Our Daily Tasks: Covering and Uncovering

Our Daily Tasks: Covering and Uncovering

The winter wonderland where we grow your veggies.

The winter wonderland where we grow your veggies.
Photo credit: Emily Hammon
Want to join and receive your own share of delicious veggies each week? If you are interested in signing up, please email us at greededgegardens@gmail.com. For more information or to download our Enrollment brochure, visit our website at www.greenedgegardens.com/CSA.

We love sharing our wonderful produce with you! We started this blog so that we can keep you up to date with all that is happening on the farm. It is also an opportunity for all of us to get to know one another better. One of the strengths of a CSA is the direct relationship between the farmer's experience and your experience receiving fresh vegetables weekly.

We want to hear from you, so please feel free to share recipes, thoughts and ideas-just click on the COMMENT below each post to add to our CSA community.

September 8, 2008

ATHENS HILLS SUMMER CSA:
WEEK TWELVE

Hello Everyone!

This week I would like to welcome the newest member to our Green Edge extended family! Rob and his wife Skye welcomed their little girl into the world this past Sunday, and we are so excited to have another little one around! It has been baby mania here this year at the farm. Cale and his wife Melanie had a little boy in March. Dan and his wife Mary had their little girl this past May, Princess the cat had her litter of cute kittens early this summer, and now Rob and Skye have their baby girl. There must be something in the veggies!

To celebrate our mushroom guru’s new arrival, I’ve dedicated this newsletter to our shiitakes and oysters. The recipes you’ll find here will be sure to whet your appetite, and will hopefully give you a new idea or two for your dinner menus this week.

I am also excited to let you know that this week you can find our Winter CSA brochure online at the blog. We will also have it available on our website at the end of this week or sometime next week. Be sure to check it out, call us with any questions, and sign up early—it’s first come, first served, and you as members get to have an early heads up.

Have a wonderful week, enjoy your tomatoes and other summer veggies while they are still going strong, and think of autumn & winter’s bounties that lie ahead. Sweet daydreams!

Best Wishes,
Claudia


FEATURED VEGGIES

Salad Mix (I’m so glad to see this back in your shares! The greens have recovered and now you can get back to all that salad eating you’ve been missingJ.)

Bell Peppers (These beauties are doing great this year! If you can enjoy them right away, think about slicing or chopping them, placing them in a Ziploc and storing them in your freezer for later.)

Mushrooms (You all know these oyster or shiitake mushrooms well by now and are hopefully enjoying them. Don’t forget that you can dry them for later use in soups, etc. by baking them on a cookie sheet at the lowest temperature and checking them until they are dry.)

Tomatoes (This week it’s our picker’s choice between the Heirlooms and Slicers. By now you are familiar with all of these and can enjoy them as autumn approaches. An easy way to store all of these for later is to dry them on a cookie sheet in your oven. Try drying the Slicers in quarter slices or halves for a sweet treat during the blahs of winter.)

Long Beans (These Asian beauties are sweet and crunchy and can be used just as you would our green beans. Store in the fridge crisper, and if you want to preserve them for later, can them or freeze them as you would green beans too. Try sautéing them whole with some garlic or shallots, sesame oil and soy sauce—delicious!)

Beets (Sweet & tasty—I hope that you enjoy every bite. For easy peeling, just boil whole root, minus the leaves, for about 10 minutes, drain, rinse and rub the peel right off.)

Potatoes (What can I say about these per

fect staple veggies? I hope you enjoy them in all the ways potatoes can be!)

Recipe: Paul & Dusty’s Killer Shiitake Recipe (Serves 2-4)

1 Tbs. olive oil
2 Tbs. sesame oil
1 Tbs. tamari or soy
sauce
2-3 Tbs. white wine
pinch of black pepper
1 to 2 cloves of crushed
garlic
1 lb. whole, fresh
shiitake
mushrooms

Mix the oils, tamari, wine and spices in a small bowl. Stir vigorously as the ingredients tend to separate. Set aside.

Cut the mushroom stems from the caps. Place gills facing up. Do not slice mushrooms! (The stems can be dried and sued for a soup base or discarded.) Baste the sauce onto the gills of the mushrooms, making sure the gills become saturated with the sauce.

In 350F oven, bake mushrooms uncovered for 30-40 minutes. Or you can barbecue on an open grill. The smoky flavor makes it even better. Serve hot with seafood, rice, pasta, or whatever. Unbelievably good. Yum!

(Recipe courtesy of Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, 2000.)


Recipe: Scott & Alinde Moore’s Cheese-Mushroom Quiche (Serves 2-4)

1 ready-made pie crust
1 ½ C. grated Swiss cheese
1 Tbs. butter
1 medium onion, chopped
¼ lb. mushrooms, chopped
dash of salt, pepper & thyme
¼ tsp. salt
1 ½ C. milk
¼ tsp. dry mustard
4 eggs
3 Tbs. flour
paprika

Cover the bottom of the pie crust with grated Swiss cheese. Meanwhile, sauté butter, onions, mushrooms, salt, pepper, and thyme. Add the sautéed ingredients to the pie crust. Beat together the remaining five ingredients and pour over mushroom layer in piecrust. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 375F for 40-45 minutes, or until center is firm. Enjoy!

(Recipe courtesy of Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, 2000.)



Recipe: Jack Czarnecki’s Chicken with Oyster Mushrooms (Serves 2)

1 ½ C. heavy cream
1 tsp. crushed fresh garlic
1 Tbs. finely chopped onion
½ lb. Oyster mushrooms cut into
2-inch strips
salt & pepper to taste
1 Tbs. cream sherry
1 Tbs. prosciutto
12 oz. cooked chicken or turkey meat
from breast, sliced into 2-inch
strips
½ C. chicken stock
2 Tbs. cornstarch mixed with 1/3 C.
water

Combine all the ingredients except the cornstarch mixture in a heavy skillet. You may also want to save the salting until the dish is slightly heated. Heat until simmering over a medium flame, then continue simmering over a low flame for 5 minutes. Thicken with the cornstarch and water mixture, and adjust for salt as necessary. Enjoy!


( Recipe courtesy of Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, 2000.)


Let us know what your favorite mushroom recipes are by commenting on this week’s newsletter blog entry, or via email. We love to hear from you!

2 comments:

Pixy said...

Hey Farm Folks!
I just want to thank you all for supplying us with such wonderful veggies all year! We have really enjoyed having fresh produce every other week & are learning all about new vegetables because of you fine folks!
We have especially enjoyed the beets lately- I don't know what you do to them to make them so very sweet tasting, but they are the best beets we have ever eaten! I just slice 'em & steam 'em- no salt, pepper or butter required to enjoy them! They are yummy as is!!!

Our congrats to Rob & Skye!
Thanks again-

Betsy & Mike G.

Athens Hills CSA said...

Thanks Besty for the great and simple suggestion for preparing our beets. We have lots of love for them here too--perhaps that is why they are so sweet :). I appreciate your compliments and will definitely pass them along to the rest of the crew. Thanks again!

Claudia