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Monday July 18, 2011
Greetings Purchase CSA Members,
As I write to you, I hear the crew racing to the barn to seek some cover while thunder booms above. I have turned the computer on and off several times already - so we will see how long I last this time! This week Jeannine has written a piece about her visit to her home state of Iowa. I hope that you enjoy reading her words and we both welcome your feedback and thoughts about the questions she poses.
This week in your share, you will most likely receive:
Lettuce, Chives, Cucumbers, Sugar Snap Peas, Radishes, Summer Squash, Braising Greens,
and Sweet Onions
Have a great week - Justine
Devoted and hard-working crewmember Jeannine Laverty takes a busman’s holiday.
Back home in Iowa for a national conference of liberal Quakers, I signed up for a field trip to an organic farm. In my view, no one farms smarter than Brian and Justine, so I’m a little closed-minded, but after only 3 days away, I was homesick for the crew and the crops and the camaraderie at the Denisons. I also wanted to feel the hope of seeing organic vegetables thriving among the Iowa seas of corn/beans/corn/beans/corn/beans.
The young farmer at Grinnell Heritage Farm is the 5th generation of his family on that piece of soil. Andy Dunham didn’t even grow up there, but preceding the 2000 Gore-Bush election he made a heads-or-tails decision: Gore wins I go to vet school; Bush wins I go to the Peace Corps. In Africa learning from the Tanzanians how to grow a garden without chemical fertilizers, he made his next choice: he’d come back to the family farm, keep it from being sold for “development”--think Global Foundries coming to Malta—and grow organic vegetables.
Eleven years later he has a wife, a 2-yr-old, 11 acres of vegetables, and 200 CSA members. I wish for him: next year, 300. Let him be up to Denison size before Sophie’s in Kindergarten!
But then I see my dream is too timid. Excavation and piles of gravel line the lane to the packing shed. “I’m building a turn-around for semis.” (Iowa-speak for what we Northeasterners call tractor-trailers.) Besides, he mentions, he has “pending wholesale contracts,” which would require easy access for the big rigs. Uh-oh, I thought, is he going to become dependent on selling to Whole Foods when they open in West Des Moines, who may or may not stick by him, and will certainly tell him what to grow?
We see a concrete slab on which the new, bigger packing shed will be built. He tells us he’ll be expanding to 25 acres—more than doubling his acreage under cultivation in ONE year. I swallow. He’ll have to have a lot more workers or a lot more machines, probably both. “It’s the only way the bank would give me the loan,” he finishes. “I could eventually have 40 of these 80 acres in row crops.”
Twenty-five acres…. PENDING contracts!!
In Iowa, a 1,000-acre farm is SMALL. I should be glad Dunham found a bank willing to lend to him. But the voice of Ezra Taft Benson, Secretary of Agriculture after World War II, booms in my head. The U.S. solution to food-security concerns then was “Get Big or Get Out.” In Iowa, it still is.
When it comes to food-security slogans, I much prefer “Buy Local” and “No New York Farms, No New York Food.” It’s never been easy to be a farmer, and I may be an Ol’ Nervous Nellie. But I wonder, will he still be farming in 2020? What do you think? What do you see for small organic farms in 2020?
Pasta with Spring Braising Greens
(topped with a Farm Fresh Fried Egg) Thornhill Farm CSA
Boil pasta in salted water until cooked al dente (fresh pasta cooks quickly – watch for it to change color and swell slightly). Stop the formation of starch by removing from the heat and adding a cup of cool water. Remove a cup of the cooking liquid and reserve, then drain carefully into a colander and rinse the pasta.
Chop the braising greensinto large 1-inch pieces. Add thinly sliced sweet onionto the greens, and sauté. If you like garlic, add chopped fresh garlic. Sauté in olive oil until lightly wilted, about 5 minutes. You can add sliced mushrooms, sundried tomatoes or artichokes at this point if you like.
If you want to use meat in this dish, thinly slice some good fresh sausage. You only need about 2 ounces per person, at the most! Combine sausage and braising greens mixture in the pan and stir to combine the flavors. Add about ½ – ¾ cup of the reserved pasta liquid to the pan and allow to simmer for just a few minutes. You can enhance the flavor of this with the addition of something acidic – I would recommend 1 Tbl Balsamic Vinegar.
Top the whole thing off with a fried egg! Over medium allows the intense flavor to permeate the dish and add an indescribable richness and depth to the fresh egg pasta. Salt and pepper the egg generously, then top with an additional dollop of the tomato chutney if you have it.
Chives
(Chives can be stored in plastic in the refrigerator for up to a week)
Chives are often snipped and sprinkled on food just before serving for seasoning and
are matched well with: eggs, fish, potatoes, salads, shellfish, sole, and soups
Cucumber Salad With Sour Cream and Chives (German Gurkensalat)
2 medium cucumbers
1/2 cup good quality sour cream, chilled
1 -2 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chives
Salt & pepper, to taste
Peel cucumbers and slice them paper thin (or as thinly as possible), and drain if watery.
In a medium bowl, mix together the sour cream and chives. Add cucumber slices and stir gently to coat. Season to taste with salt (go easy on the salt) and pepper.
Serve immediately, or cover and chill for up to one day.
The Really Good Salad Recipe with Pieces of Fruit (AllRecipes)
1 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
2 tablespoons white sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
1 head leaf lettuce - rinsed, dried, and chopped
1 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
1/2 cup dried, sweetened cranberries
1/2 cup mandarin orange segments, drained
1/2 cup sliced fresh peaches
1/2 cup diced mango
1/2 cup chopped fresh strawberries and /or blueberries
In a skillet over medium heat, cook and stir the almonds and 1/2 cup sugar 5 minutes, or until almonds are well-coated and lightly browned.
In a bowl, mix the olive oil, vinegar, 2 tablespoons sugar, salt, and pepper. Set aside
In a large bowl, gently mix the almonds, iceberg lettuce, leaf lettuce, celery, chives, cranberries, mandarin orange, peaches, mango, and strawberries/blueberries. Serve with desired amount of the oil and vinegar dressing.
What's a sweet onion anyway?
If you've never tasted a fresh, sweet onion you're in for a treat. Because they're so sweet and mild (forget the tears), yet still deliver great onion flavor, they're something you'll want to keep on hand all the time.
Sweet onions, sometimes referred to as "short day" onions, because their growing season occurs during the fall and winter with harvest usually in spring /summer, are fresh onions, picked and cured for a short time, then rushed to market. Storage onions, or regular globe onions, are harvested in late summer and fall, stored in warehouses and delivered to markets throughout most of the year.
Although there is no official industry standard, it is generally accepted that an onion should contain at least 6% sugar to be in the "sweet" category. Some sweet onions, like the OsoSweet, have recorded sugar levels of up to 15%. Storage onions usually range from 3%-5% in sugar content.
Unlike sweet onions, regular onions have high levels of sulfur compounds. It's the pyruvic acid in the sulfur that causes tears, harshness, and indigestion. That's why great sweet onions are always grown in soil with low amounts of sulfur. Typically, sweet onions have pyruvic acid levels that measure below 5%; storage onions usually run 10%-13%. Because a sweet onion is also a fresh onion it is very high in water content, which further dilutes the effect of the sulfur and increases mildness.
The best sweet onions deliver a burst of sweetness when bitten into, are incredibly mild, with very little if any sharpness, and have a subtle, fruity flavor. They should still taste like an onion, but be much sweeter and milder. Sweet onions have a thinner, lighter color skin than storage onions and tend to be more fragile.
Sweet Onion Cornbread with Cheddar Cheese
3 cups yellow cornmeal
1-1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 quart buttermilk
1 cup chopped Sweet Onion
4 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded (1 cup)
Mix dry ingredients together reserve. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in each of two 9"x9"x2" pans in a 450-degree oven. Meanwhile, stir buttermilk into reserved dry ingredients; fold in onion and cheese. Divide batter between each prepared, hot pan. Bake at 450 degrees until just firm in the center and lightly browned on the edges, about 25 minutes. Remove; let rest 15 minutes before cutting. Cut each pan into 12 pieces. Serve slightly warmed or at room temperature.
Yogurt, Cucumber and Radish Salad
1 cup yogurt (Greek style yogurt is the preferred choice)
1 cup finely diced radishes
1 cup finely diced cucumber
1 small garlic clove, minced and mashed to a paste with 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons minced fresh mint or parsley leaves, soft-leafed lettuce or pita bread for
In a bowl stir together the yogurt, the radishes, the cucumber, the garlic paste, the mint or parsley. Salt and pepper to taste
Divide the salad among individual salad plates lined with the lettuce or serve with pita bread.
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