Cook until the eggs are no longer runny, stirring constantly. Check out pictures of my breakfast at highmillcsa.blogspot.com
From here, you can cover with cheese or sour cream, salt, pepper, hot sauce or whatever makes you happy in the morning. This works for almost all greens and it is an excellent and healthy way to start your meal. I would recommend this recipe with spinach… but then again, that’s another thing that I have a really hard time getting to grow well here.
Oh well, enjoy the berries and see you next week!
~Janeé

week 5

2009-07-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season

week 5

First things first –
Cook out this Sunday, July 19th from 1 – 5pm

This Sunday we are grilling straight out of the gardens. Stop by as we showcase local foods made by local people for our potluck style cook out. We will even have some local beer to sample and possibly some local beef as well. It’s a free day and all members are welcome to invite anyone to come out for a laid back day of fun here at the Park. (swim at your own risk)

Anyway, just a reminder – we reuse the baskets so please return them.

For the most part, planting is finished for the season. I just got a hundred tomato plants in gallon pots donated to us and they are already in the ground and happily adjusting to non-pot bound life. I only have a couple more flats of cabbage and some random flowers to put in the ground and that’s it.
This is the part of the season where things feel like they are coasting. The baskets just keep morphing in all shapes and colors as you will notice some different colors of beans. Not one to be bound by the traditional green bean, we have some purple and yellow beans along with some dragon tongue heirloom types. All of them can be cooked like green beans as long as we are picking them small. We might have some shelling beans coming soon, but those really took a hit from the varmints this year.

This is probably the last week for zucchini as the squash bugs are carrying our plants to heaven as we speak. Here is a recipe submitted by our CSA member Linda Hartman for how to use and freeze the last of this years bountiful harvest.

Zucchini Bread
3 eggs
1 cup of vegetable oil or you can use apple sauce
2 cups of sugar if you use apple sauce you can reduce the amount of
sugar by at least half.
2 cups of grated zucchini (just wash and grate don't peel or seed!)
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
Beat eggs and add sugar and oil. Then add grated zucchini and nuts to
egg mixture.
combine dry ingredients then add to eggs & zucchini
pour into two un greased bread pans
bake at 325 for an hour or an hour and 15 mins
allow to cool on a rack and remove from pans when cool enough to handle
This bread freezes very well and makes a yummy breakfast treat

~Janeé
p.s. all recipe submissions are welcome. Just email me! janeehouston@gmail.com

week 4

2009-07-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
week 4

I was picking for this weeks basket and thought, wow – looks a lot like last week. The cucumbers are poised and ready, with tiny little pickles sitting next to their happy yellow flowers. The tomatoes are little green pebbles atop giant happy green plants. The peppers are tiny versions of their future selves, kinda waiting for the hot sun that July usually offers. The basil is going crazy. The purple beans are threatening to produce. The unique pole beans are climbing but not flowering. I am sneaking under the potatoes, pulling out the new tender potatoes a little at a time. I apologize for any knicks and cuts from my trowel. The skins are really thin right now.

Our berries are so spread out and it takes hours just to get a cup. I can’t even imagine picking enough for jam or a bunch of pies. After his huge melon patch endeavor, Travis is looking around trying to find out where the berry patch will be. The blue berries at work are huge and covered with tiny berries that I stare at every day, just thinking that they are blushing a little more. The transition colors from green little berries, to blush, to purple… I am still waiting for the blue part.

We are slowly sneaking kohlrabi in the baskets. It is a very underappreciated vegetable. We tried the purple variety this year as it was said to be a bit sweeter and I have a second planting of the green variety for later in the season. Kohlrabi isn’t a root but an enlarged stem right above the ground with the leaves coming right off like flower petals. It is very high in potassium and fiber and low in calories. I like to ask people what it tastes like just to hear the responses, which are usually a combination of two veggies like – a cross between a potato and a turnip or a radish and a cabbage.
I cut mine up into thin slices like coleslaw and throw it in salads. Jason’s grandmother from Austria loves kohlrabi, but I forgot to grab the recipe.

Here is a simple kohlrabi salad recipe from epicurious.com that is a summer time fast food.

• 3 medium kohlrabi (2 pounds total)
• 1/2 small red onion
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons drained capers
• 2 ounces mâche (lamb’s lettuce; 4 cups) or other small tender lettuce
• Equipment: an adjustable-blade slicer
Peel kohlrabi. Slice very thin with slicer and put in a bowl.
Slice onion very thin with slicer, then rinse in a sieve and pat dry. Stir into kohlrabi.
Stir together lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of pepper, then stir in oil and capers. Pour over vegetables. Toss with mâche, then serve immediately.
Enjoy,
Janeé

week 3

2009-07-01T04:39:00.001-07:00

Cooking in Season
week 3

Today has been a really hard day. We buried our best little gray cat and our most friendly little lamb. It is half raining, which is appropriate weather for such a sad day. They will both be missed. We will plant a peach tree in their memory.

The wind is blowing and the rain is coming frequently, which means that our organic apples will get beaten up and not look pretty… but looks can be deceiving. Our crop last year was so full and delicious. I hope this year is as prolific. I do know that our pears are starting to look really good. We’ll see how it all works out.

Anyway, our beans are on the way, coming in waves thanks to the deer that keep sneaking in and lopping the tops off. The peas are on their way out and are half in between sugar snap and pod peas. Our raspberries are just starting and we’re out there fighting with the birds to get the best berries. Our blue berries are coming, but they are new little bushes so I am not holding out for very high production this year. Our lettuce has fizzled, our chard, kale and celery are thriving… and everyone should batten down the hatches and prepare for ZUCCHINI season!!!!

It is a joke among farmers that during zucchini season, you should never leave your car doors unlocked anywhere or else someone will drop off a bag of zucchini in your back seat without you knowing. It is a very difficult veggie because a) it is delicious but… b) it comes all at once and… c) you can’t really freeze, can or dry it so you have to use it all at once. I slice mine lengthwise and throw it on the grill with a simple olive oil sauce. My second fav way to cook it is… Lasagna!

2 1/2 cups zucchini, sliced 1/4 inch thick (about 2 medium)
1/2 lb lean ground beef (I use 1 lb.)
1/4 cup onion chopped
2 small tomatoes cut up
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 garlic clove minced
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano - 1/2 teaspoon dried basil - 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 cup water
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 egg
3/4 cup low fat cottage cheese (or low fat or fat free ricotta)
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese shredded (I use 8 oz. divided)
1 teaspoon flour

Directions
1 Cook zucchini until tender, drain and set aside. Fry meat and onions until meat is brown and onions are tender; drain fat. Add next 8 ingredients and bring to a boil.
2 Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered 10 minutes or until reduced to 2 cups.
3 In small bowl slightly beat egg.
4 Add cottage cheese, half of shredded cheese and flour.
5 In (1 1/2-qt.) baking-roasting pan arrange half of the meat mixture. Top with half of the zucchini and all the cottage cheese mixture. Top with remaining meat and zucchini.
6 Bake uncovered at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes.
7 Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake 10 minutes longer.
8 Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Delicious! ~janee

week 2

2009-06-23T00:19:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
week 2

It is only two days into the official start of summer and already the humidity and heat are rising. These are the delicate days of –to pick or not to pick- where one day could be the difference between perfect spring lettuce or bitter leaves that couldn’t take the heat and went to seed. I am looking at the kohlrabi with the same tentativeness, thinking that I should give it another week to fully mature, but risking it possibly splitting in the heat. I guess time irons everything out in the end.

I hope you all enjoyed your first week baskets. We had grilled asparagus for father’s day and I pickled whatever we had left. The asparagus patch now looks more like a miniature forest with wispy little green trees, all going to seed.
I forgot to reiterate last week that all of our stuff has no preservatives and should be eaten within the first few days or as quickly as possible. This also means that if you can’t make it to pickup day, send someone in your place or make arrangements with me to pickup as soon as you can.

Anyway, this week we are starting to see the change from spring to summer. The peas are coming in waves and my sister keeps saying how she just picked them all this morning and more keep coming ready almost by the minute. I am crossing my fingers and cutting the head lettuce, the best crop I have had… ever, hoping that it is still young and perfect. And we are starting to shift from the light spring veggies into the hearty summer ones with a couple early squash and zucchini. If my math is right, Jason has about 4 summer squash plants per basket this year so there is a lot more to come …as long as we can keep the squash bugs away.

Wrapping up our spring salads, here is a winning recipe from allrecipes.com that will add some zing to your lettuce and snow peas salad.

¼ c mayonnaise
1 tablespoon mustard
1 tablespoon honey
½ tablespoon lemon juice

Whisk ingredients together and toss with your salad. All flowers in with your lettuce are edible. Hope you enjoy!

~janeé

Week 1

2009-06-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

Cooking in Season
week 1

Hi. Welcome Members! Over the next few months, we are going to move through the Ohio growing season where we’ll taste the crisp spring through the lettuce and berries, and really feel the summer heat through the tomatoes and sweet corn, finishing up in the fall’s preparation for winter with butternut squash, potatoes, and storable root veggies and apples. It is challenging to try to use things in your basket as they come, but I find that a lot of things that are in season together in the garden also go well together in the kitchen.

Anyway, here are a few things to remember as we start the season:
1. Wash your fruits and veggies. Everything is fresh picked and might still have some dirt on it, but before you eat it, definitely give it all a rinse.
2. Bring back your baskets from the week before. We reuse.
3. Some things such as cabbage and broccoli are so delicious that everything wants to eat it and since we don’t use harsh chemicals, I recommend a cold salt water bath before cooking just to be certain you are bug free.
4. There is still time to move up basket sizes if you would like more produce. We will pro-rate the remainder of the season. Just email me – janeehouston@gmail.com
5. Let me know if you would like eggs or herbs a day or so before pickup day and I will have them ready. Herbs are $2 and eggs are $3. – also, we love to barter! This week we would like to trade your old, leaky garden hoses for eggs or herbs. Our melon patch will thank you.

In your baskets this week, we have the last of the June strawberries. These tiny berries pack big taste, almost like candy, only good for you. Our asparagus is chemical free and delicious. Just bend them in half until they snap and discard the bottom part. Our celery is not blanched and really tastes like… celery. Also, some baskets have fresh lettuce and others have watercress, an “eat wild” sweet green that can be eaten like lettuce.

The veggie of the week is radishes. I love vegetables, but radishes are the one that make me cringe. Jason thinks I am crazy not to eat them fresh and my grandma eats them straight out of the garden with bread and butter, but I can’t stand them fresh unless they are sliced thin and hidden in a salad. So, here is a simple recipe from allrecipes that takes the bite out of them making them into a mild radish flavor that kinda tastes like a potato for those non-radish lovers like me.

20 ounces radishes, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Drizzle of olive oil
1 cube ice
Salt and pepper to taste

1 – preheat the grill for high heat.
2 – place radishes, garlic and ice cube on a double layer of aluminum foil large enough to wrap contents. Drizzle with olive oil (or a dab of butter) and salt and pepper to taste. Tightly wrap foil.
3 – place foil packet on the grill and cook for 20 minutes until radishes are tender.

Hope you all enjoy. See you next week as the beans, new potatoes, and kohlrabi start coming in and more berries turn ripe.

~janeé

Into to CSA 2009

2009-04-01T11:23:00.000-07:00

We at High Mill Park are happy to provide some of the freshest fruits and vegetables you can find anywhere! Our CSA is a celebration of food and a gathering of an amazing community, providing local food to local people and bringing taste back to the table.

Before you decide to join, a few things to consider:Do you eat at home at least 3 meals a week? Do you like to cook with fresh vegetables? Are you willing to try new things? Are you able to come out to the farm and pickup your basket once a week or arrange for someone else to pickup for you? Would you like to learn more about where your food comes from, how it grows and be in tune with the seasons of Ohio?

What our CSA is all about:

1) Local - Buying local foods ensures that you are eating the freshest fruits and vegetables around. It also reduces your carbon footprint by avoiding shipping produce from other states. We like to be involved in the community because we are part of the community and local farmers care more about what happens to their local environments.

2)Taste - Nothing tastes better than a fresh peach warmed by the summer sun, or snap peas, picked that morning when the dew was still fresh. We carefully select the varieties we grow based on taste, then we grow them slow, allowing them to mature just when the time is right for the flavor to be at it's fullest. In our baskets, you'll find some unique produce you won't find anywhere else. We also have fresh picked herbs for an extra $2, with all forms of basil, herbal tea mixtures, among others.

3) Pickup - Once a week, we'll have a basket at the farm waiting for you. We try to make baskets up so that people can choose what they like. We welcome members to wander around the gardens or check out how the apples are doing in the orchard. Some members like to pick up their baskets and run, while others tend to linger, watching the chickens scratch around or feeding the pigs crabapples. Pickup day is a time we all look forward to as we enjoy sharing what we grow.

4) Baskets - We stack our baskets full of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. We try to grow everything that our Ohio climate will allow. In our orchard we have apples, pears, peaches, plums (if a late frost doesn't nip them), hazelnuts, gooseberries, a young paw paw, grapes and possibly our cherry trees might start producing this year. Our berry patches have red and black raspberries, strawberries, melons, and a couple sad blueberry plants. Our gardens are bursting with everything from corn to beets to cucumbers and heirloom tomatoes... and everything in between. Check out what's on order and email me suggestions!
Our season starts the last week in June and ends the last week of September with a harvest fest the first Saturday in October.

5) Getting involved - CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and we'd like to do just that. We invite members to come out and try their hand at weeding in the garden or help us irrigate the gardens in spring. We will be offering basic gardening classes for those who'd like to take some knowledge home with them.We also have events out at the park such as our spring seed swap, our zucchini bake off and fall pie bake off all of which are FREE!