Fava Beans

Fava Beans might be new to many of you. For more information click here to read all about favas according to the Fine Cooking magazine (source of photo). One note, fava beans are associated with favism--a very rare but severe enemia--to read the wikipedia entry click here.

I was reminded by a customer that beet greens/tops attached to the baby beets in the this week's share are a delicious cooking green. I will post his recipe tomorrow. Beet greens are actually my favorite of all greens.

This week's share--A Little Color Finally

I can imagine that you all are getting a little sick of greens. Good news, the sunshine has ushered in the next wave of vegetables--beets, carrots, summer squash, and green beans will now grace your shares.

This week's share includes:
Lots of legumes--peas (snow and snap), green beans, fava beans (more on favas in a later post)
Lettuce Mix
Carrots
Summer Squash
Zucchini
Beets--dark red and chioggia (a.k.a candy striped)
Butterhead Lettuce
Bok Choy
Herbs

The recipe below was of interest both because of the recipe itself and its inspiration--the pairing of beets and sheep/goat cheese is a wonderful combination. I suggest Highland Farm Feta or Brebis. The Chioggia beets cook to a pale yellow-orange color and will not bleed color onto the cheese if that suits you better.

Salad of Pea Shoots, Satsumas, and Beets with Ginger-Mint Dressing
from Sara Deseran's Asian Vegetables
serves 4

At Dine, one of my favorite San Francisco restaurants, chef Julia McClaskey serves a fantastic salad of pea sprouts with jewels of beets and bites of creamy goat cheese that inspired the idea for this recipe. I've added Satsumas (although sectioned navel oranges would work fine), a typed of mandrian orange introduced to the States from Japan over a century ago. Sweet and almost seedless, this special citrus is the one I look forward to every fall. To grate the ginger for the dressing, use a ginger grater or even a small-holed cheese grater, reserving the juice. Double the dressing and keep some on hang for the week.

GINGER DRESSING:
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger, plus juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1/4 cup canola oil
7 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
Kosher salt and white pepper to taste

4 beets
1/2 cup water
6 ounces pea shoots
2 Satsuma mandarin oranges, peeled and sectioned

To make the dressing, in a jar with a lid, combine all the ingredients. Shake well and set aside until needed.

To roast the beet, preheat the oven to 400F. Trim the stems, leaving about 1/2 inch intact, but do not peel. Place the beets in a small roasting pan, add the water, cover with aluminum foil, and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, or until the beets are tender when pierced with a knife. Remove from the oven, let cool, and then slip off the skins and cut the beets into small wedges.

In a large bowl, gently toss together the beets, pea shoots, and Satsuma sections. Shake the dressing again to reincorporate. Toss the salad with dressing and serve.

This week's share-Greens Galore!

Pictured is a salad course created by Bryan Sikora of Talula's Table featuring Inverbrook lettuce (hidden underneath a delicious buttermilk dressing) and pea shoots/flowers--hopefully it will provide a little inspiration for dealing with the greens included in your share this week.

This week's share includes:
Peas--snow, snap and a small amount of shelling
Lettuce Mix
Cooking Greens
Summer Squash
Butterhead Lettuce
Bok Choy
Pea Shoots/flowers
Dandelion Greens
Mint

Fresh chickens available this week.

Recipe Ideas:

Hot and Sour Salmon with Greens
from A Spoonful of Ginger by Nina Simonds

Six Servings

2 1/2 pounds of Bok Choy stem ends and leaf tips trimmed
8 to 9 whole scallions, ends trimmed, cut into thin julienne slices on the diagonal
3 helping tablespoons fresh ginger cut into very thin julienne shreds

Dressing
6 tablespoons soy sauce
3 1/2 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar or Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
2 tablespoons minced garlic

6 salmon steaks, about 6 ounces each

1. Trim the touch outer leaves from the bok choy and discard. Rinse the stalks and leaves and drain. Cut the stalks in half lengthwise. Cut the halves diagonally into 2-inch sections. In a bowl, toss the scallions and ginger with the bok choy sections. Arrange on a heatproof platter.
2. Mix the ingredients of the Dressing, and pour into a serving bowl.
3. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the salmon steaks on top of te greens. Pour into a roasting pan several inches of water and heat until boiling. Carefully place the platter of salmon and vegetables on top of the rack or steamer tray in the roasting pan. Cover the top of the pan tightly with aluminum foil. Bake 7 to 9 minutes, or until the fish is cooked.
4. Serve the salmon from the heatproof platter or arrange the steamed vegetables and salmon on serving plates. Spoon some of the dressing on top and serve with steamed rice.

And just incase you have tons of lettuce/salad greens left over from past shares...or have noticed the lettuce getting a little too bitter for your liking--try this recipe for Julienne of Five Lettuce Soup from Barbara Kafka's Vegetable Love.

Julienne of Five Lettuce Soup
Just befoe my lettuce bolts in the hot sun, I have more lettuces of different kinds than I can use. The Haitians recommend lettuce soup to calm the stomach and the nerves. This soup does that and uses up the extra lettuce as well....Different lettuces can be substituted, but try to preserve the ratio of bitter to sweet and soft to firm.

1 cup packed romain lettuce leaves (ribs removed)
1 cup packed Boston/Buttercruch lettuce leaves
1 cup packed leaf lettuce
1 cup packed escarole leaves
1/2 cup packed chicory/dandelion leaves
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 cups of basic chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 egg yolks
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Wash leaves and dry well. Cut into 1/8-inch strips: This is easiest to do if you stack serveral leaves at a time, roll into a tight wad and slice them across. You can also use the medium slicing disk on a food processor.

Melt the butter in a medium suacepan. Add the lettuces and toss with the butter. When the lettuces are wilted, add the chicken stock and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the toughest leaves are tender.

In a small bowl. mix the cream with the egg yolks. Gradually stir a small amount of the hot soup into the cream mixture to slowly raise the temperature of the egg yolks. Keep adding soup until the mixture is warm. Whisk the egg yolk mixture into the soup and cook, stiggin constantly, without letting the soup boil, until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Season with salt and pepper.
Serves 6 to 8 as a first course.

Farm Update--Chickens Available Next Week!

Fresh chickens will be available next week starting Tuesday (the day of the "harvest") through Friday from 2-7PM in the distribution shed. Contact us if you need directions to the distribution shed. The purchasing process is self serve--the chickens are priced as marked ($3.80 a pound)--instructions about payment will be posted on the refrigerator door, the chickens will be in the refrigerator. Click here for a link to the perfect roast chicken or here for an instructional video about grill roasted chicken. For more information about the virtues of pasture raised organic chicken check out Sustainable Table's issue postings.

Chester County Dwell-One Local Summer Challenge

The creative and talented women at CCDwell online magazine have taken Farm to Philly's one local summer buy local challenge. Click here to read their latest posting, you might see some familiar ingredients.

This Week's Share-Peas

I apologize for this delayed posting, my computer was down at the beginning of the week. I hope you were able to find creative uses for this week's share:
Peas
Leaf Lettuce
Butterhead Lettuce
Cooking Greens
Asian Greens
Baby Squash
Garlic Scapes
Pea Shoots

Personally I think the peas, butterhead lettuce, baby squash with a garnish of pea shoots would lend themselves well to tuna salad or grilled salmon--the subtle sweet and buttery taste of spring. You could lightly saute the peas and baby squash with olive oil, herbs, lemon, and/salt and serve with the fish housed on a couple of leaves of butterhead lettuce with a pea shoot and flower as a garnish--how beautiful and delicious!

Speaking of peas, it amazes me how many folks have never experienced fresh shelling peas--the trick is to eat them asap. Like corn, over time their sugar content turns to starch--the sooner you eat them the sweeter they will be. In the next couple of weeks I will have more snow and snap peas--the shelling peas usually come all at once for just a week or two--so take advantage while you can. Click on the link to read Fine Cooking's primer on English Peas .

Expanded Market Today!

Because of last week's rainy first friday, many of the special vendors will be in attendance at today's market along with the music of David Janes. Some of the special vendors include the adorable children's clothing of Creekside and the amazing fiber art of Butterfly Hill Alpacas.