From Vegetable Growers News, this just out: “The EPA has registered Syngenta Crop Protection’s Voliam Xpress insecticide. Voliam Xpress is approved for use on head and leaf lettuce, fruiting vegetables, head and stem brassicas and cucurbit vegetables.” …Voliam Xpress utilizes two modes of action to protect crops from chewing and sucking insects as well as lepidopteran pests. It contains chlorantraniliprole, a new mode of action from the diamide family of insecticides, and lambda-cyhalothrin, a third-generation phyrethroid insecticide. The two active ingredients are combined in an enhanced solution that provides fast knockdown and long-lasting residual control…”
admine9519, Author at Morning Song Farm - Page 37 of 44
Below is my favorite pumpkin pie recipe. The blue culinary pumpkins you have been receiving in your baskets are grown specifically for this recipe. Crack open your pumpkin on the driveway or other hard surface, scoop out the seeds and bake at 350 degrees until soft enough to scoop out. You can save that beautiful pumpkin for Thanksgiving if you like. It can be stored for months, unlike the Halloween pumpkins you may have purchased at the grocery store, these pumpkins are specifically grown for their storage and culinary uses.
We have opened another drop off site in Costa Mesa at the organic leaning Coastal Children’s Learning Center. The address is 2245 Orange Avenue, Costa Mesa 92672. Their website is http://www.coastalclc.com/. Host Kristin Bryson can be reached at 949-722-1005.
We have opened another drop off site in Costa Mesa at the organic leaning Coastal Children’s Learning Center. The address is 2245 Orange Avenue, Costa Mesa 92672. Their website is http://www.coastalclc.com/. Host Kristin Bryson can be reached at 949-722-1005.
Also, we are actively trying to start a new drop off near UCI in Irvine. The address is in a residential neighborhood at the corner of University Drive and Goldenglow Street, Irvine. Please tell your Irvine friends about us!
Many of you don’t know what to do with the herbs you’ve been receiving, so I’d like to give some general suggestions. We grow a lot of mint, partly because I like herbal tea, and secondly because the mint patch keeps getting bigger (mint will do that). I don’t eat much fresh mint, although small pieces can really wake up a green salad. I toss my bunches into an herb bowl on my kitchen counter until they’re completely dried. Then I crumble in the palm of my hand, throw away the stem portion and save in a little Tupperware or plastic bag for my teas. I also often make a limeaide, toss in a baggie of the crumbled mint (or get lazy and just throw in the dried bunch as is) and let sit overnight. I sweeten with the herb stevia, I get in powedered form from Traders or a health store. Make sure you get the good stuff that isn’t cut with dextrose or other forms of sugar. Look for 100% pure stevia. Strain your beverage the next day, and you have a sugar-free, minty limeaide that is super simple to make and quite unusual.
The basil is still going strong in our fields, but don’t expect to see it for much longer as it’s a warm we
ather crop. I really enjoy the mild basil we’re growing this year fresh in salads. You can also dry just like the mint above, and use later. I also make a quick and easy pesto:
Quick And Easy Pesto
I’m intentionally not putting measurements here because it’s not necessary and you’ll enjoy working with herbs more when you see how easy it is sans the nuisance of measuring everything.
Put all leaves of one bunch in a cusinart or blender with a good California olive oil, couple of garlic cloves (or more), tiny bit of dried hot pepper (you’ve been getting an heirloom dried pepper in your basket for weeks–save these for occassions like this), a quarter cup or so of walnuts, salt and pepper, a little bit of water to get the consistency right. Blend. I then add a sprinkling of more walnuts to the puree for texture. Serve over pasta, chicken, or as an amazing salad dressing.
Rosemary is another herb you’ll see plenty of, and I usually use this herb dried. Bunches get tossed in the herb bowl, and then I crumble, s
ame as the mint into dishes as I prepare them. I like a simple pasta with butter or olive oil (Temecula Olive Oil Company in Temecula is a local provider of incredible, local olive oil; they have a CSA for their olive oil. Here’s their website: http://www.temeculaoliveoil.com/
tossed with rosemary, crushed garlic and a little salt. I use rosemary in many of my simple stir fries and add to a basic buttermilk biscuit, turning the biscuit into a Rosemary Biscuit.
I can’t get enough cilantro, and it will grow and harvest it most of the year. I enjoy a salad dressing made of cilantro, nonfat plain yogurt, salt, a couple garlic cloves and a tiny bit of dried hot pepper. Blend in a cusinart or blender and store in the refrigerator.
We’ve spent the week planting our strawberry plants which are slated to begin harvest in January-February. We’re mid-harvest in the macadamia grove, and should have macs back in your baskets next week. Just harvested, they don’t crack out well, so although we have plenty of harvested nuts, we didn’t have enough this week to crack out.
Pumpkin Pie
Line a pie pan with pie dough: you can get a decent, chemical-free dough already rolled out from Trader Joes, or follow this simple recipe: One cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt. Sift together. Then add 1/3 cup plus 1 Tablespoon chilled butter to flour mixture, half at a time. Use a pastry blender, or work butter in lightly with tips of fingers until it has the grain of cornmeal. Then add the remaining butter into dough until it is pea size. Sprinkle dough with 2 Tablespoons water. Blend water lightly into dough. Gather dough up into a little ball, chill a little, then roll out into your pastry shell.
Line a pie pan with pie dough: you can get a decent, chemical-free dough already rolled out from Trader Joes, or follow this simple recipe: One cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt. Sift together. Then add 1/3 cup plus 1 Tablespoon chilled butter to flour mixture, half at a time. Use a pastry blender, or work butter in lightly with tips of fingers until it has the grain of cornmeal. Then add the remaining butter into dough until it is pea size. Sprinkle dough with 2 Tablespoons water. Blend water lightly into dough. Gather dough up into a little ball, chill a little, then roll out into your pastry shell.
Preheat oven to 425. Mix until well blended: 2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin. 1 1/2 cups cream.
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg or allspice.
1/4 teaspoon grated cloves
The above spice quantities make a strong, spicy pie. If you like it milder, reduce by half the above spices.
Two slightly beat eggs.
Pour the mixture into the pie shell. Bake 15 min. at 425. Then reduce heat to 350 and bake another 45 mins., or until a knife inserted, comes out clean.
Top with sweetened whipped cream, and serve.
Baked Apples
Preheat oven to 375. Wash and remove core to 1/2 inch of bottoms of 4 tart apples. Combine: 1/4 cup brown sugar with 1 teaspoon cinnamon. 1/4
teaspoon allspice, tiny pinch of grated cloves. Fill centers of apples with your mixture. Dot filled cores with butter. Drizzle juice of half lime or tops of all four applies. Put applies into an 8×8 inch pan with : 3/4 cup boiling water and 2 tablespoons sugar. Bake about 30 minutes–or until tender but not mushy. Remove from the oven and baste the apples several times with the pan juices. Should juices be runny, remove the apples to a serving dish and reduce the juices by cooking down a little, then return to serving dish.
Although prettier than your average halloween pumpkin, these little blue treasures are much more than ornamental. Heirlooms, these pumpkin seeds have been passed down for generations because of their fine flavor and cooking qualities. To begin with, many cooks are familiar with following a pumpkin recipe that starts with “open a can of pumpkin puree.” If you want to use your pumpkin, you’ll need to back up one step and make your own puree. It’s not complicated. Smash your pumpkin (don’t try this on your countertop; I give this job to one of my kids: take it outside and throw it down on the sidewalk or driveway. ) Once opened, remove seeds and bake at 350 until soft. Scoop out meat of pumpkin, and throw away the outer skins. You can now put in a blender or cuisinart to perfect your puree. From here, you can follow any pumpkin recipe. This pumpkin makes a fine pumpkin soup, pumpkin muffin, pumpkin pie or pumpkin gravy. A winter squash, you can enjoy the ornamental qualties of your pumpkin today, and eat it a month or two down the road if you’d like. Unlike summer squashes, winter squashes, particularly the heirloom varieties, can be stored.
Here’s the super easy soup recipe:
Directly from the shell of the pumpkin, place cooked pumpkin in Vitamix or other blender with a clove of garlic, very small amount of grated Jalapeno, a few macadamia nuts, milk, dash of olive oil, salt to taste. Blend. Adjust thickness with more milk if necessary. Heat, and pour into separate bowls. Crumble a few macadamia nuts on top of each serving if you’d like.
This is a really quick, easy meal if you have a cusinart. Boil pasta, set aside. Throw in cusinart:
All the leaves of one bunch of our basil.
Two cloves of garlic
Quarter cup of walnuts
Half cup of olive oil
Salt to taste
Little bit of water if it comes out too thick
Puree in cusinart. Then add an additional, small handful of chopped walnuts to add texture. Stir over pasta, serve immediately.
Here’s this week’s planned pick list:
Reed Avocados
Persimmons
Juice Limes
Apples
Carrots
Basil
Jalapenos
Heirloom Dried Red Peppers
Radishes
Swiss chard
Heirloom Blue Pumpkin (culinary)
Garlic
Fioja Guava
Head Lettuce
Dill
Cukes
Green Peppers (maybe just in large baskets?)
Macadamias, large baskets only
It’s not even related to a tomato, and is actually a tree fruit. For years the coyotes beat us to the punch and ate every one. We pruned the trees last year, so the trees couldn’t be easily climbed by Wiley anymore, and so this year is the first ever that we have a good crop. Hopefully Mr. Coyote won’t turn to my avocado trees instead…. Anyway, you can eat these persimmons when they are still somewhat hard (although as they soften, they are sweeter). Don’t confuse this Fuyu persimmon, which can be eaten hard, with a Hichiya, which is longer and pointier. You eat one of those before the dead ripe stage and you with never, ever, make that mistake again. The unripe fruit’s taste is bad, and I think, just to make myself clear, the word taste, is an understatement, you are more likely to look back on it someday, after getting over it, as a culinary train wreck, The ones in your baskets this week are good to eat at any stage. They can be peeled and sliced into a fruit salad, thrown in the blender for a smoothy, chopped into cubes and used in a cookie batter as you might raisons, or baked into a pie as you would apples. In fact an Asian pear- Fuyu persimmon pie, recipe below is worth trying.
Gingered Persimmon and Asian Pear Crisp
2 Fugu persimmons, not overripe, peeled and sliced
2 or 3 Asian pears, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup lime juice
4 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh ginger root, grated
Topping:
4 Tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
1/2 teaspoon lime peel, grated
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon cinnimon
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon nutmet
Preheat oven to 375F. Combine frut, juice, salt and giner in an 8-inch square baking pan. In a separate bowl comtine topping ingredients. Sprinkle topping over fruit and bake for 40 minutes.
Hardly a recipe, but applesauce is so easy, it’s really not worth ever buying. Peal your apples, squeeze a little lime juice, drop a couple drops of stevia if you think it needs to be sweeter (make sure you get the good stuff that isn’t cut with sucrose or other additives; get the pure stevia extract) and put everything in a Cuisinart. Puree. I buy little disposable containers from Smart and Final and add these little treats to my kids’ lunches.
As many have been challenged by recent economic issues, Morning Song Farm’s CSA program lost 25% of its supporters this last month. Wow! We sure are passionate about continuing our CSA program, but do need our local community’s support. I thought perhaps I should consider offering a Laguna Beach, Hungtington Beach or Orange drop off. If anyone has a friend or organization that might be interested in joining or hosting in those communities, please let us know.
Greetings!
What a scorcher of a week! Fruit photo at right is a Fioja Guava. Some people slice long ways and scoop out the contents. I like the spicy skin and eat the whole thing. Try it both ways and see what you think. Photo at right is sage, which you’ll find in your baskets as well this week. The garlic is another heirloom, and is medium hot, and fairly easy to peel.
Garlic Butter:
Either churn your own butter like I do, or buy butter and toss a cube in the Cuisinart. Add a couple cloves of garlic and salt to taste. Puree. Remember that garlic adds “heat” to a dish, as well as the familiar garlicly taste that at least I’m addicted to. So add as many cloves as you like to your butter as it’s being pureed, but make sure you don’t overdo it. If you do, just add more butter.
Use the finished product on baked fish, as a dip with cheese and crackers, on toast in the morning, on your baked potato, or over steamed green beans,
Following is this week’s basket contents:
Sage
Limes
Heirloom Melon
Avocado (Reed)
Apples
Asian Pears
Jalapeno
Weird long, heirloom hot pepper, requires drying
Eggplant
Arugula
Radish
Carrots
Baby Swiss Chard
Fioja Guavas
Rosemary
Mint
Basil
Heirloom Garlic
Baby Lettuce (large baskets oly)
Head Lettuce
Green Onions
Cilantro
Beans
Okay, I admit I was less than enthusiastic about adding kale to my
baskets. I got so many requests, I thought I’d at least try it.
It looks light Swiss Chard, only tough; I thought. But you have to
try this simple preparation before dismissing kale: Chop up, boil with a little
salt in pan. Drain, chill. That’s right, chill it. Serve as a sidedish with a little goatcheese, crushed walnuts, drizzled olive oil and lime juice. If you tried doing that with Swiss Chard, you’d be disappointed but Kale keeps its shape even after steaming, so lends itself to a sort of
cooked salad. I think the taste is stronger than spinach or Swiss Chard,
but really delicious.
Of course you can serve it hot like you would Swiss chard or Bok Choy, but I think what makes Kale special is that you can eat it cold. I did try eating it raw. Don’t try that. I think Kale is too tough to eat raw. Just my opinion.