'Til June!

Yesterday I picked up the second and final winter share. It was really different from the first one, which was fun.

Here's the take:

• 1 bag of sweet potatoes! These are the first sweet potatoes that I've had since I joined the farm. There have been deer issues, woodchuck problems, and then mysterious happenings. So thank heavens! I love sweet potatoes.
• 3 bags of root veggies, including carrots, turnips, beets, and rutabagas.
• 1 bag of assorted apples.
• 1 bag of spinach (no lettuce this time).
• 1 crown of kale.
• 3 red onions.
• 3 white onions.
• 1 bag of russet potatoes.
• 1 bag of red potatoes.
• 2 celeriac.
• 5 garlic.
• 8 dried hot peppers.
• 2 bags of herbs, and I picked sage and lavender.
• 1 bag of tea herbs, and I picked lemon balm.
• 3 ears of popcorn.
• 1 delicata squash.
• 3 butternut squash.
• 1 carnival squash.
• 1 loaf of pumpkin cranberry bread.
• 1 bag of maple roasted almonds.

I also bought some eggs from the Codman barn, and some honey. I went to Wilson Farms today, and noticed that their Boston Honey Co. honey was $8, where I can get it from the farm for $5. They have reasonably priced jellies and hot sauces too. Good fun!

Meat! (and Thanksgiving)

Today I picked up my December meat share. Kim was pretty relieved that turkey season is over. Her monthly pickup email talked about past turkeys that grew the size of emus and other turkeys that were eaten before they were harvested! But this year, lots of normal-sized turkeys, and not many casualties.

This month's meat share:

• 2 packages of 2 lamb rack rib chops.
• 1 smoked bacon.
• 1 bacon ends.
• 1 pork garlic and cheese sausage.
• 1 maple sugar cured bone-in ham steak.
• 1 package of ground beef.
• 1 package of beef stew beef.
  1 chicken breast.
  2 packages of pork loin chops.

Last week we had, of course, Thanksgiving dinner. I went to my parents' with two of my siblings, and Eun Jung came too. It was her first turkey, and mom let her baste it, "I saw them do this on TV." We had a ham from the farm too, and it cooked much faster than we thought. But it tasted great.

I brought mom a squash from the farm, that was delicious! And I brought the apple pie from The Food Project (yum!), and a pumpkin pie that I made from a farm pumpkin. The farm pumpkin was try #2. First try, well...remember that evaporated milk should NOT be chunky. Second try was quite yummy.

The ham:

The pie (thanks to a coworker's recipe!)

next season

OK kids, if you're upset about the cold, crappy November weather we had this weekend, it's a great time for you to start thinking about next summer. That's right, now is a good time to sign up for a farm share! In Massachusetts, I suggest checking out NOFA for farm listings.

I made a change for next year, and it has good and bad points to it. I am going to stick with The Food Project, because I've been really happy with the food, the staff, and their communication. I like the fact that part of their mission is to help out people who don't get enough fresh veggies.

But normally I get the on-farm share, which feeds 2-3 vegetarians. As my sister and I are not vegetarians, it's just too many vegetables. Plus, I have a busy life, and sometimes that means I miss a cooking day and have to pick up a burrito somewhere. The Food Project doesn't have half shares, but they do have box shares.

Box shares are a little smaller, designed for 1-2 vegetarians. You don't pick up on the farm. I am going to do the Cambridge box share, which is at someone's house. You go and get a box of 4-18 pounds of veggies each week. This is a little more reasonable than the 8-24 pounds you get otherwise. Also, the on-farm share is $700 this year, but the box share is $500. Less waste and less money are better all the way around.

I'll be sad not to go to the actual farm each week. It was a peaceful weekly ritual, picking parsley, tomatoes, strawberries. However, they have on-farm volunteer activities. As my #1 New Year's Resolution is going to be to do more volunteer work, the farm will be a great place to start. I wasn't able to go this year, but I'll be changing my schedule next year.

I'm steaming Brussels sprouts in my rice cooker just now. Made steamed egg rolls with farm veggies and ground beef, and cooked up a pot of lentils seasoned with onions and spices from the farm. I'm good til Thanksgiving. Tuesday, I make pumpkin pie!

bounty!

Yesterday I picked up my first ever winter share! Yay! I expected a lot, and even though what I got met my expectations...it's still a lot of food!

The share (if I can remember it all!):

• Four produce bags of root veggies, including carrots, beets, turnips, and rutabagas. I found out recently that I liked baked rutabaga, with the sweetness of a turnip and the meatiness of a potato. I think that if it had a cuter name, more people would eat it.
• 4 stalks of Brussels sprouts. This looks immense and ridiculous all together. Perhaps I'll post a pic at some point, since a lot of people haven't seen how these things grow.
• 1 cabbage.
• 1 kohlrabi.
• 1 peck of assorted apples.
• 1 bag of lettuce.
• 4 onions.
• 6 bulbs of garlic.
• 1 handful of parsley.
• 1 handful of cilantro.
• 8 pounds of potatoes.
• 3 crowns of kale or collard greens.
• 10 leeks.
• 2 butternut squash.
• 5 assorted squash.
• 1 apple pie!

It's possible I missed one or two things. I'll be bringing a lot of veggies home for Thanksgiving this year, along with a ham from Chestnut Farms. Such excitement!

Ham!

I picked up my meat share on Wednesday.

Here's the share:

• 1 3.5 maple-sugar cured bone-in ham. I already called my mom and we're going to have it as part of Thanksgiving, along with the Turkey. I'm excited to share my meat with my family!
• 2 1-pound packages of maple-sugar cured hickory smoked bacon. This stuff is great, like the bacon you get from the meat counter at whole foods.
• 1 beef flank steak
• 1 package ground beef
• chicken legs
• chicken breast

I've enjoyed cooking lately, as I've finally figured out that when I cook steak, it takes approximately 1/5 of the time I was originally comfortable with to cook it properly and have it taste good. Amazing. The meat doesn't have to be grey!

It's over!

I picked up my last veggie share at the end of October. Has been a busy couple weeks, or perhaps I was just agonizing over the final notes of voting season!

My last share was about the same, I won't post it all. We got a couple of butternut squash, I'm set for potatoes and carrots for a bit, and we got the special corn-on-the-cob popcorn! It's beautiful, full of gold and deep purple kernals. There is nothing like the light fluffy popcorn it makes. Butter is unnecessary for this stuff, just a little salt.

I made lamb chops and mashed potatoes this week, nice and hearty. This past weekend, I made amaretto scallops with bacon and it's one of the nicest recipes I've made!

I'm already missing the farm, even though it was getting dark and cold. The winter share is distributed in a local barn, so I won't be able to wander the fields come fall. I'm really looking forward to the share though!

Meat continues through the winter. Yay! There is plenty to eat!

Brussels sprouts

I was a tad under the weather for much of last week, so I never posted on veggies!

Suffice to say that I hit up the farm in the rain last week and skipped picking the last few raspberries and herbs.

But the share was nice!

• 2 stalks of Brussels sprouts! I love these things, but I have to learn to cook them better.
• 1 bag of spinach, instead of lettuce. This would be way better every week. Made a spinach, apple, goat cheese salad.
• 2 butternut squash.
• 1 carnival squash.
• 2 bulbs of garlic.
• 10 leaves of kale.
• 1 bag of mix n' match, where I stocked up on carrots, potatoes, celeric, turnips, onions.
  

Fruit share:

• 1 bag of apples.

We are overwhelmed with the fall harvest, and I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, it's time for the second annual Buy No Food November.

I'm not sure if tomorrow is the last share. It may be! Until the winter share next month...

Discovering raspberries

Yesterday a friend of mine brought her toddler M over for lunch and a trip to The Food Project! We had stir fried strip steak from Chestnut Farms that I made with peppers and onions. Her daughter kept saying "chicken chicken" when she wanted more. We also had roasted veggies and some mashed butternut squash, which tasted great with just a little butter.

They brought along a toy shovel, and since I had a couple spider plants I had rooted in water, we decided to plant them. M shoveled in the dirt, protesting the plant. (She's used to a pail at the beach, and the plant seemed in the way.) But good for her to kind of see the process before the trip.

Then off to the farm for some real dirt. M was really drawn to the delicata squash, which was new for this week. She kept saying "pumpkin pumpkin!" and wouldn't leave that table.

The share included:

• One bag of salad mix.
• 1 bulb garlic
• 10 leaves of kale.
• 2 delicata squash.
• 1 sugar pumpkin (yay pumpkin pie!)
• 1 bag of mix n' match, including potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, turnips. We realized that we're very good about eating the root veggies, have some trouble with the lettuce.
• Half a pint of raspberries from the field. M had never had raspberries, and she quickly learned to pick the ripest ones from the bush and eat them immediately!
• Herbs.

There were also cornstalks for decorating. I didn't take any because I don't have a doorstep at my condo.

Fruit share:

• Apples.

M had a great time wandering through the flower patch and running through the fields. Then she was hungry (raspberries just don't cut it alone) and we went on home. It was a beautiful October day for a trip to the farm, and we're planning to do more trips during a different season. Maybe during strawberry season, since M kept calling the raspberries "strawberry!"

Chestnut Farms open barn

Yesterday Eun Jung (who was Elena's Korean tutor before Elena went to South Korea) and I went to Chestnut Farms for their open barn. It was a gorgeous day, and the excursion doubled as a leaf-peeping adventure. We trekked out to Hardwick, got totally lost, asked a lot of locals where the farm might be, with answers like "well I can tell ya how to get to Hardwick" to "I know about where it is, but that's the fire chief who just pulled up to the bait shop there, and he'll definitely know."

The amazing thing about the farm was the everything moved! In veggie farming, you rotate crops, and the same stuff applies to the animals. The barn, which has nice new siding, was completely moved around from our visit in the spring. The school buses for the chickens were in totally new places. If you have movable structures, they aren't taxed (this is what Spags in Shrewsbury did to keep taxes, and prices, low). Plus moving the animals around keeps them rotated to fresh grass and bugs.

Eun Jung used to have three chickens when she was young, which she said took an hour to chase around every evening. She tried to chase them, but said it's more difficult and a little scarier when you're older!



There weren't as many babies since the lambs give birth in the spring, but there were new piggies everywhere.



And there were St. Bernard puppies, which they are hoping to sell. These pups were only 2 weeks old, and they didn't open their eyes.







The cows were enjoying munching.



There's a new little brown goat! In the spring you could carry the white goat around, but it's too big now. It stuck its head through the fence to eat my hair.



Chestnut Farms sells turkeys in the fall for $75. You pre-order. Last year the turkeys ranged from 25 to 50 pounds, I think. This year they had a July batch and an August batch, so that there would be some that were closer to 20 pounds. Kim says that the turkeys take only 10 minutes per pound to cook, which is half the time that a turkey from a store takes. So even though they're pretty large, you'll be able to cook them in a reasonable amount of time. And they are less fatty and taste better!



The turkeys are extremely social birds. They all crowded at the fence. Kids were feeding them grass. One kid started screeching at the turkeys, and they all gobbled back at the same time. It was amazing. "Screech screech screech" and 30 turkeys "Gobble gobble gobble" in sort of a watery ripple.



It was such a nice day. On our drive home we saw a hot air balloon and some sort of machine with a parachute-like attachment, flying around the hills. Ah yes, everything great about Western Massachusetts, on a sunny October afternoon.

Winter veggie shares!

Today was a beautiful day, but soon it will be cold cold cold. What better way to combat winter blues than with a winter veggie share? My farm is sold out of winter shares, but Kate from The Food Project sent everyone an email today about another local winter share. One of the gems in this email is the Belmont CSA News blog. Beautiful pics from their farm.

The New Amsterdam Project is something I'd heard of before in a post about the Harvest Coop in Central Sq. They deliver various products on these neat bicycle carts.

Here's the email about the winter share.

"Buy a Multi-Farm Winter Community Supported Agriculture Share!

Enjoy locally grown vegetables this winter!

Three farms have come together to share their fall and winter harvests with you through this three month Winter CSA. Gretta Anderson, Belmont CSA, manages the Winter CSA and will grow many of the leafy greens you will find in the Winter Share. Bruce and Jenny Wooster, Picadilly Farm, grow and store the bulk of storage vegetables for the Winter Share on their Winchester, NH farm. Chris Yoder, Vanguarden CSA, grows some of the storage onions, popcorn and a variety of root vegetables and leafy greens for the Winter

Share.

These shares will contain many storage vegetables, as well as leafy greens and storage apples. Plans for the winter share include beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, celery, celeriac, collard greens,

escarole, hakurei turnips and greens, kale, lettuce, leeks, sweet potatoes, purple top turnips, onioins, parsnips, popcorn, potatoes, radishes, radicchio, shallots, and winter squash. Storage apples from Cider Hill Farm

will also be part of the share.

Winter Shares cost $225. They will be distributed from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, Saturdays, October 18, November 8, and December 6. Shares will be distributed at the farm in Belmont (34 Glenn Road). Eco-Friendly Delivery is available through the New Amsterdam Project <http://newamsterdamproject.com/> .

For more information, see the Belmont CSA blog <http://BelmontCSA.blogspot.com> or email BelmontCSA@gmail.com for details and a subscription form."

Yay!

Chestnut Farms is having their Open Barn on Sunday, or what I affectionately call "Meet the Meat." (Or maybe I'm just a bit snarky?)

My brother John and I went this spring and had a fantastic time. At first we were like, hi sheep hi pigs hi chickens...but then we got to hold the little lambs, chase the chickens, put the goat back in its pen, learn about how the animals are fed...it was just good times. The farm is next to the Quabbin, and it's a beautiful area. The air smells lovely, aside from the manure. On Sunday I'll be going with a friend "I haven't seen farm animals for a long time!" and my brother is trying to decide whether or not go.

I'm looking forward to it, and will hopefully have pictures next week.

disasters and creativity

Sometimes life is not fair. In my life, this tends to manifest itself as household pests.

I do keep things clean! I swear! But I have this thing about living in backwoods cottages, where the mice really don't think a house is any different from a tree, and the ants hang out, and you get roots in the pipes. But I moved to a city! I live in a big brick box! No normal living creature wants to hang with me. That is, unless they are too small to care, and have an unlimited food supply.

I was craving eggplant parm at 11pm last night after the debate. Great. Cut up the eggplant, pulled out the last two eggs, everything was fine, and then...in my breadcrumbs...and infestation. It was gross. It was in the "baking" cupboard. Near the flour. Near the two bags of sugar that Elena and I accidentally bought within days of each other. A veritable bug feast!

So, after chucking most of what was in the cupboard, Jean and I decided to make breadcrumbs. Two slices of bread and an English muffin was all we had. Plus I had herbs from the farm that day. We toasted the whole mess with salt and pepper, then food processed it, and they were the most beautiful breadcrumbs I've ever eaten. The meal came out pretty good.

This week's share was pretty good. Tomatoes are done, and it was the last week for peppers and eggplant. Frost hit pretty hard, and the basil was dead dead dead. But, more squash...

• 1 bag of salad mix.
• 1 acorn squash.
• 1 butternut squash.
• 10 leaves of kale.
• 2 bulbs of garlic.
• 1 bag of mix n' match, including peppers, little eggplant, 4 onions, carrots, turnips, beets, and celeriac, which is also known as celeriac. I had to ask about this one. You can peel the root and chop it up and use it in cooking like celery, or you can use the leaves, also in cooking.
• 1/2 pint of raspberries. It was so cold out! And the sun goes down early, so picking was tough.
• Herbs herbs herbs!

Fruit share:

• 1/2 peck of apples and pears. Yay pears!

I need to figure out how to cook the veggies more quickly. I spend a ton of time cooking and eating, but there are other things sometimes...

October's meat share

I was delighted to open my meat share this month and see bacon! Now I can finally go to The Bacon Show and experiment.

This month's meat share:

• 1 pound of bacon ends. What I love about this is that it's already all in little pieces. I like adding bacon to dark leafy greens, like kale. It sweetens and adds moisture to the normally woody green.
• 1 beef rib Delmonico steak.
• 4 pork loin chops.
• 4 burgers.
• 1 package of ground beef.
• 2 rib steaks.
• 1 pound of hickory smoked, maple sugar cured bacon.
• 1 chicken breast.

I fear that I'm much better with ground beef than I am steak. I also fear that I'm totally starving, and it's time to end this post!

Cooking

The one thing about fresh vegetables is that you spend a lot of time preparing them. And then cleaning up after them. It always feels worth it once dinner is ready, but you have to get dinner ready! I've been eating a lot of raw veggie wraps, just lettuce, peppers, turnips, dressing.

This week I made a nice edamame cous cous. The farm tells us to just pull up a couple edamame plants and pick off the pods when you get home. This means that you have these plants at home, and you have to deal with them before you even start cooking! But it's efficient at the farm. Anyway, I picked off the pods, then washed them and boiled them until the pods softened. I cooked up a cup of cous cous and added some sunflower seeds. Then I removed the beans from the pods and added them to the cous cous. A bit of salt n' pepper, and some poppyseed dressing, and it was good stuff. It has protein and sunflower seed fat, so it's been a satisfying midafternoon snack.

Today I made a squash kale risotto that came out great. I also made a spicy ham apple stirfry that was just weird. I think that I tend to enjoy the adventure more than the final product.

And on to this week's share!

• 1 head of lettuce
• 1 bag of salad mix
• 2 bulbs of garlic
• 2 green tomatoes (I made fried green tomatoes last year and they were awful, but they were awful in the movie too, so maybe that's just how they are)
  
• 10 leaves of kale
• 1 bag of mix n' match, including onions, hot and sweet peppers, potatoes, turnips large and small, and beets.
• 1/2 pint of husk cherries. I didn't get any of these all year by choice, but I tried them today in the field and they're really good!
• 1 pint of tomatillos. I've been skipping these too, but since tomatoes are sparse and they seem to be holding up well, and I need more vitamin C, I picked up a bunch.
• 2 edamame plants.
• 1/2 a pint of raspberries.

It was also ok to get more beans, flowers, and herbs, but I skipped on these this week.

Fruit share:

• 1/2 peck of apples. I need to make another pie...

And tomorrow is the meat share! I got an email from the farm saying that the place where they get the lambs processed in New Hampshire was flooded recently, so no lamb this month. I hope that the plant is able to recover. Anyway, looking forward to the share, and to the last time the share is during the Arlington Farmer's Market. I believe that they close at the end of this month, so it's a good time to check them out. I like to pick up the flavored goat cheese and fresh fish, plus there are plenty of veggies, a nice shrub stand, and lots of other interesting products.

Ah, fall

I'm finally on a new computer, which means that I should be able to do exciting things like post pictures of our food again. Jean and I had a friend over to help me with the computer (Vista is terrible, in case anyone is wondering), and in return we fed him.

One of Elena's "signature recipes" is her spaghetti squash. We got a beautiful one from the The Food Project farm a couple weeks ago. Just cut it in half and pull out the seeds, pop it face down in an oiled pan at 400 for 45 minutes to an hour. Stick a fork in it to see if it's good n' squishy.

While it's cooking, you can make a sauce for the cavity in the squash. I fry up garlic, onion, and several kinds of hot and sweet peppers in my wok. Then I add chopped up Italian sausage from Chestnut Farms. Once it is brown, I add a can of tomatoes, and this time some thyme, salt, and pepper. Let it simmer until the flavors are blended, a good ten minutes or longer.

Take out the squash and flip it so that you can fill the cavity with the sauce. When you eat it, you pull the spaghetti strands with your fork and grab some of the sauce with it. Yummy, and filling!

I haven't yet blogged this week on the veggie farm, so here we go:

• 1 carving pumpkin! It's on our table, and looks really nice. I'd heard it was a lousy pumpkin season, so I'm happy we got one.
  
• 4 nectarines, full of flavor and just perfect.
• 1 bag of salad mix.
• 10 leaves of Swiss chard.
• 4 small tomatoes. I think tomatoes are about done for the year.
• 1 bag of mix n' match, including large turnips, small turnips, an eggplant, onions, peppers, carrots, and potatoes.
• 1 bag of pick your own beans. The beans have about had it, and taste a bit old. And yet, still better than the store.
• 1/2 pint of red raspberries. Jean and I don't even try to save these. When she gets home from class, we just wash them and snack on them for the night.

And then the fruit share:

• 1/2 peck of apples.

Jean and I made an apple pie this week! I bought vegetarian shortening to make the crust with, but it didn't seem to jive with my Fannie Farmer cookbook. It didn't hold together too well, so though the bottom crust was ok, the top crust was sort of a, um, patchwork. We didn't have to vent it. And then it never browned. Yet, despite it's ugly ducklingness, it tasted really good. Yummy apples, flakey crust. The shortening container has its own crust recipe, so I'll try that next time. I just want to get away from lard, having known a number of people who can't eat it. When there's pie, everyone should get a slice.

Restraint

One thing I always have to remember is that if I don't eat something, it goes bad. And if I don't actually take something from the farm, it is either sold or donated to families who don't get enough veggies. Yesterday I shorted myself in the fields. We had a bunch of tomatoes go bad...I pick them when they're very very ripe, and sometimes they split and start rotting within 24 hours.

And I was also rushing it, because it was primary day in Massachusetts. There were a couple of races where I wanted to get my say, so I rushed home between the farm and chamber music to get my votes in.

This week's veggie share:

• 1 spaghetti squash! Yay! It's the start of winter squash season. Spaghetti squash are great because you bake them, flip them and fill them with pesto or sausage or whatever, and then use a fork to pull out the long, mild spaghetti strands.
• 1 bag of salad mix, which I skipped because I still had a half bag left from last week.
• 1 head of lettuce.
• 2 tomatoes, as the season wanes.
• 2 bulbs of garlic.
• 10 leaves of kale.
• 1 bag of mix n' match, including peppers, hot peppers, onions, carrots, beets, turnips, and potatoes.
• Pick your own tomatoes, so I took a few little tomatoes.
• Pick your own beans, but I skipped them.
• Pick your own raspberries, so of course I picked a pint. Jean and I made raspberry pancakes!
• Unlimited herbs, but again, I have enough.

(Right?)

And the fruit share included:

• 1 bag of apples.
• 3 peaches.

My farm is offering a winter share. The deal is that it's only two pickups, one in the second half of November and the second in the second half of December. Apparently you get 40-50 pounds of food each share, or at least that's how it was last year. Potatoes, rutabagas, garlic, squash...all the winter veggies. And you get some breads that the farm produces. All for $130. One couple raved about the share during the picnic the farm had this summer. Plus, there was an optional apple share, 20 pounds of apples for $25. I signed up, and can pay in two installments. It's a fun thing to do for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Last year Elena and I were practically dying for local veggies by spring, so hopefully this will stave off the cravings. It's going to be 90 in South Korea this week, so I'm guessing the winter isn't quite as long over there! They have the coolest little peronal-sized melons that I'm jealous of. Lots of fun fruit, and lots of fish. I'm looking forward to visiting!

Blanching

OK, again, I should know better. When the forecast calls for rain on a farm day, it's not a good idea to wear strappy heels and new pants with a "Dry Clean Only" tag.

Silly me.

Anyway, I wandered through the fields with rolled up pants and muddy toes, and this week's share was:

• 1 head of lettuce.
• 1 bag of salad mix.
• 1 tomato.
• 1 bulb of garlic ("It's very small" said another woman, "Yes," said I, "but it's stronger than normal.")
• 10 leaves of really massive red kale.
• 1 bag of mix n' match, including, onions! as many as I wanted! that fit in the bag!, peppers of all kinds, broccoli, red cabbage, potatoes, carrots, nice looking beets, pat-a-pan squash, and my turnips are back so I can have them on toast for the fall!, and this just in Diacon radishes. Yay!
• Unlimited green beans (see below).
• Tomatoes, including unlimited plum, 2 heirloom, a pint of cherry, a pint of little plum.
• 4 edamame plants.
• 1 pint of raspberries!
• Unlimited herbs, but I didn't take much because I haven't frozen or used last week's.

Plus! There was a fruit share which consisted of:

• Apples.

Yep.

So today I blanched green beans. It was my first blanching extravaganza. You blanch beans before you freeze them. The first thing you do is start boiling water. While you wait, wash the beans and break them into pieces. Boil them for three minutes and then put them in ice water for three minutes. Immediately put them into freezer bags and the freezer. Yay! Beans in winter.

Yesterday I was watching Rachel Ray, and I just happened to have all the ingredients for the pasta dish she was making. You boil cut up potatoes, add some pasta, and then add shredded cabbage. Meanwhile, melt a stick of butter and add sage leaves and two halved cloves of garlic. Let the butter sauce blend a bit, then remove the sage and garlic and add chopped sage. Then you drain the pasta reserving one cup of the pasta water. Add the water to the butter, then mix in the pasta. Add salt and pepper and some romano. Mix mix mix. Yummy!

Elena and I are discussing the gigantic plums in South Korea, and I realized that I forgot to post about my fruit share last week! The fruit share is $72 for 2 months of fruit. It comes from a "low-spray orchard," and I'm not quite sure what that entails.

I think we get a half-peck of fruit. This week we got mostly apples, and a small bag of itty bitty plums. I love these plums! I ate them all, since Jean has only eyed them suspiciously. And the apples are really juicy and yummy. But now, back to Elena on Skype!

And meat this week too!

My meat share this week was:

• 2 packages of ground beef.
• 1 beef loin t-bone steak.
• 1 package of ground pork breakfast sausage (excellent-looking omlette material).
• 1 beef round top round steak.
• 1 package of chicken breast.
• 1 package of three Italian sausage.
• 2 pork fresh boneless ham steaks.
• 1 beef chuck steak boneless.
• Plus I arrived in time to buy 2 dozen eggs! Jean: "These eggs are way different than normal eggs." They're better.

Since I went away for about a week in August, I still have some meat from last month left. I have a steak marinating in the fridge. I used to never buy steak because it was so expensive and I didn't know how to cook it, but it keeps getting better. Jean brought a grill pan that makes cooking it far more fun! Sizzzzzle.

I wandered around the farmer's market in Arlington afterwards. I steered clear of most stuff, because we have more food right now than any household should. I stopped at a nice stand that sells shrubs. My condo building does not allow us to have Christmas trees. I'm trying to scam the system and buy a live evergreen plant that I can decorate at Christmas time. The stand had all of these gorgeous evergreens, and it made me sad that I don't have a yard. I told them about my plan, but the wizened head farmer assured me that his trees would die if I tried to keep them inside. Alas. I'll keep looking.

Fall harvests

Ah, so it's fall time. Fall time means that it's time to pick things as rapidly as possible so that they won't go bad! I picked up my veggies on Tuesday, and here's the take (from memory!):

• 1 bag of salad mix.
• 1 head of lettuce.
• 1 bulb of garlic.
• 3 field tomatoes.
• 8 leaves of kale.
• 3/4 a bag of mix n' match, including all kinds of green, purple, hot, red, big little peppers; carrots; onions; potatoes.
• 1 watermelon (I haven't opened it to see if it's great or red yet).
• Pick your own tomatoes, including a pint of cherry, a pint of plum, a few heirloom, and then unlimted of this one kind for sauce and gazpacho.
• Unlimited pick-your-own beans.
• 4 plants of edamame. When I got to the farm, people were walking around with all these plants...they told me it was easier it we just pulled up the plants. They are covered with edamame pods!
• Unlimited field herbs, plus herbs from the tea and herb gardens. More to freeze!

It was my sister Christine's birthday, so Jean and I trekked up to New Hampshire and we all made mango chicken and a yummy salad. Mango chicken doesn't use much from the farm, except onions and garlic, but it's one of the best things ever...especially when you add a can of coconut milk. I'm still looking for something grown in MA that could replace coconut milk, but I've had to cut back to just using the stuff only every now and again.

Jean is a bit overwhelmed by veggies. We had a meal that included a beet and carrot slaw, roasted beets potatoes carrots beans and peppers, corn on the cob (so sweet, didn't need butter or salt!), and ground beef with a bunch of peppers and eggplant. Yum stuff.

Tuesday's take

Yes, I picked up my share on Tuesday. Yes, I forgot to blog.

Jean moved in yesterday (at 8pm!). So she and I plan to face the fridge full of veggies. I am trying to put away for the winter, but so far I've just frozen some fruit and herbs. But I know that, come January, I will really want to eat those fruits and herbs.

This week's take:

• 1 watermelon (not sure if it's red or yellow).
• 1 cantaloupe.
• Lots of tomatoes, 4 in the shed, a pint of cherry, 8 other small ones, 1 orchard peach, and 4 heirloom. Hooray for gazpacho!
• 1 bag of salad mix.
• 1 head of lettuce, that I didn't bother to take because I still have lettuce.
• 8 stems kale.
• 1 head of garlic.
• 3/4 of a bag of mix-n-match...we now have small onions! but were limited to 2, plus I got a ton of peppers, some fennel, and beets.
• Lots of herbs, all of which are now frozen: thyme, wintermint, parsley, and dill.

It's time to make some good roasted veggies in oil and garlic. I made a veggie sausage stew that came out terrible this week....can't win them all! My gazpacho was good though.

My sister Christine turns 25 today. Maybe she wants lettuce for her birthday?

Food food food!

Jean's not moving in until Saturday. I had friends over yesterday, so of course we ate farmshare food. The difference between this year's visit and last is that this year they have a baby! They are trying to teach the baby to like veggies, so she was eating tomatoes and lettuce. I guess the baby is a self-proclaimed vegetarian already...she'll eat broccoli but spits out meat. Or maybe it's that she only has four teeth!

We made (I very rarely just cook and have people eat...normally I invite/force my guests to help cooking...I think this is due to menu ambition and lack of skill) fried pork chops in a nice Worcestershire sauce with Butt Rub. I was watching the Butt Rub guys on The Food Network, and they won a major BBQ contest, so now I've been using the stuff, even though it had been sitting on the shelf unused for months. And it's yum stuff.

We (well Paul) made a lettuce, tomato, pepper salad with olive oil and salt. Then we had pat-a-pan and two-toned squash in garlic and olive oil. And now I'm out of olive oil, alas! We also had some spinach walnut tortellini from Whole Foods that Elena left behind. Then, of course, yellow watermelon.

Today I made some yellow watermelon popsicles and put a small chunk of peach in each one. Then I had all this watermelon puree left. I added chunks of cantaloupe, a few big spoonfuls of Greek yogurt, and some of my local honey. It's from the Boston Honey Company. Puree puree puree. The smoothie came out gentle and sweet.

Elena's made it to South Korea, and has figured out how to use her rice cooker and hot plate. Hopefully she survives without an oven or microwave! She also went and bought a spicy pork soup, so she had to drink lots of water, so she had to use a squatty potty the first time. Yay!

Saying goodbye

This morning I dropped off Elena at the airport for her South Korea trip. She'll be gone a year or two. Or who knows. It didn't hit me until she was hugging me goodbye, and then I started to cry and still well up every time I think about it.

We had an impromptu party with Papa John's pizza (a rare treat!). I had gone to the farm before I went home, and we all shared half a yellow watermelon. People were fascinated (and suspicious). A couple people sniffed it and said "It seems to smell like a watermelon" and then took several slices. It's just so...watery and sweet.

This week's share:

• 2 Yellow watermelons.
• 1 cantaloupe.
• 2 heavily bee-stung peaches, ugly but sweet.
• 2 heads of lettuce.
• 1 head of garlic.
• 10 collard greens.
• 4 field tomatoes.
• 1 bag of mix n' match, and I chose, peppers, an eggplant, corn, hot peppers, and scallions.
• Pick your own tomatoes, including cherry tomatoes, some small tomatoes, and a couple heirlooms.
• 1 pint of beans.
• Lots of herbs.
• 37 stems of flowers...it being Elena's last day, I hunted around the patch some more and came up with a pretty cool bouquet.

Jean moves in next week, so she'll have plenty to eat!

Not enough veggies

I spent the last week as a tourist. For me this means eating lots of food I never eat. I spent time with my college roommate's family, where they serve me yummy spicy curries that I can't stop eating. I ate a huge chickpea curry burrito at Bueno Y Sano in Northampton, MA and blueberry ice cream in Amherst. Then I went to New York City for the first time in my life, and had a yummy Reuben, unlimited breakfast buffets, Irish pub food, English tea house comfort food, ya know, all the good stuff. It was the last trip Elena and I will take together for a long time.

And so, I gained five pounds and can really feel the lack of good organic veggies and meat. Luckily, today was farm day! And a good one:

• 1 head of lettuce.
• 1 bag of salad mix.
• 1 head of garlic.
• 10 leaves of collard greens.
• 4 tomatoes.
• 3 ears of corn.
• 1 bag of mix n' match, included a zillion peppers, pat-a-pan squash, two-tone squash, pickling cukes, and potatoes.
• 1 cantaloupe!
• 1 cute watermelon!
• 1/2 pint of cherry tomatoes.
• 1 heirloom tomato.
• 1 pint of beans.
• Tons of herbs.
• Flowers.

I also signed up for the fruit share, which is normally apples, and sometimes pears n' plums. I guess that there was a lot of hail damage this year, so we'll see what the share brings.

Elena made a nice squash risotto today, and a stirfry full of green beans. Last week Elena made a beautiful carrot cake.

Next week Elena is moving to South Korea for two years. It's very sad, but exciting. We've shared a lot of veggies together! Now she moves on to kimchee and Korean barbeque.

In the US, when someone takes your picture, you say "Cheese!" to show your happy toothy smile. In Korea, you say, "Kimchee!"

My sister Jean will be moving in next week. And will learn to cook. Yay Jean!

Stuffed peppers, here we go!

I think it's a lot easier to cook veggies when they have meat to play with! Today I got my third meat share, and it was exciting as usual.

I asked Kim if there was ever any bacon, and she said there is. She's good about putting stuff you like into the share, and she told me to email her about it. You get bacon about one out of every three months.

It also sounds like there will be a lot of lamb in a couple months. Kim said lambs are born late winter and early spring in MA, so you have to wait until fall to slaughter them.

Also, if you're a CSA member, there's a cooler full of "extra parts" like pork liver and pork hearts, and so on, that you can take as part of your share. I took a pork heart for Elena and me to try. Time to look for recipes!

And on to the good stuff. My meat share this month included:

• 3 Greek lamb sausage (my absolute favorite!)
• 2 packages of ground beef
• 2 packages of 2 pork loin chops
• 1 Beef chuck shoulder steak for London broil
• 1 Pork shoulder country style ribs (yum!)
• 1 package of 4 beef patties
• 1 beef rib steak (this looks really good too)
• 3 breakfast sausage

What I really want to do is make some stuffed peppers with the ground beef and the multitudes of green peppers I picked up yesterday. Since the meat share meat tends to fill me up with smaller portions, the smaller peppers will be perfect.

I also bought some scallops from the fish stand at the Arlington Farmer's Market, and some orange cardamon goat cheese from the goat cheese stand. They were all out of lemon lavender goat cheese this time.

So much cooking to do!

rain rain, go away...

So as it turns out, with all the rain means less ripe tomatoes, and more wet-related plant diseases. So the tomatoes are late and not that plentiful, unlike last year when it was hot all the time and all we had were tomatoes. On the flip side, we're headed towards some really good melons, which will be great! Maybe the raspberries will be better too.

My farm also offers a fruit share each year, but this year there was a bunch of hail. I guess tree fruit, like apples, is in short supply, and everyone is raising their prices. So I'm still waiting to see how much the fruit share is...it was wonderful to get a bag of apples each week last summer. And the occassional plum and pear.

Today's take was pretty good:

• 1 head of lettuce
• 1/2 bag of salad mix
• 1 cabbage
• 1 bulb of garlic
• 3 tomatoes
• 3 ears of young corn
• 1 bag of mix n' match, so I chose: lots of green peppers, onions, bunching onions, beets, and a ton of baby pat-a-pan squash...so cute! They steam nicely.
• 1/2 a pint of cherry tomatoes from the field.
• 1 other tomato from the field.
• 1 quart of beans.
• Two bunches of herbs (I cheat and split my bunchs, so I took thyme, parsley, cilantro, and wintermint).

Elena made chicken and veggies last night, and I finally made another big batch of pesto. Tomorrow is meat share day, and I can't wait!

Veggies veggies veggies

So we've hit that point. I have way more veggies than I can consume, and not enough time to prep them. I actually went out to Whole Foods today to get some sushi so that I'd be able to get some work done and then cook. So after some sushi and a few math problems, I tossed my laundry in the washer and started chopping. Unfortunately I forgot that my laundry was going for about a 1/2 hour, so I'm still awake now.

I made my typical cucumber salad, which is two thinly sliced cucumbers, 1 thinly sliced green onion, some dill, salt, pepper, and a couple tablespoons of Miracle Whip. If I remember I'll put some Hungarian paprika on before I eat it. I have a mandolin thing that I used for the first time today, and it appears to cut prep time for cucumber salads by about 80%.

My coworker suggested a different kind of cucumber salad, and this one includes cukes, slices of orange, thinly sliced fennel, and olive oil and vinegar. It smells wonderful, and tomorrow! We'll see how it tastes.

Then I made some pesto. I've never made the stuff before, but it made me love my food processor even more. I only used up about a quarter of my basil for a cup of pesto, so much more to be done this weekend. It turns out that if you freeze it, you should omit the cheese and add it in when you're ready to use it.

The farm gave out a recipe for a fennel garlic spread. Unfortunately, when I was reading the ingredients, I thought it said rice wine vinegar, which I have. But no, it was for mirin or rice wine. I read the description of mirin, and decided that the closest thing I had to it (since it was already cooking) was amaretto. Sweet, anyway.

I then cooked some tilapia in the leftover sauce. If the flavor of the tilapia is any indication, the spread should be pretty good. But then, anything in amaretto is pretty good.

I finished the evening off with a tomato, mozzarella, basil salad with olive oil and vinegar. Yay! Food to eat, for a couple days anyway. I still have zucchini, and I'm angling to watch the Iron Chef America zucchini episode one more time before I dive in...

Pesto party!

I have never before possessed so much basil. Kate at The Food Project told me that it was so that I could make and freeze a bunch of pesto. I've never done this, but I suppose this is the week?

Here was our take this week:

• 2 bunches of basil plants (to get some perspective on this, take a normal plastic shopping bag from Stop & Shop and just cram it with basil).
• 1 head of lettuce.
• 8 leaves of chard.
• 1 head of green garlic.
• 3 tomatoes.
• 3 ears of young corn.
• 1 bag of mix n' match. I choose four cucumbers, 4 green onions (with full bulbs), and a big piece of fennel with fronds.
• 2 quarts of pick your own beans.
• Herbs, and I picked some thyme, winter mint, dill, and cilantro.

The farm provided a recipe for a fennel garlic spread that I'm going to have to try, because I have all the stuff for it here. Then I guess there will be some pesto.

I completely slept through dinner after my violin lesson yesterday. This morning I got up early and made one of my standard stirfry stews...a 1/2 pound of steak, one potato, one pepper, one onion, and some worcestershire sauce. Not bad! I ate it all at lunch, and then, I fear, ate BBQ at a company event, and later had some mussels at a little Italian restaurant. I made up for my missed dinner!

hooray!

And today the season really starts to rock.

The share:

• 1 head of lettuce.
• 1/2 bag of mizuna.
• 1 quart of potatoes (they are little so this is like 10 potatoes).
• 1 head of green garlic.
• 10 collard greens.
• 2 red tomatoes.
• 1/2 bag of mix n' match, and I picked up 4 green bell peppers (!), 1 dark purple eggplant (they had light purple too), 1 pat-a-pan squash, and a bunch of carrots.
• 2 Sun Gold cherry tomatoes (just for kicks...).
• 1 pint of beans, including wax beans and flat beans.
• 2 bunches of herbs.
• And I was entitled to 45 stems of flowers that I did not pick, for reasons below.

And that reason would be that they had a cookout today! It is tough to go pick veggies when you are hungry, and pretty near impossible when you can smell bar-b-que. They asked everyone to bring a salad or dessert, so I brought my bean dip. I literally took the plastic wrap off the dip and was pouring in the chips when it was swamped. I wandered away to pick my herbs and beans, and when I got back there wasn't much left. Yay!

There was a huge tray of baked squash, a couple nice green salads, a lovely watermelon mint salad made by people I sat with, great zucchini bread, a nice fruit bread little cupcake thing, chicken, veggie burgers, and tons more. It was really well run and everyone was fun to talk to. I talked to a couple of the interns, and many of them have been on the farm for two or three years. It's about a 7 week internship, and you work a lot. But that's a great summer job, because it gives you a couple weeks to yourself. It sounds like they learn a ton about food and food production.

Part of the event was that they are raising money for a shed and need $12,000 to do it. The tractors need safe storage (which will really help them last longer). The Food Project is a a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, even though we buy shares. The shares contribute to about 15% of their annual budget. It's worth a visit to their website, as they post tons of fundraising (like they've teamed up with Jack Johnson) and volunteer (picking squash anyone?) opportunities. They also work with other local farms on various events. I spoke with someone on the board, who suggested that I come and volunteer in the fall on Saturdays. I plan do that if math classes don't conflict.

Also, today I was convinced that I should participate in the winter share. I guess you get 40-50 pounds of produce at each of two pickups, full of squash and root veggies and garlic, plus breads and products made by the farm. Last year it was so sad when the share ended, so the winter share should really help. I wish I had a root cellar!

sleepy Sunday

It's remarkable how an entire day can be taken up by food if you let it.

First off, I forgot in my last post that we got our first pint of potatoes last week! That's because Layna hid them, probably hoping I wouldn't find them. But, as I was cleaning up the kitchen today, there they were.

Today I made four things. One was braised pork loin cutlets with thyme-lemon sauce. I used the nice pork cutlets from Chestnut Farms and herbs from The Food Project. I love it when the two farms come together in one skillet. I cooked up some mizuna and chard with the few fava beans I popped out of the shell. (I think I got 2 dozen beans from the bag I picked, not a good pull for the labor I put in but pretty yummy.) I sauteed the whole mess in garlic and the herbed vinegar from the farm, and the vinegar really sweetens the bitter of the greens.

I made up a big wok full of pat-a-pan squash. Iron Chef America had a zucchini challenge today, and they included pat-a-pan. "Notorious for no flavor." Bah on that. I cook it in a wok with garlic, olive oil, and saltnpeppa for a summery treat. I almost want to watch that episode again, though, or write down the recipes, because I guess ya can do a lot more with squash than I've tried. Zucchini wrapped around scallops, zucchini pesto, zucchini casserole, zucchini fritters...just beautiful.

I made pasta and meatballs too. I hope we get more ground meat next time so I don't have to do meatballs out of the bag...and we surely need tomatoes because I did tomatoes out of a can. But I cooked the meatballs with fresh basil, added a can of plain tomatoes and a can of garlic and basil tomatoes, two cloves of garlic, and a bunch of scallions. The secret was adding some crumbled lemon lavender goat cheese to the top. Finally, I figured out what to do with the stuff! Tangy!

carrots

Does anyone else love when Anne of Green Gables smashes her slate on Gilbert Blythe's head? Priceless.

Anyway, apparently there's a carrot shortage this year. I read that with the big flooding rains we had, some of the seeds have washed away. I wonder if that contributes to this carrot shortage.

So Tuesday's share was:

• 1/2 a bag of mizuna
• 1 head of lettuce
• 2 pat-a-pan squash
• 8 leaves of chard
• 1/2 a bag of mix-n-match, so I picked a summer squash, scallions, turnips, and all the carrots that I could grab.
• 20 stems of flowers, pick your own. I'm way into red this season.
• Herbs, including basil, winter mint, and, finally, thyme.

Elena cooked a ton this week. She made pizza with some of the basil, chicken pot pie with some beets and carrots from the farm, and this extremely awesome drink. Take a gallon of water, add a couple springs of mint leaves and some honey, and you have a cool summer's day. It changes day-to-day as the mint sinks into the water.

tidbits

I used to think that adding a mango to any dish automatically makes it wonderful.

So. Not. True.

I tried cooking my wonderful Greek lamb sausage from Chestnut Farms with some mango...and swiss chard. I thought it would be pretty. Instead it turned the mango flesh brown and the whole thing tasted like chard. Blech. I like chard, but context is important. So on the flavor combos to never use list: Swiss chard and mangoes.

I made a field greens risotto from a Food Project recipe the other day, to bring to the wild edibles potluck. Sadly, most people didn't stick around to participate. The dish came out the way I wanted it to, but I don't think most people agreed with me :-). According to Elena it wasn't a "real" risotto because it used brown rice. Hey, it was what the recipe called for. It used scallions, garlic, ginger, and a whole head of escarole and a bag of mizuna. So you ended up with a very green rice dish. A bit of asagio cheese and we're done. I never had asagio, and I found out that it's good on Chestnut Farm burgers too. I can has cheezburger!

I went to Victoria's Secret the other day, and if you get something from their Pink collection, you get a free tote bag. It's a huge bag, and it folds up tiny, so it looks like a good thing to bring to Whole Foods or the farm. I heard a rumor that plastic bags are going away in Massachusetts, but I can't find anything to confirm it. But they can go away in your own life. I found a Reusable Bags site, which has some interesting statistics on the amount of energy and waste caused by plastic bags. It also has information on who has done what to save energy. I did a research project in 2001 entitled "Paper or Plastic?" The clear answer was: neither! Use canvas bags. Plastic takes forever to break down naturally, and the process for making paper bags, or paper in general, is totally disgusting and expensive and smelly. The trick for me is remembering my canvas bags. The best solution so far is to hang them on my doorknob at night. It's difficult to miss it in the morning. Difficult...yet not impossible...

Foraging for wild edibles

Today my brother John and I drove out to Belchertown for Russ Cohen's Foraging for Wild Edibles workshop, sponsored by NOFA. It was an excellent way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon. We learned about mushrooms you should and shouldn't eat, nuts and berries that grow wild, roots to pick, how things smell, when not to eat certain plants, good picking etiquette. After being out in the sun for four hours and driving four hours, I'm kinda zonked, so will post pictures and a more in-depth discussion later this week.

But for now, if you are interested in foraging for wild food, here's some of Russ' info. As he said, foraging is one of the last free things left to do, and you walk away with good things to eat. Yes it takes time and effort, but that's part of the fun. And I'm dying for hazelnut season now that I realize that hazelnuts grow EVERYWHERE, and I can't but help thinking about the beach plum jelly my great-aunt Mil used to make. Might be worth a trip to Plum Island this year.

I purchased his book Wild Plants I Have Known...and Eaten. The book contains information on where and how to forage, some general guidelines, and a wealth of information on plants, including recipes. Cattail chowder and pokeweed frittata, anyone? Russ donates all his money back to conservation land, so know that your $15 goes to a good cause.

According to Tom from NOFA, Russ runs about 60 workshops per year. Take a look at his schedule, and note that there are workshops in Framingham and Lincoln coming up. It looks like some are walks and some are slide shows or cooking events.

Finally, here's Russ Cohen's bio.

I'll write up more later this week, not all my 10 pages of notes but a few highlights and pictures. Happy eating everyone.

I say tomato...

Not yet. I wait and wait, but at least this time there was progress. There was one (1) ripe tomato at the farm. Not for each of us, one on the entire farm. They said they didn't want to split it between the 340 shares they offer. That's a lot of shares! So when we get two heads of lettuce, does that mean that they've grown 680 heads of lettuce that week? Geez.

They all but promised tomatoes in 2 weeks. I remember that once tomatoes started happening, I was happy for the rest of the season. With tomatoes come many other good things, like onions and green beans.

And on to this week's share:

• 1/2 bag of salad mix.
• 1 head of lettuce (this lettuce thing is going to happen for the rest of the season, but occasionally we get two heads of it).
• 1/2 bag of braising greens (these looked suspiciously like the salad mix, but they gave us an interesting recipe for a risotto that uses 12 cups of greens, so I think it'll be ok).
• 8 leaves of beautiful chard.
• 2 squash (I picked a two-toned and a zucchini).
• 1/2 bag of mix-n-match, so I chose 6 carrots (the limit), some turnips, bunching onions, and garlic scapes.
• 1 quart of fava beans (pick your own, these beans grow up rather than hang from the plant).
• Herbs, I chose some dill and Thai basil.
• 10 stems of flowers.

Now, if you are driving home on rt. 2 one night in the pouring rain, start hydroplaning towards the guard rail, and hit the breaks so that you are lucky enough to shoot across three lanes of traffic and don't die, the thing to do is to get off four exits early and go to Trader Joe's. This is exactly what happened last Thursday. I bought their masala simmer sauce, because I didn't know what to do with my chicken legs from the meat share.

I cut up some bunching onions and fried them in olive oil in the wok. I took out the chicken legs, which were actually three large leg/thigh pieces. I seared both sides of the meat in the wok, then covered with the masala sauce and a can of coconut milk. This officially makes it bad for low-fat diets, but good for just about everything else. I then let it simmer for an hour and added a bunch of chard, basil, and mint for the last few minutes. The chicken had tons of its own flavor and the veggies melded well with the sauce. It's amazing what good ingredients do for your cooking. Thank you local farms.

CISA

As you head out to western MA, you'll see more and more cars with the Be a Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown bumper sticker on their cars. This campaign is run by Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA). Tracie from CISA posted a comment on my blog, and I'm happy that the blog's gotten around like that. CISA is a western MA organization that links local farms to local communities.

I admit that I haven't visited their site for a long time. I lived in Amherst and Belchertown until the economy made me flee to the Boston area. I still miss my trees, Antonio's pizza, and Bueno Y Sano burritos. But the site has grown into a wonderful resource for all of Massachusetts. You can click on their Local Food Guide, select a region from the map in the upper right of the screen, and it displays where to get local food products. It also tells you what is in season for the area and when and where local farmers' markets are.

Also, check out their Store. They have a Local Delectables cookbook available, which was written by a Hampshire grad and is sorted into recipes by season. They also have resources for starting a local food campaign and promoting agritourism on your farm. I also like their Eat the View notecards. Yum.

By the pound

I forgot to mention that if you are interested in trying the Chestnut Farms meat, they have a stand set up at the Arlington Farmer's Market. Not sure if they do it every week, but they deliver the first and third Wednesday of the month there. I suspect they are there at least those times. I think the prices start at $6/pound for ground meat, and go up from there.

Hunting

In the old days, men were men when they hunted and farmed large animals. These days, men are men when they cook large pieces of meat. The other day I was watching Emeril "kick it up a notch" Lagasse and he was doing a special for men only. So you had this whole group of guys, and Emeril would say, "now let's add some garlic" and the men would all grunt in agreement, and "now let's add some sausage" and they all whooped. Oh yes.

I'd like to point out that I've not yet dated a guy who knows much more about cars or fixing toilets than I do. But they certainly all cook a better burger.

Anyway, the moment you've all been waiting for, my second meat share from Chestnut Farms! Here we go:

• 1 rather massive package of chicken thighs and legs.
• 2 packages of 4 hamburgers each. (I have one package defrosting as I type.)
• 1 package of 3 pork breakfast patties.
• 2 beef rib Delmonico steaks.
• 1 package of that awesome Greek-flavored lamb sausage.
• 2 packages of pork loin sirloin cutlets.

One question people keep asking is, are all the shares the same? And today I found out that no, they aren't. First off, Kim is good about packing "special" shares. One woman wanted beef liver, so she got a big piece of beef liver. More power to her.

I was actually also picking up a share for a friend of mine (a lot of people were interested once I started talking about the meat shares). There was a bit of a snafu with the share, but Kim was kind enough to construct a pork-free share for him at the last minute. So he ended up with all beef hot dogs, porterhouse and top round steak, and so on instead of what I got. I figure they cut the animals into lots of pieces, and they allot a fair amount to each.

I also caught the last 15 minutes of the Arlington Farmer's Market. I picked up a chunk of lemon lavender goat cheese (who knew you could get that?), some organic eggs since, sadly, Chestnut Farms ran out an hour before I got there, and some raisin cinnamon bread ($2 because she thought it may have gotten a little wet...it looked good to me). I think I missed the fish, so I will try again next time. It's a cute little market, probably 15 stalls when I went, but I went late.

I have a couple burgers frying, better go keep an eye on them.

Greens...

OK, so around now in Massachusetts farmshare land, ya just start getting sick of greens. Especially since the strawberries have passed. I eagerly await the return of the tomatoes!

Today I picked up:

• 1 head of lettuce.
• 1/2 bag of salad mix.
• 8 stalks of especially beautiful swiss chard.
• 1 head of escarole (this is an interesting bitter green that grows in a head like lettuce, and it's fun to stuff the head with cheese, capers, and olives, and then tie up and steam).
• 1 summer squash (could not resist the pat-a-pan).
• 10 garlic scapes.
• Mix n' match! 1/2 bag of whatever I want, so I picked up bok choy, scallions, a couple beets, and a couple turnips.
• 1 pint of snow peas (pick your own, took plenty of hunting).
• 1 bunch wintermint.
• 1 bunch basil.
• 1 bunch dill.
• 3 flowers, which I squished beyond recognition by the time I got home...I need to start bringing a vase.

Luckily I managed to get to Wright's Pond to do a few laps before I went home. Tiz a good thing, to go to the farm then go for a swim.

NOFA

NOFA/Massachusetts sent me a big packet of information this weekend. It contains:

• Information on workshops,
• Information on the NOFA Summer Conference at my alma mater UMass Amherst (go UMass!)
• Information on various certifications you can get, and a dense newspaper The Natural Farmer.
• NOFA Massachusetts news.
• Massachusetts 2008-2009 Organic Food Guide.
• NOFA Guide to Organic Land Care.

Just, ya know, tons of stuff for anyone who wants to learn organic farming. If you join, you can get discounts on the workshops, like the Foraging for Wild Edibles one that John and I will attend in a couple weeks.

I made a veggie stew yesterday. Chicken broth, then toss in kohlrabi (stem, leaves, n' all), chard, turnips, parsnips, leftover rice, mint and basil. It came out pretty good, and it's a good way to soften the intimidating kohlrabi stem into something yummy.

I'm having trouble loading the digital photos from my camera, which is too bad. Elena made a beautiful dish of scallops with purple chive flowers on rice and garlic scapes. The purple and green really knock you out. She served it with a side of stirfried bok choy with garlic scapes. It was one of the nicest meals I've had from the farm. And, of course, honeyed strawberries for dessert.

It was hoppin'

As my normal Tuesday farm adventure was rained (and, apparently, hailed) out, I went to my weekly vegetable pick up today. The place was mobbed! It seemed that everyone skipped on Tuesday. There were little kids, "I eat all the good strawberries I find mom...", moms and dads, 20-somethings like me, and grandmas. And so the strawberry field was kind of funny. Butts in the air everyone! Picking stuff is always an adventure. I gave lots of pea-picking advice to my fellow harvesters, but they mostly got frustrated, "I don't see anything to pick." You have to look low on the vines and dig through the leaves...there's more there I swear!

The veggie haul is starting to pick up. Today I got:
- 1 bag of salad mix. I took mizuna for all of it.
- 2 heads of lettuce.
- 8 stalks of swiss chard.
- 6 Hakurei turnips.
- 1 handful of bok choy.
- 2 summer squash. I took one zucchini and one pat-a-pan squash, which is one of my favorite squashes ever with olive oil and garlic.
- 2 handfuls of garlic scapes, which are the curly-q tops to the garlic that you cut off to promote bulb growth. They taste like mild garlic, rather like chives.
- 2 kohlrabi. Kohlrabi is German for "cabbage turnip." If you've never seen one, this is the best way to describe it. Last year we failed to use the kohlrabi, but this year we have recipes.
- 1/2 pint of peas.
- 1 quart of strawberries, still going strong.
- A few sprigs of lavender.
- A few sprigs of winter savory.
- A handful of basil.

I also purchased some local honey and an herbed vinegar that the local youth from Boston make on Food Project sites. Apparently there will be 64 high school summer youth from Boston coming this week to help weed and work on the farm. It's the Food Project's Summer Interns and Summer Youth Program (SYP) that started 17 years ago. The newsletter says that it's the first job for many of them, and the first time most have been on a farm. They learn abuot food production, server food at soup kitchens, and work at the farmers market. This is yet another reason why I really like The Food Project.

The Food Project is selling tickets to a special Cirque du Soleil performance. Tickets are $100, so I fear I can't quite swing it this year after buying a condo. It sounds like good times, though. 100% of proceeds go to the Food Project programs.

Speaking of the new condo, when I got here I found that my stove just didn't quite work right. Circa approximately 1970, it was a lovely two-toned brown and had five button settings for each burner. But the settings did not all work. I bought a lovely new stove from Home Depot, in the hopes that it will encourage me to keep cooking. So far, so good. I'm going to try and tackle a savory bread pudding at some point. Maybe I'll make it with the kohlrabi!

Elena's response, "Why?"

When it rains...

So I packed up to leave work today and then saw that it was raining. Downpouring. Big puddles.

It didn't seem like a good day to go to the farm. Luckily, The Food Project lets me pick either Tuesday or Thursday to pick up my veggies. So Thursday it is.

Elena and I went to the Strawberry Fest at Wilson Farm for a little while on Saturday. We had strawberry shortcake, strawberry soup, strawberry jam, and my favorite was strawberry rhubarb crumble. I had also eaten a chocolate chip cookie I bought at the bake sale for Obama in Davis Square, so by the end of it all I needed some decent protein. We made lamb chops with yogurt and mint leaves.

On Sunday, I took the Greek-spiced lamb sausage and cooked it with chard, turnip greens, an onion, beans, and spices in a mango simmer sauce. While simmering, I made paneer with a recipe that popped up in my iGoogle. It is one of the easiest new things I've tried in a long time, and a lot of fun because you get to watch milk curdle, and then you play with cheesecloth. It came out great with my sausage creation.

For the paneer, I used Shaw Farm milk for the first time. They are a local company that people seem to rave about, and yes, the milk tastes wonderful. They don't seem to like the idea of raw milk, and neither does my nutritionist sister. I still have to try it.

Elena and I made a bacon minestrone soup, which we adapted from a recipe from The Bacon Show. Minestrone is great, because once you have the beans and pasta, you can just keep throwing in all the veggies you have left from the farm. Chard, turnip tops, zucchini, and leeks instead of onions. I think that bacon and leeks make a wonderful broth. The soup ended with a bunch of fresh basil and mint from the farm.

I am so looking forward to my next meat share from Chestnut Farms. I only have the two beef rib Delmonico steaks left, in part because I am the worst at cooking steak. I seem to be much better at meting out the meat than the veggies.

Too many strawberries?

I just cut up most of the 2 quarts of strawberries I got at the farm this week. Mixed half with local honey I bought at The Food Project. Honey gives the strawberries a tangy kick. And at lunch today a coworker reminded me that eating local honey can also stave off local pollen allergies. Good stuff.

The other half I froze for smoothies later on. I also made a ground beef curry with Chestnut Farms beef and bok choy from The Food Project.

I have a couple farmer's markets I want to visit soon. Medford has what looks like a modest market, and I'll be able to get Where Pigs Fly bread there. I don't really eat much bread, but since I've discovered buttered toast with turnip slices, I've had to keep some around. The market blog is here: http://medfordsquaremarket.blogspot.com/. They are open Thursdays from 1 P.m. to 7 P.M. in Medford Square. It looks like they try to be a little more than just a farmer's market, and they include weekly family activities starting this season.

Arlington also has a market, and I know that Chestnut Farms attends. They told me that you can get fish there, so I have to check it out. They are open on Wednesday from 1 P.M. to 6:30 P.M. in the Russell Commons parking lot on Rt. 60, just east of Mass Ave. I'm also looking for local yogurt and cheese. And raw milk, but I guess that's illegal. Let me know if you have a cow. I just want to try it.

The commonwealth of Massachusetts runs a great, but not exhaustive, listing of farmer's markets in all counties: http://www.mass.gov/agr/massgrown/farmers_markets.htm. There seems to be a dearth of markets in the Shrewsbury / Grafton /...boroughs area. What's up with that?

Tomorrow Elena and I are going to Strawberry Fest 2008 at Wilson Farms. I hear tell that we get free strawberry shortcake. Can't miss that! (If you don't want to miss it, details here: http://www.wilsonfarm.com/what.html.)

Go green!

So, if you're gonna choose between green zucchini and yellow summer squash on the eve of a Celtics/Lakers game, go with the zucchini. I did, and look what happens.

Today's farm share from The Food Project:
- 1 summer squash (I chose zucchini)
- 1 head of lettuce
- 1/3 bag of salad mix (it's mizuna time!)
- 1 bunch of chard (lots of colors: yellow, orange, green, bright pink/red)
- 2 handfuls of bok choy
- 6 hakurei turnips
- 1/2 pint of snow peas
- 2 quarts (!) of strawberries

The strawberries are plentiful. You could go find your own spot on the field, squat and just gather a quart. These are not your normal strawberries. One thing you have to learn is that the farm share is not the grocery store. So the strawberries might be small and shaped all kindsa ways, but they are also more intensely flavored. Some are sweeter, some just taste more strawberry.

I have to buckle down this week and really start cooking. I've been eating out a lot. When I was a little kid, we went out maybe twice per year for special occassions. It seems like nowadays, you eat out for special occassions twice a week. Birthdays, classes finished, project finished, it's a rainy day...the excuses are endless. I have to get my condo in better shape (moved in a month ago and still have some boxes) and then I'll have to have people over for dinner instead. And eat chard. We'll see if I can sell that one! The Food Project printed a recipe for a chard pie and another for chard with raisins and olives. Interesting.

Foraging for wild edibles

I'm planning to join the Massachusetts chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) www.nofamass.org. (For my friends and family in New Hampshire, their chapter is at http://www.nofanh.org/.)

I picked up their 2008-2009 Organic Food Guide at Chestnut Farms last week. It has a map that shows different organic farms and where to shop, and includes listings for CSAs, farm stands, and farmer's markets. I had no idea there was so much activity, and I think it's just of farms associated with the magazine. I wasn't able to find The Food Project in there.

The main reason that I am joining is that I wanted to take my brother to Belchertown, my old stomping ground, for a workshop Foraging for Wild Edibles. Now, don't all sign up, because I haven't signed up yet and I want there to be space! Russ Cohen runs this workshop and shows us two dozen of the 150 species of wild edibles in MA. You can read a Boston Globe article about Cohen: For this nature lover, the time is ripe for something wild. I've heard it's a great experience.

An aside

Celtics won! Dreams revived. Eat your greens, everyone.

Wilson Farms and dinner

After work today I went to Wilson Farms to do a little gift hunting. Right now I have the Celtics game on, and I'm trying to avoid watching it because it's too depressing. (C'mon guys, bring back those childhood memories!)

Wilson's Farm (www.wilsonfarm.com) is in Lexington, MA, and sells vegetables and fruit from their farm, but also imports veggies from all over. They also sell beautiful plants and shrubs, as well as pots, fertilizers, seeds, bulbs, and whatever for your garden. All at high-end prices. As far as I can tell, not everything is organic. The farm has been around since 1884, and I just missed a farm tour today! Oh well. It looks like they are every other Thursday from 6:30-8 PM. They have a strawberry fest coming up June 21 & 22 from 10:30 AM to 4:30 PM. It should be good times.

While I was at Wilson's, they were selling asparagus for $1 a bunch. My farm doesn't grow asparagus (no idea why!) so of course I grabbed a bunch. I had to go to Trader Joe's to pick up some heavy cream, because my sister and I have a problem. We somehow had three and a half dozen eggs at the beginning of the month. She bought some, I bought some from the meat farm, and it's just hard to consume that many eggs. The solution? Asparagus frittata.

I took a recipe from Wilson's, and Elena and I teamed up and it came out great. We used up six eggs too and have plenty frittata for breakfast.

I should clarify that the turnips from the farm are hakurei turnips. They are small white turnips with edible greens, crisp with a touch of radish flavor. The farm suggested that we cook less, and that a nice snack would be radishes or the turnips sliced on buttered toast. We tried it out, and it was fantastic, especially with our eggy, cheesy frittata.

It turns out, and I knew this, that I am terrible at cooking meat. It's probably my mom's Irish/English influence. (Hi Mom! Mom makes really good cookies, I can tell you that.) I horribly overcooked a ham steak, so I had to make bean soup with it the next day. I tried cooking a hamburger for only three minutes a side, though, and it came out wonderfully. I had turnip sliced on top and lots of lettuce. The farm meat is very lean, so you have to add veggies and oil to make it work, and cook for 30% less time. It's counter intuitive. But man, when you do it right, so much better.

I think I'm going to have too much food this summer, so I'm hoping I can discipline myself to freeze more. I am trying to buy less and waste less.

Strawberries!

Last week's veggie share was a bit disappointing due to the cold, dry weather. But then it rained for two days and has been in the mid to high nineties. The reward? Strawberries!

Last year I didn't get a strawberry until July. I remember that when my siblings and I were little, we played a game called SimFarm. Part of the game was selling our crop on the futures market before it was released. You could make a killing if you sold your crop of oranges for $30,000, because by harvest time it was only worth $12,000. Unfortunately, the game let you sell it that high almost every time, so it was pretty easy to upgrade your farmhouse to have a swimming pool.

The point is that in commodities futures, you never know quite how everything is going to work out. What's terrible for lettuce is apparently great for strawberries. My love for strawberries is about 300 times that of my love for lettuce.

Note to self: remember to NOT wear heels to the farm. There's nothing like clomping around a strawberry patch in heels on a hot summer's day.

The haul this week:
- 1 head of lettuce
- 1/2 a bag of spinach
- 6 turnips with greens
- 2 radishes with greens
- 1/2 a pint of peas (pick your own)
- 1 pint of strawberries (pick your own)
- 1 bunch of dill
- 1 bunch of mint

The summery scent of freshly picked strawberries, dill, and mint wafted over me as I sat in Rt. 2 traffic on the way home.

Liz and John's trip to Chestnut Farms

On Sunday, my brother John and I trekked out to Hardwick, MA for the semi-annual open house at Chestnut Farms. I called the day "Meet Your Meat."

Despite being a steamy summer day, we had a great time. My brother told me a few times that he was jealous of the family's nine-year-old, Sam, because he got to live on a farm and work with animals. I knew John had visited a farm when he was younger and really enjoyed it. He gets along great with the animals, except when he decides to chase chickens around for a half hour.

I didn't think he'd catch the mean black chicken, and yet...

The chickens don't want to be caught. In fact, between John and a couple of three-year-old kids, all six chickens escaped. I felt kinda bad about this and let the farmers know, but they said, oh don't worry about it. Chickens go home once it gets dark. Kind of like carrier pigeons.

Here's me with a red-headed chicken:

The chickens we caught are meat chickens, but the ones that lay eggs live in a school bus that has a plank out to a yard. Caroline, their daughter who is going to Smith in the fall, pointed out the "laying an egg" sound. "It's a pretty distinctive sound." And it seemed to be going on pretty constantly in the bus. Eggs everywhere.

Piggies! There was a couple from Somerville there asking a lot of questions. One question was, "Does that pig taste different than that pig?" I was sort of taken aback by that one, but I had to remember, yes, these pigs will be my food in a few months. The answer is that the flavor of the meat depends on the feed, not the breed.

Kim said that they brought a bunch of pregnant sheep to the barn in the hopes that they would lamb the week before the open house. And they all obliged. I thought this little guy was cute. The sheep were pretty hot and breathed heavily. They'll be sheared in a week or so.

Me with a lamb (so soft).

John with a lamb. There was also a goat, "Lizzy, why can't I have a goat?"

I asked Kim if they had sheepdogs or llamas. She said they tried llamas but it didn't work. They got out. Their neighbors were "from the city" and had spent $5,000 on their landscaping, and the llamas went over and ate it all. You would think this would be a disaster. Kim said they tried for days to chase down the llamas, and apologized to the neighbors. When they couldn't catch the animals, she told the neighbors that they'd have them shot instead. The neighbors wouldn't hear of it. They built a place for the llamas on their land and co-adopted them, and they are just fine without their landscaping. Too funny. I love western MA.

Be a local hero! Buy locally grown!

I need to post some thoughts on going local at some point. For example, how do I replace coconut milk in my cooking? And avocadoes? Important questions...