Spoutwood Farm CSA Harvest Guide: Week 15-Sept 19, 2005
To view the first harvest for this week, click here
To return to the 2005 Harvest Guide page, click here
WORK HOURS: Please contact Liz ASAP (by phone or e-mail) to confirm a day and time you are planning to work on your share hours. THIS IS IMPORTANT! We need to know in advance that we have help on the schedule.
Green Bell and Hot Peppers – Bells are great fresh, in salads, or stir fries. Anaheims are mild hot!
Eggplant – Orient Express and Black Bell. Both are on the wane.
Cherry Tomatoes – Cherries don’t know when to stop.
Tomatoes – Great fresh, in salads, or on sandwiches, but not so hot in stir-fries, though you can make a mean curry with them. Tomatoes are very depleted but will hang in for several more weeks.
Lettuce – New lettuce doing much better now that the height of summer is on the wane.
Melons or Baby Pumpkins: The melons didn’t do well for a variety of reasons, lack of rain being a big one, since the cantaloupes, honeydews and watermelons were in a field hard to water. It’s pretty much a grab bag as to taste. Some seem good and others not. Pumpkins grown mainly for the harvest fair did better, so we supplemented the melons with them, so you have a choice. Pumpkins can be used in cooking pies, pumpkin bread, etc.
Okra – Just a couple apiece. Cut into salads or soups. Stretch okra budget by freezing to incude several weeks worth into gumbo style soups.
Summer Squash – We thought the squash were dead, but they had other ideas.
Chinese Cabbage – Fall Chinese cabbage already. Especially good in stir fries.
Kale – The kale is reviving with the cooler weather.
Green Onions –They’re green and they’re onions—need we say more?
Herbs – Basil, Parsley and thyme. What a nice scent the thyme has. Check out thyme recipes. Don’t use the woody parts of the stem, only the tender green parts.
Flowers – This week’s bouquet features zinnias, African marigolds, plume celosia, Jerusalem artichoke flowers, globe amaranth, sage leaves, fuzzy white wild eupatorium and goldenrod.
Recipe of the Week : Spinach and Pepper Salad with Citrus Cream Dressing
Build a tower of pepper rings of varying color.
Stuff tower with baby spinach leaves.
Dress plates with cherry tomatoes, orange and grapefruit slices.
Use Citrus Cream Dressing.
Citrus Cream Dressing:
1C heavy cream,
1tsp salt,
1T cilantro or parsley,
1/2C orange juice,
1/2C grapefruit juice.
Mother Earth Harvest Fair is October 1 and 2 at the Farm, 10-6 both days. It’s definitely a blast: Music and dancing, food galore, storytelling, harvest crafts, craft vendors, Mother Earth Poetry Marathon, Apple Harvest Village, tons of speakers and exhibits on such sustainable living topics as Green Energy and Building Technologies, Folk Culture, Nature (Native plants and wildlife, environmental causes), Sustainable Food and Farming, Sustainable Healthcare & Wellness and Native American Traditions. Please take extra poster-flyers to post or give to friends. If you want to be involved with the CSA booth or the demos of food preservation, please call Liz at 717-235-9272, spoutwoodcsa@yahoo.com (all Fair hours count toward CSA hours!).
Peppers
What can be said but that peppers bring color, sweet and heat to any dish. Peppers when immature are generally green. Red, orange and yellow peppers are picked when the fruit is mature. The flavor at this stage has mellowed and sweetened.
Peppers fall into two primary categories, generally called "sweet" (or, wrongly named, bell) and hot. One supposes that in reality there is a more or less continuous spectrum across all true pepper types, but the terms probably reflect intended culinary use more than innate qualities.
Pepper terminology around the world is quite confusing: pepper, chile, chili, Aji, and paprika are some of the terms used in various areas for plants all belonging to the genus Capsicum (yes, the spice paprika--properly pronounced, we are told, PAP-ri-KAH--is just ground dried pepper). There are five domesticated species of Capsicum:
· Capsicum annuum is the most extensively cultivated species in the world and includes most of the varieties known to the home gardener. It includes, for example, the Ancho, Bell, Jalapeno, Paprika, Pimiento, Serrano, New Mexican, and Thai peppers.
· Capsicum baccatum is termed Aji throughout South America. The pods have a distinctive fruity flavor and can be used fresh in salsas or dried and ground into powders.
· Capsicum chinensis includes the fiery Habanero. The small pods are a flattened bell shape with a fruity aroma and can be used fresh in salsas.
· Capsicum frutescens includes the Tabasco plant, which is famous for hot sauces and salsas.
· Capsicum pubescens originated in Bolivia; the common name in South America is rocoto. It is grown in the high-mountain areas of tropical countries and can be stuffed or eaten fresh in salsas.
Columbus brought peppers, the king of the spices, to the New World from the Mediterranean Belt where peppers grew prolifically in many varieties. His way, an entrepreneurial plan: Come to the New World bearing gifts of peppers to the Natives. Once they fell in love with peppers and could not live without them (as surely they would), ship in peppers priced for his profit. (If the Natives had any spices, take them as well). Well, his plan backfired in favor of the New World Natives. Pepper seeds took well on the soil of the New World. The Natives embraced peppers as their own and there was no need for imported peppers. There is historic evidence of now extinct Aztec peppers. South America is full of lore of the special healing/medicinal powers of peppers.
Here is my favorite: Cocoa and chili pepper the mystic spice.
When feeling confused, going through transitions or considering possibilities make and savor a special cocoa to help clear the mind:
Heat: 1C water; 1square dark chocolate; 1/8 tsp cinnamon; 1/8 tsp vanilla; 1/8 tsp Tabasco; 1/8 tsp chili powder.
As a green vegetable, peppers are a good source of Vitamin C and folacin. Try some of these options in the kitchen:
To roast- (especially for non green or purple peppers): Slice pepper in two and de-seed. Set pepper skin side up on a foil lined cookie sheet. Bake in 450-degree oven for 25 minutes.
To Cook-Pepper Pals or Bingo: Try mixing and matching Peppers with any variety of the following ingredients accompanied with tomato sauces, béchamel or cheese sauces, vinaigrettes or mayonnaise sauces: Onion, Garlic, Corn, Tomato, Eggplant, Summer squash, Basil, Marjoram, Beans. Or try stuffing peppers with any of the above ingredients and cook.
Eat raw-Check out recipe of the week
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