week 11

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

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

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

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

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.