This Week from the Farm (October 13)

This week our full share consisted of:
1/2 pound tatsoi
1/2 pound arugula
1 pound summer squash
4 heads lettuce
1 large bunch lacinato kale
1 large bunch collards
1 bunch radishes
2 pounds beets
2 pounds sweet potatoes
3 pounds potatoes
12 green bell peppers
1 garlic
PYO: We only picked up the flowers, and they are beautiful golds and pinks and reds. We passed on the 20 hot peppers and herbs because D. came home with about 40 more habaneros from the middle school garden today.

I managed to give all the tatsoi and 2 bell peppers to my dad. I was hoping to unload at least 1 head of lettuce, because red leaf is not a favorite of mine, but no luck.

Making dinner after the farm excursion is always a bit challenging because it is usually late and we are all hungry and want to get dinner on the table fast. Plus there is the question of how to fit all the new veggies in the refrigerator. I managed to put a flavorful pasta dish with minimal effort by using our leftover marinated eggplant, which also helped clear space in the fridge.

Tuesday dinner:
Whole wheat spaghettini with seitan, marinated eggplant, and kale. Since the eggplant already had a lot of garlic and crushed pepper, there was little seasoning involved. Just chopped and browned the seitan, added the chopped marinated eggplant with its oil and juices, and finally the kale. Then tossed with the pasta, and served with a generous grinding of black pepper and a dusting of grated pecorino.

This Week from the Farm (October 6) and I Just Ate the Best Sandwich

This week:

1/2 pound tatsoi
1/2 pound arugula
2 heads lettuce
2 eggplant
6 bell peppers, purple and green
2 acorn squash
1 large bunch lacinato kale
1 large bunch red russian kale
2 pounds beets
2 pounds sweet potatoes
3 pounds potatoes
1 head garlic
I think I have forgotten something... I will update when I remember
PYO: 10 habaneros, 10 jalapenos, flowers, parsley, sage

When I got home and had to stuff everything into the fridge, I realized just how much I had leftover from last week. There are a lot of hot peppers. I went searching through all the various bags to find any that needed to be eliminated, but very few were bad. So many good ones. I immediately put a quart-sized bag of habaneros into the freezer. And there are still so many. Then I packed a bag of jalapenos to put up, but I hesitated. There are a lot of gorgeous tomatoes at the market right now, so I am thinking of making a massive amount of salsa to freeze instead. Honestly, I could probably do both -- there are so many. And then there are quite a few long cayenne peppers, red and green, and I was thinking I should batter and fry them Indian-style. Now I am thinking I should give them to my mom so she can fry them.

That was Tuesday. We had leftover soup and pasta for dinner.

Wednesday lunch:
I was home with sick children, and I made an easy, popular lunch of orzo with lots of kale (the lacinato), lemon zest, olive oil, black pepper, and a bit of grated pecorino.

While I was trying to sort out my connectivity to work, I roasted the 2 eggplants that we picked up on Tuesday and added them to the others I had roasted on Monday. In a shallow dish I layered eggplant, minced garlic, generous amounts of crushed red pepper, cilantro, and a drizzle of red wine vinegar. After 2 layers, I doused the whole thing with olive oil. The recipe, from Jim Lahey, actually asks for 2 cups of olive oil (!), but I definitely used less than a cup. Then it went into the fridge to marinate for 12 hours to 5 days.

Wednesday dinner:
Matt used all the tatsoi and made an asian-style marinated tofu and greens over rice. It was very good, and I was very pleased to have knocked out all the tatsoi from our share.

Thursday lunch:
I made sandwiches with some of the eggplant (marinated about 16 hours), roasted red peppers (from Monday), pecorino, and arugula on a baguette. Based on a sandwich in the Lahey book; this guy knows his stuff. I couldn't wait for lunch. Ate mine for breakfast.

Stecca, Sandwiches, Soup

Sunday was quite warm, so my stecca dough got off to a good start and had a noticeably improved rise. I baked it off on Monday morning, using a bit less oil and much less salt for the top. I felt, the last time, that some bites were much too salty and wondered if so much oil was affecting my results, yielding the flatter loaves. The answer is no (wait, were those questions?). No the bread was not too salty, even if I thought it was (in fact, it was perfect for sandwiches, where the salt has room to spread out), and No the oil did not hinder the oven rise. So my result on Monday: fuller loaves, adequate oil, not enough salt. I failed to notice that, unlike the standard bread recipes in my new Jim Lahey book, the stecca dough contains very little salt on its own, and thus relies on those generous sprinklings for flavor. Lessons learned: warmer environment helps a lot; don't skimp on the salt. I am still working on my shaping technique as well.

Monday lunch:
Matt had another beet-arugula-goat cheese sandwich on stecca (it needed a bit of salt). The rest of us had leftover stew.

After lunch I roasted a few eggplants, red peppers and poblanos to save for later. I meant to marinate the eggplant with some garlic, cilantro, vinegar, and oil (Lahey recipe), but we were out of garlic so I will try to marinate today.

Monday dinner:
Matt made a double batch of one of our favorite, easy cold-weather soups: Coconut Milk Soup with Sweet Potato and Collard Greens, from Fresh Food Fast by Peter Berley. We used sweet potatoes and jalapenos from Cherry Grove for this. Note: Sometimes you get a jalapeno that is just not that spicy, but it is crucial to get this soup spicy enough because the coconut milk and sweet potato can make it too sweet. And then it becomes a huge disappointment. But the Cherry Grove jalapenos did not disappoint. The cilantro and drizzle of lime juice take it over the top. And we have leftovers!

Taking stock:
We did pretty well this week. We do still have 2 small watermelons hanging around the fridge, though. And a couple of tiny winter squashes, 2 scallions, and quite a few hot peppers.