Fun with Flowers

It is a deep honor and pleasure to be growing and arranging the flowers for Kate and Matt's wedding. Everything is in, cleaned up, and ready for the final arrangements tomorrow morning. The bride's and her ladies' bouquets are done-- it has been SO fun playing with the designs and having access to high quality flowers grown in our local southern Vermont region. Playland for flowers. Ah! The colors! Textures! Shapes!

Big thanks to Anna Blooms (E. Dorset) and Wheeler Farm (Danby) for growing some stellar flowers and greens.

The lovely Anna in the workshop-turned-jungle of flowers

Playing with size, scale, and balance

Alternate designs, and a gorgeous model

Heavy rain this afternoon/evening is not so great for harvest, but lends itself to some killer light for photos!

Sneak Peak

at some designs for bouts and corsages for Kate and Matt's this Saturday....

What fun!

Cucumber Peanut Salad

Also adapted from Moosewood's New Classics. Serves 4. Prep time: 20 mins, Marinating time: 20 mins.

"This simple snappy salad with fennel seeds and roasted peanuts can be made as spicy as you like by adding a few more chiles.

3 cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and sliced into 1/4"-thick crescents (about 4 cups)
2 tsp salt
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tsp fennel seeds
1 to 2 tsp seeded, minced fresh chile (or more to taste)
1/2 cup crushed roasted peanuts, or more to taste (crush peanuts using a food processor, or put them in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin. About 2/3 cup whole peanuts will yield 1/2 cup crushed.)

Stir together the cukes and salt, place in colander, and drain for 10-15 minutes. Rinse the cukes well and drain again.

Meanwhile, in a small jar, mix together the brown sugar, lemon juice, and vinegar until the sugar has dissolved.

When the cukes have drained, heat the oil in a small saucepan. When it's hot, add the fennel seeds and the chile. Lift the pan off the heat to avoid scorching, and swirl the pan for about 30 seconds. Continue to cook on low heat for another minute, stirring continuously. Remove from heat and set aside.

Transfer the drained cukes to a large shallow serving bowl and pour the hot seasoned oil over them, tossing well. Stir in the vinegar mixture. Set aside at room temperature for at least 20 minutes before serving. Serve at room temperature or chilled. Top with the crushed peanuts just before serving.

Cucumber Salad with Sushi Dressing

This is a favorite of Jane's and mine. Serves 4-6, total time: 20 mins. Adapted from Moosewood Restaurant's New Classics.

3 cups cucumber crescents: peel 3 medium cukes, halve them lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Slice crosswise in to 1/2 inch-thick crescents.

Sushi Dressing:
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 tsp wasabi powder
2 tsp sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2-3 teaspoons minced pickled ginger
1/2 sheet toasted nori (toast it by waving briefly over a flame until the color deepens to a bright sheen-- also available pre-toasted.)

Place the sliced cucumbers in a large bowl.
In a small jar with a lid, stir together the vinegar, wasabi powder, sugar, and soy sauce. Add the pickled ginger. Using scissors, cut the nori into long 1-inch wide ribbons. Bundle the ribbons of nori and hold them over the bowl. Snip them into tiny squares and stir into the dressing. Pour the dressing over the cukes and serve immediately. Yum!

CSA 2011 - Week 5

In your share this week:
broccoli
summer squash & zukes
slicing and pickling cukes
bunch chard
small bunch carrots
green beans
lemon basil
2 lbs new potatoes - Adirondack Red
1 head garlic
2-3 shallots
sugar snap peas
snow peas
lettuce mix
Herbs (l-r): coriander, sage, chamomile, dill, thyme. Lemon basil is included in your share.

Flowers: zinnias and calendula

The bushel baskets are almost full! A few notes about your share...

lemon basil has a nice citrus scent to it, and can be used any way you'd use basil... I've been adding lots to egg salad for a nice changeup. Try it for pesto, or as a garnish with hummus!

The green beans in your share are really shelling beans moonlighting as filet beans this week. Next week you will have true haricot verts-- the small, super tender, crisp beans that you'll be tempted to eat fresh. These in your share, a variety called Jacob's Cattle, will take a little extra steaming as they are slightly tougher.

Be prepared for the continuation of a steady flow of cukes and zukes/summer squash. I'll post recipes here for more ideas to help inspire you to deal with the bounty-- stay tuned!

Tomatoes and peppers are behind schedule,and we are looking at about two-three weeks before they are ready. The plants are healthy and cranking away in the hoophouse, but got a slower start as the first set of seedlings fried in the early, early heat of the spring. These are the second wave.

Snow and snap peas are tapering off despite being eight feet tall and having doubled over on their trellis! You should see another week-two from them, but if you're sick of eating them fresh by this point, blanche and freeze them for December!

Flowers tapered off in your share a bit this week as the farm is doing the growing and arranging for CSA members, Kate and Matt, this Saturday to help celebrate their wedding. BIG congratulations to them! We'll be back to usual next week, and you can expect lots and lots of sunflowers to grace your homes soon. As always, please pass along any recipes or inspirations that you've got, and thanks for reading!

Fiori di Zucca Ripieni - Stuffed Squash Blossoms

This morning I had the pleasure of a lovely visit from Eleanore-- Eleanore of stuffed squash blossom fame. She has been so kind as to not only share the full dining experience with her friends and me for a lovely luncheon, but also the recipe, which follows, annotated with some of Eleanore's tips. It's not for the faint of heart, and takes some advanced planning-- but man, are they worth it!

If you're interested in giving it a shot, just let me know and we'll gather some squash blossoms for you. They are best/only harvested in the mornings while the pollinators are busy and the flowers are bright and open. The heat of the day tends to melt them, thus they're not included in your shares.

Fiori di Zucca Ripieni

18 squash flowers

8 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded

White Sauce made (see below)

salt

ground white pepper

olive or other vegetable oil for frying [Eleanore reccomends grapeseed oil]

batter for frying vegetables (see below)

*[Make filling the day before and refrigerate-- this makes it much easier to stuff the blossoms.]

Combine the cheese with the white sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste and stir to mix. [Let sit overnight to set.]

Remove pistils and trim flower stems. Fill each flower with this mixture (one heaping tablespoon per flower). Carefully twist flower ends shut.

In a medium-sized frying pan heat 1 to 1 1/2 cups of oil to 375 degrees on a deep frying thermometer. Delicately dip each stuffed flower in the batter and fry until golden and crisp on both sides. Drain on paper towel and serve immediately. Serves 6.

Salsa Besciamella - white sauce

6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups hot milk

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour and cook, stirring, until the mixture acquires a light-brown color. Add the milk all at once and stir vigorously to avoid lumps. Cook slowly for 5 minutes.


Pastella per Fritti di Verdura - Batter for frying Vegetables

1 cup unbleached flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cold water
2 tablespoons olive oil
ground white pepper

Sift together the three dry ingredients. Gradually add the cold water and the oil, stirring just until a smooth batter is formed. Add pepper to taste and mix. Use as directed. Yields about 1 1/2 cups.

BIG thanks to Eleanore for sharing her recipe and tips and big heart.

I should also tell you that she once delivered to the house a half dozen tidily-wrapped, hot blossoms when I couldn't make it to lunch one afternoon... We were up on the roof bolting in solar hot water panels-- what a treat!!

CSA 2011 - Week 4

In your share this week:
broccoli
bunch baby carrots
fresh shallot
basil
2 lbs new potatoes
1.3 lbs sugar snaps
summer squash and zukes
bunch swiss chard
slicing and pickling cukes
bag lettuce mix

Flowers: (L-R) sunflowers!!, copper and red amaranth (copper pictured above), opened shallot blossoms. Not pictured: zinnia, rudebeckia, calendula

Herbs: thai basil, dill, cilantro, summer savory, mint

Broccoli and carrots are ready, hooray! Carrots will get sweeter as they continue to size up. The best way to store carrots is to lop the tops off before sticking them in the fridge.

Toss the tops-- unless you've got a mind to make veggie stock to save for a cold winter's day soup base. Save the water from boiled potatoes, toss in the carrot tops and some chopped cloves of garlic, boil low for 20 minutes, and voila! Homemade veggie stock! Strain and store it in the freezer until you're ready again for soup, or use it as the base to cook whole grains for an extra flavor kick.

Basil was in your share in a small pint container. Thai basil was in the free-choice herb section. Thai basil has a distinct anise-like flavor, and holds its flavor much better during cooking compared to its Italian relative. Next week, we'll add in lemon basil, just for kicks!

I'm wild about these new potatoes. Your share has all Adirondack Reds this week, which are red outside and in. The color holds during cooking, which means fun pink mashed taters!

Potluck Thursday, 6:30-- hope to see folks here. Bring a dish to share; kids, musical instruments, and lawn games are encouraged!

Garden Update for Mid-July

Fill'er up. Peas are the tall buddies on the furthest left.And this is the pea trellis May 28. What a difference a six weeks can make!Sugar snaps are over seven feet tall, doubling over themselves, sunflowers are coming on, and squash and cukes are pumping away.

Dry beans are flowering up abundantly, green beans plants are nice and healthy and a few days from flower, which means we'll have green, purple, and striped baby beans (or should I say haricot verts...) in the coming week or two.

Red and green cabbage is starting to head up, and we should have broccoli at the end of this week. The first round of baby carrots should be good for this week, too, replacing radishes which will make an appearance again at the end of summer.

Speaking of radishes, yesterday I planted two of my personal favorite crops: daikon radish, a long, white, cylindrical Japanese radish that is one of the bases for Korean kimchi, and also Misato Rose-- what I think is by far the best tasting radish around. It's sort of like a cross in flavor/texture between kohlrabi, apple, and radish. It's gorgeous on a cheese plate, and pairs beautifully with a good sharp VT cheddar. Come fall, we'll be back rolling in radishes!

Tomatoes and peppers are wildly flowering away, and the first green fruits are in. They got a bit of a late start due to "figuring out" temperature control in the new hoophouse-- the first several flats of tomato starts FRIED early on in a spat of hot, sunny days, so this is round deux.

Basil will be in your shares this week-- we've got three main types: genovese (regular), lemon basil, and thai basil. Mmm, summer.

My first beet crop failed this summer. Spotty germination combined with something that they didn't like in the soil means the direct seed crop went to wasted space. Boo. I've got more transplants ready to go out this week, so we will have beets in a month or so.

Humble kale is coming along, was transplanted out early last week and will be a nice late summer/fall crop, in case anyone is wondering about the good old faithful.

All of the garlic has been pulled from the field, and will be doled out in your shares as we head through the rest of the season. I'm steadily building seed stock, so some of the cloves that you see in your share might be a little less than perfect (smaller head size, small toe/clove size.)

Herbs are coming along: dill is growing wildly and ought to be flowering up for pickling toward the end of this week. Parsely is slow growing to get established, but it's still coming along. Cilantro is thriving hiding in the shade of the peas-- and some volunteer cilantro is rapidly on its way to becoming Coriander (the seed balls formed on the umbels of the flower)-- same plant, different parts/stages thus different names. I have lots of thyme transplants that somehow did well-- if ayone would like a few for their home gardens, do let me know. Fennel bulbs and scallions have germinated up and will soon be ready for a late summer transplant, both thriving in the cooler weather.

That's about all the news from Green Peak Farm at this point-- thanks for reading and hope everyone is off to a great start of the weekend!