FARM NOTES – Week 7, August 4, 2013<\/p>\n
CONTACT INFORMATION:
\nCoordinator: Mike Rabinowitz: House Phone: Before 5:30. 895-2884
\nFarm Cell: 6 \u2013 6:30 p.m.. 749-2884<\/p>\n
From my perspective, pick ups are going well. The messages are coming in on time. Last\u00a0Monday, there was only one delinquent picker-upper. After one courtesy phone call, it goes\u00a0back to the farm chill room and Mike is off to Aquarena basement (Nautilis room), where he\u00a0usually goes after pick-up.<\/p>\n
What happens on holidays including Regatta Day?<\/p>\n
Veggie Co-op Pick up will be same time, same place on all holidays.<\/p>\n
Garlic Scape Pickles<\/p>\n
When I help with pick up, it gives me a chance to chat. Last Monday, two people said they\u00a0made garlic scape pickles. This seems like a great idea! I learned how to make pickles\u00a0standing on a chair at the kitchen table, fitting the cucumbers in the jar for my mother. We have about a three week supply of garlic scapes, but this will be something we probably try\u00a0as a value added product for Farmer’s Market next year.<\/p>\n
Another member stood patiently in line with his wife, to report that they made salad soup\u00a0and were very pleased with the results. A couple of others said, they are juicing the greens\u00a0and feeling very healthy. Please e-mail me if you have a recipe to share.<\/p>\n
Website Posting\/ A challenge<\/p>\n
Up until this week, the revisions and postings on the Website have been managed by Ryan\u00a0Boyd who went home to England a few days ago. After the Website crashed in the fall of\u00a02011, it was set up in Word Press, which everyone insists is the easiest program for beginners\u00a0and IT Dyslexics. I am the Dyslexic. Mike is just a busy, retired college professor, who doesn’t\u00a0have 5 minutes to fiddle with getting things in the right order. Bear with us, while we learn to
\npost without a crutch. It is our goal to get things posted weekly by mid-afternoon on\u00a0Mondays and Wednesdays. So far, we have not met that target because the farm team, including Mike are making last minute decisions about \u201cWhat’s In The Bag!\u201d He wants to send everything he can on any given day and sometimes we don’t know the list until all of the\u00a0crops are in. For example, last week the picking list Mike gave to Diane, the crop supervisor\u00a0on Monday morning, was a potpourri, either broccoli, squash, etc. But when all of the\u00a0counts were in \u2013 both products and number of members picking up on Monday, there was\u00a0enough broccoli for each member.<\/p>\n
In This Issue:
\nA Warning about hot peppers, How To Skin Broccoli. Secret Recipe for Farm Veggie Stir Fry\u00a0and Death by Lobster.<\/p>\n
HOW HOT IS HOT?<\/p>\n
We know the catalogue description of the peppers we seeded in the spring and Mike can\u00a0recognize the shapes and colours of the tiny little dynamites that are supposed to be the\u00a0hottest. However, in my experience there is no guarantee that any of the hot peppers aren’t
\ntoo hot. My advice is to be very careful with those small \u201chot\u201d ones. A small hot pepper in a\u00a0pot of soup may set the soup a \u201cblazing\u201d. Been There! Done that! When you get \u201dhot\u201d\u00a0peppers, it is best to assume nothing. Some of these little guys are much more fierce than they seem.<\/p>\n
Handling hot peppers.<\/p>\n
Oils from peppers are like any other oils; they can stay on your hands for days. Avoid getting\u00a0pepper oils on your fingers which can contaminate other things as you move around the\u00a0kitchen. Also, been there. Done that! Be especially careful of touching eyes and other areas\u00a0of the face or forgetting as you bend over to pick up a crying child. Slip your hand into a\u00a0plastic bag to hold the pepper on the cutting board, cut thin slices crosswise, with a knife that
\ngoes into soapy water in the sink. Don’t forget to wash the cutting board or you will wonder\u00a0why the cheese you just cut on the same board is more spicy than usual.<\/p>\n
SKINNING BROCCOLI!<\/p>\n
Mike teaches our workers to clip broccoli where the plant stalk branches to form another\u00a0shoot. Early in the season, this gives your broccoli bunch several inches of stalk. You didn’t\u00a0get cheated. The stalk is the best part of the bunch, literally. Cut the stalk just below where\u00a0small branching begins. Hold the stem like a stalk of celery and draw a sharp knife across the\u00a0top edges as you would celery. As you pull the knife down gently, the outside sheaf will\u00a0follow. Make your way around the stalk. Well done! You have a large chunk of stem, more\u00a0tender than the smaller sheathed branches. Cut this in chunks and throw it in the bottom of\u00a0the steamer basket, followed by the rest.<\/p>\n
SECRET RECIPE FOR VEGGIE STIR FRY<\/p>\n
This isn’t a secret recipe but it is a stir fry recipe with no oil, even olive oil. A few years ago,\u00a0Mike and I began reading the work of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, who argues that plant-based,\u00a0oil-free nutrition can not only prevent and stop the progression of heart disease, but also\u00a0reverse its effects. The name of the book is, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. We also\u00a0found a very convincing free lecture on line. Two of my brothers have serious heart disease. I\u00a0had Amazon ship the book to them in Tennessee. The next time I was home, I watched the\u00a0hour video with them. This particular lecture is no longer available but there are a few\u00a0shorter videos available, including one posted on October 29,. 2011 for a Global Warming
\nConference. If you have time, it is around eight minutes.<\/p>\n
Stir Fry with Tomatoes<\/p>\n
Inspired by Esselstyn, Mike started using fresh tomatoes as a base for stir fry. This was a\u00a0slam dunk in Arizona where the local health store has voluptuous, organic tomatoes, not\u00a0nearly as costly as regular tomatoes here . By late summer, 2012, we had ripe tomatoes for\u00a0salads and stir fries, that is until Hurricane Leslie dropped in on us, in mid-September. Then,\u00a0Mike turned to canned tomatoes, chopped or stewed. We still use tomatoes as the base for
\nstir fries. A few days ago, Mike said he was looking forward to having the first snow peas of\u00a0the season made into a stir fry. He also brought in more goodies – green peppers, garlic\u00a0scapes and a small black pepper, Black Hungarian, which he says was not too hot and should be great for the stir fry. I looked at the few Sungold tomatoes in a basket on the table, our\u00a0first for the season and decided they were too precious to use for cooking. I started the stir fry with a couple of Costco tomatoes, but they didn’t yield enough liquid. What else could I use?\u00a0I had already put in tomatoes so it was to late to use apple juice or pineapple juice. As I\u00a0stirred gently, waiting to add the snow peas, I remembered the jar of Motts Spicy Clamato in the pantry that I use occasionally to make pea shoot smoothies. I added some of this around\u00a0the same time I added the snow peas and cooked a few more minutes. The stir fry was perfect\u00a0with a hint of spicy, hot, which may have been the little black pepper, the Clamato, or both.<\/p>\n
Anyway. That’s the secret! I realize the ingredients of spicy Clamato does not meet Michael\u00a0Pollan’s Guidelines to \u201cAvoid foods you see advertised on television\u201d but it can be an option\u00a0if you don’t have fresh tomatoes.<\/p>\n
DEATH BY LOBSTER<\/p>\n
When we had dinner at Atlantica Restaurant in early July, I learned Chef Battcock was\u00a0planning a Death by Lobster event the last two weeks in July. This is an account of that\u00a0experience, but the most interesting tidbit of the whole piece is that Chef Battcock is allergic to Lobster. When he came to the table after the meal, he explained that he has to rely on his\u00a0Sous chefs to do the tasting, otherwise the big news in the restaurant world might be a real
\ndeath by lobster at Atlantica!<\/p>\n
Even though I recently had surgery for a fractured jaw and am restricted to soft foods, I\u00a0was determined not to miss this. Lobster only happens once a year in my life now and only if\u00a0I am lucky. In our younger years, we had lobsters cook-ups at home and cookouts on the\u00a0beach, but nowadays, it is a special outing with special guests. I explained my situation to\u00a0Chef Battcock when he dropped by the farm earlier in the week, to look for more spicy\u00a0micro-greens, which he planned to use to enhance the taste of certain dishes. He told me
\nregardless of what the others ordered, he could make a Lobster Bisque for me and reassured\u00a0me that I would not leave hungry. And I didn’t. The Lobster Bisque was a generous portion\u00a0and very filling. In addition, to that, I was able to enjoy the full experience of seeing the series of little dishes, all presented with some light garnishes from the Organic Farm. In\u00a0included Lemon butter poached lobster tail presented on a small bed of kale, which was\u00a0better than any kale we have ever tasted.\u00a0A long white individual serving dish, shaped like a gondola, a Lobster Carpaccio displayed in\u00a0the form of four little, Barbie Doll size trees, resembling palm trees. These were made with
\nShungiku, a new Japanese green from the farm. I had a few bites of Mike’s lobster risotto\u00a0which was amazingly delicious. The last serving of the meal was Surf and Turf. I rejected\u00a0Mike’s offer to shave off thin slices of his bison rib eye but did share some tiny bits of lobster
\nclaws.<\/p>\n
Lobster Ice Cream?<\/p>\n
The dessert was an ice cream sandwich, which apparently had lobster gelatinous ingredients.\u00a0It was a large thick square of ice cream, with a wrap so it could be held in the hand to munch.\u00a0No spoons. Mike and our friends said it did not taste like lobster. Trying to brush up on this\u00a0lobster ice cream thing, I just read about the topic on line. I didn’t find an actual recipe but\u00a0learned that the BEN and JERRY Ice Cream chain make a lobster ice cream with chunks of
\nlobster, the same as if it were chocolate chips. Right! Not interested in learning how to make\u00a0ice cream, but I could make the bisque, but perhaps from crab which is more plentiful.<\/p>\n
Definition of Lobster Bisque<\/p>\n
Bisque is a smooth, creamy, highly seasoned soup of French origin, classically made from a\u00a0strained broth (coulis) of crustaceans. Can be made from lobster, crab, shrimp or crayfish.<\/p>\n
We were again delighted with the food, the creativity and how the Chef went out of this way\u00a0to create dishes using farm products. However, we will probably not go again until we get\u00a0back from Arizona in the late spring. We like eating at home with friends as much as we like a\u00a0more formal dining experience and we only go out three or four times a year\u00a0Have you eaten out anywhere you especially liked? Or experienced any meals that used ingredients from the Organic Farm. Would love to hear from you.<\/p>\n
Melba Rabinowitz
\nAugust 5, 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FARM NOTES – Week 7, August 4, 2013 CONTACT INFORMATION: Coordinator: Mike Rabinowitz: House Phone: Before 5:30. 895-2884 Farm Cell: 6 \u2013 6:30 p.m.. 749-2884 From my perspective, pick ups are going well. The messages are coming in on time. … Continue reading