Too Many Tomatoes

Week two

2008-06-07T21:08:00.004-04:00

Sage in bloom. See more photos from this week.

Sneaking this post in with a mere twelve hours to go before we are back at the farm! This week we got:

Four heads of lettuce
Half pound arugula
Chives
Sage
Winter savory
Thyme
Three quarts of strawberries!

Other than that it was an uneventful day, but I'm such an amazing writer that I was still able to shape it into this supremely riveting post. I bet it gets the most comments our blog has ever seen.

First farm day of 2008!

2008-06-02T21:21:00.009-04:00

Above: Jeff loves chives so much he wants to marry them.
See more photos from this week.

This post has been delayed almost a week due to both busyness and laziness. But late or not, here it is. Are you ready? Because it's about to come down hard. Any moment now. It will swarm down on you like a big swarming blog thing. Ready? Are you sure? The last thing I would want is to startle you. Okay then.

Last Sunday, a little more than a week ago now, myself, Jen, my sister Stacy, and Darby drove out to the farm with the hopes of picking the most delicious strawberries ever. And I knew that we were going to get quarts and quarts of them. So needless to say I was excited. But when we got there we discovered that they weren't quite ripe yet. A large majority were edible but not really ready to be picked. Most were either white at the base of the berry or still green at the tip. So instead of picking a bunch of so-so strawberries we only took three pretty nice ones, which we promptly ate.

We did, however, get some wonderful sugar snap peas. While the plants were really young, they were already delivering plump, crisp peas just begging to be bitten into. After picking the peas, Jen and I joined my sister and Darby and walked from the field back to the farm stand to pick up our membership card and our eight—yes, eight—heads of green leaf lettuce.

Then Stacy was kind enough to hang out with Darby while we went to pick some herbs. And that's were I learned something new: chives have gorgeous purple flowers. I guess I never noticed them before, because I don't think they're new to the farm this year. But damn. They look amazing. So I must admit that I am in awe of the humble chive.

When we got home later on I actually tried a chive. I didn't think I liked them, but since I am trying to expand the panoply of vegetables and vegetable type things (I am aware that herbs are not vegetables) I eat, I figured I would try it. And again the lowly chive taught me another lesson: that it's delicious. So beware, chive, 'cause I'm going to eat the shit out of you.

So to sum it all up: too early for strawberries, great for sugar snap peas, an overwhelming amount of lettuce, nice selection of herbs and a learning experience about the wonders of chives.

PS, here's the official tally:

eight heads of green leaf lettuce
one pint sugar snap peas
lemon balm
sage
thyme
chives
and three strawberries!

PPS, if you're wondering, we managed to give away seven heads of lettuce to our lucky co-workers and pseudo-co-workers (aka the people in the office below our apartment).

Adventures in cheesemaking: paneer

2007-10-11T13:52:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the first installment in an occasional series about our adventures in cheesemaking. Yes, cheesemaking. Because apparently learning to freeze, dry, and can food that we drag home from a farm hasn't been enough to quench our thirst for homesteading.

Jeff got the idea to start making cheese after reading about homemade mozzarella in a Barbara Kingsolver book. After more investigation (as well as the mail-order purchase of citric acid and special cultures and rennet), we decided that mozzarella required more skill and a better kitchen setup than we have at the moment. Then I found a recipe for paneer* in a photocopy of an Indian cookbook a former housemate had left in a former apartment some years ago. Paneer had always seemed too complicated and risky to try on my own, but in the context of looking for a first cheese to make, paneer suddenly seemed within reach. Not to mention, once we had paneer we'd be able to use the pound of spinach we'd just gotten from the farm to make a batch of palak paneer.

And that is how I found myself making homemade, raw-milk paneer one evening. That's right, I walked four blocks to the park, bought a container of unpasteurized milk from a guy with a cooler (I love how skeevy the Clark Park farmer's market sounds when you say it like that), and came home and curdled it on purpose. The process was pretty simple, and took about an hour and a half. Most of that time was hands-off, too, just waiting for the milk to boil or pressing the cheese.

I began by slowly bringing one and three-quarters pints of milk to a boil.

While the milk was heating, I lined a strainer with cheesecloth and set it over a big bowl. Then I juiced a lemon.

Once the milk began to boil, I slowly stirred in the lemon juice and let the milk curdle.

After the milk curdled, I set the pot aside to cool.

Once the curdled milk was cool enough to handle (the actual temperature will vary based on your heat tolerance/experience handwashing dishes), I strained the curds through the cheesecloth.

Then I squeezed to remove excess whey.

I pressed the curds for about an hour. (The pumpkin is optional.)

I removed the weight and unwrapped the cheesecloth. Paneer!

This method is pretty flexible. You can basically start with an arbitrary quantity of milk, and just add lemon juice until it curdles. Use the paneer right away or store in the whey and refrigerate until use.

Now all that remains is to perfect our palak paneer recipe. I think a date at an Indian restaurant is in order. You know, for research purposes.

* Paneer is a mild Indian cheese that, when pressed, looks a lot like tofu. (Or you can use unpressed paneer to make a dairy version of scrambled eggs/scrambled tofu.) It doesn't melt, but instead keeps its shape when cooked.

Weeks nineteen and twenty

2007-10-11T12:02:00.000-04:00

Above: pumpkins! See more photos from September 29 (week nineteen).

The past couple of weeks have been full of variety and interesting new crops, but I haven't been in much of a writing mood. Blah. Actually, for a while I wasn't even in much of a farm mood despite the fact that we are getting all this great food. It has really taken up a lot of our time lately and, with about six or seven weeks left in the season, I was ready for a break. Luckily I had Monday off this past weekend, which allowed for a change of scenery. And Lorraine visited, too. Romping around the farm with someone new really helped. (No offense, Jeff!)

The past couple of weeks have seen a mix of summer crops ending and fall crops coming in. It's rare that we get raspberries and pumpkins in the same week, but that very thing has happened for two weeks in a row now. And the brassicas in the fields look amazing: full heads of cabbage, the outer leaves gaping, and rows of stately broccoli plants.

From September 29, 2007: Week nineteen list

Four heads of lettuce (we gave away three heads)
Four frying peppers
Two bunches of turnips
Two bunches of cilantro
One bunch kale
One bunch dandelion
Two eggplant
One half pound arugula
Four pounds tomatoes
Two pounds chard
One half pound spinach
Two winter squash (one butternut, and one something else)
One half pound shallots
Two bulbs garlic
One pumpkin

And from the pick-your-own fields:

Winter savory
Marjoram
Lemongrass
Stevia
Catnip
Sage
Oregano
Thyme
Anise hyssop
One quart tomatillos
Six quarts Amish Paste and Plum Dandy sauce tomatoes
Forty hot peppers
Three-quarters pint raspberries
Two small eggplant

From October 6, 2007: Week twenty list

Four heads of broccoli!
Four frying peppers
One bulb fennel
Two bunches beets
One bunch radishes
One bunch dandelion
Two bunches cilantro
One bunch kale
Two eggplant
One pound arugula
One pound baby bok choy
One pound spinach
One half pound Swiss chard
Two acorn squash
One more pumpkin
Two hot peppers
Four pounds tomatoes

And from the pick-your-own fields:

One half pint raspberries
Two quarts Plum Dandy tomatoes (we picked most of them green)
Two eggplant
One quart tomatillos
Twenty hot peppers
One pint okra
One quart golden cherry tomatoes
Thyme
Winter savory
Oregano
Marjoram
Catnip
Sage

Quote of the month:
Jeff seems to have befriended a little girl who saw him tying up a bunch of lemongrass with one of the lemongrass leaves. She beamed, "I like to tie things with grass, too!"

Notes on catnip:
In the absence of feline pets, catnip can also be prepared as a tea. Though I have to admit that my secret fantasy is to cut large quantities of catnip, strew it around the sidewalks and porches of West Philadelphia, and watch all the neighborhood cats stumble and writhe around, high off their asses. (Sorry, I know this is implicitly a family-friendly blog because it's just about our CSA share. But there are just so many cats here, and who doesn't love a little bioterrorism now and then?)

The Eggplant Army

2007-09-26T21:35:00.000-04:00

Tonight Jen and I made a platoon, however many that is, of breaded & fried eggplant slices. In this case I believe we made about 100 slices. We let them cool on a wire rack before stuffing them into freezer bags to store for the long term. Well, probably not as long as we might think because I tend to eat them often. Lately I have been making a wrap of the fried slices with tomatoes and a pesto spread (pesto base with no oil).

Jen previously wrote post about how to make them here.

Week eighteen summary: Mmm. Summary.

2007-09-23T23:00:00.000-04:00

Above: oregano. See more photos from this week.

Jen was feeling sick so I went to the farm by myself. The weather report said that it was likely we would see a scattered shower or two and then become partly sunny. So I expected that it would be overcast with a drizzle or two at the most and didn't feel the need the bring my rain coat or even wear boots. More on this later.

I stopped off at the Italian market on 9th st. to go to Fante's to pick up some more jars and lids for canning. While I was there I picked up a cheese thermometer as I want to try my hand at cheese making soon. Right as I was getting ready to leave the store it started to downpour. The clerk told me how happy he was that he wouldn't have to listen to customers tell him what a nice day it was outside while he was trapped inside. I wished him a nice day and told him that it was supposed to clear up shortly and that I would be playing outside in the sun all day. (I didn't but now I wish I did.)

By the time I got to the farm it had been raining solid for almost 45 minutes. And I was regretting not having brought anything at all to cover myself out in the rain. The best I could do was grab my Tusker baseball hat that has been sitting on my car's dashboard for close to a year, too disgusting to wear but heavy in sentimental value, and suck it up.

I figured I would start in the farm stand and take my time hoping that the rain would pass shortly and while the fields would be soaking wet, I wouldn't necessarily be. Here's what I picked up from the farm stand:

Four small heads of Devil's Ear lettuce
Six orange peppers
Two eggplants
Two bunches of kale
Two bunches of parsley
Two bunches of cilantro
Two pounds of Swiss chard
One-quarter pounds of arugula
Eight pounds of tomatoes
Two pounds of spinach
Four summer squash
One bunch of turnips
One head of bok choy
Four pounds of potatoes
Two bulbs of garlic

After picking up all of that, cataloging everything and taking pictures, which people didn't seem every happy about, it was still raining although it was much, much lighter now. I put all the food and my camera into my car to start the pick-your-own fields.

While it was almost down to a drizzle I was very happy to have that disgusting old hat to protect at least my glasses from being soaked while I picked. First stop was the Amish paste tomatoes. But after walking through 4 long rows I could only find two quarts of ripe ones. I guess the rain had knocked the ripe ones down to the ground and caused them to rot because the ground was covered in rotting red tomato carcasses. I moved over to the Plum Dandys and had much better luck. They were bursting with wonderfully ripe beauties.

By the time I was done picking the eight quarts we were allotted the bottom half of my pant legs were soaked from walking through wet weeds that have grown up here and there between the rows.

If I haven't mentioned it, this was the first time I had been to the farm by myself. It was really nice and relaxing being able to go at my own pace and do what I wanted to do. I won't go vegetable by vegetable, giving the details of picking each one. I'll save you that, but here is a list of all the pick-your-own:

Eight quarts of paste/sauce tomatoes
Forty hot peppers
Two international eggplants
One quart dragon tongue wax beans
One quart green beans
Marjoram
Lemongrass
Sage
Oregano
Anise hyssop

Kitchen tip: Always cook with a partner

2007-09-23T14:37:00.000-04:00

Hello, boys and girls. I wanted to share this handy kitchen tip with you: always, if you can help it, always cook with a partner. Or at least with someone else in the house. Because you never know when you might need assistance. Like a special someone to pour milk on your face.

I, for one, never thought I'd spend a Saturday evening pouring cold milk into my boyfriend's eye. But guess what we did last night? Indeed. Jeff made the mistake of rubbing his eye while he was grinding dried hot peppers into chili powder. I immediately thought of the time he and his housemates licked a habañero to test how hot it was and it made Wendy's lip swell up, so I suggested we pour milk in his eye. My offer was rebuffed at first, but a few minutes later Jeff called from the kitchen. "Jen, can you get the milk?" He leaned backward over the bathtub as I poured the milk in his eyes. The dog wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but she managed to find a trickle of milk to lick off Jeff's scalp. Mmmmm. Milk.

PS: Jeff isn't blind.

We're so nerdy.

2007-09-23T14:24:00.000-04:00

How nerdy are we?

We're so nerdy that we're both sitting at the kitchen table blogging while we wait for the pressure canner and some batch processing in Photoshop to finish.

We're going outside later, I swear.

Cooking with: Swiss chard

2007-09-18T22:21:00.000-04:00

Our farm share is a learning experience. (I mean, it feeds us, first and foremost; it is also a learning experience.) We're still figuring out what to do with Swiss chard.

So far we've come up with adding raw, shredded chard to quesadillas and clear, brothy soups. We tried sauteeing it with garlic, like we prepare kale, but the leaves didn't hold up as well as kale. So here's an open-ended question: what else can we do with Swiss chard?

Week seventeen summary: A sweet week at the farm

2007-09-18T20:07:00.000-04:00

Above: cabbage head in the field. See more photos from this week.

It was another week of nice variety at the farm. Lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, and arugula are back—have I mentioned that Honey Brook grows the best arugula I've ever tasted?—and the addition of stevia to the herb beds has made this week literally extra sweet. I was vaguely aware of the existence of stevia as a sort of non-sugar health-food-store sweetener, but I had no idea how natural a sweetener it was. I had certainly never tried it before. So when I saw it listed on the pick-your-own whiteboard on Saturday my interest was piqued.

Above: Stevia in situ.

As you can see, the stevia plant looks quite plain and unassuming. But one bite of a single leaf and you realize how amazing this plant is—it's incredibly sweet! The flavor is ... if you can imagine a cross between concentrated powdered sugar and velvet, that's what stevia tastes like. Jeff thinks it has a slight undertone or aftertaste that might take some getting used to. While I agree that it doesn't taste like sugar, I don't find the flavor off-putting. I'm excited to find ways to use this herb. Maybe I'll throw half a leaf in the next time I make anise hyssop tea.

And now, for the record, here's the full list of what we got:

Four heads of lettuce
Six red peppers
Four eggplant
Three bunches of kale
One bunch cilantro
One bunch Genovese basil
Four hot peppers
One pound Swiss chard
One-quarter pound arugula
Ten pounds slicing tomatoes
Four pounds heirloom tomatoes
Two bulbs garlic
Two pounds potatoes

And from the pick-your-own fields:

Two quarts edamame
One quart dragon tongue wax beans
One quart green beans
One pint raspberries
Twenty hot peppers
Six quarts paste/plum tomatoes
A huge bag of cinnamon basil
Osmin purple basil
Twenty leaves sage
Marjoram
Lemongrass
Stevia
Summer savory
Anise hyssop
Thyme

So far we've prepared:

mashed raspberries
For yogurt & ice cream. We had a couple very ripe peaches that I also mashed up, and they paired nicely with the raspberries.

two batches of pesto cubes
One was cinnamon basil pesto with nutmeg. The other was purple pesto, made from the Osmin purple basil, but it came out kind of black by the time we mixed everyhing together. Maybe the color of watery India ink?

chicken soup
This used some of the herbs, some garlic, and a pepper, as well as leek and onions from previous weeks. The cooked chicken will go well in salads with the lettuce and arugula, alongside sauteed kale and mashed potatoes, or in a stir fry with the lemongrass, peppers, green beans, edamame, and eggplant ... and the soup itself can be topped with shredded Swiss chard.

four jars of whole tomatoes
They still have too much air left in the jars, though. Clearly we still need to work on our canning technique.

three batches of pasta sauce
We're really going for variety this week! The first sauce was a simple sauce of tomato, onion, and butter. The second was our very standard sauce of tomatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs. The third was a sauce made entirely of a variety of heirloom tomato known as "green zebra." They're green and yellow striped on the outside, and light green on the inside, but the sauce came out yellowish and looks a little like chowder:

The important thing is how it will taste—we'll have to try it out soon. I think it would go well with whole wheat chiocciole, but Jeff, who despises whole wheat pasta, surely disagrees. Don't you, Jeff?

Week sixteen summary

2007-09-14T15:14:00.000-04:00

See more photos from this week.

We haven't been home much this week, but I wanted to post this before the next farm "week" starts tomorrow. We got such varied stuff last Saturday—the highlights were edamame and lemongrass:

Four peppers
Four eggplant
Scallions
Dill
Cilantro
Genovese basil
Four summer squash
One-half pound Swiss chard
Three pounds slicing tomatoes
One-half pound cherry tomatoes
Three pounds heirloom tomatoes
Two bulbs garlic
Two pounds potatoes
One-half pound shallots
Two watermelons

And from the pick-your-own fields:

Marjoram
Lemongrass
Summer savory
Anise hyssop
Thyme
Sage
One quart edamame
Two eggplant
One quart green beans
One quart dragon tongue wax beans
Two quarts haricots verts
One quart raspberries
Twenty hot peppers
Four quarts paste/plum tomatoes
Cinnamon basil

We've never gotten lemongrass before, and it turns out the stuff I picked was way too young. When we got home I looked up lemongrass recipes to see how exactly it's used. All the pictures showed lemongrass about the thickness of a leek. The stuff I picked was about the same thickness as chives, so .... oops. We'll try again tomorrow.

Freezing: String beans

2007-09-06T22:23:00.000-04:00

We froze six quarts of string beans a couple weeks ago. Preparing them was simple: we just washed them, sliced off the very ends, and piled them high into the biggest bowl we own.

It reminded me of sitting at my grandmother's kitchen table with her and my mom and aunt, twenty years ago already, everyone snapping beans in half and chatting and eating some raw. I didn't like the taste of beans back then, but I did like breaking them in two. The popping sound and the little mist of water that sprayed out, the sweet smell of bean and dirt and oil refineries in the distance were the epitome of summer, or at least of my summers in the '80s in Perth Amboy. My grandmother was a recreational gardener and never canned or froze anything (that I was aware of, anyway). We just ate what there was, until there was none.

So here we were, twenty years later, with a bowl of beans to freeze. The process was simple: we steamed them, then plunged them into ice water to stop the cooking, dried them thoroughly on clean kitchen towels, and filled two freezer bags. The trickiest part of the process was pressing as much air out of the bags as possible, to minimize ice crystal formation inside the bags. Here they are, ready for the freezer:

Week fifteen summary

2007-09-01T22:38:00.000-04:00

Above: multicolored frying peppers. See more pictures from this week.

It's Labor Day weekend already. The farm redeems the usual feeling of the summer being over too soon by reintroducing some cool-weather vegetables we haven't seen in a while. Lettuce, which exhausted us a few months ago, is now a welcome surprise.

Speaking of welcome surprises: the farm's herb beds are open again! They were completely redesigned and replanted this spring and summer—it looks like the goal was, at least in part, to make contoured rows, which help prevent erosion. I was thrilled to see sage and thyme on the pick-our-own board this week:

And now, without further ado ... this week we got:

Four frying peppers—they were multicolored!
Two heads green leaf lettuce
Four cucumbers
One leek
One bunch beets
Two bunches cilantro
Four eggplant
One-half pound Swiss chard
Eight pounds slicing tomatoes
One-half pound cherry tomatoes
Two pounds heirloom tomatoes
Two bulbs garlic
Two pounds potatoes
One pound shallots
Two watermelons!

And from the pick-your-own fields:

Two quarts "Plum Dandy" sauce tomatoes
Fino verde basil
A huge bunch of cinnamon basil
Two quarts of green beans and dragon tongue wax beans (combined)
One quart raspberries
Twenty hot peppers
One bunch thyme
Twenty leaves of sage

We spent the evening cleaning out the refrigerator, prepping food, and cooking. Preparing large batches of food over the weekend is really the only way we have any success with our farm share. Otherwise we get stuck in the routine of just taking Darby to the dog park after work, coming home too tired to bother cooking anything, and settling on macaroni and cheese for dinner. Yes, Kraft macaroni and cheese. They sell it at Fu Wah, around the corner from our apartment, and Jeff likes the Scooby Doo shapes.

Tonight we made double batches of salsa and baba ghannouj to take with us to my brother's barbecue tomorrow. We also made herb butter, hung bunches of thyme and fino verde basil to dry, and tried two experiments. The first was cinnamon basil pesto cubes—we substituted cinnamon basil for regular basil, left out the garlic, and added some nutmeg. Everything went straight into the freezer, so we haven't tasted it yet. The other experiment was anise hyssop tea, inspired by a sign in the herb beds that said anise hyssop could be used in tea (clever, no?). It came out much milder and more drinkable than licorice tea. I drank it hot, but it would probably make a very nice iced tea as well.

That's all I've got for today. Goodnight!

Week fourteen summary: Musings about my trip to the Catskills, disorganization, and food spoilage

2007-08-26T22:55:00.001-04:00

Jeff's parents picked up our farm share since we were spending the weekend at his cousin's lake house in the Catskills. Thanks, Jeff's parents!

After a week of cool, rainy weather, we only got eight pounds of tomatoes. That's kind of a relief. We also got ... hm, let me think ... raspberries, blackberries, okra, string beans, basil varieties, two eggplant, potatoes, maybe onions, shallots, four red bell peppers, two bulbs of garlic ... um ... husk cherries ... um ... oh, and another watermelon! And beets. Maybe some other things too. Some sort of greens, perhaps. Jeff's parents were nice enough to go out to the farm for us in 95-degree heat. I was not about to ask them to keep meticulous track of everything we got, like I usually do. Suffice it to say that we have a good variety of fruits and veggies to work with this week.

After a week of stomach aches and hard drive failures, the Catskills were very relaxing. First of all it's always nice to spend the weekend in a house that is much nicer than anything I could ever afford myself. We played with the dog and went kayaking and drank lots of wine. And ate plenty of good food. Since there were seven of us at the house, we brought up a sack of food from the farm: tomatoes, potatoes and onions for grilling, raspberries, five-or-so jars of homemade salsa, a watermelon, and a bottle of the ketchup from the Clark Park farmer's market that we've all been enjoying this summer. I originally picked it up because it had interesting things like cinnamon and clove oil in it. Now I've become something of an evangelist for this ketchup—it has a great texture and it's soooo tasty. When we brought it out this weekend, everyone teased Jeff for bringing special ketchup, but by the end of the night three people asked us to bring them more ketchup the next time we see them. Mmmm, ketchup.

So it was a relaxing weekend, but now we are a little behind on cooking and/or saving the food from this week's share. Our refrigerator is an un-navigable mess! I really can't stress enough how important it is to keep everything organized in there. It makes such a difference in terms of how much of our share we use or waste each week. I don't talk much here about the times that we slip up or get lazy and don't use appreciable portions of the week's food. Those are the times I most miss having a compost bin. It's nice to at least return all that organic material to the soil.

Now that I'm done airing my dirty laundry about laziness and food spoilage, I think I'm going to read a book and go to bed. Goodnight!

Our CSA was in the New York Times

2007-08-19T22:21:00.000-04:00

I'm still trying to sort through the responses to this article—some snarky and some more substantial—that are floating in my head, so in the interest of timeliness I'll just post the link:

Sunday, August 19, 2007, lead article in the New Jersey section: In Pursuit of Farm Fresh Flavor.

There are two pictures of Honey Brook Organic Farm, the CSA we belong to, and it was mentioned briefly, deep into the article. Also, as a side note, I wanted to point out that the photographer who took the pictures of Honey Brook is the wife of a journalist I used to work for in college. Small world.

Week thirteen summary

2007-08-19T19:41:00.000-04:00

Above: heirloom tomatoes on the vine. See more photos on Flickr.

Yesterday morning was a beautiful, cool morning at the farm, which made vegetable picking lovely. Here's what we got from the farm stand:

Four red, crinkly bell peppers
Choose two: basil, parsley—two bunches of basil
Four eggplant
One pound beets
Five pounds slicing tomatoes
Two pounds cherry tomatoes
Twelve pounds heirloom tomatoes
Two bulbs garlic
Three pounds potatoes
Two pounds onions

And from the pick-your-own fields:

One pint husk cherries (more on these later)
A variety of specialty basils
Three quarts okra
One quart cherry tomatoes, mixed varieties
One quart + one pint raspberries and blackberries
Ten hot peppers

For those playing along at home: we got over nineteen pounds of tomatoes this week. So far we've made a pasta sauce out of roasted cherry tomatoes, and five and a half pints of salsa. (And also a batch of pesto cubes, frozen raspberries, mashed raspberries with lime basil for yogurt, frozen string beans, mashed potatoes, and frozen diced potatoes for use in hash browns—but that's tomato-irrelevant.) And we managed to clean up after ourselves in the kitchen, too.

My Birthday Dinner

2007-08-17T14:35:00.000-04:00

Last night Jen took me out to celebrate my birthday at Farmicia, an old city restaurant that puts an emphasis on local and organic food. We—well, Jen—had looked around online a bit to find those type of restaurants in the area since, as anyone who knows us knows, we're into that kind of thing. We, again really Jen, found a number of different places in Philly that fit the bill.

Jack's Firehouse – A cool looking place in the art museum area that used to be a working firehouse. We first saw this place taking Darby for a walk. As we passed we noticed that the large door that the trucks came in and out of was opened and there was indoor seating that spilled out onto the sidewalk. It turns out that they try to support local farms, but to be honest the menu was kind of boring and they only had 5 simple items on the menu that were local.

White Dog Cafe – What can be said about White Dog? It has become the standard for these types of restaurants. They even have an offshoot foundation focused on social change. The place has a great victorian feel, though it's a little dark inside, and a fantastic menu that even lists which farm the ingredients came from.

Chresheim Cottage – Located in Mt. Airy, just outside of Chestnut Hill this place is beautiful with its old stone farmhouse style that continues inside, too. My problem with this place is the same as with most of these types of restaurants. Many of the selections on the menus are from far across the globe. I can see the need as a restaurant to diversify your menu, but when your whole vibe is based around local/organic you need to be more careful about where all the ingredients come from. In the case of Chresheim Cottage I noticed that they have a dish with green mussels from New Zealand. I don't know if green mussels are something special or not but I can't imagine that they are so special that they couldn't pass up putting them on their menu.

Farmicia Restaurant – This is the restaurant that I chose. They seemed to be the next best thing to White Dog, which we have been to a number of times. They have a nice varied menu with local ingredients, obviously some dishes more than others. But they also partner with a local bread company that makes fantastic bread, The Metropolitan Bakery. They are also proud to be part of the slow food movement.

So like I said, I chose to go to Farmicia. Jen met me outside my office at around 5:30 and we strolled down to 3rd Street, where the restaurant is. It was really nice that the place was empty with the exception of one family dressed in shorts and t-shirts. I mention this because I made sure to dress nicely for work because we were going out, and Jen was wearing a really nice outfit. So the "fancy" place that we were going to was just a place to eat for these people. Anyway, the decor was simple yet somewhat elegant. The tables were set with fresh cut orchids, except the table in the front window of the restaurant, which had a center piece of a single green apple. Even the silverware was nice and different enough to comment on.

Jen ordered the Pocono Springs trout with sweet potatoes and sauted kale. I made myself order something that was a little past my normal boundries since we don't often go out to eat at places like this, so I got the Duck Breast with crisped skin, sun-dried cherry glaze, native grains pilaf and sauteed sugar peas w/ sage. Jen's was very tasty and I especially liked the sweet potatoes, though they really weren't anything special. The presentation was nice with the potatoes and the kale pushed next to each other on the center of the plate and the piece of fried fish with tail intact laid over top and garnished with sweet corn and diced peppers. My duck was tasty as was the sun-dried cherry glaze. That was the part that was a stretch for me. My only problem was that it was supposed to have crispy skin, and it really didn't, the skin was more likely just fat. But all in all it was delicious. The native grain pilaf left a little to be desired, though Jen really liked it. It was a little chewy for my taste. But the sugar peas were perfect, firm yet tender.

We didn't stay for dessert because I was really full and we had a dog waiting for us to get home.

Canning tomatoes: A photo essay

2007-08-13T21:38:00.000-04:00

One of our goals for this year's CSA share was to learn some food preservation techniques. We've had success freezing a variety of fruits and vegetables, including strawberries, broccoli, bell peppers, and swiss chard. We've also frozen some prepared foods, like pesto cubes, eggplant slices, and zucchini bread.

Our tomato cabinet

We came home from the farm with eighteen pounds of tomatoes this past Saturday. It was time to try out our new pressure canner. We decided that canning whole tomatoes would be the simplest way to start.

The first step was to clean the canner and lubricate the seal between the canner and the lid. Then we selected and washed the tomatoes, brought a large pot of water to a boil, and washed the jars, lids, and bands.

Following the instructions for the raw pack method, we heated the whole tomatoes in boiling water until the skins split, and then plunged them into a cold water bath. We weren't really sure how long the tomatoes needed to stay in the cold water, though.

Coring tomatoes

As the tomatoes came out of the cold water bath, I removed the cores and skins, cut the tomatoes in half, and began filling the pint jars.

Peeling tomatoes

It was a bit of a messy process, but the skins slipped off the tomatoes easily.

Once all seven pints jars were packed with tomato halves, Jeff removed trapped air from the jar with a spatula and added hot water to each of the jars until there was a half inch headspace at the top. I wiped the tops of the jars clean, positioned the lids, and screwed on the bands.

Loading jars into the canner

Canner full of jars

We added an inch and a half of water to the pressure canner, loaded the jars into it, screwed the lid shut, and heated the canner over a high flame.

Steam escaping the vent

Once steam began to escape the vent, we waited seven minutes. This process is called exhausting. The pressure gauge stays at zero during the exhausting process.

Pressure regulator weight

After seven minutes, I put the pressure regulator weight over the vent. It was set at 10 PSI. Then we waited for the weight to jiggle, indicating that the correct pressure had been reached.

Pressure gauge hovering just over 10 PSI

Once the weight began to jiggle, we set a timer for ten minutes and reduced the heat so that the weight jiggled only one to four times per minute (we averaged about twice per minute). This maintains the proper pressure inside the canner.

Just after taking the lid off the canner

After processing for ten minutes at 10 PSI, we removed the canner from the heat and allowed the pressure to drop to zero. Then we removed the presure regulator weight, waited a bit more, and removed the lid from the canner.

Canned whole tomatoes

We removed the jars from the canner to continue cooling. The raw pack method can cause fruit to rise to the top of the jar, and that is indeed what happened. It doesn't indicate any problem with the canning procedure. But we did notice that there is more air in the jars than when we started, so who knows what that means.

In the end, did our first experiment with canning work? It's a definite maybe.

We got a pressure canner!

2007-08-13T09:03:00.000-04:00

We finally found a pressure canner at Fantes on Saturday. We decided on the 10½-quart cast aluminum canner from All-American, out of Wisconsin. It looks like something out of a 1950s science lab. Gauges!

And the best part is that the price was marked wrong on the box, so we got it for $45 less than it was supposed to cost.

Roasted beets

2007-08-12T00:18:00.000-04:00

I managed to make some roasted beets. Here is an approximate recipe, as (a) this was a somewhat experimental process, and (b) I forgot the crucial step of covering the pan with foil, which meant I had to add more water and increase the cooking time significantly.

Fresh beets—enough to fill an 8-inch square baking dish
Water

Preheat oven to 400°.

Wash beets. Remove tops (but save them because beet greens are edible!) and trim the bottoms.

Arrange beets in a baking dish. Add about 3/4 inch of water. Cover with foil.

Cook at 400° for about 50 minutes, or until tender.

Allow beets to cool, then peel them (the skins will slip right off) and cut into your preferred shape. I made slices.

Those are the money beets.

Breaded eggplant slices

2007-08-12T00:12:00.000-04:00

This a handy way to store eggplant. The breaded slices heat up nicely in a toaster oven, making for easy sandwiches or, if you're in a fancy mood, individual servings of eggplant parm.

This recipe works best when you have two people working simultaneously: one person breading, the other person frying.

Two eggplant
Two eggs
A couple tablespoons milk
Flour
Bread crumbs
Oil for frying

Peel the eggplant and slice into one-eighth inch slices.

Whisk eggs and milk in a bowl.

Arrange in a row: a plate (or sheet of wax paper) with flour, the bowl with egg mixture, and a plate (or wax paper) of bread crumbs.

Tap both sides of each eggplant in flour. Transfer to egg mixture. Drain off excess egg. Coat with bread crumbs.

Fry the eggplant slices in a pan, then transfer to a rack to cool and drain off excess oil.

When all slices are cool, transfer to a freezer-safe container and freeze.

Week twelve summary

2007-08-11T20:35:00.000-04:00

We didn't pick any of the 80 stems of flowers we were allowed this week but, oh, the things we did get. Like eighteen pounds of tomatoes.

Six bell peppers
Four summer squash
Choose two: basil, cilantro, parsley—we took basil and parsley
Two bunches beets
Six eggplant
Two hot peppers
Two bulbs garlic
Six pounds potatoes
Six pounds onions
Twelve pounds slicing tomatoes
Two pounds cherry tomatoes
Four pounds heirloom tomatoes
One watermelon

And from the pick-your-own fields:

Two quarts okra
Three quarts string beans
One quart raspberries
Specialty basils—cinnamon basil, fino verde, and spicy bush

Clearly, we have our work cut out for us. So far we've spent the night roasting eggplant and garlic for a big batch of baba ghanouj, and then roasting beets for an experiment in actually eating beets instead of just intending to. It's a good start.

Strawberry ices

2007-08-05T21:55:00.000-04:00

Jeff froze some of the Chandler strawberries a couple months ago. Tonight he busted them out and made us a couple strawberry ices.

Eight to twelve whole frozen strawberries
About a tablespoon of sugar

Blend strawberries in a food processor until smooth. The texture will be a little flaky, but with no big chunks. Stir in sugar to taste. Makes one six-ounce (or so) serving.

Plans are now in place to make raspberry ice and ... can you believe it? ... watermelon ice. We have been seeing watermelons for five to seven dollars apiece this week. It feels so luxurious to have four of them in the house right now. Well, three and a quarter left after what we ate yesterday. Yum.

Still no pressure canner

2007-08-05T13:11:00.000-04:00

Even though the website says Fantes is open on Sundays, the sign on the door days they're not open on Sundays in August. It's too bad we had to drive across town to find this out. Still no pressure canner.

Our mission from God is stagnating. Anyone up for a car chase through the mall?

Week eleven summary: We're on a mission from God

2007-08-04T21:35:00.000-04:00

This is it. This is the week the blog finally lives up to its name. We got sixteen pounds of tomatoes! Oh, and four watermelons, that's bordering on insanity.

I'm sorry to say I wasn't around this morning—I was in Maryland visiting my cousin's new baby—but it sounds like it was a ridiculous day at the farm in terms of the sheer quantities we got. Here's the breakdown:

Six pounds heirloom tomatoes
Six pounds slicing tomatoes
Four pounds grape tomatoes
Four watermelons—two jade star and two yellow doll
One noir de carmes melon
One musk melon
One bunch Genovese basil
One bunch Italian parsley
One head green cabbage
Four green peppers
Half pound Swiss chard
Three pounds potatoes
Three pounds onions
Two bulbs garlic
Two eggplant—don't remember what variety but they're purple-and-white brindle

And from the pick-your-own fields:

One pint red raspberries
Six hot peppers
Specialty basils: holy basil, spicy bush, fino verde, anise basil, cinnamon basil, and lime basil
One hundred stems of flowers—Jeff and Stacy picked black-eyed susans and gold rudbeckia. I don't think they picked the entire 100 stems though...
Two quarts haricot vert (French beans)

In light of all the tomatoes we decided to look for a pressure canner to try our first batch of canning. And we learned: it is really hard to find a pressure canner. We saw a few online that we could order, but I really wanted to see a couple in person to get an idea of the capacity, construction, etc. So we went on an odyssey through Mercer County trying to find one in a store. Bed Bath & Beyond, Linens N Things, Macys, no luck. Williams Sonoma, not that we could afford anything there, just to see one. Nothing. Kitchen Kapers in Princeton, which at least used to sell pressure canners but weren't stocking them any more. Kohl's, Target, even Wal-Mart. It was like a scene from Blues Brothers: we were on a mission from God to find a pressure canner. But even the stores that sold them online didn't have any in their actual stores.

Jeff's mom sent us a link to a store called Fantes in the Italian Market section of Philly that sells pressure canners. They're more expensive than the others we've seen online—they start at $194—and the note says they ship directly from the factory. Does that mean they don't have any in the store itself? Why??? But I think we're going to check out the store tomorrow morning anyway because it looks like it has some incredibly specialized tools.

And in the meantime, while we're waiting for a pressure canner, I guess we'll make some sauce and freeze it in lasagna form, or something.

Baba Ghanouj

2007-08-01T22:16:00.000-04:00

Jeff adapted this recipe from Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World. We found out afterward that the uncured garlic from the farm is really strong when you use it raw. Wow.

Two eggplant
Juice from one large lemon juice
Five tablespoons tahini
One-quarter cup chopped fresh parsley
Three large cloves garlic
One and one-quarter teaspoons salt
Ground black pepper to taste

Roast the eggplant: Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut several slits in each eggplant, place on a baking sheet or aluminum foil, and bake until very tender (about 50 minutes). Remove from oven and let eggplant cool until you can handle them. Peel off all skin. Place in a colander to drain for 30 minutes.

Chop the roasted eggplant and transfer to a food processor. Gradually blend in the rest of the ingredients until you have a smooth paste.

Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Penne with summer squash and parmigiana

2007-07-28T23:21:00.000-04:00

We are overloaded with squash and onions at the moment, so this is what we came up with for dinner after a long day in New Jersey.

Half pound penne regate
One small zucchini, sliced
One small yellow squash, sliced
One red onion, thinly sliced
One large clove garlic, crushed
Two handfuls chopped fresh basil
Grated parmigiana cheese
Large handful pine nuts
Eight tablespoon (or so) extra virgin olive oil
Canola oil
Salt and fresh black pepper to taste

Cook the pasta.

While the pasta is cooking, saute the onions, zucchini, squash, and garlic in canola oil until the onions and squash lightly browned. Add to pot of pasta (once it's been cooked & drained, of course).

Toast the pine nuts over medium heat in the remaining oil. Add olive oil, basil, salt, and pepper. Reduce heat to low and stir for a minute or two. Add mixture to pasta and vegetables and toss to coat.

Dish out pasta and top with grated parmigiana and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Makes quite a few servings. Yay leftovers!

Week ten summary

2007-07-28T22:00:00.000-04:00

Above: cinnamon basil up close. See more pictures

We are starting to see some great variety at the farm! This week we got:

Two eggplant
Six green bell peppers
Choose four: cabbage, spring onions (red and yellow), scallions, beets—we took two bunches each of red and yellow onions
Four summer squash
Half pound golden grape tomatoes
Two pounds tomatoes
Half pound baby chard
Choose two: basil, cilantro—we took two bunches of basil
Four small melons—two noir de carmes musk melons and two ... tiny canteloupes?
Two bulbs garlic
Two watermelons—one jade star and one yellow doll
One half pint raspberries and blackberries (mix)
One quart okra
Specialty basil—one large bunch each:
- lime basil
- anise basil
- cinnamon basil
- fino verde basil
- spicy bush basil
- sweet dani lemon basil

Some notes about the watermelon: Jade star is a round watermelon with a dark green rind and red flesh. Yellow doll is also round, with dark green stripes on the rind and a deep, golden yellow interior.

We now have a garland of basil strung along one wall of our kitchen. It's a nifty drying system Jeff has rigged up.

I am tired and will probably revise this post a bit tomorrow. So it doesn't end so abruptly.

Salsa!

2007-07-23T18:08:00.000-04:00

Six medium tomatoes, diced
Two medium spring onions, finely diced
Tops of two spring onions, sliced
Chopped fresh cilantro to taste
One quarter green bell pepper, finely diced
One clove garlic, crushed
One-eighth cup red wine vigenar
One-eighth cup distilled white vinegar
Juice of two limes

Toss all ingredients in a bowl. That's it. Tastes just like the salsa at Tortuga's.

Raspberry and lime basil yogurt

2007-07-21T21:09:00.000-04:00

This yogurt is easy, refreshing, and not nearly as sickeningly sweet as store-bought fruit yogurts.

One half pint red raspberries
Dash of sugar
One sprig lime basil
Three-quarters cup vanilla yogurt

Begin by mashing the raspberries and sugar in a bowl. You barely need any sugar. Set the mashed berries aside.

Mince the lime basil.

Spoon two or three teaspoons of the mashed berries into the bowl or cup you're going to serve the yogurt in. (Set aside the rest of the berries for another time.) Mix in the minced lime basil and yogurt. Best farm concoction ever!

More notes on the musk melon

2007-07-21T19:51:00.000-04:00

The note on the box of Noir de Carmes musk melon said:

A beautiful and rare heirloom melon from France, the famous "Black Rock" melon was cultivated by Carmelite monks for generations and dates back before 1787. Nearly black in color, the skin turns orange as it ripens on the plant. This melon is known for its intoxicating perfume.

The Noir de Carmes melon looks like an acorn squash that's turned a yellowish-orange as it ripened. It smells soooo good, too. I hate melon—I can't swallow even a single bite of canteloupe or honeydew—but I think I'm going to try this one. Wendy suggested I get some white wine to go with it, so I picked up a pinot grigio on the way home. When Jeff is feeling better we'll slice into it.

Week nine summary

2007-07-21T19:16:00.000-04:00

The farm and the blog have been a little tedious recently, but this week was nicer, so I posted backdated entries about the past two weeks, and here we are. Recently we've been drying a lot of herbs—we've had cilantro and parsley and quite a variety of basil to work with.

Jeff was sick today, so I went to the farm by myself. I forgot to take the camera, so no pictures. It's too bad, because I could have gotten some nice shots of okra flowers this week.

This week we got:

Two small heads of green leaf lettuce
Four bell peppers
Choose four: spring onions, scallions, radicchio, cabbage, beets—I took one bunch of beets and three bunches of onions
Six zucchini
Two pounds of tomatoes
One-half pound rainbow Swiss chard (the leaves are green but some of the stems are bright yellow and some are a purplish magenta—this also would have made a nice picture, alas)
One bunch cilantro
One bunch "regular" basil, probably Genovese
Two bulbs of garlic
One heirloom Noir de Carmes musk melon

And from the pick-your-own fields:

One pint okra
One-half pint red raspberries
One large bunch of each specialty basil:
- Anise basil
- Cinnamon basil
- Fino verde basil
- Lime basil
- Osmin purple basil
- Spicy bush basil
- Sweet Dani lemon basil

This week at the farm was all about the smells: the speciality basils, musk melon, okra, and raspberries were all quite fragrant.

This was the first week for raspberries, and some farm members were having trouble finding enough to fill their share. You need special techniques to be successful picking even a half pint of raspberries the first week the plants yield fruit. First, you must fear neither bees nor thorns, because both are abundant. Then you need to learn how to look at the plants: up from below, and favoring the center part of the plant rather than the more easily visible outer leaves. The idea is to target the oldest parts of the plants—that's where the fruit is ripest. Then the farm's instructions finally come in handy: berries are ready when they come off the plant easily. If you have to put any force into it, it's not ripe enough yet.

It was also the first week for okra. The plants are still very young—I could see preschoolers' sun hats over the tops of the plants. The flowers are just beginning to open, so the smell is heady but not yet overwhelming. I tried to explain to Amy a couple weeks ago how okra flowers have a very sexy, musky smell, and when you're in a whole field of mature plants it's almost enough to knock you out. If I were the leader of a medieval city-state, I would have planted a mile-wide ring of okra outside my city as a defensive measure. It would stop any far-from-home, sex-starved invaders in their tracks. Um, as long as they invaded during the couple months when the okra was blooming.

Week eight summary

2007-07-14T18:47:00.000-04:00

This week we got:

Four bell peppers
Choose four: spring onions, scallions, cabbage, radicchio, beets—we took two bunches of onions, one bunch of scallions, and one bunch of beets
Four cucumbers
Four zucchini
Choose four: kale, collards, cilantro, basil—three bunches of cilantro and one bunch of basil
Two bulbs of garlic
Specialty basil: one bunch each of
- Osmin purple basil
- Fino verde basil
- Mrs. Burns' lemon basil
- Anise basil
- Cinnamon basil
Flowers

While I got the week's vegetables from the farm stand, Jeff stayed by the picnic tables with Darby. I came out to find the two of them surrounded by three squealing litte girls who were dressing her up in foraged foliage. They made her an Elizabethan collar of twigs and dead leaves which they had tucked under her collar, and one of them even wove a weed-flower wreath for Darby to wear on her head.

Jeff's sister helped us pick flowers. We were allowed 70 stems, but that's ... that's a lot of flowers.

On the way back to Jeff's parents' house we stopped at Cherry Grove and picked up more Giovane cheese. We met the cheese maker and learned that Giovane cheese means "young cheese" in Italian, along the same lines as the Spanish joven. Makes more sense than "Giovanni," which is what we thought they had called it last time we got some.

Then we spent the afternoon at Jeff's parents' house, doing laundry and having a mid-afternoon wine and cheese on their patio. Fancy! We had some of the Giovane cheese and sliced tomatoes with a selection of the basils from the farm. The surprise favorite wound up being the cinnamon basil. Jeff's parents's house is turning into the most gourmet laundromat ever!

Week seven summary

2007-07-07T18:11:00.000-04:00

This week we got:

Six heads of lettuce—two butter lettuce and four deer tongue lettuce
Choose four: basil, Chinese cabbage, radicchio, spring onion, scallions—we took two bunches spring onions and two bunches basil
Four summer squash
Four cucumbers
One pound tomatoes
Choose four: parsley, kale, cilantro, collards—two parlsey, one cilantro, one kale
Two bulbs garlic

The ony pick-your-own was flowers, but those are cumbersome on an hour-long trip with a dog, so we skipped them.

Gunpowder mint tea

2007-07-01T21:47:00.000-04:00

This recipe borders on the trivial, but still, the tea was refreshing, and a bit of an experiment since I never make my own tea blends. We got the mint from Bryony in exchange for some CSA lettuce, and dried it last weekend.

In a teaballer, combine two parts gunpowder green tea and one part dried mint. Heat water to just below boiling. Steep tea for three minutes.

Freezing: Broccoli

2007-07-01T21:37:00.000-04:00

Jeff did indeed freeze most of the broccoli we got this week. He followed one of the blanching and freezing methods outlined in Preserving Summer's Bounty:

Wash and cut five heads of broccoli. Boil for three minutes; remove and plunge into ice water for another minute or two. Drain and spread on clean towels until the broccoli is completely dry. Transfer to freezer bags.

Five heads of broccoli yielded two gallon-size freezer bags, each about three-quarters full. We only used the tops of the broccoli - no yucky stalks for us!

Afterward, Jeff read about a better blanching method which we'll try next time we have something to freeze.

Week six summary

2007-07-01T08:15:00.000-04:00

This week we got:

Six heads of lettuce - four green leaf and two red leaf
Three bunches of basil
One fennel bulb
Six heads of broccoli!
Four summer squash
Two bunches of kale
One bunch of cilantro
One bunch dandelion

"Choice group" items we didn't take included Chinese cabbage, radicchio, scallions, and collards.

There were still no pick-your-own crops this week. What's going on? I miss them. On the other hand, we've never gotten such a good crop of spring broccoli, so I guess things balance out a little.

We donated three heads of lettuce to Womanspace again this week, and also gave away some things to each of our parents. Jeff's parents got a head of lettuce, the fennel, and one zucchini. Mine got two heads of lettuce and two zucchini. For those of you playing along at home, this means we let zero new heads of lettuce enter our apartment. Hopefully that will keep things under control in our refrigerator.

(Those of you playing along at home may also have noticed that giving things to our parents meant driving deeper into New Jersey. Indeed, but Jeff's sister, my grandfather, and one of my cousins were all making special appearances at our parents' houses. The visits were exhausting though, between all the driving and Darby's four backyard escapes. She jumped the side gate at my parents' house once, and scaled Jeff's parents' at-least-six-foot fence three times to chase squirrels and cats.)

Food preservation methods for this week are drying and freezing. There are bunches of cilantro and basil strung up in our kitchen to dry (along with a bunch of parsley from the Clark Park farmer's market on Thursday). I don't think that's the classic method for drying herbs—that usually involves spreading the herbs on a baking sheet and leaving them in a very low-heat oven—but it's been working fine for us. It's not exactly labor-intensive, and it doesn't get in the way of anything else. As far as freezing, we intend to freeze four or five heads of broccoli today. We'll see if that really happens.

Pesto cubes

2007-06-24T00:12:00.000-04:00

I never have any luck freezing basil, but freezing pesto is a different story.

The idea behind pesto cubes is to prepare the pesto with little or no oil, spoon it into an ice cube try, and freeze it. Then when you want pesto, just defrost a cube or two, add the rest of the oil, and heat.

We added chicken soup/stock when we made the cubes, but only because we were cooking soup at the time. To make a vegetarian pesto, substitute olive oil for the soup.

one and a half bunches of basil
a third of a cup chicken soup/stock
pine nuts
grated Parmesan
sea salt

Put all the ingredients through a food processor or blender. Spoon the mixture into an ice cube tray and freeze. Once frozen, transfer cubes to a freezer-safe container and give the ice cube tray a good washing.

Week five summary

2007-06-23T22:42:00.000-04:00

This week we got:

four heads of butter lettuce
three bunches of basil!
one bunch of scallions
four summer squash—two zucchini and two pattypan squash
a half pound of baby chard
two heads of broccoli
three bunches of kale
two bunches of cilantro
one bunch of dandelion

"Choice group" items that we passed on included Chinese cabbage, radicchio, fennel, and collards.

This week we wised up and donated three of our four heads of lettuce to Womanspace. (There is a donation box in the farm stand each week.)

We also made a special effort this week to prepare some of our farm food right away. On Thursday night we had stopped at the Clark Park farmers' market and picked up eggs, string beans, turnips, and a whole chicken from some Amish farmers, so we decided to start out by making chicken soup. That also netted us several containers of stock, which we froze, and some extra "wet chicken" that we're saving for salad, stir-fry, and/or chili. After that we made two loaves of zucchini bread and a tray of pesto cubes—pesto, minus most of the oil, frozen into cubes in an ice cube tray. It's the only way we've ever had success freezing basil.

We also dried one bunch of basil, two bunches of cilantro, and a bunch of mint from Bryony's garden (the mint was part of the package we got when we traded her for some of our extra lettuce).

And to top it all off, we cleaned as we worked. So the kitchen is actually cleaner than it was at the beginning of the weekend, for once. Woohoo!

Linguine alfredo with garlic scapes

2007-06-21T19:59:00.000-04:00

Tonight's dinner! The garlic scapes are from this week's farm share, and the Giovanni cheese is a soft cheese that we picked up at Cherry Grove Farm. I imagine you could substitute whatever soft, mild cheese you have in the house. (Hee hee, that sounds so casual. Why wouldn't you have extra goat cheese in the fridge?)

One cup half and half
Two tablespoons of butter
A pinch of flour
Three tablespoons New Jersey Giovanni cheese
One cup grated Parmesan
One diced garlic scape
Salt
Ground black pepper

Heat the butter and half and half over low heat in a small saucepan. Add salt and pepper to taste.

After the butter is completely melted, slowly add in the cheese and the garlic scape, stirring continuously.

Add a pinch of flour to thicken the sauce.

Remove from heat when the sauce comes to a very low boil. Toss over cooked pasta.

Week four summary and photos

2007-06-18T10:29:00.000-04:00

See more pictures of the fourth week at the farm.

This week we got:

four heads of lettuce—two deer tongue and two red leaf
two heads of bok choy
four pieces of summer squash
a quarter pound of arugula
two bunches of kale
one bunch of endive
one bunch of collards
twelve garlic scapes (pictured above)

I must admit I picked up the endive by accident. I was thinking of escarole, which we could have added to a pot of Tuscan white bean soup. Endive I'm not so experienced with. Suggestions, anyone?

There were no pick-your-own crops this week. I don't know why. Strawberries might be over for the season, but the snap and snow peas should still be around (right?). And we haven't gotten any herbs at all yet.

On the other hand, we finally got arugula this week. I love Honey Brook's arugula—it's so much more flavorful than anything you can get at the grocery store.

And garlic scapes! I don't know of any grocery store where I can get garlic scapes. They are the tops of garlic plants. Quite tasty in stir fries, or sauteed on their own.

Strawberry daiquiri

2007-06-18T08:25:00.000-04:00

I'm not much for girly drinks but, when you have a ton of strawberries, dousing them in rum starts to sound like a good idea. I started out following a recipe I found online, but it was weak on the strawberry flavor.

One cup ice
Two ounces rum
Half a lime
Ten or twelve strawberries (the original recipe called for five)
Sugar

Crush ice in a blender. Add rum and strawberries. Squeeze in juice from the lime. Add sugar to taste. Mix in the blender.

Result: just okay. I think I crushed the ice too much before adding the other ingredients, so that by the time the drink was ready it was too liquid / not slushy enough. If I were more committed to fruity drinks I might try to perfect the recipe, but I'm not. It used up some strawberries, and gave me an excuse to have tortillas and guacamole, and I'm happy with that.

Week three summary

2007-06-11T10:21:00.000-04:00

We were in Florida for a wedding this weekend, so a friend picked up our share for us. We got:

four heads of lettuce
two quarts of strawberries
two heads of bok choy

No pictures this week, sorry...

Cherry Grove Farm dairy is open

2007-06-04T09:45:00.000-04:00

After Honey Brook on Saturday we stopped at Cherry Grove Farm on Route 206 in Lawrenceville. The cows were out grazing in the field along Rt. 206, and as we headed down the driveway toward the store we saw a group of calves! Jeff took some pictures of them while I stayed in the car with Darby and talked to my brother, who had called from Iraq. How cute are these guys?

See more baby cow photos

Inside the store we found out that the farm's dairy facility had finally opened—we'd been anticipating this for about a year. We tried a really tasty soft cheese called New Jersey Giovanni, and came out with some Giovanni, some provolone, and a cookbook that I'd been eyeing for the past year.

Week two summary

2007-06-03T11:04:00.000-04:00

We are starting to see a little more variety at the farm. This week we got:

four quarts of Chandler strawberries
six heads lettuce - no red leaf this week, but several other varieties
one pint snap peas
kale
bok choy

Even though it can sometimes seem like the farm forces a very particular set of vegetables on us, it's important to point out that we do have some opportunity to pick which vegetables to take home. This week the choices were:

snap peas and/or snow peas, totalling one pint—snow peas are great, but snap peas are even more delicious, so we filled our whole pint with them
choose two of the following: kale, collards, bok choy—we passed on the collards

Finally, we also could have picked 30 stems of flowers this week (the farm grows a large selection of flowers throughout the spring and summer), but we didn't because we didn't have a container to keep them in on the drive home.

Strawberry crepes

2007-05-28T21:18:00.000-04:00

Strawberry crepes don't offer much in the way of flavor complexity. But they are tasty just the same!

One cup flour
One egg
One and 1/4 cups milk, plus extra
One teaspoon vanilla
Strawberries
Butter

Cut thin slices of strawberries for crepe filling and topping. Set aside.

Whisk together flour, egg, vanilla and milk. Add more milk for thinner crepes.

Melt a thin slice of butter in a pan over medium-low heat. When the butter begins to turn brown, pour a ladle full of batter into the pan, spreading batter evenly over the pan's surface. The crepe is ready to flip when it loosens from the pan's surface; you may leave it until the edges turn golden brown if you like a crispier crepe. Flip and cook briefly on the other side.

Fill the crepe with a thin layer of strawberries, roll, and top with more strawberries.

Store unused crepe batter in a covered container in the fridge. Keeps for several days. (You may need to add more milk the second day, as the batter will thicken slightly.)

Opening day pictures

2007-05-28T20:25:00.000-04:00

See more pictures of the first week at the farm.

Opening day

2007-05-27T07:58:00.000-04:00

Our first farm day of the season: Memorial Day weekend, high of 91 degrees. Earlier in the week, word was that the season would open with small amounts of pick-your-own strawberries. By Friday "small amounts" had been upgraded to four quarts, plus some lettuce. When we showed up on Saturday morning, it was up to:

six quarts of strawberries
six heads of red leaf lettuce

That is the most strawberries I've ever gotten in a single week at the farm. The farm stand attendant said it was because not many people had come earlier in the week when the quantities were lower, and then the little heat wave we're having gave the quantities an extra boost.

As always when a crop begins to ripen, the picking was really easy. The strawberry plants were still young, which meant the leaves weren't very dense and it was easy to spot clusters of berries.

Since we were visiting various family members right after our farm stop, Jeff and I gave a quart of strawberries and a head of lettuce to each of our parents, and a quart and a half to his sister. That leaves two and a half quarts of strawberries and four heads of lettuce for us to eat this week. Time for a salad marathon!

Strawberries start this Saturday!

2007-05-21T21:24:00.001-04:00

I just read the announcement on the farm's website: the farm season is opening with pick-your-own strawberries starting this Wednesday. So Saturday morning we'll venture out into the fields for the first time in months.

The farm season opens with slightly different crops each year, depending on the weather. Two years ago we started off with lettuce varieties and herbs, and last year we got herbs a week before anything else. We lost the early lettuce plantings this year due to unfavorable weather (if I remember correctly), so strawberries come first. Sweet! Literally.

Two months to go!

2007-03-26T09:40:00.000-04:00

There are about two months to go until the farm season starts. This year we decided to get a family share for just the two of us, so learning to store our food will be very important.

Yesterday I bought a book called Preserving Summer's Bounty: A Quick and Easy Guide to Freezing, Canning, Preserving, and Drying What You Grow, from Rodale Press. Canning sounds complicated. I'm more than a little scared of botulism. We're going to have to do some practice rounds so I can get used to the idea (of canning, not botulism). It'll be so great to have jars of homemade salsa and pasta sauce in our cabinets, but I don't want to be too scared to eat them.

I think I'd prefer to freeze things but we have limited freezer space.