lettuce

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 8

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Today was the first pickup we’ve had in the thunderstorm. Thank goodness for a storage shed nearby that we could use as a pickup location!

Here’s what we received this week:

  • Fennel – The licorice taste of fennel is great in a salad. I like to thinly shave it and toss with some lettuce, parsley, bell pepper, radishes, lemon juice, and olive oil. You can also braise it with stock and white wine, but I prefer it fresh.
  • Cabbage – Homemade sauerkraut.
  • Basil and tomatoes – Caprese sounds pretty good in this hot weather.
  • Cucumbers – I already ate one with some salt tonight. I’m going to eat at least another one of these that way, too. One of my favorite snacks. The other two I’ll probably make into dill pickles.
  • Eggplant, pepper, onion, zucchini, and cilantro – I want to make a maqluba, a middle eastern chicken and rice dish. Dinner in an Instant has an Instant Pot version I’ve been wanting to try.
  • Lettuce, greens, and tomatoes – As always, salads! I’ll spice it up this week with the fennel above.

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 7

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This week is a quintessential summer vegetable share. Eggplant and yellow squash are finally here and tomatoes are a bit early this year!

What we received in this week’s share:

  • Lettuce, carrots, cucumber, scallions, tomato – Lunch salads!
  • Cabbage – I’ll combine this with last week’s cabbage and start some homemade sauerkraut.
  • Squash, Japanese eggplant, basil, and garlic scapes – I added this to a pasta dish tonight with chicken sausage and the spinach from last week. I let the flavors shine with olive oil and fresh grated pecorino instead of a tomato sauce. We’ve been using a red lentil pasta from Trader Joe’s to cut down on carbs.
  • Italian Eggplant, peppers, and garlic scapes – I love charring the skin of the eggplant and then roasting the eggplant whole along with a hot pepper, an onion, and some garlic (scapes will do!). Purée everything in the food processor with some fresh oregano and eat it with pita chips or tortilla chips.
    • I’m also thinking seriously about trying this za’atar eggplant fries recipe with a lemon tahini dipping sauce.
    • Eggplant is also great sliced and roasted or grilled. Combined with the squash it could make a nice ratatouille.
  • Kale – Just like the past few weeks, I’ll make a frittata with the kale and some sausage. I also toss in any leftover garlic scapes.
  • Carrots and squash – Both are great for roasting for a quick side dish. Cut the carrots into quarters along their length and the squash into 1-inch thick discs along their width. Roast for 20 minutes at 400F with olive oil and your spices of choice. I like garlic powder or paprika for the squash and cumin for the carrots.

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 6

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I hope you have a great Independence Day celebration! We’re having friends over to watch fireworks on the Hudson River and having burgers, hotdogs, Old Bay corn salad, guacamole, pasta salad, cupcakes, grilled peaches with creme fraîche, and margaritas. Here is my margarita recipe:

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On to the regularly scheduled vegetable program. What we received this week:

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  • Red leaf lettuce, salad mix, scallions, cucumbers, broccoli – Salads! While broccoli is a good dinner side, we love it raw in salads.
  • Carrots – One of our favorite things to do with carrots with beautiful tops like this is roast them, make a pesto with the tops, and serve it all with burrata. Since we don’t have burrata on-hand right now, we’ll probably eat these as snacks by themselves or chop them up in salads. We’re using the tops as a July 4 table centerpiece.
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  • Chinese cabbage and cilantro – A few weeks ago I made a Vietnamese pork and rice noodles dish with a bunch of herbs I had. It would also be good with a crunchy cabbage and nuoc cham slaw, so I’m going to make it again this week. The dish is served cold, so it will be really god for this hot weather.
  • Zucchini – Normally we like to make zucchini noodles with pasta sauce, but that usually takes two zucchini. This week I think we’ll just cut this one into half moons and roast it at 350F for 20 minutes with salt, pepper, and paprika.
  • Garlic Scapes and Kale – The frittata we made with the kale last week was really convenient for breakfast, so I’m going to make another one. I have some italian sausage and onions, which will pair well with some of the garlic scapes and kale.
  • Cabbage – I’m going to save this cabbage and combine it with a future cabbage and make some homemade sauerkraut.

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 5

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We are reaching the end of the early vegetables: Spinach, bok choi, arugula, garlic scapes, turnips, etc. Summer vegetables are starting to come in: Broccoli, cucumbers, squash, carrots, beans, kale, beets, etc.

We’re visiting the farm this weekend for a picnic. We’re excited to see where our food grows and meet the farmer and his apprentices! We might also go help pick garlic there on July 4.

What we received in our share this week:

  • Lettuce, Scallions, and Cilantro: I’ll add these to taco salads for lunch this week. I’ll probably use the cilantro for guacamole, too.
  • Beets: I’ll roast them and serve them with lentils, feta, and aioli.
  • Broccoli: Just a simple steaming or roasting with garlic, served as a side for pork tenderloin or steak.
  • Cucumber, Garlic Scapes, Chinese Cabbage, and Scallions: I’ll probably make some light kimchi and serve it with bulgogi and rice. It is also timely for upcoming Independence Day because kimchi on hotdogs is amazing.
  • Kale: Tossing it in a frittata with sausage this weekend.
  • Spinach: We still have quite a bit of spinach right now, so I’ll either make this into creamed spinach or freeze it so I can cream it later.

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 4

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What we received in our share this week:

  • Spinach, lettuce, scallions, and cucumber – Lunch salads! You’ll probably read that all summer long.
  • Bibb lettuce – We didn’t chop this for salads. We’re keeping it whole and using the leaves for taco wrappers.
  • Basil – I used this tonight in round two of the Vietnamese pork and cold rice noodles dish. I made enough for two meals and needed another set of fresh herbs to chop up and throw in there.
  • Bok Choi – I’m going to stir fry it with quinoa and chicken.
  • Turnips and kohlrabi – Earlier this week I pickled turnips and kohlrabi. It turned out great. This week I’ll chop them up into roughly finger-sized sticks and roast them with olive oil and minced garlic.
  • Garlic Scapes – I’ll chop up some of the garlic scapes and use them in salads. The rest we’ll throw in a frittata with spinach and sausage on Saturday for breakfast.

How we prep greens for salad

Here’s what we do every Tuesday night to make our week easier:

  1. Wash all of the greens in a bowl in the sink, a batch at a time. If it is a head of lettuce, we separate the leaves from the head.
  2. Chop the big greens, leave the small ones like spinach and arugula alone.
  3. Spin the greens dry in a small salad spinner we picked up a few years ago.
  4. Store the greens in gallon-sized ziplock bags that we leave unzipped. We put these bags in the drawers at the bottom of our fridge.

Everything usually keeps for about a week, but we prioritize eating the chopped greens first, since they wilt faster. Prepping the greens ahead of time makes putting together lunch salads a breeze.

See you next week!

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 3

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We love CSA season because it saves us from ourselves. If we had to choose each week to buy these vegetables, we probably wouldn’t. We’d probably eat sandwiches or pizza in their place. Since we made the healthy choice once and it lasts for the rest of the summer, we get a lot more veggies in our diet. We hate wasting food, so we get creative and we persevere through those nights when we are tired and don’t want to cook. CSAs are a good thing.

What we received this week

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Here’s what we’re doing with it:

  • Garlic Scapes and Spinach – I made a pesto with the garlic scapes, a handful of spinach, juice from one lemon, two tablespoons of pine nuts, and 1/4 cup of freshly grated parmesan. We ate it tonight with red lentil pasta, cherry tomatos, and skirt steak. (If you are looking for other things to do with garlic scapes, I wrote a post about them last year!)
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  • Arugula, lettuce, cucumber, scallions, and the rest of the Spinach – Salads for lunch!
  • Turnips – We love this Turnips in Mustard Sauce recipe from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. That is definitely how we’ll use these gorgeous turnips this week.
  • Kohlrabi – Last week I peeled the kohlrabi and cut it into thin slices and tossed it into a stir fry with chicken, carrots, baby corn, bell peppers, broccoli, bok choi, chicken, and rice noodles. I’ll either do something similar this week or dice it up and throw it in a breakfast skillet with potatoes, bacon, bell peppers, and onions.

Our salad template

Since we’ve been getting a lot of greens that we’ve been using for salads, here is our salad template:

  • Greens – Spinach, arugula, green/red leaf lettuce, tatsoi, etc)
  • Protein – This is mostly dinner leftovers, but some weeks I’ll cook some chicken or flank steak and slice it thinly and we keep it in a container just for salads. On busy weeks like this one, I’ll pick up a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and shred it when I get home, then we’ll use that for the protein.
  • Vegetables – We use whatever we have on-hand. This is usually scallions, bell peppers, radishes, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers. Amanda and I usually dice a bunch up on Tuesday nights and keep them in the fridge so we can throw salads together quickly. Occasionally we include green beans, snap peas, carrots, zucchini, squash, etc. I’m not kidding when I say it is whatever we have. Salads are an excuse to eat vegetables for lunch instead of burgers.
  • Cheese – We love cheese and always have some type of it around. As long it is hard enough to grate, it goes on salads.
  • Dressing – Here are a few dressings we love:
    • Lemon juice, olive oil, and black pepper – This is a regular for us. We squeeze half a lemon on some greens, drizzle some nice olive oil on top, give it a few cranks with your black pepper mill, and mix it all up. We’ve been using this Frankies 457 olive oil. We found a great deal on it locally.
    • Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, and black pepper. For two people, we do 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 table spoons of balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and a few cranks of black pepper. We often mix it together right in the bowl with the salad greens and toss everything to coat. It is worth using some quality balsamic since it is the backbone of the dressing. We’ve been using this 18 year from The Olive Scene.
    • Creamy oil-roasted garlic dressing
    • Not a dressing, but this is our favorite seasoning for salads: Sunny Paris from Penzeys.

 

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 2

Chuck Grimmett1 Comment

Week two came just in time! We finished our greens from last week’s share with today’s salad lunch.

Here’s what we’re doing with this week’s share:

  • Lettuce, spinach, radishes, and scallions – These will make up the bulk of the ingredients for our lunch salads this week. I’ll cook some chicken or flank steak for the protein and add cheese, bell peppers, and some light dressing.
  • Kale and Basil – I used both of these in tonight’s dinner. I made pasta with pancetta, sausage, garlic, olive oil, black pepper, Parmesan, kale, and basil. I also made enough for us to have for lunch tomorrow. (We’ve been using chickpea-based and lentil-based pastas for the last few months to cut down on carbs.)
  • Turnips – I usually enjoy small, early turnips like these by halving them and roasting them with grapeseed oil for 20 minutes at 400F, usually with other root veggies. This week, though, the CSA newsletter included a recipe for a Turnip Puff. It intrigued me, so I’ll probably make it this week. Perhaps with ribeyes.
  • Bok Choi and Kohlrabi – I have two possibilities for these and I’m not sure which one I’ll pick.
    • 1. Stir fry. I’d shred the kohlrabi and rough chop the bok choi, add a protein, ginger, soy sauce, and serve it all over rice.
    • 2. This bok choi and kohlrabi pizza. My mandolin would make quick work of slicing the kohlrabi, we have enough bok choi for the pesto and the toppings, and we love making pizza on our baking steel. We have dinner plans with people multiple nights this week, so this would make a weekend lunch.
    • Alternatively, the kohlrabi would make a great addition to the roasted turnips if you peel it and dice it in one-inch chunks. The bok choi I made last week was great, or you could add it as another salad green as long as it isn’t more than 1/3 of the total greens. It is a little bitter and stands out in a salad. Keep it minimal.

Sisters Hill Farm 2018 CSA: Week 1

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After a cold spring, the weather finally turned and it is finally fresh vegetable season again!

I switched CSAs this year. The Groundwork Hudson Valley lost some of its funding, so many projects like the farm market and CSA got cut. We loved Peace and Carrots farm, but they aren’t delivering down to Yonkers anymore without the support of Groundwork. I searched for another CSA that delivers nearby and I found the Sisters Hill Farm, sponsored by the Sisters of Charity New York. We pick up every Tuesday at Mount Saint Vincent College in the Bronx. There are still spots if you’d like to join!

Here’s what I plan to do with this week’s share:

Salad dressings

Since most of this week is dedicated to salad, here are a few dressings we love:

  1. Lemon juice, olive oil, and black pepper – This is a regular for us. We squeeze half a lemon on some greens, drizzle some nice olive oil on top, give it a few cranks with your black pepper mill, and mix it all up. We’ve been using this Frankies 457 olive oil. We found a great deal on it locally.
  2. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, and black pepper. For two people, we do 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 table spoons of balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and a few cranks of black pepper. We often mix it together right in the bowl with the salad greens and toss everything to coat. It is worth using some quality balsamic since it is the backbone of the dressing. We’ve been using this 18 year from The Olive Scene.
  3. Creamy oil-roasted garlic dressing
  4. Not a dressing, but this is our favorite seasoning for salads: Sunny Paris from Penzeys.

See you next week!

What I’m Doing With My CSA Shares: Weeks 12 and 13

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Week 12

  • Heirloom tomatoes: We sliced these up for caprese salad with mozzarella and basil.
  • Regular tomatoes: We combined some of these with tomatoes from previous weeks and canned them for winter.
  • Green peppers: We ate these in breakfast skillets.
  • Jalapeños: We cut these up to put in cauliflower fried rice.
  • Green tiger tomatoes: We put these in the corn, tomato, basil and Old Bay salad.
  • Cherry tomatoes and lettuce: Salad!
  • Garlic: We saved this for later in the year.

Week 13

  • Bok Choy: I’ll saute this with some garlic as a side dish or include it in my next stir fry.
  • Shishito peppers: I’ll roast these and eat them with salt!
  • Parsley: I’ll probably roast some potatoes and toss them with parsley and butter.
  • Green Peppers: I put most of these in a tomatillo albondigas soup. Post coming soon. We’ll cut up and freeze the rest.
  • Jalapenos: I put most of these in a tomatillo albondigas soup. Post coming soon.
  • Green tiger tomatoes: I put these into a soup with lentils and eggplant.
  • Regular tomatoes: I put these into a soup with lentils and eggplant.
  • Watermelon: We’ll cut it up and savor the end of summer.

What I’m Doing With My CSA Shares: Week 7

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Here’s how I’m using this week’s share:

  • Green curly lettuce – We’ll turn this into salad.
  • Napa cabbage – I’ll probably combine this with the carrots, some chicken, cilantro, jalapeños, scallions, and some fresh mint to make a Goi Ga – a Vietnamese chicken salad.
  • Swiss Chard – I’ll combine this with some Lacinato kale from our garden and sauté it with some garlic, onions, and bacon to make a dinner side dish.
  • Carrots – See above.
  • Green beans – We’ll probably blanch these and sauté them in ghee with garlic, salt, and pepper.
  • Jalapeños – See above.
  • Zucchini – We’ll probably roast these. Half of last week’s ended up on beef kabobs for a picnic and the other half got roasted.
  • Cucumbers – These will probably be snacks, though I might make a spicy and vinegary cucumber salad for a dinner side.
  • Green peppers – These will end up in salads, most likely.