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.

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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!