admine9519, Author at Morning Song Farm - Page 19 of 44

Among my favorite ways of preparing zuchini is below. Lindy Herman, CSA member sent these photos and preparation tips. It’s similar to mine. She stuffed it with Trader Joe’s multigrain blend (couscous, quinoa, etc.), and added garlic, parsley, browned onions and parmesan cheese. She then topped it with a breadcrumb and parmesan cheese topping for the last 10 minutes. She didn’t specify how long she cooked the beast; but it’s somewhat unhelpful even if she’d said, because though each large share today received a large zuch,  everyone’s is a different size.  That’s one thing about a small farm like ours, we don’t grow enough of something like this to set up a uniformity line.  Anyway, we cooked ours for about 45 minutes at 350, which you can use as a guideline. I couldn’t tell if she cut up any of the zuchini before baking. That’s what I do; I scoop out maybe half of the “meat” of each halved zuch, and cube, combine with mixture and then stuff back into the zuchini before baking.

Here’s one of my family favorite recipes if you’d like to include meat:
1. cook up a pound of ground hamburger, ground turkey, or a soy substitute.
2. Add several cloves of garlic and a half of an onion, and fry those up, too.
3. Toss in a little green pepper, perhaps a half cup of chopped walnuts, and grated hard cheese like parmesan.
4. You can either use a purchased bread crumb mix, or make your own like I do. I originally started making my own bread crumbs because I object to the added preservatives and chemicals in most brands at the store. Really, buying bread crumbs is highway robbery, a whole can of bread crumbs is probably 4 or 5 pieces of toast. And by making your own, you can choose the bread you prefer, know that you aren’t eating preservatives (check the label…almost all brands have preservatives!), and choose the amount of salt and herbs that’s best for you.  I Cuisinart my favorite toast for fine grain and just hand crumble said toast for larger “crouton” type pieces. It’s not a bad idea to do both for this recipe.
5. I add celery if I have it, a little of Temecula Olive Oil’s oil; and a dash of hot sauce.
6. Toss everything back into your zuch halves and save what doesn’t fit for another night’s meal. There’s always too much to put back into the zuch, so I freeze what’s left and use it for a quick-to-prepare meal when I need it most.

Thanks, Lindy!!

Ingredients:
24 pimiento-stuffed olives
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons minced fresh oregano
1 tblespoon minced fresh mint
1/4 t of salt
1/8 t of freshly ground pepper
2 ounces crumbled feta cheese

Directions:
In a salad bowl, toss your endive, onion and olives. In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the oil, vinegar, oregano, mint, salt and pepper; shake well. Drizzle over salad and toss to coat. Tpop with cheese.

from tastofhome.com

OK, I know it’s uncool to publish an unharvested harvest ticket; but I’m heading out of town on the worst possible day of the week to head out of town; (yet another stab at trying to get my ongoing divorce handled; 4.5 years and counting) and wanted to have some sort of post available. So, yeah, I may have some items wrong–I’m hoping to get basil in boxes this week; but the heat has made our field iffy–I watered well last night and hope to get at least small bunches in boxes this morning in my absense.. Also, we have a couple new items: curly endive which is spicier, and tougher than regular lettuce; and escarole; which is amazing boiled in chicken or veggie broth; but can be consumed raw as well.

Midweek, we are finally seeing our berry bushes full of ripe berries. It’s been a weird summer berry-wise. We’ve never seen so few berries! Although it’s a fond memory; early summer was really cool out here in East County; something I guess we can expect to see every 20 years or so. Our berry bushes hated the unseasonably cool weather and responded by sulking in the coolness with loads of unripening berries. We kept saying NEXT WEEK! That said, even though we’re in berry heaven yield wise; these aren’t the sweetest berries you’ll ever try. It’s not the variety’s fault– as we’ve been growing these for a decade, and they’re usually sweet.

Large shares received Fuerte avocados; which should be among the best Fuerte’s you’ve ever tasted. They are ready to pick around November-December, and we’ve waited until now– in August– to allow them to increase their oil content. Few farmers will do that; and it’s one of the reasons that Fuertes have a bad rep, they need just as much time as a Hass to develop full flavors, but can be legally picked long before the Hass can be picked; so they are. Off the trees they go in November, and they taste like water.

Another fruit that develops complexity and sweetness over time is the kumquat. We don’t have enough to put in our boxes anymore, but a few subscribers order 5 pound bags from time to time. It’s rare to even see a kumquat at the farmers’ markets in the summer. But NOW they’re much sweeter.

We’ll have kale this week, and hopefully next. We have to plant one row for us and two rows for the Bogota bug who targets only brasicas. I hope you’ll try it as we love it: cut up and massage a good quality olive oil, a little crushed garlic and salt into the leaves and then lay out on a baking sheet at 250 degrees until crisp. Use as a gluten-free crouton on your fresh salad, or sit down for movie night and eat a whole bowl of these as you would popcorn. I’m addicted to baked kale like this, and can easily eat a whole bunch each day. Kale is one of those veggies that requires some effort to enjoy, but its nutritional value makes the effort a worthy one.

You’ve seen Asian pears in your boxes for a few weeks now, and we want you to know they store well. Like apples, they actually taste a little bit more complex after cold storage.

We look forward to our fall fruit: macadamia nuts, passionfruit, guavas, persimmons and apples. What’s more, as it cools down, we hope those that would like to visit us will consider coming out for our next farm tour. We’ll schedule as soon as the weather is reliably cooler.

Click on image to enlarge for easier viewing. What’s unusual this week is the purslane that you’ll find in clamshells. We’re excited to get it back in our boxes this week. Purslane boasts some stellar Omegas besides its signitaure crunch! Eat raw in salads or serve with dip as in the image below.

Daughter Tessa discovered an enormous bumper crop of our normally meager sour wild grapes. Too late to get in any but the trade in shares on Tuesday, we put our wild grapes in all shares on Wednesday. Yes, they’re somewhat sour, but so tiny that they can be enjoyed by anyone–even sour grape haters; just throw in a smoothie if you like your grapes sweet. These are seedless and really flavorful!

Our amazing chickens are slowly increasing their egg production, and this week we actually were able to fill all existing orders! Yeah! We aren’t taking any new orders until our younger flock is in production; 5 months from now or so. Our baby chicks are flourishing and are quite eager to join the adult flock. We regularly have escapees when one of us opens their little rabbit cage to feed and change their water dishes. It’s quite a job to catch the little rasquels, but it’s a necessity because they won’t survive outside yet.

At left, daughter Tessa introduces herself to a new resident. And below, Couscou The Guard Llama peers into his chicken’s barn as we teach our new arrivals how to drink and peck for food.