Week 12 – What do I do with all of these Potatoes

Corn

Onions

Carrots (2 this week!)

Nectarines

Peaches

Purple Beans

Potatoes

Honey Crisp Apples

Pristine Apples

Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Kale

Wow!  What a box!  Last week I was thrilled to receive a comment on one of my posts.  It feels silly to write this, but I’m never sure if anyone is actually reading this little pet project of mine.  A comment confirms it…I have at least one reader who is not related to me.  To make things even more interesting to me, my reader is correct.  We are swimming in potatoes.

Last week at Great Country Farms (http://greatcountryfarms.com/) held their annual Pancakes and Potatoes weekend.  This was a great opportunity to actually dig potatoes out of the ground.  Digging by hand is so much fun.  It is, however, back breaking work.  Farmer Mark always helps by ripping a few rows for the folks who are upicking.  Without the tractor doing the hard work, pulling potatoes would be so much more work.

According to the US Department of Agriculture, (https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/vegetables-pulses/data/) approximately11.8 million pounds of potatoes were consumed in the United States in 2016.  This is over 31 pounds for every man, woman and child in the US.  Potatoes are by far the most consumed vegetable in the US.    Compared with other vegetables on the plate with a hamburger, that’s over two times the amount of lettuce, one and a half times more than the amount of tomatoes, and one and three quarters the amount of onions.

There are more than 200 varieties of potatoes sold throughout the United States (https://www.potatogoodness.com/potato-types/).  Each of these varieties fit into one of seven potato type categories: russet, red, white, yellow, blue/purple, fingerling and petite.  Of these varieties, by far the most popular of these varieties is Russet.  The iconic baked potato is almost always a Russet.  The thick skin and white flesh is what most of us think of when we order a loaded baked potato at our favorite restaurant.

Potatoes are an excellent vegetable to store for long periods of time.   Because of their long shelf life, most of the potatoes sold at the grocery store are actually last year’s crop.  It is amazing just how delicious a fresh potato can be, especially if what you’re used to are store potatoes.  When we pull potatoes at GFC, we keep them in a garage refrigerator for the next 6 months.  The trick is to let the dirt remain.  Don’t wash the potatoes until you’re ready to eat them.  This little bit of moisture keeps them almost as fresh as they day they came out of the ground.  

So what do you do when you are swimming in potatoes, there are dozens of options…roasted, gratins, salads and more.  I decided to go with a recipe that would use several items from the box rather than just one.   It is still summer… hot soups may seem a little out of place.  The temps are starting to drop a little at night, and there is a hint of Fall in the air…so soup it is. 

Soups are fun and easy.  Good soup starts with a good base or stock.  I make chicken stock in large batches, and freeze it you use later.  I’m not going to provide a stock recipe today.  If you don’t have the time to make stock, or just don’t want to, there are a few good options that you can purchase.  Almost anything that comes in a box will be good.  Keep an eye out for salt content as store stocks can be salty.

Corn Chowder is a family favorite.  I like the idea because I can use potatoes, corn and onions from the box.  Also, soups are a little easier to make than some things as minor changes to the recipe can easily be accommodated.  So take the recipe below as a guide.  You can play a little bit to your taste.

Corn Chowder

4 oz. bacon (if you don’t eat pork, substitute 2 T oil and 2 T butter)

½ cup flour

½ large onion

2 stalks celery

2 cups cooked corn

1 cup milk

6 cups chicken stock (vegetable stock and water will work as well)

4 cups diced potatoes (1/4 inch diced)

salt and pepper to taste

Slice the bacon into ¼ inch slices.  You want the best uncured bacon you can find.  The smokiness of the bacon add a wonderful flavor.  If you’re doing this in vegetarian mode, use a combination of oil and butter.

Put the bacon in a heavy bottom pot.  Cook it until it is well browned.  Once the bacon is browned add the onion and celery.  Cook the onion until it is just starting to soften.

Add the flour and lower the heat.  Mix the flour into the bacon and onion mixture.  Continue to stir this mix until it just starts to get golden.  This is a roux.  It will be the main thickening ingredient in the soup.

Once the roux is golden, slowly add stock, stirring the mix as the stock is added.  This helps to minimize lumps.

Next add the milk.  For a creamier, heavier soup, you can you cream.  I’ve used whole milk, skim milk and cream.  All are good.

Add the corn and potatoes.  Cook for 30 minutes, stirring as needed.   Taste and test the potatoes for doneness.  Add salt and pepper as needed.

 

Enjoy!

Week 11 - I do take requests!

Week 11 – I do take requests!

Swiss Chard

Potatoes

1 large Onion

Corn

Apples

Nectarines

1 carrot

2 slicing tomatoes

White Peaches

Cherry tomatoes

Apples

It is hard for me to believe that this week marks the half way point of the CSA season.  The rare combination this week of Potatoes, Peaches and Apples marks what has been an unusual and wonderful growing year.  Getting carrots (or at least 1) this week is another indicator of how special this year has been.  The GCF newsletter talked about the amount of clay in the local soil, and how the carrot root will grow towards the softest soil.  This makes carrots grow in odd formations.  Ours this week looks a little like a small ball with a bunch of fingers growing out of it.  It looked really funny but tasted delicious.  It is further confirmation that just because a fruit or vegetable doesn’t look like what we see in the grocery store doesn’t mean it won’t taste good.  In fact, most times it tastes even better.

Most weeks, my inspiration can come from almost anywhere.  For this week, I decided to work with the Chard that came in the box.  Chard is a really interesting green leafy vegetable.  It’s more similar to a beet green than it is to Kale.  Chard comes several colors.  It’s most commonly found in a reddish tint, and is also found in a yellow hue.  Chard is full of nutrients and vitamins and has an earthy, umami flavor and is easily sautéed or steamed.  It isn’t an accident that I’m also using potatoes and the onion.  We will be getting potatoes for most of the rest of the year.  There will be plenty of time to get a potato recipe or two in before Winter comes. 

Why a Chard recipe?  Because someone asked!  A few weeks ago my wife and kids were at Great Country Farms doing a little peach picking.  As they rode the tractor out to the trees, they started a conversation with another guest.  They got a blog plug in (thank you), and had a discussion about how difficult it is to find ways to use the Chard.  So this week is a request week.  I’m pleased to respond with what I think is a great way to prepare Swiss Chard.

This week’s recipe is an adaptation from a casserole recipe that I found.  I decided to grill the chard, making a recipe for a charred Chard Casserole.  The addition of caramelized onions and Gruyere cheese adds a sweet base and another set of earthy flavors that compliment the Chard is a really nice way.  To get the potatoes evenly sliced, you’ll need a mandolin.  Be careful!  This is a tool that will easily take a piece of a finger…

Charred Chard Casserole

1 bunch of Swiss Chard

Half an onion sliced very thin (use the mandolin for an even shin slice)

3 medium potatoes sliced very thin (see above)

1T good olive oil

1T butter

3 cloves of garlic finely minced

1C grated Gruyere or good Ementhal cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

1.     Place the chard on a very hot grill.  Cook for 3-4 minutes.  The leaves will wilt, and start to char up.  The charring is what you’re trying to do.  Once the Chard has cooled, chop it into small pieces.  Set aside.

2.     In a heavy skillet melt the butter and add the oil.  Using oil raises the burning point and will help to caramelize the onions.  Add the onions to the skillet and cook the onions until they just start to brown.  Add the garlic.  Be careful not to burn the garlic.  Cook this mixture until the onions have a deep brown color.

3.     Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  While the oven heats, grab a 9 x 13 inch, well greased pan. Start with a layer of potatoes (about a third), and then a layer of onions (about a third), then a layer of chard (about a third…see the pattern?) and then cheese.  Repeat so that the last layer is cheese.  The chard should peak out from underneath the cheese.

4.     Bake the casserole for about 45 minutes, or until it is well browned.  Test the doneness by sticking a sharp knife into the center.  It should insert very easily.

Enjoy!

Week 10 – Home Alone

This weeks box contains:

Corn

Potatoes

2 Peppers

a Red Onion

a yellow Squash

lettuce

Apples

Nectarines

Slicing tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Possibly the most difficult of all cooking tasks is cooking for one.  Eating for many of us is a communal activity.  We eat family dinners, we take date out to dinner, we cook for groups and we eat in groups. Food packaging for the most part assumes that the end result will feed multiple people.  Recipes are almost always designed for a group rather than a single.  My friend Orrick and I have discussed writing a cookbook for single diners…Cooking for One.  Maybe someday we will get it off the ground.

So what is a guy to do when his family takes off for a few days?  Almost everything in my pantry assumes it will be used to cook for four.  Well, I decided that I would make something that I can eat while they are gone, and will be able to freeze and use when they come back.  August is the heart of Tomato season.  Last week’s Tabouli recipe is one way I love fresh tomatoes.  But there is just no way I could eat all that over the weekend.

There are hundreds of tomato varieties. From marble-sized grape or cherry tomatoes, to juicy salad tomatoes, meaty paste tomatoes, and huge, sweet, beefsteak tomatoes. Their colors range from deep crimson to orange, yellow, green, purple, and chocolate.  For more on Tomato varieties and their best use check out http://www.grow-it-organically.com/tomato-varieties.html.

I decided to make sauce.  Tomato sauce isn’t difficult, but it can be time consuming.  This Week’s Box contains a red onion, which I’ll use along with the slicing tomatoes.  Luckily, I have been growing tomatoes in my home garden, and so has my mom.  Together, we have a little over 5lbs of fruit.  I also have a huge basil plant and wil take basil as well.  This will make quite a nice batch of sauce.  So I’ll double the recipe below.  Many recipes I saw called for Roma tomatoes. These are great, have very few seeds, and a beautiful red meat.  They are not required.  Any good fresh tomato will do.

Tomato Sauce

2-3 pounds tomatoes

¾ Teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 Tablespoon tomato paste

1 Cup good Red wine

3-4 garlic cloves minced very fine

¼ Cup basil chopped well

1 carrot peeled

1 medium onion chopped

Cut tomatoes in half horizontally. Squeeze out the seeds as best you can.   Discard the seeds.

Heat the oil in a large pot.  Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onion is just getting tender.  Add the tomatoes and set the heat to medium.  The tomatoes are going to release a lot of liquid.  That is to be expected.  After a few minutes, the tomato peel will release as well.  Try to pull as many of the peels off as possible.  You can get them later, but as the sauce cooks, the peels get harder to find.

Once the tomatoes have started to soften and you’ve removed as many of the peels as possible, and the wine, salt, carrot, olive oil, and tomato paste. Bring the sauce to a boil, then lower the heat to low and let it simmer.

Cook the sauce until it is reduced by half.  Stir the sauce occasionally and adjust as needed.   If the sauce is too thin, add a little tomato paste.  If it gets too thick, add a little liquid.  Taste and adjust salt.

Let the sauce cool, and remove the carrot.  If you like a smooth sauce, process the sauce in your food processor for a few seconds.  If you like it chunky, leave it as is.  Package it into any size container that works for you.  The sauce will freeze well and will keep for several weeks in the freezer.

Enjoy!

Week 9 – Tabouli

5 ears of corn

a big bag of potatoes

Nectarines

Peaches

Apples

a bunch of kale

Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Now that it is August, Tomatoes are heavy, juicy and just delicious.   We will now have tomatoes coming in our box almost every week, and should see them through at least the end of August.   I’m one of those folks who will only eat tomatoes while they are in season.  The sugary sweetness and warmth of a tomato just picked off the vine and popped into your mouth is one of the true treats of summer.

There is no shortage of recipes that use fresh tomatoes.  I use them in salads, cook them down in sauces, I even slice them and dry them in my oven.  Dried cherry tomatoes take on almost a raisin like quality.  They are actually quite addictive.  For this week, I’ve decided to stay in the salad lane.  On a hot summer evening, salads are refreshing and delicious.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy tomatoes is in a middle eastern salad made with Bulghur called Tabouli.  What is Bulghur you might ask?  Bulghur is a grain commonly found in Arabic and Middle Eastern cuisine.  Essentially, it is wheat kernels that have been steamed, dried, and crushed.  It is not exactly the same as cracked wheat, which is simply a wheat kernel broken into fragments without being cooked. The two are often confused and you may see recipes calling for cracked wheat when they really mean Bulghur. It comes in several grinds (fine, medium, coarse and whole) and is slightly chewy but still tender.   Best of all, Bulghur is one of the main ingredients in one of my family’s favorite salads…Tabouli.

Making Tabouli isn’t hard.  In a pinch, Near East makes a very good boxed version.  You just add hot water to the grain and add your veggies to their premade mix.  If you have the time and the inclination, making this dish from scratch will reward you with a delicious and very healthy summer salad.  Traditional recipes use Bulghur sparingly.  I tend to add a little more.  There is no wrong way to do this…it’s all personal choice.  The lemon juice and olive oil dressing goes well with almost any ratio of vegetables to grains that you prefer.  This recipe is adapted from The Mediterranean dish. com (https://www.themediterraneandish.com). 

Tabouli

1 cup bulghur

3 firm tomatoes

1 medium cucumber seeds removed

1 bunch parsley (stems removed)

12-15 fresh mint leaves (optional)

Salt

3-4 T lemon juice (basically 1 lemon..be careful not to let any seeds in)

3-4 T extra virgin olive oil (or less if you like)

There are a couple of ways to cook Bughur.  Coarse ground and whole Bulghur will need to be cooked in salted boiling water.  Medium and fine ground can just be soaked in boiling water.  I like to use medium grind Bulghur in Tabouli.

Use a ratio of 3 parts water to 1 part Bulghur.  For this recipe, soak 1 cup of Bulghur in 3 cups of salter water.  Let it soak for about 20 minutes.  The Bulghur will be soft, but chewy.  If there is water remaining, drain the excess.  Let the grain cool in a large bowl in the fridge until it is nice and cold.

Peel the cucumber and remove the seeds.  To remove the seeds easily, take a teaspoon, and starting from one end, scrape out the seeds.  When you’re done, the half cuke should look a little like a canoe.  Slice the cucumber into long strips, then crosswise into small pieces.  To deseed the tomatoes slice each in half across the middle.  Gently roll each half and shake out the seeds.  You don’t have to be perfect with this step, the goal is to remove as many seeds as possible.   Add the tomatoes and cucumbers to the Bulghur.

Finely chop the parsley and mint and add them to the salad.  Mix everything together to incorporate all of the ingredients together.

Add the lemon juice and the olive oil.  Mix everything together and taste.  If it needs salt, add just a little to taste.

For best results, cover the tabouli and refrigerate for 30 at least minutes. Serve the tabouli with pita bread, or the way my guys like it….plain!

Enjoy!