This week we resumed receiving CSA shares (last week there was no delivery due to the Independence Day holiday). The biggest surprise was a pint of cherry tomatoes in our fruit share! All in all, we received:
1 pound of fava beans
1 bunch of fennel
1 bag of snap peas
1 head of lettuce
1 bunch of swiss chard (broccoli rabe was another choice)
two apples
2 pounds of yellow plums
1 quart of sour cherries
I’ve already eaten a lot of this. The tomatoes are gone – last night I cooked half them with two of the zucchinis in olive oils and garlic, plus fresh herbs from my deck. Today I had them in a raw salad with more zucchini. The favas were sauteed in olive oil with garlic at the end and topped with a little fleur de sel.
The sour cherries will become cherry liqueur and hot cherry preserves. As I write this the cherries are macerating with dried peppers, vanilla bean, and sugar for preserves, and the liqueur is coming to be with cherries and sugar sitting in rum and vodka.
I may make a plum syrup with any of the plums we don’t eat simply out of hand.
Let me tell you – it is so great to have the veggies and fruit back!
Last week, I hosted a canning workshop with my CSA… and it was a great time! We learned how to make strawberry lemon preserves, perfect for this time of year. It was a small turnout – 4 people plus myself and the teacher – but that made for a nice intimate gathering. We all learned a lot, and even after three years of canning, even I learned some important tips (and some in hindsight that seem like no-brainers). Canning 101 techniques are always good to revisit.
Our teacher, AJ Simone
AJ had already combined the strawberries, lemon, and sugar and let them macerate for a day before the workshop. He mentioned that the CSA strawberries he used made a huge difference in the end product – they were far superior to supermarket strawberries. Of course, the strawberries we got from Hepworth Farms were simply incredible, and were probably the best strawberries I’ve eaten outside of the ones my grandfather used to grow in California.
Strawberries and lemons cooking
This collage shows the strawberry-lemon mixture from the initial draining, to the resulting juice that will boil down to a syrup, to the fruit cooking in the syrup.
The kitchen sure smelled amazing during this whole process.
Processing the strawberry lemon preserves
This collage shows the processing of the preserves, from spooning them into the sterilized jars, to screwing on the lids, to processing them in the hot water bath. I’m fortunate to have a nice big pot for processing – a 16 quart stockpot! It gets used pretty much in the summer only (I bought it years ago on sale).
This is the final product:
The finished product - strawberry lemon preserves
This was one delicious batch of preserves. And look at that color! I loved the pure strawberry flavor combined with the tang of the lemon – it’s definitely not too sweet. And that’s understandable with the proportions in mind – 3 pounds of strawberries, 2 whole lemons, and only 1 1/2 cups of sugar. One can get away with a relatively low amount of sugar because pectin isn’t being used in this recipe.
This recipe makes about five half pint jars worth of preserves, but sometimes it can come out to 4.5, which is what happened to our batch. We ate the .5 amount, yum. AJ was an excellent teacher and I’m hoping we’ll see more workshops led by him in the future.
This week was a lighter week, with only four things in our share. We got:
1 head green leaf lettuce
1 head mustard greens
1 bunch beets with beautiful greens
1 bag of snap peas
There was an herb share this week, but I don’t partake in that. Our fruit share is on hold for a couple of weeks because this week the harvest was iffy and next week is July 4 holiday week and we won’t have a delivery from anyone that day. I’m really looking forward to more fruit.
In my head, I’ve been formulating a recipe for the mustard greens. Stay tuned for that.
Our CSA canning workshop went great! The CSA strawberries used made amazing preserves. More on that soon…
I just wanted to update you on the status of my green onions – the ones I planted in dirt not even a couple weeks ago. Well, as you can see, they’ve done quite well! Almost all of them have regrown and are looking really healthy. A couple of them are a little pokey but are still growing.
I hope I’ll be able to continue to harvest green onion tops from these onions for quite some time. Thanks again to AJ for the tip!
This week’s superstar element in the CSA share was the two quarts of strawberries from Hepworth Farms – they are spectacular. Wonderful strawberry flavor and the texture is fantastic. Firm yet silky. We also got apples in our fruit share, which was a surprise, but shouldn’t have been – Hepworth Farms grows something like 40 different kinds of apples on their land in Milton, NY.
For the vegetable share, we also got:
1 HUGE head of green leaf lettuce (we are overwhelmed with greens)
1 bunch swiss chard
1 larger bag of snap peas
1 bunch of lavender (smells amazing)
1 pint of strawberries
All told, we received 10 cups of strawberries. Just… wow. I love this time of year!
More exciting news – next week I’ll be hosting at my apartment a canning workshop for my CSA, taught by my friend and fellow core group member AJ. He’ll be teaching us how to can strawberry lemon preserves, as well as teaching basic water bath canning best practices. It should be awesome.
This was Hellgate CSA‘s second week and we got another terrific share. Our vegetable share consisted of:
1 bunch of very aromatic savory (I love the smell!)
1 head of lettuce
1 bag of sugar snap peas
1 small bag of asparagus
1 quart of fantastic strawberries
I plan to eat a large salad on Thursday, combining the savory, the lettuce I got from the CSA, and my own lettuces growing out back. That and the arugula have just exploded in the past week:
Lettuce and arugula have exploded
Asparagus will be delicious with eggs, and the strawberries will likely be gone in a day or two. Too bad, as I have some raw cream in my future that will be in my hands a few days after these berries are gone. Here’s hoping more strawberries come next weekend so that I can enjoy these two treasures together.
So far, so good. Everything has been gorgeous and delicious!
Our first share of the 2011 season of the Hellgate CSA
I am so happy that our CSA started up again! Yesterday was our first distribution of the season. We received:
1 head of green leaf lettuce
1 bunch of absolutely gorgeous scallions
a bag of sunchokes
a bunch of oregano
a quart of strawberries
Everything is organic and local – we get our vegetable shares from Green Thumb Farm out on the south fork of Long Island. Farmer Bill and the rest of the Halsey clan has been providing us with vegetables for many years now – we are starting our seventh season!
I washed and cleaned the strawberries – I expect they’ll be gone by tonight. I had them over my last ramekin of baked custard today and it was a perfect pairing. It satisfied my suspicion that this custard is an awesome base for seasonal fruit.
I am hoping to make a pesto out of the oregano, I have so much of it. I could run the dehydrator, too, but it’s awfully hot here in NYC right now, and the dehydrator blows hot air out of it. But oregano pesto intrigues me – I expect it would go great with fish, and probably good in soup. The scallions are incredible – mild but not flavorless, and with no harsh edge to them. I will most likely make carmelized green onions if I don’t eat them all in a few days.
Distribution was a joy last night, too. So many happy people, excited members new and old, and lots of beautiful kids running around (and some in strollers). We had some snacks, and some amazing lemonade made by Fresh Start, our hosts. My fellow Core members are lovely and I’m so glad to be working actively on this season again with them.
Lots of people picking up
Here’s to a great CSA season! The next six months are going to be awesome.
For more photos from our first distribution for the year, you can find them in my CSA 2011 – Week 1 photoset.
