Harvest and Frisee Salad

Howdy Ag-Supporting Community members,

CSA share pickup is tomorrow as always, from 3:30-6:30 at the market in Southern Village. Hope you had a good week! It was a long week for me, with many preparations for and finally the execution of the Farm-to-Fork Picnic at the Breeze Farm on Sunday. Together with Neal's Deli and BoxCarr Farms I prepared a homemade Italian Sausage sub with wilted rapini and my pickled fennel, a beet salad, grilled turnips and carrots (BoxCarr's carrots--ours aren't that far along yet), and salt roasted new potatoes (you're getting some this week!). There were some great chefs, farmers, and artisans in attendance, as well as some 600 really supportive community members. Lots of fun, and a real privilege for a first-year farmer.

Growing for yall is a privilege, too, and with further delay let me announce the harvest this week:

1 bunch of cilantro
1 lb new red potatoes
1-2 Daikons
1/2 of a large head of chinese cabbage
1 bunch of tatsoi
1 head endive (featured this week in the recipe)
1 small head of lettuce (it's getting late in the year, and too hot, to grow much more lettuce!)
and 1 bunch of rainbow swiss chard

Now for the recipe (from nytimes.com): Frisee Salad with Poached Egg (uses Endive)

A note on how to use the head of endive included in this week's share. First of all, it looks a head of romaine lettuce, but tastes pretty bitter on the outside. What you want to do is peel off the outer few leaves until you reach the inner leaves which have been blanched light green almost white. Chop these into bite-size pieces and use in this recipe for "frisee." Frisee refers to the curly endive, not the broad-leafed endive that I grew (also called escarole), but it'll be good in this salad, trust me.

For the salad:

1 head frisée, tender light green leaves only, washed and dried (about 3 cups).

1 tablespoon chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley, tarragon or chives

1 sweet red pepper, very thinly sliced

4 thin slices baguette or whole grain bread, toasted, rubbed with a cut clove of garlic and cut into squares

4 large or extra-large eggs

1 tablespoon vinegar (any kind)

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

For the dressing:

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, champagne vinegar or red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 small garlic clove, minced or pureed

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, or 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil and 2 tablespoons walnut oil

1. Combine the lettuce, herbs, red pepper and croutons in a large bowl.

2. Poach the eggs. Fill a lidded frying pan with water, and bring to a boil. Add 1 tablespoon vinegar to the water. One at a time, break the eggs into a teacup, then tip from the teacup into the pan (do this in batches if necessary). Immediately turn off the heat under the pan and cover tightly. Leave for four minutes. Lay a clean dish towel next to the pan, and using a slotted spoon or spatula, carefully remove the poached eggs from the water. Set on the towel to drain.

3. Whisk together the vinegars, salt, mustard and garlic. Whisk in the oil. Toss with the salad until thoroughly coated, and distribute among 4 salad plates. Top each serving with a poached egg. Season the egg with salt and pepper to taste, sprinkle with some thyme leaves and serve.

Yield: Serves 4.

Advance preparation: You can poach the eggs up to a day ahead. Keep in a bowl of water in the refrigerator. Drain on a kitchen towel before assembling the salad. The lettuces can be washed and dried, and held in plastic bags in the refrigerator overnight.

SEE YA TOMORROW!

Ben

LaVonne's Birthday Harvest

Hey yall, Ben here. Sorry this email is coming so late tonight, but I've had to prepare and harvest for the big Farm-to-Fork Picnic this weekend, and it's been kind of an around the clock effort. And it's LaVonne's birthday tomorrow, don't tell her but I've been working on little surprises for her, too. But I do want to let you know what to look for in your bags tomorrow, Thursday May 20 (the Birthday Harvest!):

1 bunch beet greens

1 bunch turnip greens

1 head of broccoli

1-2 large daikon radishes

1 bag spinach

1 bunch tatsoi

1 head endive (a salad green in the chicory family)

1 bag lettuce mix

And...squash blossoms. These are some of the male squash flowers, which we remove because they are delicate and delicious (can't take them all though, because they are needed to pollinate the female flowers, which produce the squash). Here follows a recipe for the creative cook who wants to make a gourmet hors d'ouvre--if it sounds like too much work, then top a salad with the raw flower, that's good too.

FRIED SQUASH BLOSSOMS WITH CHEVRE

This recipe is an adaptation from one used at Chez Panisse. The masa harina, available at any grocery store, makes for a more crisp, delicate batter than all-purpose flour or cornmeal.

1/4 cup finely chopped mixed herbs, such as chives, tarragon, or chervil

1 1/2 teaspoons finely minced shallots

12 fresh open squash blossoms

1 cup fresh chevre--try the local Celebrity Dairy, which you can get at Weaver St, I think

Large pinch salt

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk

1 cup masa harina (extra fine cornmeal)

Two large pinches salt

Pinch freshly ground white pepper

Vegetable oil

In a small bowl, mix together the herbs, shallot, chevre and salt.

Open up the individual blossoms wide enough to insert a teaspoonful of cheese mixture. Do not overfill or fried blossoms will be soggy. Twist the ends of the blossom together gently.

In a medium bowl, beat 2 eggs together with 1/4 cup milk. In a separate medium bowl, mix together masa harina, salt, and pepper. Dip each blossom into the egg mixture and then roll quickly and evenly in the masa harina mixture, gently shaking off excess. Refrigerate for a few minutes.

Pour 1 inch of oil into a small shallow saucepan or skillet. Heat oil to 350 degrees. Deep-fry the blossoms in batches until they begin to turn light golden brown. Drain on baking rack set over paper towels, and serve immediately.

The Harvest This Week

Hello CSA members of Driftwood Garden,

The first distribution of your share starts tomorrow, Thursday May 13th. The bag will be available at 3:30 at the Southern Village Farmers Market--we'll be there until 6:30 (some of you who live farther away have arranged for delivery--Tom Munk and Chris/Mari, we'll drop off on our way home, about 6:45-7:00). I'll have recycled brown shopping bags to keep your produce together--it'd be great if you could save these, and more of them from your shopping, and bring us some bags from time to time to replenish the supply.

The harvest this week will include:

1 head of lettuce
1 bunch of salad turnips and/or radishes
1 bunch of mixed kale and hon tsai tsai
1 bag of mizuna and/or tatsoi
1 head baby bok choi
1 bag of spinach
1 bag turnip greens (recipe follows!)

And so it is my intention to include a recipe each week in this email, featuring some new item that you'll find in your bags. These will come from various cookbooks written by real chefs to be sure, but your first recipe of the year is gonna be one authored by me. This is how I like to cook greens for Sunday brunch, but it could be a side dish at supper, too.

Just Wilted Greens

1-2 lbs turnip greens (or mustards, kale, collards, spinach even)
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
crushed red pepper to taste, optional
salt to taste
1/4 cup water
Red wine vinegar on the table to splash on top

Heat a large frying pan to medium heat and just cover with olive oil. Add the minced garlic and a few shakes of crushed red pepper flakes and saute a few minutes, until it is barely soft but not crispy and burnt. Add all the greens at once, sprinkle the top with a couple pinches of salt and pour the water on top of the greens. Reduce the heat to low and cook a few minutes, turning the greens with a spatula until they are just wilted but still have some crunch to them. Add more salt to taste. Serve with scrambled eggs and sausage, and have red wine vinegar available on the table for a splash of seasoning.

SEE YOU TOMORROW! Looking forward to seeing everybody--

Ben

Pics from Opening Day Market

Hey yall,

We attended our first farmers market of the season last Thursday at Southern Village in Chapel Hill. Here's a shot of our tent and me holding the first dollar I ever made selling vegetables:



And then we've been planting, too. My dad helped me cut some saplings to throw up some pretty monumental tomato trellising. Here's a shot of me (and my tomato plants) standing next to one of the posts:



We're going to weave twine around the plants as they grow, and see how high they get. In Maine you wouldn't need much more than six-foot trellis, but the growing season is so long here, I'm optimistic it become a veritable jungle.

I'll post tomorrow with the week's harvest (What to expect at market and in your CSA shares) and a recipe for Just-Wilted Turnip Greens. Talk to ya then--Ben