a meal: thanks for giving - so much good food from the farm

Let's go back in time to November 2013. I actually have a backlog of recipes to post, but this will be the mother of all posts that I could post (maybe).

Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday for cooking for us. We love to prepare a giant feast of food that will last us for multiple days and provide us with multiple variations of the meal during those days. It's usually just us for that holiday and we make sure to do it up right. Often people ask, well what do you eat for the Thanksgiving holiday? This question is asked often, especially when the meal for many people is often centered around turkeys or hams or other such items that people consume. Well, I gotta tell ya, that we are never lacking in the department of delicious foods as you will rightly see during this post.

To begin:

Day before the actual holiday, I often prepare as much as I can so that it will allow me to simply put things together and then bake or cook them when the time is right. This year, I began the day before by making the soup, the seitan, the cornbread for the stuffing, and preparing the dessert. When cooking on a small, but powerful propane stove like our old school Wedgewood, you have to prepare and plan ahead and think about your space. I have 4 stovetop burners that are close together and a not so big oven with one rack. Hence the need to prepare some things in advance.

The menu was to be as follows:

butternut squash and sunchoke soup
green pea casserole
jarrahdale pumpkin stuffed with cornbread stuffing
mashed potatoes
mushroom gravy
cranberry sauce
seitan
sauerkraut homemade
garden salad
apple crumble with coconut ice cream and small glasses of homemade Nocino

Day before:

The butternut and sunchoke soup:

butternut peeled and chopped in big chunks

tromboncino unpeeled and chopped

sunchokes chopped

onion diced

garlic whole bulb

lemongrass blades

pineapple sage leaves and flowers

olive oil

salt 

water

Begin by chopping and peeling your butternut and tromboncino squashes. Tromboncino squash doesn't necessarily have to be peeled. Roast them in the oven with your bulb of garlic for at least 45 minutes.

Once the squashes are roasted and softened, you can add them to your soup pot with the rest of the ingredients and begin to cook them in your soup pot. I like to brown my veggies a little bit with olive oil before I add the water and salt and herbs. Once these ingredients are softened a little bit, probably about 15 minutes then you can pour all or some of the soup into a blender (we use our vitamix) and blend as you like it. Sometimes I blend just half of the soup for a chunkier soup. This soup was blended fully for a very creamy texture. Soup can be cooled and then put in the fridge until ready to be warmed for the next day.

 The seitan:

2 c vital wheat gluten
1 c flour (any kind - I used a mixture of buckwheat, coconut, and corn flours)
handful of oats
2 Tbsp couscous
salt about 1 tsp
herbs/spices as desired
an even amount of liquid as your dry ingredients so about 3 c water

Mix all dry ingredients together. Add liquid and mix by hand making sure to incorporate all dry ingredients with the wet ingredients into a sticky mound. Add a little water or dry ingredients as necessary until you have a cohesive ball of gluten. Wrap in cheese cloth and tie with cooking twine. Put into a large soup pot in a cooking broth made of any vegetable or fruit ingredients, salt and water. Simmer for at least 45 minutes. Allow to cool and then this can be refrigerated for up to a week in it's own broth.

cooking broth can be anything:
water to cover seitan
apples chopped
chile peppers
paprika peppers
tomatoes
garlic unpeeled ok
onions
squash peelings
herbs - rosemary, marjoram
salt less than 1 Tbsp

When ready to cook for the meal, slice off medallions of seitan and fry with a little olive oil in a skillet. Add a little bit of the cooking broth to keep seitan moist. 

The cornbread:

Unfortunately I didn't pay much attention to the amounts of each ingredient for this cornbread. It was perfect for stuffing as it was a little dense and cakey. Some day I'll have to do another trial run to make an official recipe. Until then I'll write up the ingredients list and you can experiment on your own.

corn flour
white flour
coconut flour (probably about 2 c of flour total)
baking powder (probably about 1 tsp)
salt (about 1 tsp)
lemon juice or mild vinegar (about 1 Tbsp)
water (maybe about 1 c)

Mix all dry ingredients thoroughly. Add liquid ingredients and mix to right consistency somewhere between thick batter and liquidy cake batter. Pour into a cast iron skillet and bake for 30-45 minutes or until center is done. Allow to cool then slice so that it will be dry for using in stuffing.

The apple crumble dessert:

the crumble:
handful of nuts (I used walnuts and pecans)
coconut flour (about 1 c)
coconut sugar (about a half c)
baking powder (less than 1 tsp)
spices (cinnamon, clove)
salt (less than 1 tsp)
earthbalance (4-5 Tbsp)
1-2 Tbsp water

Put all dry ingredients into a blender and pulse until chopped finely. Add chunks of earthbalance to the dry ingredients and chop in roughly with a little bit of water to make the crumble. Put this crumble into the base of a small baking dish and save some for the top.

 The apple filling:
2 apples cored and chopped
coconut sugar (about half c)
salt (sprinkle)
cinnamon
lemon juice from 1 lemon
lemon zest from the lemon
left over crumble ingredients (just a little)

Core and chop apples. Add rest of ingredients and mix thoroughly. Add the apple filling on top of the crumble bottom and then add rest of crumble to the top. Can be refrigerated until following day when read to bake.

 The day of:

The day of Thanksgiving was a day full of preparation. There was much to chop and dice and blend and cook and prepare. This day was for putting the meal together starting midday.

The green pea casserole:

snap peas (enough to fill casserole dish - mine were frozen, but from the farm)
potatoes chopped
kohlrabi greens removed from bulb and diced stems and all
thyme
summer savory
garlic
coconut milk
salt

Place peas and some chopped potatoes into casserole dish.

In a blender blend up some of the green peas, kohlrabi greens, more potato, herbs, coconut milk, and some salt

Pour into casserole dish and then make your crispy onion topping.

The topping of this casserole dish is very important. Crispy baked onions are essential. I make my own by slicing small onions, mixing in a bowl with some coconut flour and salt and then baking in the oven at 400degF for 20-30minutes with some coconut oil. 


multiplier onions peeled and sliced into rounds
coconut flour
salt
coconut oil

Baked all together for 40 minutes at 400degF it comes out like this.

The jarrahdale pumpkin stuffed with cornbread stuffing:

One jarrahdale pumpkin (really this can be any pumpkin or squash - but how cool is this pumpkin!)
one batch of day old cornbread
apple cored and chopped
onion diced
baby carrots tops removed, but left whole
herbs chopped (parsley, rosemary, thyme, and summer savory, sage left whole)
radicchio leaves chopped
olive oil
salt
  

Place cut up pieces of day old cornbread into bowl.  Chop up all herbs, veg, fruits except carrots and sage. Add to cornbread.  Add some carrots and then mix all ingredients thoroughly with some olive oil and salt.

Bake pumpkin partially so that it is easier to cut out the top. Stuff pumpkin with cornbread ingredients.  Add baby carrots and whole sage branch to top of stuffed pumpkin. Leftover cornbread ingredients were put into base of casserole dish and then pumpkin put on top. Bake in oven for 1 hour or more or until pumpkin seems soft and stuffing ingredients are steaming inside.

The mashed potatoes:

potatoes
chives
olive oil
salt
water

Chop potatoes roughly and boil in plenty of water with olive oil and salt. Boil until soft. Mash with chopped chives and add more olive oil and salt as needed. Add a little potato cooking water as needed for smoother mashed potatoes. Put into a casserole dish for keeping warm until ready to eat.

The mushroom gravy:

mushrooms (I used portobello and king trumpet)
onion
garlic
rosemary sprigs stems removed
coconut flour
salt
water

Chop up all ingredients. Put a little olive oil into pot and turn heat to medium. Add a little coconut flour and make a roux by browning the flour a little before adding the rest of the ingredients. Stir fry the ingredients until browned and then add enough water to make a gravy to the desired consistency.
 

The cranberry sauce:

Cranberries (1 bag - obviously not from the farm)
spices (cinnamon, allspice, clove)
lemon juice from 1 lemon
lemon zest from lemon
a little bit of coconut sugar

In a skillet turn to medium heat and add cranberries. They will begin to pop and sizzle as they release their juices. Add rest of the ingredients and stir until the cranberries make a sauce.

The sauerkraut:

The sauerkraut was made during the summer and was jarred up after a couple of months of fermenting in the big crock. The sauerkraut used was from one very large golden acre cabbage that was sliced thinly, punched down into the crock and then salt added after each layer. This was then covered with sliced carrots and herbs along with whole onions and small cabbages. All of this was made from veggies harvested from the farm.

The garden salad:

lettuce greens
radicchio head
last of the summer tomatoes
lemon juice
olive oil

Salad assembled as any salad would. Ingredients chopped and placed into a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice.

 And here we have it. A delicious thanks for giving - so much good food from the farm meal. Paired with Simtra india pale ale beer and we had a feast.

 After the meal, and later in the evening it was time to prepare the dessert for baking. Paired with homemade coconut ice cream and some of our 2011 vintage homemade Nocino, it was the perfect way to spend some time preparing some of our garlic for planting the next morning on the farm.

The dessert again:

coconut ice cream:
3 cans coconut milk
1 c sugar
ice cream maker

Add ingredients to ice cream maker and follow directions to have delicious coconut milk ice cream.

Bake dessert in a 400degF oven for 30 minutes. Scoop hot apple crumble into bowls and top with homemade coconut ice cream. Sip homemade Nocino vintage 2011 with your dessert. Enjoy a nice roaring fire and peel some garlic.

Enjoy!

A meal: Late harvest soup or what to do with all those extra vegetables that hang around from the farm

 It's getting to be the end of the farm CSA season and while I have yet to post all of the recipes I had planned for (and have photo documentation of), I do have some time to post this one. Perhaps during the wintery cold and rainy season, there will be spare evenings where a bit of food blogging will be the perfect way to end the day.

We really love soup. As you follow us on this farm and food journey you will notice that we like to make certain things a lot. Mostly we love to make soup because it is just so easy. Basically soup can be made from anything you have around the kitchen. Basic recipe is as follows: vegetables and/or fruits, herbs, water, salt. It really doesn't have to be any more complicated than that and if you are so inclined you can add grains, pastas, beans to make it heartier.

I once had some interns working with me that commented during a lunch that I always had soup and how did I ever do it. I simply explained to them that soup is very, very uncomplicated and in my mind the addition of bouillon and packaged ingredients that are meant to make soup making easy, is often a detriment and can make a a good soup recipe into something very non-spectacular. The secret to excellent soup is that you need those fresh ingredients to bring about those flavors that make for a delicious soup stock. You really don't need all day to simmer a soup so that you can get that stock. Soup can be made within a half hour (or even less) if you keep it simple.

We love a huge pot of soup that can be very simple the first day, add a grain or a pasta and some type of legume if you desire the next day, and then later days add more water which will thin it out, but just add a bit more salt and maybe a new vegetable or two and you are well fed for most of the week (or the entire week if you have a really big pot or don't eat as much as we do).

This meal is one of those types of soups that can be made any which way desired. We used what we had around and it turned out delicious.

A meal: The late harvest soup

tromboncino winter squash, peeled and cut into chunks as much as needed (I used about a half of the squash - any winter squash will do)
baby yellow crookneck squashes, some whole with flowers and others sliced thinly on a mandolin
baby mountain rose potatoes, whole (can be diced into chunks if larger)
sunchokes, cut into chunks or sliced thinly
leek, sliced into thick rounds
baby carrots, washed well and leafy tops removed (some of the green top was left on the carrots)
young green soybeans, shelled
green unripe tomatoes and their ripe tomatoes, diced into large chunks
garlic, peeled and sliced

herbs:
two leaves of lemongrass
sprig of rosemary
sprig of pineapple sage

olive oil
salt
water

 Toss all your vegetables and herbs into a large soup pot with a dash of olive oil and about 1 tablespoon of salt to start if making a large pot. Let the vegetables simmer a bit on the oil before adding as much water as will fill the pot to the desired amount of soup you will want in the end. I will often use the largest bowl that is going to be used for serving the soup filling it with water, and then do this 4-6 (sometimes 8!) times if I plan on having the soup for dinner, lunch and then dinner again. And this way, the hungry farmers can have seconds if they so desire!

As you can see there is just a hand full of this, and a few of that, and any combination of herbs will do.  The soup ends up making a relatively light vegetable broth, but it is packed full of whole vegetables.

This pot of late harvest soup then gets simmered until the vegetables are just softened (anywhere from 15 minutes or more as desired). More salt can be added by the eater as needed once ready to sit down to eat.

This meal was then paired with a homemade whole wheat ciabatta like loaf of bread and a salad made from kohlrabi, apples, cherry tomatoes.While I am working on perfecting my bread making skills, I am not ready to post a recipe for the bread as I still feel like I have a lot of kinks to smooth out and a lot of tricks I need to learn. The loaf was hearty and had a nice texture, but I certainly do not profess to be much of a baker yet (although it is a skill I wish to learn - any outside feedback would be much appreciated...)

I didn't end up taking step by step photos of the salad because I assumed it would be too simple, but it was simply so good that I'll share at least the ingredients and perhaps it will be improved upon and posted again at a later date. We had just enough kohlrabi to make a small salad to share.

The salad:

1 kohlrabi, skin peeled/removed and then inner flesh cut into chunks

1 sweet winter apple, grated

handful of cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

olive oil

balsamic vinegar

salt

Drizzle the olive oil and balsamic vinegar just enough to coat the ingredients and then add just as much salt as desired (a few dashes).

The soup was plenty hearty to satisfy us for a few days and we never even added any pasta or grains. It was the perfect meal for a cold Fall evening after a long days work on the farm.  The subtle flavors of the lemongrass and pineapple sage were well complimented and came through even with the pungent flavor of the rosemary taking some room within the flavoring of the stock.

a side dish: green tomatoes

It's that time of year when the tomato plants are on their last days of providing vine ripened fruit, yet there is still an abundance of green fruits hanging. And whatever would one do with green unripe tomatoes? Plenty of things actually. You just have to be a little creative and think outside the ripe tomato box.

last of the moonglow and principe borghese tomatoes

From a cookbook lent by a CSA member:

The Gardener's Community Cookbook
compiled and written by Victoria Wise

one of our CSA members has lent me one of her favorite cookbooks for some time and I've been trying to figure out what recipe to post. There were plenty of tasty sounding recipes, but I just couldn't decide. When we went out into the garden and gathered the last of the green and half ripened tomatoes, my mind started to wander toward what we will do with this green abundance.

The following are two recipes from the cookbook lent by a member.

Green Tomato Relish

1 pound green tomatoes, finely chopped
1 1/2 pounds onions, finely chopped
1 1/2 pounds bell peppers, assorted colors if possible, finely chopped
1 large jalapeno, stemmed and finely chopped
2 tablespoons of pickling salt
3/4 cup of sugar
1 cup of distilled white vinegar
3/4 teaspoon turmeric
2 tablespoons pickling spices tied in cheesecloth

1. Place the tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, jalapeno, and salt in a large bowl. Add water to cover and set aside to soak overnight at room temperature.

2. Next day, drain and rinse the vegetables. Set aside.

3. Prepare 3 pint jars and lids for canning

4. Combine the sugar, vinegar, turmeric, and bag of pickling spices in a large nonreactive pot and bring to a boil. Add the drained vegetables and return to a boil. Remove from the heat immediately and ladle into the jars. Seal and process in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. Or cool, cap, and store in the refrigerator. Will keep in the refrigerator 6 months, 1 year if processed.

For pickling spices:
any of the following will do depending on the flavors you prefer: all spice berries, bay leaves, black peppercorns, cloves, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, red chili peppers, ground ginger, celery seed, dill seed, cinnamon, cardamom, mace, white peppercorns

 Green Tomato Chutney

2 pounds green tomatoes, rinsed and quartered
2 pounds tart green apples, such as Pippins, peeled, cored, and quartered
1 pound shallots, peeled
2 heads of garlic, peeled (20-24 cloves each)
6 fresh red chili peppers, stemmed and seeded
1 inch piece fresh ginger, coarsely chopped and tied in cheesecloth
1/2 pound of golden raisins
1 pound Demerara or other crystal-form brown sugar
2 1/2 cups distilled white or cider vinegar

1. Put the tomatoes, apples, shallots, garlic, and chilies through a  mincer or finely chop in a food processor, taking care not to over chop them into a mush. Transfer to a nonreactive canning kettle or very large pot.

2. Add the ginger, raisins, sugar, and vinegar and slowly bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring from time to time. Lower the heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook for 1 hour, or until all the ingredients are soft and the mixture has thickened into a loose syrup.

3. Meanwhile, prepare 4 quart jars and lids for canning.

4. Remove the ginger bag and ladle the chutney into the jars. Seal and process in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. Or cool, cap, and store in the refrigerator. Let mature for 1 month before using. Will keep up to 1 year if processed, 6 months in the refrigerator.


A classic dish to make with green tomatoes is to bread them and fry them up for fried green tomatoes. Here's my take on the recipe:


Baked Green Tomatoes

4-many medium to large sized green tomatoes (1-2 tomatoes per person)
1 small handful of flour (I've had success with just about any flour, white flour is typical, but I like cornflour and coconut flour)
1 Tbsp tapioca flour or cornstarch or arrowroot (optional really)
salt
herbs chopped finely as desired (rosemary or sage or thyme or basil are great)
oil (canola or olive oil or even coconut)

Preheat oven to 350-400degF
Cut up your green tomatoes into large rounds about 1/2 inch thick. In a small bowl, mix your flour, tapioca or cornstarch or arrowroot, salt, and herbs. Drench each tomato slice on each side with the floury mixture.

Oil up a baking pan or cast iron and place each flour drenched tomato on the dish. Drizzle some oil over the tops of these tomatoes. Place in oven and bake for 25-35 minutes depending on how crispy you like your tomatoes. Toward the end of baking, flip your tomatoes if you want each side a bit more browned, but this isn't necessary.

Serve as a side with any dish. These are excellent on top of soups or pastas or hearty grain dishes. And there really is no limit to experimenting with different flavors, so your green tomatoes can have curry spices or savory spices or possibly even sweet spices. The flavor of the green tomatoes themselves lends a sour lemony sweetness that gets almost caramelized when baked. So delicious, we don't have to feel too bad that ripe tomato season is on its way out, if we get to enjoy these green tomatoes for a few more weeks.

Green tomato storage

Storing green tomatoes during the winter involves some storage space and some containers, but not much else. One thing to keep in mind is that you have to be vigilant about culling any rotting or bad tomatoes so that it doesn't spoil the whole box. Ideally, you would place tomatoes in a box in a single layer, but last year we even just put them into a bucket and just pulled them out every week to check for "going bad" tomatoes. Your green tomatoes will ripen over time and you can sort them by ripeness: greenest at one end of box or bottom of bucket and yellowing/yellowist at other end or top. A cool, dark place is ideal for storage. Most people don't have a root cellar around here, so even the kitchen cabinet or pantry does great.

Any other classic recipes or new recipes out there involving green tomatoes we should share?

A side dish: Costata Romanesca Summer Squash or three + let me count the infinite ways

Summer time often means that it is time to figure out what to do with those summer squash that just keep growing and manage to hide out in the large leafy plants and before you know it you have a monster summer squash on your hands. 

We really enjoy this Costata Romanesca variety of summer squash. We think it has superior flavor to a zucchini and is prolific and we like that when it is cooked it maintains its shape rather than disintegrating into mush. The unfortunate thing (or fortunate thing?) is that they can get rather huge if unnoticed or forgotten about on the plant. In one week's time, a squash that was tiny and still had its flower on the end can get to be over a foot long and very large around. 

We usually just cut up a large chunk at a time with the big ones and use it as needed in a dish, saving the rest in the fridge for another dish. Here, we wanted to share with you some easy methods to prepare a summer squash.

A side dish: pan roasted summer squash with rosemary

large summer squash

olive oil

rosemary

salt

Begin by chopping your squash into nice sized wedges.

Drizzle with olive oil, dash of salt, break up your rosemary and sprinkle onto the wedges.
Bake for 30+ minutes until squashes have are baked to desired doneness.

Enjoy on the side with many meals.

A side dish: squash, green bean and garlic tempura

 summer squash chopped
green beans stems removed
garlic cloves peeled

2/3 c white flour
2/3 c arrowroot or cornstarch
2Tbsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 c carbonated water or beer (we used beer for this recipe)
extra flour for dredging veggies

canola oil

Mix all dry ingredients and add carbonated water or beer gradually until consistency of mixture is a light batter. Dredge veggies into flour and dust off excess. Dip floured veggies into tempura batter. 

Deep fry in enough oil to over a few tempura battered veggies at a time.  Too many wet veggies will lower the temperature of the ot oil and the tempura won't cook as well or evenly. Do this in small batches and drain onto paper towels or onto a cookie sheet.

tamari
brown rice vinegar
toasted sesame oil

mix these ingredients for a tempura dipping sauce

Enjoy the tempura veggies on their own or paired with a simple udon noodle soup of veggies, broth and noodles or with a stir fry dish (with summer squash of course!)

A side dish: zucchini butter (or any summer squash "butter")

This last side dish was passed along to me so I can't claim it as my own. But, we did try it out and ate it with a pasta dish. It was very tasty and I would like to make it again since we surely will have more squash.

check out the original posting here at Food52

http://food52.com/blog/7500-jennie-cook-s-zucchini-butter

We substituted the butter with olive oil and instead of shallots we used some multiplier onions and garlic.


And lucky me, with the roasted summer squash and tempura veggies I got to enjoy them cooked for me especially. What a treat! Hope you are also enjoying the many ways for cooking summer squashes this summer season.

What recipes do you love to use?

Enjoy!