Week Six: In A Pickle

Another great week at the farm. We got regular AND pickling (Kirby) cucumbers, onions, lettuce, beets, zucchini, carrots, and fennel. I still haven’t made it out to the self-pick field, but I know there’s some dill there, calling my name!

I made cupcakes with the beets (obviously) – I had been planning on making chocolate cupcakes (the beets were red), but I discovered that I’d gotten candy cane beets! They’re striped pink and white on the inside. Unfortunately they don’t retain their color when cooked, so after I pureed them for the batter it looked like a pile of pinkish-orange mush. Not particularly appetizing, but luckily, cocoa powder covers up a lot!

Surprise! We're stripey.

I’m planning to use the onion in fajitas tonight. I also made some pickles and pickled carrots, which are chilling in the fridge with some garlic getting all yummy.

We <3 vinegar and garlic!

Cute, isn't he?

Also on this week’s menu is the beet and potato hash that I made last season, topped with fried eggs. I’m going to try baking it in the oven instead of cooking it on the stovetop so I can avoid the hilarity that is “just slide the thing onto a plate, put another plate over top, flip, and slide back into the skillet to finish cooking”. Because anything that starts with “Just…” is never that easy. (Exhibit A)

I wasn’t over the moon about the fennel slaw I’d made a couple weeks ago, so I’m reevaluating what I want to do with my fennel. Maybe make it into a risotto again (I’ll use the whey left over from my homemade yogurt, cut with water or chicken stock to make it less sour). I did save a couple of chunks of the stalks for stock – hopefully it won’t be overwhelming once cooked! Google also tells me there are both roasted and lightly-fried options for fennel, which also sound good.

Week Five - Catching Up!

It’s been a busy couple weekends – our usual 4^th of July celebrations got rained out, which was a bummer since the rest of the weekend was beautiful! Last weekend I was in Knoxville, TN with my family – what a drive! We passed a Wal-Mart distribution center that was at least a mile long (below), drove the long way through Virginia, and at really good food in downtown Market Square (think Faneuil Hall/Quincy market area without the market buildings in the center).

Allll those trucks are Wal-Mart branded.

This is about the longest direct route you can take through Virginia.
I-81 all the way, through the beautiful Appalachians.

We had a good harvest last week – Matt & Aly dropped off cucumbers, golden beets (you know what that means – cupcakes! Yay!), summer squash, and green and gold zucchini for us. I made some yummy fridge pickles – I can’t wait for my dill to get a little bigger so I can use it for extra flavor. I may also try spears, too. They take a little longer but I'm sure they're worth it!

Mmmm pickles

Easy Fridge Pickles

inspired by Smitten Kitchen

As I was re-reading the ingredients to list here, I noticed that I had accidentally doubled the vinegar and halved the cucumbers. I don't know if I mind, but that would explain how incredibly pickly and spicy they turned out... Her recipe uses 8-10 Kirby cukes and 1/2 cup of vinegar. My version is below.

4 small to medium cucumbers, washed and sliced thin (she recommends Kirby or pickling cucumbers)

1 cup white vinegar 

5 teaspoons salt (coarse, pickling, or kosher)

Optional tasty things:

  1 to 2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped

  1 or 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and lightly crushed

  1/2 teaspoon or so red pepper flakes

  freshly ground black pepper

Slice up the cucumbers super thin with a mandoline if you have one, or carefully on a cutting board. Put them in a large bowl with a leakproof lid, then add the salt, vinegar, and your choice of optional tasty additions. Close the lid and shake everything up. Chill in the fridge, shaking occasionally, until ready to eat (wait at least an hour - they'll supposedly last 3 weeks).

The fun part about using a mandoline is that the slices just stack up all on their own!

I roasted up the summer squash to have alongside some chicken. I did a quick marinade with olive oil, garlic, and salt & pepper, tossed the chicken and then the squash in that, and cooked everything at 400* for about 20 minutes. Delish! (Tip: preheat the baking sheet in the oven while you prep everything!)

And a quick garden update: We have pumpkins! No pictures yet, but there are at least three that are fist-sized or bigger and growing every day. The vines are reaching out to the radishes and broccoli, and will probably be at the driveway soon. My radishes went a little wild when I was gone, so I'm not sure if any are now too big to be tasty - some of them have flowered, so I need to clear those out and give everything else some space to breathe.

Another update soon!

Week Sixteen: Autumn Harvest

It's officially here. The equinox has passed and now the days are getting shorter for sure. The days are still nice, but I can feel a chill from somewhere (or maybe that's just the A/C at work?), and the nights are getting downright cold. I don't feel bad about having pumpkin beer now - especially beer that was brewed with pumpkins from the farm! (I do wish that there had been a touch less cinnamon in this sugared rim, though... talk about major dry mouth!)

Watch City Brewery's Pie-Eyed Pumpkin Ale. More sugar on the rim, please!

We were treated to a stunning sunset last night at the farm... I'm bummed that they're getting sooner, but they're so darn pretty that they almost make up for the early arrival:

Hashtag no filter! (See how silly we are here)

We had a good time at the farm again this week. The raspberries, happily, are hanging in there, so while we haven't been collecting our allotted half-pint each week lately, we do take a stroll through the rows to pick what looks good. It's totally worth it for the few perfect berries we find. Back in the barn, we got more leeks, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and beets. 

Leeks, tomatoes, and peppers

I was happy to have the pick of my "regular" haul again, mostly for pickling. We got frying peppers and bell peppers, which I sliced up to have with the carrots. I really do miss the cucumbers... but I made do! I was rather disappointed in my previous batch of pickled goods, where I'd used radishes. They weren't quite as yummy as I'd hoped.

Lettuce and broccoli

We'd split the leeks last week, so we had a double repeat for dinner tonight: potato and beet cake with bacon and leek risotto. I used the stock I made from my roasted chicken for the risotto - delicious! It's really cool to see what I can make with just the local veg - we're considering joining a meat share this winter, so that would be an interesting next step!

Both kinds of peppers, broccoli, and the ends of my carrots

I didn't realize until I started scrubbing my beets tonight that only one of them was a standard "stain everything the juice touches bright red-purple" beet - I had two pink and a golden, too! It's really hard to tell when they're dirty, in my defense... like I care. And so I leave you with these pictures of beet-and-potato cake in the making.

Psychedelic beets!

It's ok if you question the sanity of the food processor in the sink.
I've had a bad experience with splattering, so I opted to try and save my clothes...

They're like an art project.

Shredded potatoes. This took approximately four seconds.

Rainbow beet shards!

Week Nine: Fancy Dinner Party

This weekend Dan and I are hosting our parents for a “favorite British foods” dinner party: baked cheese, steak and ale pie, and a yummy dessert. And Pimm’s, of course! We had a decent selection of root vegetables this week, so I was able to get most of the veggies locally. I’ll post the recipes (and pictures!) later this week.

I finally wised up and took a picture before I ventured into the picking fields!

The amount of produce I’ve been bringing home every week has started to get overwhelming. It doesn’t sound so intimidating when you check in and are told “nine items today!”… but then you realize that one “item” can be eight cucumbers, or three pounds of tomatoes, or six ears of corn. I picked up for Matt this week since Aly is on vacation, and wow, it was a lot of stuff. I have no idea what Dan and I would do if we weren’t splitting this with Matt and Aly! (Probably turn into leafy greens.) I also got some tomatillos (never mind that I have no idea what to do with them) from the picking fields, along with more dill, cilantro, and a couple jalapeños.

Most of a salad... just add dressing!

The haul this week was huge: eight cucumbers, four zucchini/squash, 3 lbs tomatoes, 1.5 lbs potatoes, 1.5 lbs carrots, chard, lettuce, onions, and some orangey-gold beets. I made (wait for it) fridge pickles with half the cukes and the dill (I know, big surprise), and plan to use the potatoes and carrots in our dinner this Friday. Matt took home the lettuce, some tomatoes, the onions, and squash. I'm not sure what I want to do with the chard yet – I’ve decided I’m not a huge fan – probably sauté it and toss with pasta or something.

Herbs, jalapenos, and tomatillos. Also, Google wants to autocorrect "tomatillos" to "automatism".

Ginormous zucchini and some normal size ones.

 I've never used golden beets before (I’m pretty sure that’s what these are), but since I had such success with the chocolate-beet cake I made a few weeks ago, I searched for a yellow cake recipe that used them. I found a cupcake recipe that looks promising, but I’m not sure how well it will translate to a regular cake pan since the author didn't give a “yield”. I’ll make sure to post about that adventure.

More new potatoes!

I had some squash left this weekend (and now I have more…), so I roasted some to have with a pre-marinated pork loin for dinner on Sunday night. I sliced 2 yellow squash into ¾” discs and laid them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, then drizzled them with olive oil and sprinkled them with some Lawry’s. I had to cook the pork at 425º, so I put the squash in at the same time and roasted everything for about 30 minutes. I think next time I’ll flip the squash about halfway through to make sure they get nice and crispy all over.

More carrots - it's fun to see the natural shapes I get at the farm instead of the Bugs Bunny style from the grocery store.

Stay tuned for adventures in dinner parties and baking with beets!

Chard and beets

Week Eight: Purple Pickled Peppers

I’ve become only a little obsessed with those pickled veggies. I like to think it’s a healthy addiction, though, since vegetables are good for you. And vinegar has literally zero nutritional value, so the only “additives” are some sugar and salt… I say it’s a win. I made them for Steak Friday last week, and again Tuesday night with this week’s harvest.

We got a lot of good stuff this week. Aly got a pound of tomatoes, lettuce, corn (we split the 6-ear allowance), squash, and cucumbers. I got new potatoes, bell peppers (green and purple), gold zucchini, and carrots. I also grabbed some dill and Thai basil from the field (my plant seems to still be doing ok). I had a cucumber from the grocery store that I didn’t have a chance to use last week, so I made more dill-pickled goodness to have with lunch this week. The purple peppers start leeching a little of their color into the vinegar, so by the time I eat my snack I have white and purple streaked peppers… very pretty.

Gold zucchini and a bell pepper

I’m trying to find some new recipes to try, but this week has been really crazy and I haven’t been home at a reasonable hour yet this week. Maybe I’ll make a carrot cake this weekend? Mmmm, baking. I do have a master plan for some of the veggies, so hopefully we get another good harvest next week. I will definitely post about that!

Fresh corn... the beer did not, unfortunately, come from the farm!

Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry to make pickled veg this week I didn’t think to take a picture of everything all together – so all you get are fridge pictures.

Mmmm veggie goodness.

And a picture of my favorite dog ever.

Rupert aka Captain Fuzzypants.

Week Six: Roots and Ears

I can’t believe we’re on week six already! I guess that’s what happens when you go on vacation. Dan and I just spent ten days in the UK for our honeymoon, and we’re already thinking about our trip back. I can’t say I missed the heat back here, having spent so long in the apparent “heat wave” of 75 to 80-degree heat with a breeze J

Things at the farm really picked up while we were gone. Matt and Aly got a huge harvest of “actual” vegetables like onions, leeks, and squash the past couple weeks (maybe Aly will post her recipe for the dinner they had at our house while we were gone?). This week we got cucumbers, carrots, corn, new potatoes (so cute), lettuce, fresh garlic, onions, yellow squash, and zucchini. The pick-your-own options were great, too: each share was allowed to take four basil plants (yes, whole plants!), Thai or purple basil, a single jalapeño, 5 serrano chiles (I skipped those), dill, cilantro, a bunch of flowers, Mason jars, and green beans. 

Jalapeno and the cilantro.

Just one of my basil plants!

This week I had found a recipe for fridge-pickled vegetables, so when I got back on Tuesday I immediately set about slicing and chopping some crunchy stuff from the farm and the grocery store to soak. I ended up with dill-pickled veggies… yum!

Fridge Pickled Vegetables (based on SK’s pickled veggie slaw)

1 cup white vinegar
4 heaping teaspoons sugar
4 heaping teaspoons salt (I used Morton’s Sea Salt)
Fresh dill to taste (I used about 3 3-inch fronds of fresh), chopped
1 cup cold water

Crunchy vegetables of your choice

Put everything but the water and veggies in a small pot over medium-high heat. Still until sugar and salt are dissolved, then remove from heat. Add the cold water and let cool.

Meanwhile, julienne (using a mandoline with a julienne blade or a really sharp knife), about 4 or so cups of your favorite crunchy vegetables. I used our CSA carrots (scrubbed), a CSA cucumber, and two grocery store red bell peppers. Put the sliced veg in a large bowl with a leakproof lid and mix everything up with your hands. Pour water/vinegar mixture over everything, put the lid on, and shake a little bit to distribute the liquid. Put the bowl in the fridge for at least an hour – I left mine overnight and think it was a great idea. Eat straight up, on a burger, with a salad...

Mmmm. Pickly!

 Next time, I’ll be more careful about keeping my veggies all the same size and shape – my pepper slices are a lot bigger than my cukes, and my carrots are just chunked instead of sliced (I wasn’t thinking too much about this, apparently). The taste wasn’t really affected, though! Also, I forgot, after such a long time eating cucumbers from the grocery store, that farm- and garden-fresh cucumbers have pricklies on them! Make sure you rub these off when you wash the cucumbers.

Last night we had a grilling fest with some friends, so I sliced up the enormous zucchini for kebabs, and made a potato and corn salad to go with.

Potato, Corn, and Basil Salad (based on David Lieberman's)

1 lb new or baby potatoes (I had about 1/5 pounds), scrubbed clean and quartered

5 ears corn

1 small onion, peeled and thinly sliced

1 large bunch basil leaves, rinsed and dried

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 lemons, juiced

Salt and pepper to taste

Put potatoes in salted water and bring to boil. Cook  until fork-tender, 15 minutes or so. Remove and dunk into ice water to stop the cooking process (don't toss the water if you can avoid it). Shuck the corn, and if needed, break each ear in two. Put the corn into the same water you used for the potatoes and cook 6-7 minutes until tender. Stop the cooking process by dunking the corn into an ice bath. Cut the kernels off the corn and add to large bowl with the potatoes.

Add the onion and basil and mix everything together, then toss with the lemon juice and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Serve right away.