CSA for August 16, 2011

Patty Pan Squash

Ground Cherries, aka Cape Gooseberry

It's hard to believe we're half way through August.  Perhaps because we got such a late, slow start to the season that it doesn't feel like we've really been at it for very long.  Yet, the first Friday Night Farmers Market at Shoppers Mall was a full two months ago!  We're hoping the rain forecast for this morning holds off so we can get a good harvest, but we could really use a good rain on the gardens.  What was forecast for last night never happened (again), 90% chance of rain - sure, sure.....

Summer squash is on big time!  Everyone is getting a couple of zucchini in their boxes.  We will have a whole crate of extras for you all to take as much as you'd like.  Here's a recipe for a zucchini pancake we're excited to try!  We've done something similar with spaghetti squash and it was very yummy.  This pancake can be done sweet with syrup, savory with salsa or as a side dish with just some sour cream or Greek yogurt.  Very simple.  Everyone is also getting a couple of Patty Pan or Scallopini, one of our favorite summer squashes.  The Patty Pan's are firmer and denser than zucchini.  When larger, they are awesome for stuffing, then you can serve out a 'slice'.  Here's a southern recipe for a stuffed Patty Pan with rice and spinach.  Or how about a bacon and cheese stuff Patty Pan?  You simply slice the bottom a bit so that the flying saucer-shaped squash sits nice.  Cut out the top, scoop out the inside seed cavity and some meat but leave a good wall.  Farmer Man's favorite stuffing is a can of crab meat and a small block of cream cheese, with a little minced garlic and dill!  Just bake or BBQ until the skin is soft enough to pierce with a fork.  Here's also a great link to sauteed Patty Pan's - some great flavor combinations!  Grated summer squash also can be frozen for the winter.  Many people grate it, squeeze out extra moisture (not really necessary with the Moroccan types, Patty Pans or Papaya Pears) and freeze it in the measured quantity for a recipe like zucchini muffins or zucchini chocolate cake.  If you are canning, how about Sweet and Spicy Zucchini Relish?  Even if you don't can, you could make this recipe in a small batch and keep it refrigerated for at least a few days to 'marry' the flavors before using.

Everyone is getting a bag of beans: a variety of Dragon's Tongue, purple or green.  There wasn't enough of any one kind to give everyone, but if you got green and would rather purple, you can probably trade out at the Farmers Market table.  There was a tiny pick of peas, but if you want to trade for those you had better get there early!

Everyone is getting 'All Red' potatoes today.  This is a rarer variety where the flesh is pink; yes, the inside is pink like the skin.  This is a great dense, meaty potato - excellent mashed potatoes (they're pink, don't forget), excellent for baking or doing in foil packages on the BBQ.  Farmer Man loves doing scalloped potatoes with a layer of the 'All Red', just for fun!  There will be some white and some fingerling on the Farmers Market table, but you really should experience the 'All Red' potato.

First little pick on the ground cherries or Cape gooseberry.  This is an interesting little fruit related to tomatoes, but more closely related to tomatillos.  Inside the papery little husk is a little berry:  pineapple-like when golden, more of a lime kick when the berry is greener.  Just enough for a taste for the Full Shares today, but they are coming along nicely!

So, for the FULL SHARES:  'All Red' potatoes in a 3 lb. bag, two zucchini, two large Patty Pan summer squash, cucumber, tomatoes, bag of beans, garlic, small bag of ground cherries, large bundle of chard, bundle of carrots.

For the PART SHARES:  'All Red' potatoes in a 2 lb bag, two zucchini, two Patty Pan summer squash, cucumber, tomatoes, garlic, beans, small bundle of chard, carrots.

CSA for August 17, 2010

I'm very late posting this. I don't have a good excuse; I have an excuse, but it's not great! I didn't get around to this post last night because I got TV - and boy, was I watching it! You have to understand that we haven't really had much TV here at Aagaard Farms; out here in the country there is no cable, no fancy telephone lines. We got what came through the air: CBC until our local affiliate went out of business, CTV, Global in fine weather only, and the French CBC. So, we finally bit the bullet and got satellite TV yesterday. We probably should have waited until the end of the growing season - I stayed up waaaaaaay past my bedtime last night cruising HGTV, The Food Network, Travel Network, History......well, you get the picture! So to all our CSA members, very sorry for my tardiness!

Yesterday marked the first big harvest of Winter Squash! It's kind of a benchmark - it's rather 'fallish' to be harvesting winter squash, and they have done extremely well in this rainy year! We've got some of the biggest sizes we've every had of Hubbard and Marrow, and it's only mid-August! Can't wait for the end of September! In the picture, the looooong green thing is English Green Marrow, the blue/grey monster is Blue Hubbard and there is also some excellent sizes of Golden Hubbard. The pumpkin-looking squash are a Kobocha type called 'Winter Sunshine', and awesome sweet, smooth textured squash you can use as a replacement for pumpkin in pies and other baking, or as a side vegetable (awesome mashed or whipped with a little brown sugar and cinnamon!). There's also a little blue Kobocha called 'Confection' in there as well, the dark green squash with the light green bump on the end is a buttercup and a there's little bit of acorn squash.

Winter squash differ from the summer squashes like zucchini, papaya pear and Patty Pan in that you don't eat the skin or the seeds. As well, they can last in storage for months! There is lots of variety in texture and taste, and lots of options for cooking. The simplest way to enjoy winter squash is baking or roasting. Wash the skin, cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and bake in the oven at around 350 F - 375 until the skin is easily pierced with a fork. For the big hubbards, that can be up to an hour! To speed the process up, they can be done in the microwave, but we don't think the taste and texture is quite as good. Microwaving can cut the time down by 2/3's - so worth it for busy households. Peel and chunk winter squash for roasting, awesome in the foil packages of veggies on the barbeque, and we've even steamed chunked squash in one of our one-pot steamed vegetarian dinners (takes as long or longer than the potatoes)! The seeds are awesome cleaned and then oveb-roasted - just like pumpkin seeds.

So, not a great basket today. Heavy rain overnight and steady rain through the morning made it very hard to harvest! We are a potato-free zone this week, just impossible to get into the potato field. For some of you, this will give you a chance to use up any potatoes before a fresh batch next week. Everything was muddy, dirty and damp! Get the beans out of the plastic bags as soon as possible - they'll be very prone to dark 'blotches' if left in plastic.

For the FULL SHARES: large bag of Dragon Tongue romano beans, large bag of mixed beans, 4 cobs of corn, 6 cucumbers, bundle of beets, two bundles of carrots, large bag of mesclun mix, one of an assortment of summer squash, a small winter squash, a large winter squash and some onions.

For the PART SHARES: small bag of Dragon Tongue romano beans, large bag mixed beans, 3 cucumbers, bundle of carrots, bundle of Swiss Chard, one of an assortment of summer squash, small bag of mesclun mix, small winter squash, medium winter squash and onion.

Hopefully the weather will become nice and the tomatoes will ripen for next week (fingers crossed, toes crossed, arms crossed - except now we look cranky!). Good eating to everyone!

Office Diva to Farmers' Market Vendor!

Sister Keltie has an alter-ego that her city friends don't know about. She comes to visit Aagaard Farms and become vendor extraordinaire! Now, Kelt likes good food (something we really like about her!). She is particularly fond of squash of any type. We have had to ship vegetable marrow to her on the Greyhound Bus, when she couldn't find it in Edmonton! Twenty six dollars to ship ten dollars worth of squash! Anyhoo, when she arrives at the farm, we cook her a couple of interesting meals with some of our more uncommon squash. Then we take her to the Farmers' Market with us and set her loose on the poor, unsuspecting customers! She raves, she praises, she gives cooking tips, describes textures and flavours, and darn if lots of people don't try something new. She brings a passion that we find hard to muster at our twentieth-something market of the season. And then, we bring her back to the farm and cook her some more! And load her car up with some when she heads home. If only she got enough holidays to be around the whole season!

CSA for August 3, 2010

Whew! What a day! So much to harvest, so much to clean, so much to package. The hardest part of CSA, every week, is figuring out how to make what we harvest work for our families. 18 pounds of Dragon Tongue beans and 33 families - they each get........ummmm.......oh, so much math!

First, a big thank you to our little crew, who worked so hard today! Vartan, Nataliya, Danielle, Kara, Patel, Ming and Zhong were out this morning and picked in, first, the mud from last nights' storm. Then, it heated up and became very humid. Couldn't have done it without the crew! Our Farmers' Market right-hand guy Travis came out to package and tidied up after us! Thanks, Travis! It was great to come home to a tidy site!

Second, a big thanks to our growing partners. Linda Boys provided beautiful cabbage, tatsoi, peas, kale and snow peas. Amanda and Ed Wiebe added to the cabbage and peas, and brought the cucumbers. Our buddy Hugh dug carrots in the muck!

So, it's a pea and bean kind of a day. We have never brought such a good haul of shelling peas to CSA. And we are bean happy! Everyone got a taste of three different beans! The summer squash is coming along - and we don't mean zucchini!!! Everyone got a large, oval, speckled green Moroccan or cousa squash called 'Lolita'. It's firm, with a mild nutty flavour. Great raw in salads or with dip, great in sautes, good on the B-B-Q and great stuffed and baked! Everyone also received a patty pan or scallopini, the flying saucer shaped squash. It's one of our favourites! Great texture and flavor, also dense enough to stand up well to the B-B-Q and awesome stuffed! Our fav method is to cut off the top, scoop out some of the flesh and fill with cream cheese, crab meat, diced onions and dill. Bake until the skin is soft enough to pierce with a fork. Yummy!!!!!! The full shares also have a crookneck squash - the Cadillac of southern cooking! In the southern States, it is commonly coated in corn meal and Cajun spice and fried. Buttery and delicate - it's a delight!

So, for the FULL SHARES: 2.5 lbs German Butterball potatoes, 2.5 lbs Alaskan Sweetheart potatoes (with pink flesh!, dense and meaty!), 3 lbs shelling peas, a cabbage, cucumbers, purple, yellow, green and Dragon's Tongue beans, tatsoi, 'Grand Rapids' lettuce, a large and small patty pan or scallopini squash, 3 'Lolita' cousa squash, and a crook neck squash, carrots, onions and a pint of 'Mammoth' raspberries.

For the PART SHARES: 2.5 lbs German Butterball potatoes, 2 lbs shelling peas, snow peas, cucumbers, purple, yellow and green beans, kale, 'Grand Rapids' lettuce, patty pan or scallopini squash, some 'Lolita' cousa squash, carrots, onions and a pint of 'Mammoth' raspberries.

We were soooo on the fly today, that I took really lousy pictures. Apologies - the photo really doesn't do the vegetables justice. This post is getting up later than I had hoped, because I tried to fix the pictures, which I'm not very good at. Hope all you CSA members are enjoying! Remember, please add your comments and recipes!!