Author: christineouteraisle

Roasted Carrots

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cumincarrots-12-e1397667936590

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound carrots (try to choose ones that are roughly the same size)

1 tablespoon melted coconut oil

1 tablespoon agave or other sweetner

2 teaspoons freshly ground cumin

1 teaspoon freshly ground coriander seeds

¼ teaspoon chipotle powder

2 teaspoons sea salt

Garnish

mint leaves

juice and zest of 1/2 lime

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 375°F

Slice carrots and grind spices. Toss the the carrots with the coconut oil, lime juice and zest, optional coconut nectar and spices.

Transfer to a baking dish and roast for about 30 minutes, or until tender and lightly browned. Sprinkle with the mint leaves, lime juice and zest, and serve.

Rustic Eggplant Moussaka

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epplant moussaka-227

While searching through Pinterest for some inspiration with all of our delicious eggplant coming from the garden, I came upon this  great recipe and it’s associated blog (www.feastingathome.com).

I love the combination of eggplant and lamb, although one could easily eliminate the lamb and use another vegetable for it’s filling. Personally, my choice would be winter squash cut into cubes and steamed, then combined with the other ingredients in the recipe.

Rustic Eggplant Moussaka
by Sylvia Fountaine, Feasting at Home March-1-2013
A traditional Greek Eggplant Moussaka recipe.
Ingredients:

3 lbs Eggplant ( 2 extra large or 3 eggplants)
3 T olive oil or cooking spray

Meat Sauce:
2 T olive oil
1 large onion diced
4 cloves garlic, rough chopped
2 lbs ground lamb, (or use vegetarian ground meat substitute Gimme Lean or St Ives Meatless Ground.)
1 1/2 C diced tomatoes ( canned is OK)
2 T tomato paste
1/2 white wine
2 T fresh chopped parsley
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp kosher salt
cracked pepper

Bechamel Sauce:
3 T butter
4 T flour ( or rice flour)
2 C whole milk
1/2 tsp nutmeg ( use fresh grated if possible)
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp white pepper
1/4 Cup grated Parmesan, Pecorino or Kefalotiri Cheese
1 egg, lightly beaten

Cut eggplant into 1/4 inch thick rounds( no thinner). Sprinkle with a little kosher salt and let sit in a colander or bowl for 1 hour. Eggplant will start to release liquid. Rinse well, pat dry and brush each side with olive oil ( or use spray oil). Place on a greased sheet pan and roast in a 400 F oven until golden, about 20-30 minutes.

Make Meat sauce:
Saute diced onion in oil on med high heat for 3-4 minutes, add garlic, turn heat down to med low and saute for 8-10 minutes until onions are tender. Add ground lamb, turn heat up to high and brown, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Drain fat if any. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir and cover and let simmer on med low heat for 20 minutes.

Make Bechamal:
Melt 3 T butter. Whisk in 4 T flour ( or rice flour) and let cook for 2-3 on med heat, stirring often. Whisk in 1 C milk. Whisk well, and add 2nd cup. Stirring constantly bring to a boil, and let simmer on low for an additional 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add nutmeg, 2 T Cheese, salt, pepper. Set aside to cool. In a separate bowl, lightly beat an egg, but do not add it just yet.

Assemble:
Divide eggplant slices into three stacks, reserving the best looking largest pieces for the top an bottom layers. The others can be placed in the middle layer which will be concealed. In a greased 8x 13 in pan, place one layer of eggplant. Add half the meat sauce. Add another layer of eggplant, and the remaining meat sauce. Add the third and final layer of eggplant. Whisk in the beaten egg into the bechamel sauce until nice and smooth. Spread the bechamel over the final eggplant layer. Sprinkle the remaining cheese and place in a 350F oven for 50-60 minutes, until beautiful and gold. let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Prep time: 2 hours Cook time: 1 hour Total time: 3 hours Yield: 6-8 servings

 

 

The Blacktail Mountain Watermelon

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The Blacktail Mountain watermelon is the perfect refrigerator size, that’s if you don’t devour the entire melon in one sitting. Not hard to do when it’s a 100 degrees and you’re looking for that perfect hydrating fruit. Nutritionally it is up there in Lycopene content with tomatoes. Check out this website for more information on just how healthy watermelon is for you.

Blacktail is a modern open-pollinated watermelon variety that was originally bred by a young boy of 17, Glenn Drowns, in 1979. We’ve grown this exceptional watermelon for several years and a couple of years ago created a public seed saving event by giving the watermelon away with the caveat that folks would enjoy and spit the seeds out, save them and return to us. We still have a generous supply of seeds that will keep us in watermelons for several years to come.

“Blacktail Mountain is quintessential watermelon. This dark green cannon ball is shot full of flavor. Its dense scarlet flesh is sweet, juicy and crunchy. . . . . The quintessential icebox watermelon that sets the standard for flavor.”  

Amy Goldman,  Melons for the Passionate Grower.

More on the Blacktail Watermelon and its juicy history

The Story of the Murphys’ Onion

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We recently harvested our onion crop – a bumper crop this year and surprisingly so because we planted them in January. This incredible specimen is a true Murphys’ heirloom from the Vogliotti family. They were Italian market gardeners and also our neighbors for a good many years. It was one warm summer day, twenty year’s ago or so, that we went to visit Josephine Vogliotti. She was the last living member of her family at age 96 – her brother Ernie was 102 when he died

. The family was famous for their “vege-tables”, as she liked to say, selling them to the miners by horsecart in the day and later to folks that would come out to the ranch. For several years we’d been growing “their” tomato, the Camalay, and we would often bring her down a couple to enjoy and as always she would hold one in her hands and smell deeply, exclaiming “this is one of ours, isn’t it?” Those were precious moments and still today, after 22 years of growing and saving seed from that tomato, her words spring a tear. It was on one of these visits that Josephine directed us down to the cellar (where she hadn’t been for many years) to a jar on the shelf filled with onion seeds. We took those seeds home and germinated them just as she instructed (the first week after the full moon in August!). Luckily a few sprouted and that year we grew our first Vogliotti onion. After many trials and near losses, we were able to successfully bring this onion from near extinction to plenty. We have subsequently grown, harvested and shared many of the seeds with gardening friends to help preserve this now unique variety. The story goes that the onion was bought from Burpee seeds as a Red Weathersfield in the late 1890’s and continually grown at the ranch until the early 1990’s. They grew it for 100 years because of it’s flavor! We consider it be the best tasting summer onions ever. Eaten raw it is sweet and mild flavored, wonderfully so that it is perfect in a Greek salad or in a sandwich (with no oniony aftertaste!). Equally delicious sauteed or caramelized.
We posted a recipe to try it out on here

Garden Update

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New potatoes are in from the field. It was a splendid sight to see Chef Webster and Farmer Eric hard at work forking out these red specimens of health and beauty. They appear in the CSA boxes this week as well as in the grocery and on the menu. Here farm meets kitchen in the elegance of the farmer’s fields…. the very best way to get a sense of what will appear on the weekly menu.

Most of the produce is coming from the farm. Hooray! We love this time of year with all of it’s green abundance. Think big salads with arugula, asian greens, lettuce, spinach and thin slices of radish!

Plenty to choose from – let your imagination guide you on your next visit to the grocery.

Announcing our new Grocer, Kaedence Eaton. Kaedence currently manages the CSA program and we are excited to extend her hours and expertise into the grocery.

Produce update:
Katy Apricots are in, as well as white and yellow peaches, white nectarines, plums, blueberries and strawberries.  Plus, artichokes and broccoli, carrots and English peas!

Make sure to check out our recipe to use those carrots, peas, and onions: Chef Beverly’s Pot Pie 

Chef Beverly’s Pot Pie

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Straight from our kitchen!

To make the filling:
Make a mirepoix: saute celery, carrots and onion with olive oil. Add in dusting of flour to soak up the fat, then add stock, heavy cream, salt and pepper. Add pre-cooked turkey and let it get thick.

To make the topping: 
2 cups flour
1.5 TSP baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 lb butter
mix and let it chill in the fridge
add heavy cream 2 cups until it gets to sticky and dough-like then crumble it on top of the mix and bake to golden brown at 350 for 25 minutes

Chard and Potato Terrine

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This recipe doesn’t sound like much but it is the most asked about recipe in my entire collection!

  • 6 medium sized potatoes
  • 18 baby chard leaves, or 9 large chard leaves, thick midribs removed
  • 1 clove garlic, bruised
  • 6 1/2 TSPS butter
  • 1 1/2 TSP salt
  • 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 to 3 ounces cheese, Fiscalini Lionza or a Brie, cut into small pieces
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Slice the potatoes as thinly as possible. Set them aside. Coarsely chop the chard leaves. Rub a standard loaf pan with the garlic and 1/2 TSP of butter. Arrange one-third of the potatoes in a layer in the pan. Sprinkle with one-third each of the salt and pepper, dot with 1 1/2 TSP of butter, and top with one-third of the chard leaves. (The bulk of it will wilt during cooking). Sprinkle one-third of the cheese over the chard. Repeat the layers twice in the same way, ending with the cheese.

Fennel

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It’s merits and uses:
Most folks have an odd aversion to this wonderful vegetable. I’ve discovered that it takes on a completely new personality when cooked at a slow temperature for a long time. Just as you might caramelize onions over a low flame for 20 minutes; the same can be done with fennel. I figured Martha Stewart might be a good one for fennel recipes and I was right – here’s a couple that I found that sound delicious. Eaten raw they are equally delicious with their anise like flavor. Try decorating a green salad with them along with raw slices of Fuyu persimmons, segments of satsuma mandarins with a sprinkling of green onions.

Baked Fennel with Parmesan and Thyme

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Boil 3 fennel bulbs, trimmed and split lengthwise, until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain fennel, cut side down, on paper towels, 5 minutes. Place fennel, cut side up, in a buttered 8-inch square baking dish and brush with 1 tablespoon softened butter. Season with coarse salt and ground pepper and top with 1/3 cup grated Parmesan and 4 sprigs thyme. Bake until cheese is golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Pan Seared Fennel in Citrus Wine Sauce

  • 2 bulbs fennel, trimmed (1 1/2 pounds)
  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice (about 3 oranges)
  • Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine

With a large knife, cut each fennel bulb lengthwise into four slices. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat butter and oil until sizzling. Lay fennel slices in skillet; cook, turning once, until browned, about 5 minutes per side.
Pour orange juice over fennel; season with salt and pepper. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until fennel is tender, about 15 minutes. Add wine, and continue cooking until fennel is very tender and sauce has thickened, about 10 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper, as desired, and serve warm.

Enter: April

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Surprise! Zucchini season has begun…never before have we had them so early. The tunnel houses are amazing and a great investment that is paying off with early crops. So far, the basil and tomatoes are surviving the frigid early April temperatures and we feel pretty confident that they’ll make it through. The forecast is calling for 80 degree weather next week and we are gearing up our garden crew with this preparation: “Monday the checkered flag comes down so make sure yer oil’s changed and yer gas tanks’r full”  It has been observed that the swapping out of the Winter birds (sparrows) for the new arrival Summer birds (Tanager) is a sure sign that we are about to experience some warm weather.

Surprisingly, the fava beans are 5 feet tall – amazing with the little rainfall we’ve had and no supplemental water. The fava is an ancient cultivated plant thought to have been present in the Mediterranean diet around 6000 BC or earlier. The whole plant is edible and fava greens make a delicious complement to any dish as an edible garnish. The flowers are extremely fragrant and can also be eaten. But the pods are what we are waiting for; Italians are so passionate about fava beans that they celebrate the arrival of the first protein of the season with a national holiday! Other benefits of legumes are discussed in an interesting article from one of our dedicated perveyors: Terra Firma Farm.