Radish and Cucumber Salad Recipe

This recipe comes from CSA member Elizabeth Audley

Thanks Elizabeth!

Radish and Cucumber Salad, with Yogurt Dressing

1 cup plain yogurt

1 cup finely diced radishes

1 cup finely diced cucumber

1 small garlic clove, minced or mashed into a paste with 1/2 tsp salt

2 tablespoon minced fresh mint or parsley leaves

soft leaf lettuce and or pita bread for serving

Technique: 

In a cheesecloth-lined sieve set over a bowl and let yogurt drain for 2 hours. 

In a bowl stir together the drained yogurt, the radishes, the cucumber, the garlic paste, mint or parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.

Divide the salad among individual salad plates lined with lettuce or serve it as a sandwich filling for the pita bread

Sounds perfect for a hot summer day!

Thanks Elizabeth! I am going to try it tomorrow for lunch!

A Message from Sang Lee Farm

Here is a little message sent to us this week from our faithful farmers Fred and Karen.

There may be a slight change on quantity of some items depending on what the crew is able to harvest in the morning. As you can imagine, with the warmer temperatures, some vegetable items are doing well while others are not crazy for the heat.  Just so you know, we are in the middle of seeding and transplanting a lot of our fall items which include all of our fall cruciferous items, like Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussels sprouts among some of them. These items will not be ready for harvest until after the first part of September or later

One of our main activities in the field has been irrigation the crops. We have been running our irrigation pump approximately 10 to 12 hours per day, every day of the week. Depending on the speed of the diesel power unit onto our fields. Sounds like a lot of water, and I suppose it is, but without the supplemental irrigation water we apply to the crops, there would be no veggies coming from our fields during this time period.

Just a reminder to all the CSA members to wash all the veggies with water before enjoying them. While we wash some of the items to remove most of the field soil from their surfaces, they still need to be thoroughly rinsed to remove all the soil from the leaves. This includes our baby asian greens. Similar to our Mesclun Salad mix of las week, this is our own special blend of Snow pea shoots, Red Mustard, Tatsoi, Mizuna and Arugala. It has a nice flavor that I hope you enjoy.

Happy cooking,

Fred & Karen

Our Farmer's Advice for the Asian Greens

"There are (3) new Asian vegetable items on the list for full shares, and one on the partial shares, that I would like to fill you in on. The first item on the list is Ong Choy. It is a type of Chinese water spinach that we grow in our greenhouse. It can be eaten raw like most veggies in a salad or as it is typically prepared, sautéed in a garlic sauce. That along with the other Asian veggie, U-Choy makes a wonderful stir-fry dish. U-Choy, (the darker Green colored veggie) is a member of the Chinese cabbage family and almost tastes like spinach when cooked in a Wok, but is sweeter and milder in flavor than spinach without the gummy feeling that spinach leaves on your teeth.



Everything, stems and leaves, on both the U-Choy and Ong Choy can be prepared for eating. The only suggestion I have in preparing U-Choy would be to soak it in the sink with water with the leaves pulled away from the center stem. Because it is low growing, it tends to traps some grit close to its base. Peeling the leaves away from the stem and sloshing it under water to release any trapped sand makes enjoying it so much better. Seems like more work, but it is worth the effort as I hope you’ll see. Fresh ginger root, garlic, chopped onions with a dash of soy sauce or salt makes a great side dish to any meal.



A lot of Chinese restaurants will simply blanch or steam U-Choy and serve it on a plate cut up in bite sized pieces with only Oyster sauce or Soy drizzled on the top. The third item is Napa cabbage with the full shares. The most common of the Asian cabbages, it can be prepared anyway or eaten raw too.



Hope you enjoy this week’s harvests,



Be well,



Fred & Karen"

New Ideas for our great GREENS!

If you are feeling overwhelmed with the quantity of leafy greens you have in your fridge, ori if you're interested in finding a tasty new way to consume them, try making green smoothies. I got inspired by reading Victoria Boutenko's "Green for Life", but you don't need this book to get started.

Just wash and toss the following into a large blender with sharp blades and capable of high speeds.

6-8 leaves lettuce (any soft type)

1/4 bunch basil leaves

1/3 ripe avocado

2 stalks celery

1/4 of a red onion or similar amount of scallions if desired

juice of half a lime or lemon

fill to 4/5 or so with water, after adding everything else

Blend at high speed until very smooth

of course you can adjust proportions and ingredients to taste, this is just a common recipe I use. I can drink a class of this stuff several times a day, and find it much easier to consume than a salad-as well as being totally refreshing and energizing.

So experiment and let us know what other combinations you enjoy!

Regards,

Neil Redding

Weekly Recipes!

Happy Fourth of July Weekend!

Here are a few great ideas for using your CSA bounty this week.

Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi and Apple Slaw

a thirst quenching slaw perfect for the hot 4th BBQ.

This will make enough for about 4 people as a side.

Creamy Slaw Dressing:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup cream

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon good mustard

1/2 teaspoon sugar

Salt and Pepper to taste (just a touch)

Fresh chopped mint

Method:

Whisk the cream first until it gets a bit of air into it (about a minute)

Stir in remaining ingredients...viola

Salad:

1 lb fresh Kohlrabi, trimmed, peeled and grated into slaw size

2 apples, peeled, grated into slaw 

(you can also cut the apples into cubes if you would prefer a chunkier slaw)

fold slaw into dressing. AHHH a cool sweet and healthy treat.

Kohlrabi is a great source of vitamin C as well as fiber.

Beet Greens

Don't throw those beet tops out!

Here is a great way to enjoy them.

Ingredients:

1-2 bunch beet greens

1-2 slices of thick cut bacon chopped

1/4 chopped onion (or a white part of a CSA scallion if  you like!)

1 large garlic clove minced

1/4 cup water

1 Tbsp sugar

Pinch of red pepper flakes

1/6 cup of apple cider vinegar

Method:

-wash the green in a large bowl or sink filled with cold water to remove any sand/dirt.

(you may want to do this twice)

-remove heavy stems

-tear leaves into bite size pieces

- In a medium saucepan cook bacon until browned

-add onion or scallion cook until soft or slightly brown

-stir in garlic and cook for a few seconds

-add water to pan and deglaze the pan getting all the good bits up

-stir in sugar and red pepper flake

-cook until this mixture boils

-drop heat and cover to simmer for 15 minutes

-stir in the vinegar

-cook for another 20 minutes or until they look good to you!

Cucumber

Thin Sliced Cucumber Salad

A summer classic! This recipe comes from James Beard award winner Edna Lewis, and it couldn't be more simple and also couldn't be more delicious!

Ingredients:

1 large cucumber

1 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp chopped chervil (or fresh tarragon)

1.8 tsp pepper

Method:

-Slice cucumber as thinly as possible

-put slices into a large bowl (much bigger than seemingly needed)

-sprinkle with salt and mix up a bit

-set a heavy bowl (weighted with cans or what have you) on top of the cucumbers 

this will force the cukes to release their water

-put everything in the fridge

-one hour later take them out and drain all the water away from the cucumbers

-mix the vinegar and sugar together until disolved

-add cukes and sprinkle with chervil

-return to the fridge if needed

if not....enjoy!

tip of the week:

most likely you had some wilted lettuce lurking in your fridge this week.

(lord knows we did)

Here is a great tip to give life to those sad looking leaves

Roast a chicken and line the bottom of the roasting pan with your wilted lettuce leaves.

They will become a great sponge for all those delicious juices pouring out of the bird, and make a great wilted lettuce side dish.

Thats it for this week. If you have any of your own recipes you would like to share, please send them to jillmeerpohl@dumbocsa.org I will be happy to post them.

weekly recipes for our members!

Weekly Recipes for our CSA Members!

Every week I will be updating our blog with delicious recipes and ideas for using our weekly share!

Recipes and ideas come directly from the head chef at Brooklyn's own Roebling Tea Room, Dennis Spina.

Dennis has been the chef there for 2 years and is a resident of Vinegar Hill as well as a member of our CSA!

Please feel free to write any feedback or suggestions you have on the recipes! It's our community cookbook!

For June 17th's delivery:

Sugar Snap Pea Ideas

Here is an easy way to cook these things without worry:

-Clean peas first, cutting off sharp end if desired

-Bring the peas to a bowl, place peas in bowl with a lot of salt

-Bring water to a boil

-Cover the peas with boiling water

-Let stand for 5 minutes

They are ready for use. Ice bath if you like to cool them down

Recipe

Sugar Snap Peas with Proscuitto and Mint

ingredients

-snap peas (8 oz)

-proscuitto (one slice ripped)

-mint (hand full fresh)

-walnut oil (to taste)

-hazelnuts or likely nut (handfull chopped)

-red wine vinegar (to taste)

Mix/Toss and Viola!

Asparagus Ideas

Baked Asparagus with Egg

-Place raw asparagus in a non stick oven ready pan and lay side by side

-salt, pepper 

-crack 2 eggs over them 

-perhaps some capers

-cover with a bit of parmesan

-bake at 350 degrees 20 minutes or until eggs are done but not OVERDONE

-remove from oven

-slide onto a plate

-cover with rosemary dressing (recipe to follow)

Rosemary Dressing:

one bunch rosemary chopped/crushed

minced or smashed garlic

1 chopped scallion

EVOO

salt/pepper

whisk together

I also like green goddess with my asparagus. Making the green goddess is a pain in the pa-tootie so just buy some that you like!

At the Tea Room we served this for brunck with hen of the woods mushrooms and pan fried trout.

Also, add some chopped bacon the mix if you are feeling frisky.

Next is  a menu idea that incorporates a few items from our share this week

Pan Seared Pork Chops with Bok Choy and Charcuterie Sauce

This menus reads start to finish incorporating a few dishes together. Using the flavor from the pork chops to create the sauce for the bok choy gratin for instance. Ingredients are listed first.

Read the entire process before beginning to cook the recipe.

Ingredients:

-double cut pork chops (one per person)

-baby bok choy (1/2 per person)

- one clove garlic

-1/2 minced shallot

- 1/2 cup chopped cornichon

-1 palm full capers

-splash of cream (1/4 cup at most)

Recipe

-pre heat oven to 350

-salt and pepper chops

-cook pork chops 6 min per side in pan on stove (med/high heat)....make em' crispy but not charred

-put in the oven for 10-15 minutes

-remove and set to rest

For the bok choy:

-take the pan you cooked the pork chops in and put it back on the stove

-med/high heat

-add half head of bok choy per chop

-add garlic, shallot, cornichons, capers

-cook bok choy until tender not limp

-pepper 

-careful to salt, capers pack a salty punch.

pile on top of chops....Viola

I hope you enjoy and get a chance to let me know if you try any of these and how it worked out!

Hello

 Dumbo/Vinegar Hill 

CSA!

Our trip to Sang Lee Farms is rapidly approaching!

This is a wonderful opportunity for members, families and friends to get a first hand look at exactly where our weekly fresh produce will be born 

and raised.

Our Farmers Fred and Karen Lee are going to be taking us on a tour of the farm and g

reen houses followed by a little Q&A. 

Their farm stand will also be open to us. They offer fresh fruit drinks, salad items (as in prepared, washed and ready to eat), roasted beets, locally baked cookies, granola, locally produced dairy and goat cheeses as well as breads.

On top of that Sang Lee's dressings, pickled items and delicious dips will be on h

and. Perfect set up for an afternoon lunch!

The farm has a lovely tree shaded area opposite the stand that lends itself as the perfect picnic spot.

What a lovely way to sample the bounty we have to look forward to e

ach week!!

The trip will take aproximately 2 hours with weekend traffic. Our scheduled visit is from 2-4 PM, so plan on taking off around 11:30 am or so.

Directions to the farm are listed on the Sang Lee website here:

www.sangleefarms.com/directions.htm

I will be attempting to organize carpooling for members. If you are able to offer a ride or are in need of one, please email me at jillmeerpohl@dumbocsa.com

The weather looks decent this weekend and fingers crossed, the following will be mo

re of the same! 

Fred and Karen have advised us that it tends to be a bit cooler out at the farm than the city, and have suggested we dress expecting this.

The area offers lovely scenery and a

 good amount of local vineyards that are just minutes away.

Here are a few links:

www.peconicbaywinery.com/

www.pindar.net/

www.lenzwine.com/Home.htm

www.osperysdonminion.com

Here is also a site that has a great list of nature preserves, parks and trails in the general area:

www.northfork.org/rec-beachpark.html

The Inlet Pond County Park is where the North Fork Audubon Society meets. They have trails open daily from dawn to dusk.

All in all we expect our visit to be a great day for us all to get to know both our farm and our CSA community!

Please feel free to contact me with any questions suggestions, or ideas.

jillmeerpohl@dumbocsa.com