Hooray for the 8th harvest of 2010~! And finally a celebration of strawberries that are filling our fridges (when I say our I mean every square inch of our fridge) and also our neighbors fridge!) strawberries are also filling our tummies as we pick we find one small flaw in every few plants and decide it's best if we cull the fruit by popping it into our mouths.. every one of our work shirts is now covered with red blotchy stains from the juicy treats.
In other news this past Saturday we had our first ever Big Lick Farm tour and it was great to have some of you decide to spend your afternoon with us! We will hopefully be posting pics soon as a CSA member took pics and we will need to wait for them (hint hint :) . Guests left with arms full of the first summer squash and baskets of berries.. see what you missed out on! :) We hope you all can make the annual potluck which will be in the near future. We will post the date as soon as we decide!
Days now are set to the rhythm of sprinklers and seeds trickling through hands, down fingers and onto the soil. It seems strange to be planning for fall since we have just started harvesting our summer crops.. but fall crops have always been a weak spot for us here. The time of year when the fall crops need to be planted and tended is now and we have always been overwhelmed with keeping the last of the spring crops and the summer crops alive and healthy.. and our energy reserves of the winter rest are starting to erode.. but we will persevere!
This week you will see a new vegetable that you may not be familiar with.. it is bulb fennel. We have posted recipe ideas and directions for how to prep it for eating below. Also the broccoli you got this week is tenacious.. these plants suffered heavy chewing by pesky flea beetles in their early spring feeding frenzy. At several points we considered just mowing the ragged broccoli seedlings down.. good thing we didn't! Depending on the weather this really may be the last broccoli until the fall when the seeds we are just now planting start producing... hopefully in about 70 days!
We hope you have been enjoying each week of produce so far!
Your farmers~ Suzie & Asinete with the help of awesome volunteer trio: MA, Violet and Sally!
Harvest This Week Includes:
Fennel
Garlic
Green cabbage
Salad Mix
Strawberries
Hakurei Turnips
Broccoli
Zucchini.. standard green and ridged Italian heirloom zuke called a costata romanesca
Glacier Tomatoes (a sprinkling of them this first week in the full share baskets.. hopefully enough for everyone next week!)
How to Cook it and Store it:
Fennel Storage: store in a plastic bag in the fridge. If space is a problem, remove the long fronds to store just the fennel bulb.
Fennel: popular as a vegetable in Italy, it can be thinly sliced and eaten plain or as part of a vegetable platter. It is often served with just salt and olive oil as a simple appetizer or salad course. It can be chopped up into salad as celery, and indeed used almost anywhere celery is used.
Fennel is high is vitamins A and E, calcium and potassium. Fennel and ginger make a good digestive tea. (Steep the fresh leaves with a bit of sliced ginger for 5 minutes in boiling water.)
SOME IDEAS from The Victory Garden Cookbook
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Sprinkle chopped fennel leaves on hot baked oysters or clams.
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Add cooked fennel to omelets, quiches, stuffings or sauces.
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Add stalks to stocks for their flavor.
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Add sliced sauteed fennel to fish chowders.
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Cook fennel in your favorite tomato sauce.
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Place stalks and leaves on barbeque coals as they do in France. The fennel scent permeates the grilled food.
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Slice steamed or blanched fennel, cover with a vinaigrette and serve chilled.
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Chop raw fennel and add to tuna fish sandwiches.
Oven Potatoes with Fennel
20 ounces Yukon Gold potatoes, cut in 1/2" cubes
1 medium fennel bulb, trimmed and cut in 1" slices
1 medium sweet onion, diced
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, minced finely
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper -- to taste
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. In large bowl, combine potatoes, fennel, onion, parsley, oil, salt and pepper; toss gently until well coated. Arrange mixture in a single layer on a prepared baking sheet. Bake, turning occasionally, until potatoes are crisp on all sides, 30-35 minutes. Serve immediately.
Pickled Fennel with Orange from The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich
Julia suggests using these on a sandwich, on a cheese board/.cracker platter, or tossed in a green salad.
2 fennel bulbs, sliced thin
1 t pickling salt (kosher or other uniodized salt)
zest from ½ an orange, in strips
1 or 2 small fennel fronds (optional)
6 T white wine vinegar
6 T orange juice
1 T sugar
4 black peppercorns, cracked
In a bowl, toss the fennel slices with the salt. Let them stand 1 hour. Drain the fennel slices, and toss them with the orange zest. Pack gthem into a pint jar, placing a fennel frond or two against the side of the jar, if you like. In a saucepan, heat the vinegar, orange juice, sugar, and peppercorns to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour the hot liquid over the fennel. Cap the jar, and let cool to room temp.
Store the pickle in the fridge . It will be ready to eat in a day or two, and will keep for at least several weeks.
When all else fails roast it! Normally fennel tastes like a cross between celery, cabbage, and licorice. Roasting, however, brings out an entirely new flavor - as if pine nuts decided to join the party.
Roasted Fennel Recipe
Ingredients
* 2 fennel bulbs (thick base of stalk), stalks cut off, bulbs sliced
* Olive oil
* Balsamic vinegar
Method
1 Preheat oven to 400°F.
2 Rub just enough olive oil over the fennel to coat. Sprinkle on some balsamic vinegar, also to coat. Line baking dish with silpat or aluminum foil. Lay out piece of fennel and roast for 15-20 minutes, until the fennel is cooked through and beginning to caramelize.
Serves 4.
As you warily oggle the fennel in your basket please know that we too are doing the same since we have never grown it before and only heard from other CSA farmers about what a wonderful asset to the baskets the bulbs were! Pretty sure we are going for the roasted fennel recipe! Easy and sounds divine!
Plenty more fennel recipes on line if needed!
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