Dining and Opining

I was really inspired by this post that our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, Vermont Valley, just posted on its blog, and wanted to share it here: "Our Produce in the Community" In addition to producing delicious, abundant shares for its CSA members, Vermont Valley vegetables are finding homes at the Goodman Community Center's Seed to Table program and Thanksgiving Baskets Project; in lunches of the Mt. Horeb Area School District; at Badger Camp serving those with developmental disabilities; at the Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin; FairShare CSA Coalition's Bike the Barns event; the AIDS Network AIDS Ride; the First United Methodist Church Food Pantry; and the Middleton Outreach Ministry. All of these diverse homes for fresh, local, seasonal vegetables--all within our community! Such promise! It makes me just dream about the possibilities for connecting local farms with varied venues for getting that produce to as many different audien...

The flavors of summer are my favorite. Crunchy cucumbers, ripe tomatoes, sweet corn, juicy watermelon, rich basil! All leave my salivating and wanting more. The only problem with these flavors (like all seasonal treats?) is that they're fleeting. So when we heard that our CSA farm, Vermont Valley , was offering U-pick tomato and basil events, we jumped at the chance to load up on extras that we could preserve to have a hint of those summer flavors later in the year. We drove out to beautiful Blue Mounds, WI to wander through the fields and gather the bounty. I forgot my camera, though, so some images from the Vermont Valley website will have to do. You can see the tomato fields on the left and the basil fields on the right:  These images all from http://www.vermontvalley.com/festivals-and-events/ We picked alongside lots of other CSA members, overhearing snippets of conversation about the differences in basil varieties, how people would prepare the tomatoes that night ...

Image from here I was just reading an old canning industry manual for my dissertation research, and came across this sentence amid a list of other agricultural "achievements": "Canners were among the first to use the strains of beets that are solid red in color all the way through, instead of having alternate bands of red and white" This sentence made me do a little bit of a double take--the canners were proud of this? I don't know about you, but I remember the first time I cut into a beautiful chioggia beet--the rarer kind with red and white stripes (pictured above)--that I'd gotten from the farmers' marke t, or in our CSA farmshare box . I was stunned by its beauty. I wanted to capture those stripes and hang them as artwork all over my house, reveling in their messy symmetry and the watercolor effect of the deep reds and pinks and whites. It felt like a real discovery to find that not all beets were just red throughout. Not that the solid ...

Watch this video featuring a surprisingly sweet burdock root recipe, prepared by Annemarie Spitznagle of Bloom Bake Shop with burdock from our own Harmony Valley Farm ! If you watch the video and leave a comment, you'll be entered to win a $15 gift certificate to Bloom Bake Shop, which is "downtown Middleton small-batch local, organic, and fair-trade bakery offering cupcakes, brownies, whoopie pies, coffee, tea, and more!" Yum!

Last year, I had a fairly ambitious garden plan ... But it pretty much reverted to being a bunch of tomatoes . Delicious, yes, but far simpler. This year, I stuck with the basic plan of a bunch of tomatoes, but also threw in some other plants, based purely on the seedlings I had available to me--all of which I got for free from my various trusty sources (neighbors, CSA, GreenHouse). So, I used a free trial of Grow Veg to put together this little plan: Melon from seeds I saved Melon from seeds I saved Melon from seeds I saved Bok Choy* Super Zagross Middle Eastern Slicing Cucumber * White Clara Eggplant* Unknown Eggplant Variety* Rosa Bianca Eggplant* Roma Tomato+ Roma Tomato+ Roma Tomato+ Unknown Tomato Variety* Roma Tomato+ Roma Tomato+ Large Red Cherry Tomato* Green Zebra Tomato * Green Zebra Tomato * Sungold Tomato* (!) Red Pear Tomato * Cherry Tomato* Unknown Broccoli Variety* Cheyenne Pepper * Unknown Pepper Variety* Cheyenne Pepper * Round of...

Bike the Barns 2011 has come and gone! And what an event it was! This was the fifth year that MACSAC--the Madison Area CSA Coalition--has put on this day of bike-riding and good food to raise money for Partner Shares , a program that makes fresh, local produce available at reduced cost to low-income families in the Madison area. We've been wanting to do this ride for a few years now, and finally made it this year, with the help of some friends and family who pledged money to help us. Thank you! We raised $200 with your help! The day began with seeing lots of friends who were riding and volunteering at the start line, at Lake Ripley Park, east of Madison. It made the whole day sunny (at least metaphorically) to have such a warm community with us as we began. We made time for some bike maintenance and a breakfast of fresh pears, melon, and yogurt-waffle-fruit cups: And then it was time to hop on the bikes to begin the 63 mile route through the Southern Wisconsin count...

About six months ago, I wrote about our ultimate winter meal , which was full of starchy vegetables and preserved foods. Although we found a way to eat well then, in a reasonably seasonal manner, even in the depth of winter, I am SO HAPPY that it's summer and we can have the color and juiciness and freshness that comes with my favorite season. So, today, an ultimate summer meal, from a few weeks back. Most of the dishes were made with produce from Harmony Valley Farm , the place that makes it all possible! Homemade croutons from Batch Bakehouse foccacia; a summer panzanella with those croutons, tomatoes, cucumbers, white beans, and basil; and fresh Sweet Sarah Cantaloupe: A creamy dill sauce; a plate of pan-roasted potatoes with the dill sauce, fresh corn on the cob with dill sauce, and a pesto eggplant dish; the eggplant on its own: And the second round of meals that came from these dishes included (1) a pesto-orzo-eggplant salad that I made by combining the pesto eggpla...

Part IV of "What to do with your CSA box?" Summer corn! Although the standard treatment for summer corn is to throw it on the grill, I actually most want to eat it cool and juicy and crunchy, straight from the cob, with no cooking at all. Raw corn kernels go especially well with...hmm, what have we got in the fridge?  Some leftover basmati rice? A little cilantro on the verge of wilting? Some pre-cooked kidney beans in the freezer? Perfect! Fresh Corn Salad 4 cobs corn, kernels cut off with a sharp knife 1.5 cups cooked kidney beans 1 bunch cilantro, chopped roughly 3/4 cup cooked [basmati] rice 1/2 small onion, minced 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar 2 Tbsp light olive oil 2 Tbsp hot sauce or salsa salt to taste Combine all ingredients (in whatever proportions you have--these amounts are just guidelines) in a salad bowl, mix, and season to taste. That's it!

Part III of "What to do with my CSA box?" I've found that eggplant is one of those vegetables that can be either outstanding or lackluster, depending on its preparation (and especially how long it's cooked). As I wrote about before , my favorite eggplant dish (and the only eggplant dish I was familiar with) growing up, with my Mama's Eggplant Ikra , which blended eggplant up into a creamy spread with tomatoes, sauteed onions, and other goodies. So, when I saw a beautiful, shiny purple eggplant in the CSA box this week, I wanted to do something similar, but Italian-style, so that I could make use of the rich harvest of basil in our garden these days. Because the Enchanted Broccoli Forest had been such a win when it came to the Pickled Potato Salad, I once again turned to Mollie Katzen's wisdom to see what she had to offer. And what did I find, but an Italian Eggplant Salad! I made a few modifications, but mostly stuck with her guidelines, which pr...

Part II of "What to do with your CSA box?" Beautiful round new potatoes in summer time make me think of potato salad. But lately, the kind of potato salad I've been craving leans more toward fresh herbs and bright acidic accents than towards the usual heavy mayo treatment. And so, I decided to try out a version of Mollie Katzen's Dill Pickle Potatoes from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest , one of my favorite cookbooks. She pairs potatoes with pickles and lots of pickle juice, which first seems like it'll be overkill or too liquidy, but ends up being just right. And because we still have a couple jars of home-canned pickles(and pickle juice!) from last summer that we were looking to use up before making more pickles from this summer's cucumbers, this salad was perfect for us. Pickled Potato Salad adapted from Mollie Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest   10 small new potatoes 1 cup diced onions 2 large cloves garlic, minced 1 large carrot, peeled ...

Part I of "What to do with your CSA box?" Every summer, there is an overwhelming load of greens all around. I feel crowded in on all sides by the collards and kale and spinach and swiss chard... But then the winter comes, and all I see is a wasteland of starchy root vegetables with nothing green in sight. (except for Snug Haven 's delicious, but pricy, overwintered spinach). So, my solution? Use the magic of food preservation to store those extra greens until winter. But because I don't have a pressure canner, and because--no matter what Popeye says--canned spinach doesn't sound all that appetizing to me,* freezing is my food preservation method of choice for greens. So, this particular go-round, I prepped my collards and amaranth and mustard greens (and beet greens, which aren't pictured) for freezing. In this case, I guess I should be discussing "freezing greens and purples ," since I was treating the beautiful magenta amaranth leaves ...

We got a helluva CSA box from Harmony Valley this week. A box overflowing with: Green Top Carrots! Garlic! Cucumbers! Patty Pan Squash and Zucchini! Broccoli! Amaranth! Fennel! Gold Potatoes! Sweet Spanish Onions! Green Top Beets! Sweet Corn! Eggplant! Green Bell Pepper! Thai Basil! Green Beans! In addition to all that, I got more (free!) vegetables--collard greens, kale, mustard greens, salad greens, more cucumbers, yellow string beans, a hot pepper, cabbage-- from the student farm stand on campus.* So what was I to do with all this bounty? I'll give you a sneak peek of what I did end up doing: This week, I'll be detailing what I did with a first round of cooking and eating my way through this overflowing goodness. So, be sure to stop back by to learn about processing and freezing greens, making pickled potato salad, Italian eggplant salad, and fresh corn salad.  And let me know if you have any questions! * If you're in Madison this summer, be sure to check...