Great canning blog

Photo from Food in Jars

I've starting reading this great local canning blog, Food in Jars and thought I would share it with IMBY members.

It's written by a Philadelphia named Marisa McClellan and she says "the goal of this blog is to document this canning journey and get as many people excited about canning as is possible. In between canning projects, I also write about some of my favorite cookbooks, participate annually in the Dark Days Challenge (cooking locally during the winter months) and occasionally offering up a recipe that makes use of all those canned goods I make."

She has great photos and recipes, and explains canning clearly - check it out!

Tea from your garden!

The New York Times had a great article on Making Tea From Plants Grown in the Backyard.

If you start thinking ahead now to the colder winter months, you can lay in a stock of dried material and have your tea bags all ready to go for the first cold of the season . . .

Sally mentions that IMBY has these ingredients in the yard, look for them the next time you are picking up your share! She thinks they'd all work as well as drying and grinding cayenne pepper. Adding our locally grown honey makes it especially potent as an herbal fortifying, healing, enhancing drink.

basil (Genovese & Lemon)
burdock (weed)
calendula
chamomile
cilantro
dandelion (weed)
dill
echinacea
garlic
lemon thyme
lovage
plantain (weed)
rosemary
savory
sage
tarragon
thyme
verbena
and more!

Solution to 2 lbs of tomatoes in your IMBY share

Tomato soup!

Between our IMBY CSA share and my husband's grandmother's backyard tomoatoes, we had 7 1/2 pounds of tomatoes in our kitchen. We used them up in one delicious recipe.

Whole Roasted Tomatoes, from Everyday Food, April 2010

Spiced Tomato Soup, from Everyday Food, April 2010

The croutons are from the tail end of a loaf of bread we made on Friday, cubed and browned with a bit of butter and salt in a frying pan.

White Sandwich Bread, King Arthur flour

Article on value of local organic foods

From MSNBC:

Nutritional value of fruits, veggies is dwindling

Bouquet from my garden

Something beautiful from the garden - bolted oregano and mint.

I can't really take credit for this, I saw the exact same shot on a blog and thought, "I can do that!"

Mint Syrup

I saw this recipe for a mint syrup on a blog I read, make grow gather, and thought IMBY members might put it to good use! It looks very easy, just pound the mint with sugar and lemon juice and pour boling water over the mixture.

The blogger says the recipe is adapted from The River Cottage Preserves Handbook by Pam Corbin.

Mint Syrup

Grilled Salmon Sandwiches

We had these delicious grilled salmon sandwiches at a party last summer, and we've made them twice so far this season!

We love this recipe because the salmon cooks easily on the grill and you can throw on other veggies at the same time. The sauce is amazing and it's a great way to use all the herbs that Sally and IMBY provide throughout the summer.

We highly recommend using basil leaves as the garnish.

Grilled Salmon Sandwiches
Barefoot Contessa Parties!

Ingredients

2 pounds fresh salmon fillets
Good olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper

For the sauce:

1 cup good mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
3/4 teaspoon white wine vinegar
12 fresh basil leaves
3/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped scallions, (white and green parts)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 teaspoons capers, drained

To assemble:
6 fresh white or brioche rolls (4-inch round) [we use potato rolls, or thin bread]
1/4 pound mesclun mix or *fresh basil leaves*

Directions

For the salmon, heat coals in an outdoor grill and brush the top of the grill with oil. Rub the outside of the salmon with olive oil, salt, and pepper, to taste. Grill for 5 minutes on each side, or until the salmon is almost cooked through. Remove to a plate and allow it to rest for 15 minutes.

For the sauce, place the mayonnaise, sour cream, vinegar, basil, dill, scallions, salt, and pepper in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process until combined. Add the capers and pulse 2 or 3 times.

To assemble the sandwiches, slice the rolls in 1/2 crosswise. Spread a tablespoon of sauce on each cut side. On the bottom 1/2, place some mesclun salad and then a piece of salmon. Place the top of the roll on the salmon and serve immediately.

Apple Cake

Whew. The second IMBY MistyHollow Gaze and Graze is over, we had a great time. I'll post some photos shortly.

Below is a recipe for Apple Cake which I made for the baked goods table. Rose K. asked for the recipe.

I got this recipe from my neighbor. It's very, very, very good.

APPLE CAKE

3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 sticks of butter (melted)
4 eggs
3 heaping tsp. baking powder
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup orange juice
About 3 large apples peeled and thinly sliced
Cinnamon and sugar mixture (I use an abundance of the cinnamon and sugar mixture and sprinkle generously where called for)
9" tube pan (I butter pan and sprinkle it with a little cinnamon and sugar mixture, but you don't have to do this)

Combine flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, vanilla, orange juice, and melted butter in bowl and beat well until fully mixed. [Anna: I followed a more traditional mixing method of sugar +butter, then eggs, vanilla, and flour mixture alternating with orange juice.]

Place half of batter in pan and generously scatter sliced apples and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar mixture. Place remaining batter on top and repeat procedure. When placing apples on top, form a circular overlap design.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Cool for about 15 minutes and remove from pan to cool completely. Enjoy!

* Tip: I am very generous with the cinnamon and sugar. This causes the cake to brown nicely and the apples on top caramelize.

Gingerbread garden

I thought you guys would get a kick out of the gingerbread house I made this weekend. Inspired by the garden that was included in the White House's gingerbread house, I added a garden in front of my house.

I used a gingerbread cookie recipe from Williams-Sonoma. It tastes delicious, has a great mix of spices, and doesn't "spread" at all, very important for cookie architecture!

My husband suggested using twizzlers for bricks. Lettuce and peppermint watermelons.

Spearmint shrubs, carrots, tomatoes, eggplants

At the far right are squash, parsnips, and chocolate M&Ms (potatoes?)

2009 End of Season pot luck

Live blogging from the end of season IMBY pot luck dinner!

Harvest Cake with Goat Cheese Frosting

I saw this recipe for a cake with zucchini, carrots, and beets and very little refined sugar, on the cooking blog The Kitchn and thought IMBY members might like it, and have a chance to use up some veggies! I haven't tried it myself but maybe I'll make it this weekend and report back.

Recipe: Harvest Cake with Goat Cheese Frosting

Zucchini and squash recipes

Just wanted to share this great collection of recipes for summer squash. I think the the sauceless garden lasagna sounds particularly good!

http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Zucchini-and-Summer-Squash/Detail.aspx

Molly is missing from IMBY (edited)

Updated: Molly was found! Thanks to the help of Sally, Jim, Rose, and many other CSA members Molly Dog was found safe on Sunday August 17th - an eight day "mid-life crisis" as Jeff Devlin put it.

Our Dog Molly is missing -she ran away from Sally and Jim's on Saturday August 8th. She is wonderful and sweet and we miss her. If you see her or if you could forward a link to this post to your friends in the area, please help us find her

Farm Bill

Sally asked me to post this to the blog. Please take a moment to read this note, which was written by a group called DC Downsizers. This could potentially affect Jim and Sally directly.

=======================================

THIS IS AN URGENT ACTION ITEM... We've been told a vote is likely to occur Wednesday.
When we first launched our Freedom to Farm campaign back in April, we mentioned that House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman said "he intends to pass a strong food safety bill soon."

This bill we warned you about, the 109-page H.R. 2749, is Waxman's promise.
The good news is that some of the most egregious trial balloons from earlier bills such as H.R. 875 have gone by the wayside . . .

• There will be no new Food Safety Administration bureaucracy
• The bill seems to define "farm" in such a way that backyard gardens won't be included in the regulations
• Direct farm-to-consumer, farm-to-restaurant, and farm-to-grocery store transactions will be exempt
• There is no implementation or incorporation of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)

YOU are to be thanked for this. DC Downsizers were part of a large army of concerned citizens that killed earlier bills.

But the bad news is very bad. This bill . . .

• authorizes warrantless searches of farms
• imposes a $500 tax (or "registration fee") of all operators in all steps of the food production chain
• imposes civil penalties up to $20,000 per individual for each violation
• creates a food trace-back system, burdening farms and small businesses with reams of new paperwork
• empowers the Dept. of Health and Human Services to micro-manage the raising and harvesting of crops (you might have assumed that Congress would've handed the U.S. Dept of Agriculture this terrible power).

In essence, Congress wants to punish the innocent and protect the guilty. It is not small farms and businesses that were the source of contaminated food scares, but rather the processing facilities of large corporations. Yet this bill will only drive small farms out of business, which means reduced competition and higher prices in an already-bad economy.

Please use DownsizeDC.org's proprietary Educate the Powerful System to send a letter to Congress telling them to defeat H.R. 2749. Tell them the bill will only hurt competition and put undue burdens on small farmers. Let's send enough messages to frighten Congress and kill this bill.

And due to the urgency of this vote, if you have time, please call your local House Representative as well. His or her contact info is presented on the campaign page, once you're logged in.
Thank you for being a DC Downsizer,
Jim Babka, PresidentDownsizeDC.org

Fruit Fly Deterrent

Lots of us who seriously compost find that we have fruit fly problems. A friend made a suggestion that works for me. Take an unbleached coffee filter and spritz it with "Orange Guard" pesticide (made out of orange peels) and put it on the bottom of your composting container. It seems to repel fruit flies, is not toxic and can go right into the compost. The label says that it is safe to use around food and it's available on Amazon. (Apparently it's not completely safe for cats according to one of the reviews there, tho.)
- Sally

P.S. Note from Melinda: If you check this page, you'll see it's also available at Selene, Great Pumpkin and Whole Foods: http://www.orangeguard.com/buy.html

From Sally:
Given that we have potatoes coming for quite awhile, I thought you might like to have some basic info on them (below). This is from the Peconic Land trust, a BIG CSA in New York. If you want to look at the whole newsletter, you can probably get it at: jfargiano@peconiclandtrust.org.

Their newsletter this month is interesting as it reflects our happenings - we're on a smaller scale, of course - re: crops, what's up-coming, effects of weather conditions, etc. We also just heard of another large CSA farm near Kimberton whose whole crop of potatoes has been wiped out by a blight. Anyway, we're doing O.K. and thanks to all of you who are working with us!

As Deborah Madison, author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, writes, "Potatoes can be baffling." Some have a high-starch content. Harvested later in the season, they are good for baking and frying. Their dry mealy flesh makes a baked potato
fluffy and a fried one light and crisp.

Others have a low-starch content and they are waxy fleshed, moist, and dense. These steam and boil well, hold their shape and are the ones to use in salads, stews and gratins as they absorb liquid without falling apart.

Quail Hill's earliest harvested potatoes - Red Gold, Banana Fingerlingand All Red and many of the rest to come - contain very little starch and are best prepared roasted.

To determine if a potato is high or low in starch content, slice one with a sharp knife. If the knife is covered with a foamy substance or the potato grabs on to it, it's starchy and a baker. If not, it's a boiler. So-so, it's all purpose. Good luck!

Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Torte with Parmesan

Most of us are probably thinking about squash right now as yummy and fresh. Soon, of course, this will turn into "IMBY just gave me 5 lbs of squash and how do I use it up?!"

No worries, this recipe will use up squash AND those utterly delicious potatoes. It was easy to make, just quick slicing, no fine mincing or sauteing.

I found I needed more squash and more potatoes than they call for, but that might be a function of the size of my pans or the way I layered the vegetable slices. You can slice what they call for and then just keep the cutting board out and slice a few more as needed. For my taste it was also a bit salty, the cup of Parmesan provided a lot of salt.

Via Smitten Kitchen - you can see her photos and comments and link to a print version, via Bon Appetit, June 2001


Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Torte

Makes 8 servings
1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced, divided
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
12 ounces yellow crookneck squash or regular yellow summer squash, cut into 1/8-inch-thick rounds
6 teaspoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter two 8-inch-diameter cake pans.

Set aside 1/4 cup sliced green onions. Toss remaining green onions, cheese, flour, thyme, salt and pepper in medium bowl to blend.

Layer 1/6 of potatoes in concentric circles in bottom of 1 prepared pan, overlapping slightly. Layer 1/4 of squash in concentric circles atop potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/6 of cheese mixture. Repeat with 1/6 of potatoes, then 1/4 of squash and 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/6 of cheese mixture. Top with 1/6 of potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/6 of cheese mixture and press gently to flatten. Repeat procedure with second cake pan and remaining potatoes, squash, oil, and cheese mixture.

Cover pans with foil. Bake until potatoes are almost tender, about 40 minutes. Remove foil; bake uncovered until tortes begin to brown and potatoes are tender, about 25 minutes longer. (Can be made 6 hours ahead. Cool. Cover with foil and chill. Rewarm, covered with foil, in 350°F oven until heated through, about 30 minutes.)

Cut each torte into wedges. Sprinkle wedges with 1/4 cup green onions; serve.

Beets, squash, blueberries and other news

From Sally:
Just FYI - you will be getting beets and squash (as well as tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, garlic, potatoes) a lot this summer. The male squash flower is very good stuffed with cream cheese.

There are a number of delicious recipes for both as well as the creations a number of shareholders have related to me which they and their families find delicious. DO POST, for all to enjoy, any good finds!!!

Alternatively, learn how to preserve these delicious comestibles. Someone was recently telling me of a favorite "mother-made" recipe of pickled sugar beets (the beets you're getting) and hard boiled eggs - where the eggs turn that lovely pink. Sugar beets can also be cut very thinly (Cuisinart thin) and fried for really good "chips." Someone else boils them to just-soft and puts them in summer salads or as additives to summer soups - you can freeze these quick-cooked beets and pull them out for many things all year long. Cold borscht is another wonderful summer soup - with a daub of yogurt. There are MANY ways.

For squash - the variety you've been getting each have a different flavor, texture and use. Rose, our daughter visiting from CA, just made us a one-dish meal of the Lebanese White Squash from www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Orzo-with-Summer-Squash-and-Toasted-Hazlenuts-108403
Summers squash = bake it, stuff it, chop it into salad, summer-soup it, use it for dips and thousands of things and finally, again, you can freeze it for the winter.

Wasn't the salad greens mix wonderful = delicate, well-rounded, good as-is or with additives. - I add marinated baby potatoes and the young onions.

Our blueberries have been attacked by marauding sparrows and other small birds who have discovered how to get into the Alley that was newly created this year. I HOPE we have repaired most of the holes. Thanks to Julia Shearer who spent the day sewing, with hemp, the two pieces of deer netting that join the "roof" to the front side. We still need the back seam to be similarly joined as well as tighter seams on the "roof." So that's something you may be doing if you're here putting in hours. It's VERY rewarding - in many ways. '

Till we've solved the problem, however, we will be collecting the berries that are ripe and providing them for you in a bowl at the pick-up site where the other produce is located - we can't wait for the pick-up time as the birds have access all day.

Enjoying the dry weather and sun??? So are we - it also means that we'll need to get the drip tape down a.s.a.p. We avoided watering too much after the months of wetness as it was choking the produce (less oxygen = smaller growth) as well as rotting and causing splits. But hearing the crop-losses of others, I think we're doing pretty well. Anyone available this weekend or before, you'll be doing the drip-tape dance.

Check out the baby eggplants with your younger children - it's fun to watch them grow. Hopefully turnips are on the horizon - they were effected by the wetness but may be salvaged.

That's all the growing news at the moment.

Rhubarb Raspberry Cobbler

I made this Raspberry Rhubarb cobbler for the IMBY Mistyhollow solstice party. Rhubarb is in season (and sold at Pete's) and is absolutely delicious.

Rhubarb Raspberry Cobbler With Cornmeal Biscuits

From the New York Times, June 5, 2009

(for more pictures of the baking process see my post here)

(Delicious!) whole grain salad recipes

Since Summer is the season for salads, and whole grains are delicious and healthy, I thought I would post recipes for a trio of tried-and-true salads. I'm also posting an "Asian Slaw" from Every Day Food.

The interesting thing is that these whole grain salads were in the July 1994 issue of Gourmet - way before quinoa and couscous were sold in a regular store in 2009 - very prescient of the editors.

These all do well if you make them the night before (and the slaw improves if made the night before), just don't add the parsley or basil until the day of. They do involve a fair amount of chopping and cooking of the grains - you need to put the grains on to cook first, and then start chopping.

I realized that a great secondary recipe could come out of making all these salads - you already have onions, lime, jalapeno peppers, cilantro - if you buy some tomatoes you can easily make salsa with only a few more slices of the knife.

To avoid re-posting published material, I am linking to the recipes on Epicuruous. Ignore all the "I made it exactly like the recipe only I changed these six ingredients" reviews on Epicurious, the recipes are delicious as is.

Couscous Salad with Peppers, Olives and Pine Nuts

Wheat Berry and Barley Salad with Smoked Mozzarella
You can use CSA chives, corn, tomatoes, and scallions

Quinoa and Black Bean Salad
CSA cilantro!
I followed Mark Bittman's method for cooking the quinoa (which seemed similar to rice/couscous, ie twice as much water, bring to boil, cook for 15 minutes), rather than their rather crazy 5 rinses of water.

Asian Cabbage Slaw
A good use for cabbage. I like it better the next day or even two days after