The strawberries are giving us a warm welcome this spring, with the earliest crop we’ve ever had! The warm winter has prompted early blooms of plants of all sorts. Our habitat restorationist Laura Kummerer tells me that the annual wildflower count on April 15th may be too late this year to catch many of the wildflowers—they’ve already bloomed and will be done by that date!
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Very simple but satisfying. A little char, cool bits contrasting with warm bits, crunchy and silky. The garlic dressing has the perfume and taste of garlic, but none of the heat. The “Grilled or Creamy” refers to the dressing having two iterations; one where you grill the garlic, the other where you blanch it briefly, then add thick yogurt to the pureé.
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This dish is cooked so it is not soupy, but rather until there is just a bit of liquid left. You can add more vegetables as you wish, and mushrooms and/or sausages turns it into a full dinner for the carnivorous set. I like it next morning heated up with a couple of farm-fresh eggs poached or basted on top.
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I love winter skies. Even though this “storm” didn’t ever pan out, the stormy-looking sky was a lovely consolation. We’re still hoping to get some rain the end of this week. On my walk around the farm I came across dozens of ladybugs in all stages. This picture shows a pupa on the left, and on the right is a ladybug freshly emerged fro
m its empty pupa case. It’s good to see the ladybugs gearing up for the season!
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Here is a celeriac purée offered by one of our subscribers. It is sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and sliced almonds and is topped with tofu baked with dandelion greens and fennel.
When blending the purée, add some milk and labne or yogurt/kefir, and tahini lemon sauce. You can also use butter in the celeriac… and a little lemon juice.
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This is a simple recipe based on how many lemons you have and the juice yield. I like to make my lemonade with sparkling water. It just makes it seem more special, more grown up, while at the same time it brings out the kid in me. Adding things like mint, lavender, or bitters makes this really special.
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The Salsa Verde for this recipe uses enough olive oil to make it a dressing. If you wish, you can use a creamy orange fennel dressing (See recipe) instead.
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This dressing goes with the Fennel and Radish Salad, among other things.
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Pureeing fennel, leeks, and butternut squash give this soup a rich creamy texture while the absence of cream or other dairy keeps it light and airy. This would even be good as a cold soup on a hot day, or could be used as a sauce for light proteins such as chicken or goat. To use as a sauce, just use less stock to thin it with. Although the recipe looks longish, it really is simple and fairly quick, and does not require a lot of attention.
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The weekend rain has been very welcome on the farm. The long dry spell was starting to worry us, but the cover crops in the farm fields and the grasses in the restoration area have all hung on and should now take off again with new growth. Another storm system coming in the next week or so will help to keep things growing.
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This is a light refreshing salad with a peppery quality that could easily double as a topping or side for something like seared pork chops or duck breasts. You want to use pinky-thin sweet carrots for this, and they should be sliced really thinly-a mandolin would be ideal. The carrots are there to offer a sweet contrast to the other vegetables. If you don’t have skinny sweet carrots, skip them and use pine nuts or almonds instead.
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This is one of those really simple dishes that surprises with how much flavor it packs. The kale acts as a foil with its earthy flavor to the fennels sweet, but it has a sweetness of its own that adds depth to the dish. Adding fennel seed and pastis adds even more dimension. Cooking the kale a shorter time gives it a toothsome quality that is a welcome texture with the fennel. Crushing the fennel with your hands seems to make it sweeter and also tenderizes it.
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January has been a busy month for us in regards to farm related meetings and social gatherings. As part of my duties as President of the Central Coast Chapter of California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) I helped to organize our annual meeting which was held in nearby Aromas on Monday the 12th. Three wonderful presenters agreed to speak on topics that are very relevant to growers here on the Central Coast. Lisa Bunin from The Center for Food Safety spoke about efforts to get the organic strawberry industry to transition to organically produced starter plants.
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Happy New Year to everybody. With 2014 gone, it’s time to look ahead to the 2015 farm season (March 18/19 to November 18/19), even while we harvest for the winter shares. This is a good time for us to be reminded of why Community Supported Agriculture is such a helpful model for small farmers, as well as for those who crave local fresh produce.
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Maple syrup makes everything taste better it seems, and bacon can improve just about anything (except chocolate, but that’s another story), just as a good balsamic vinegar can. In combination, even those who think they loathe Brussels sprouts may be converted. Here, a small amount of vinegar is used as a contrast, so use the good stuff you have stashed in the back of the cupboard.
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A relative newcomer to the vegetable world, Brussels sprouts have only been around for five hundred years, whereas there are records of cabbages that go back three thousand years. Why the name “Brussels” sprouts? It is thought that they have always grown near Brussels and that they were good, and so they became associated with the area. Thomas Jefferson was an avid farmer, and his are the first records of the vegetable in North America from 1812. Chances are good he brought them here originally.
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At the end of the road where we farm in Monterey County, there are two shallow ponds in the shady bottom of a small valley. In the thirty-plus years that he has lived there, our neighbor Keith, the beekeeper, had never seen the ponds dry up. But last year, dry up they did, and with all of the rain we have gotten so far this season, dried up they remain. For me this serves as a useful gauge of just what a serious drought we remain in. The rain so far has been great–but much more is needed.
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So simple, and yet so flavorful. This is one of those things where the whole is so much greater than the parts. Do not try doing this in a food processor. It will simply be a mess. From this basic recipe there are many other directions you can go. Use Meyer lemon and or orange zest. Add lime to it and use cilantro.
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The silky texture of escarole always seems at such odds with its bitter flavor. Adding a little sugar and caramelizing it until on the border of burnt both tames and points out the bitter quality of this vegetable, and the addition of sweet/tart fruit and vinegar made from the fruit amplifies this idea. This dish goes well with meats with mild roast chicken or fatty pork chops with a nice crust for textural contrasts. It would also be a nice complement to kasha with braised mushrooms or even fried eggs.
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