Enchiladas and Strawberries: Summer CSA week 3

Cucumbers and vinegarIt’s really starting to feel like summer, right? (I’m trying to think positive here.) It could be warmer...and sunnier, but at least we have great weather on tap for this weekend. The crops in our greenhouses (high tunnels technically) and the other farmers’ greenhouses are really coming along despite the mediocre sunshine and warmth. We are pretty excited to have strawberries and early tomatoes this week from Wood’s Market Garden. Early cucumbers will also be in the share from our own Screamin’ Ridge Farm.

This week we have an “enchilada share” with the last of our enchilada sauce until the new batch of tomatillos comes in. You’ll also get vegan refried-style pinto beans made with beans from Butterworks Farm and our own roasted chilies. The beans and enchilada sauce make a great dinner with some corn tortillas and a really nice “Queso Fresco”. This week we have just such a cheese from Kim and her herd at Willow Moon Farm in Plainfield.

CSA Contents

Here is what you can expect in your boxes:

*Bread from Red Hen Baking Company

*Fresh cheese from Willow Moon Farm

*Eggs from Gaylord Farm

Refried-Style Beans from Joe’s Spreads (Ingredients: Pinto Beans, Water, Onion, Garlic, Anaheim Chili, Chili Powder, Salt, Cumin, Lime)

Enchilada Sauce from Joe’s Sauces (Ingredients: Tomatillo, Onion, Garlic, Chili Pepper, Cumin, Chili Powder, Tomato, Lime, Salt, Cilantro, Olive Oil)

Strawberries from Wood’s Market Garden

Tomatoes from Wood’s Market Garden: These are an early greenhouse tomato. We are going to be putting a pound in each share. Some of the tomatoes are very large, great for slicing and tomato sandwiches.

Cucumbers from Screamin’ Ridge Farm (that’s us): early season high tunnel-grown Cucino cukes. They are a smooth skinned variety and quite tasty.

Salad Mix from Kingsbury Market Garden

Cilantro from Screamin’ Ridge Farm

Subs

Bread—Maple Vinaigrette from Joe’s Sauces or Asparagus

Eggs—Tofu from Vermont Soy or BBQ Tempeh from Rhapsody Natural Foods

Cheese—Salad from Screamin’ Ridge Farm or Black Bean Burgers from Vermont Bean Crafters

Meal Prep Suggestions

Enchiladas

Enchiladas are really quick and easy to put together, but, when you pull the pan from the oven and bring it to the table all hot, fragrant, and rich, they seem like they must have been a lot of effort.

Here is a link to some pretty detailed instructions we posted last Fall about how to assemble enchiladas. You might want to check it out if you have never made them before.

You’ll need to purchase your favorite corn tortillas to make the enchiladas. Heat them in a lightly oiled pan, just until they are hot (they’ll start to puff up a little bit). Spread a thin layer of enchilada sauce in a lightly oiled rectangular baking dish. Roll the corn tortillas around your filling and place them in the pan with the overlapped ends facing down. For filling, try refried beans and rice, or meat/tofu/tempeh cooked with chili seasoning. When the pan is full, spread generously with enchilada sauce and bake until hot. Sprinkle with cheese for the last few minutes and let the enchiladas sit for about 10 min before serving.

Serve with a sprinkle of fresh chopped cilantro and sour cream.

Refried-style beans

True refried beans are boiled until tender and then “refried” in lard until they fall apart completely. Our beans are NOT made this way. We started with pinto beans from Butterworks Farm, boiled them with sautéed onion and roasted chili peppers (from Blackwell Roots and Screamin’ Ridge Farms, respectively). Seasoned with salt, garlic, chili powder, and cumin, and crushed to get that refried consistency.

They are vegan, low fat, and delicious. We’ve made bean-lovers from avowed bean-avoiders with these beans. We hope you like them too. Here are a few things you can do with them (besides enchiladas):

Bean and Rice Tacos: This is a main stay at our house—the default meal that we throw together when unexpected guests turn up or everyone is hungry and we haven’t really “planned” dinner. Just heat up corn tortillas and fill with steamed rice, hot beans, some grated cheese and/or sour cream, hot sauce (i.e., from Butterfly Bakery or Cholula from the supermarket) or salsa.

Bean dip: Warm the beans to room temperature or a little warmer and serve as a dip with corn chips.  You can add salsa, sour cream, avocado, chopped onion or all of the above to the beans if you want. Or you can put them out in separate bowls for double and triple chip-dipping.

Nachos: (best after school snack ever. Why? Because kids 8-9+ years old can make it themselves!) Spread corn chips on a cookie sheet (use parchment paper to make cleanup super-easy). Sprinkle liberally with grated cheese and broil until the cheese is melted. Pull the nachos from the oven and drop spoonfuls of warmed-up beans, salsa and sour cream on top.

Bean Breakfast Tacos: We lived in Austin TX for a while. Breakfast Tacos are very popular there. At the biotech company where I worked, a few different Taco trucks would come by the parking lot every morning and half the building would queue up for breakfast. I didn’t indulge very often, but when I did, I usually got a bean-containing taco or two. Here are some of the combinations the taco trucks had wrapped up and ready to go, variations on these themes encouraged:

• Scrambled eggs, beans, sautéed onion
• Beans, sautéed onion, pan-fried potato
• Bean, scrambled egg, cheese

Cucumbers and Vinegar

Our favorite way to eat cucumbers comes from Joe’s Gram Greenwood in East Randolph VT.  Peel and slice cucumbers. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with salt and cider vinegar. (that was quick, wasn’t it?)

We prefer to use rice wine vinegar. But this summer we want to explore how cucumbers taste with some of the local cider vinegars. If you have some fancy vinegar in your cabinet that you’re not sure what to do with, this is an idea.

Summer CSA Share #2 on Thursday June 13

Baby cucumbers a week agoWe ate the first cucumber today. It tasted like summer even though it was overcast and kind of chilly outside. We don’t have enough cucumbers to share with the CSA yet, but we do have an early summer treat for you this week—asparagus! We also have some sweet tender young carrots.

Here is what you can expect this Thursday, June 13:

(Next time, expect an enchilada share with our own tomatillo-based enchilada sauce and delicious savory refried-style local pinto beans.)

Local Products

*Pizazz pizza shell from Red Hen Baking Company

*Eggs from Gaylord Farm

*Spinach & Goat Cheese Spread from Joe’s Soups

Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce from Joe’s Soups

Herb Pizza Spread from Joe’s Soups—herbs, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon, chili pepper

Local Vegetables

Salad mix from Screamin’ Ridge Farm

Asparagus from Screamin’ Ridge Farm

Carrots from Kingsbury Market Garden

Basil from Kingsbury Market Garden

Substitutions

Instead of Pizazz—get Maple Vinaigrette or Maple Chipotle BBQ Sauce from Joe’s Soups

Trade the Eggs—for Tofu from Vermont Soy or Black Bean Burgers from Vermont Bean Crafters

Swap out the Spinach & Goat Cheese Spread—for extra salad from Screamin’ Ridge Farm or extra carrots from Kingsbury Market Garden

Meal Prep Ideas

Pizazz

Here are some quick instructions for baking Pizzaz pizza from Red Hen Baking Company: For best results, pre-heat oven to 400, throw on your favorite toppings and bake for 5-8 min or until the cheese is melted.  Then finish with a few minutes under the broiler—just enough to brown the cheese.  It’s actually best not to

use a pizza stone because we have already baked it on a hearth and further hearth baking will make it too crispy.  You’re really just trying to heat the toppings when you make pizza with pizzaz, so minimizing heating from the bottom will produce better results.

Here are a few ideas for pizza that you can make with your CSA share contents:

Roasted Tomato Sauce, small dollops of Spinach & Goat Cheese Spread, fresh basil

Herb Pizza Spread, small dollops of Spinach & Goat Cheese Spread, fresh basil

Herb Pizza Spread, small dollops of Spinach & Goat Cheese Spread, very thinly sliced asparagus on top (roast it under the broiler)

Spinach & Goat Cheese Spread

Joe mixed our own spinach with goat cheese from Vermont Butter and Cheese to prepare this fresh, flavorful spread. It will be great on the pizza and/or as a spread on some of the other amazing artisanal bread available here in Central Vermont (have you ever had the Polenta Bread from Patchwork Bakery?). The Spinach & Goat Cheese Spread would also be a really nice omelet filling.

Salad mix

From right here at Screamin’ Ridge Farm, this is a mix of our first sweet lettuces of the summer. It is triple washed and spun dry to increase shelf life in you refrigerator.

Salad/Goat Cheese Wrap—A quick and delicious lunch—Heat a flour tortilla or “wrap” on the stove: either in a dry pan (no oil)

or just throw it onto the burner grate if you have a gas stove. When the tortilla is hot, spread some of the Spinach & Goat Cheese onto it, and add a big handful of salad mix, wrap and enjoy. You can also drizzle some Maple Vinaigrette from last week’s share before you close it up.

Asparagus

Asparagus from Screamin’ Ridge Farm—Our favorite way to eat asparagus is grilled. Lightly toss washed and trimmed asparagus with a tiny bit of olive oil, kosher salt, pepper and grill just until tender. Here are a few other ideas:

• A classic preparation method is to simply steam the asparagus and serve with butter and a touch of lemon.
• You might also want to slice a couple of spears very fine and let them roast on top of your pizza.
• Finally you can try steaming them and then plunging them into an ice bath. Serve them chilled drizzled with vinaigrette or chopped and tossed into a salad.

Carrots

Yum! Early, tender and sweet carrots from Kingsbury Market Garden. You may not have thought of this, but, these can be grilled and they sure are tasty that way. Split them in half (no need to peel they are tender), then season with a bit of salt, pepper, and olive oil. Grill them until soft on the low heat/flame side of your grill.

Of course they’re also delicious grated into a salad or simply gobbled up as a raw sie dish.

Basil on May 8

Basil

This first-of-the-season basil also comes from Kingsbury Market Garden. Enjoy it on the pizza, it adds such a fresh, gourmet touch. Don’t cook it, just chop the leaves and sprinkle them on the pizza just as you pull it out of the oven.

Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce

from Joes’ Sauces/Screamin’ Ridge Farm—this is a super-rich red sauce made from roasting last season’s tomatoes. Just as the tomatoes in our unheated hoop houses are setting their first fruit, we had just enough from last season to make a 25 gallon batch for everyone. This summer’s tomatoes are looking great, but it will be a little while before ours are ready. We’re planning to get some early tomatoes from another local farmer in a few weeks (fingers crossed!)

Herb Pizza Spread

from Joe’s Spreads/Screamin’ Ridge Farm—Joe dreamed up this spread is just for the Pizzaz. It contains herbs, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon, chili pepper. It’s a vegan spread that can be used just like pesto. On the pizza, on toasted or grilled bread slices, or tossed with pasta and some red sauce.

First CSA share of the Summer season coming up on Thursday, June 6

Hello summer CSA members

Thanks again for joining—we look forward to bringing you the best local food Vermont has to offer. By now you should have received a couple of emails from us. Please get in touch if you haven’t!

If you haven’t signed up, but want to, it’s never too late to join! 

We use an online software system to manage the CSA—so it’s easy to sign up after the CSA starts, the cost is tied to the number of shares remaining in the season.

Vegetable production in central Vermont is still ramping up, there is a lot of food in the ground, but the lion’s share needs to stay in the ground for at least a few more weeks. So, our first share of the summer season will kick off with some super high quality line-caught wild Alaskan sockeye salmon. How is Alaskan salmon local? Good question. This salmon was caught by a fisherman from the Mad River Valley who spends part of each year in Alaska; check out his website if you’re curious.

Week #1 CSA Share Contents

Local Products

*Alaskan Salmon from Starbird Fish

*Bread from Red Hen Baking Company

*Eggs from Gaylord Farm and Rockville Market Farm

Maple Chipotle BBQ sauce from Joe’s Soups

Maple Vinaigrette from Joe’s Soups

Local Vegetables

Salad mix from Kingsbury Market Garden

Spinach from Burnt Rock Farm

Radishes from Screamin’ Ridge Farm

Substitutions

No Salmon—Tempeh from Rhapsody Natural Foods or Ground chuck (beef) from Templeton Farm

No Bread—Extra spinach from Screamin’ Ridge Farm (the other sub we had planned is not ready for harvest yet. We’ll try to find another choice for you in the next day or two.)

No Eggs—Roast-Vegetable Broth or Refried Beans from Joe’s Soups

Meal Prep Ideas

Salmon

Honestly, with salmon, the easiest way to prepare is also the most flavorful. Just brush it with a little bit of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook it on the grill. Preheat the grill, then place the salmon on the grate and close the lid. You’ll need to flip it about half way through. The cooking time will depend on your grill temperature and the thickness of the salmon, but it should be in the 10-15 min range.

Squeeze a little lemon juice onto the fish as you serve it. For a more interesting dish, spread Maple Chipotle BBQ sauce sparingly onto the salmon just after you flip the fish and continue grilling until done. Start with just a little bit of BBQ sauce, you can always add more at the table.

Maple Chipotle BBQ Sauce and Maple Vinaigrette

The Maple Chipotle BBQ sauce is awesome tossed on freshly grilled vegetables just before you serve them. It really brings the flavor of the vegetables out, while also adding an extra little zing. We will offer this sauce all summer in our online store and at least one more time in summer CSA shares.

The Maple Vinaigrette is loaded with fresh spring herbs, cider vinegar, and Dijon mustard. It was originally developed as a salad (or spinach) dressing, but it turns out that it also makes a great dip and marinade for meats, tofu, and tempeh. Maple vinaigrette will also be available in our online store all summer.

Spinach Frittata

We love eggs. Spinach frittata is a simple, delicious dish for a light dinner (with a salad) or a warm lunch. To make it, sauté the spinach with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper in an oven-safe skillet (e.g., an iron skillet). When it’s cooked, add a few drops of lemon juice and mix well. In a bowl, whisk 4–5 eggs and season with salt and pepper. Then pour the eggs over the cooked spinach and bake in a pre-heated oven at 375. Once the center is almost firm, sprinkle some grated parmesan or cheddar cheese on top. Let it melt, pull from the oven and let rest about 5 minutes. Slice the frittata and serve with a piece of toasted bread that has been drizzled with olive oil.

Radishes

We usually wash radishes by rubbing them briskly with hands or gently with a brush under cold running water. Then we store them in the refrigerator in a bowl of water.

When we’re feeling decadent, we eat them the French way, cut in half, spread with room temperature butter and sprinkled with salt. When our pants are feeling a little tight we typically just eat them out of the bowl, slice them into a salad, or make a pita sandwich with radishes and a mild cheese.

We’re Almost Ready for the Summer CSA—Are you?

Stock Some Essentials for the Summer CSA

Tomatoes and Peppers and a lot of string

First CSA pickup of the summer is coming up next Thursday, June 6! Needless to say, it’s been pretty busy on the farm and in the farm office getting ready for the season. But we’re pretty excited about it and, if you’re joining us, we hope you are too.

Each week, we’ll post a preview of what you can expect in your CSA box for the next week. We’ll also give you some ideas for how to prepare the items in your box. Joe was a restaurant chef for many years. He trained in France, then worked in New York, San Francisco, San Diego, Austin TX, and finally at New England Culinary Institute as a chef-instructor. But don’t worry, we’ll be posting simple ways to prepare your CSA contents—not complicated recipes. There are a few key ingredients that we’ll be recommending over and over. If you think you will want to try some of Joe’s cooking suggestions, you might want to make sure that you have the following in your cupboard:

• Rice wine vinegar
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Dijon mustard
• White wine (for cooking—inexpensive, but not too sweet)
• Lemons
• Chili powder
• Hot sauce (e.g., Cholula)

We'll be at the next 2 Capital City Farmers Markets

Screamin' Ridge Farm at the Capital City Market

We'll be at 2 more markets, then we're calling it quits for the summer.

If you're at market, stop by and say hello!

Whoop whoop!

We were honored with a grant from the Vermont Working Lands Enterprise Fund yesterday!

Read the press release here.

There were a lot of photos happening...but I can't find any. More on that later hopefully.

Thank you Vermont. We plan to use this grant money to streamline packaging of Joe's Soups products and get some help with design. The idea is to sell more soup, which will mean purchasing more local agricultural products and creating more Vermont jobs. Yay!