Week #19

• Lettuce
• Tomatoes!!
• Cherry tomatoes
• Peppers
• Hot peppers
• Potatoes
• Onions !!
• Cucumbers
• Summer squash
• Basil
• Eggplant
• Carrots
• Apples, plums for the picking
• Blackberries – you pick

We are working hard to bring in the bounty of the farm. We are racing out to get the harvest in while there is cloud cover, so I will not delay.

Dates to remember:

1. August 25 – 9-5 canning party, sign up in the barn
2. October 6 – Harvest Festival 2-6 invite friends, and family and join us at the farm
3. Sign up for winter share coming soon, always good to email me you desire to be part of the back side of the calendar.

A great recipe to make with potatoes, we roasted them first, instead of boiling and added some herbs to the frying pan and then tossed the fried potatoes with herbs and kosher salt, delicious!

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11656-potato-tostones

Jamie Oliver’s Heirloom tomatoes with horseradish

• 4 large handfuls mixed tomatoes
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• extra virgin olive oil
• good-quality red wine vinegar
• ½ clove garlic , grated
• 2 teaspoons fresh horseradish , grated, or jarred hot horseradish
• 1 small handful fresh flat-leaf parsley , finely sliced

 

Method

1. Cut the bigger tomatoes into slices about 1cm/½ inch thick. You can halve the cherry tomatoes or leave them whole. Then sprinkle them all with a good dusting of sea salt. Put them in a colander and leave them for 30 minutes. What’s going to happen here is that the salt will draw the excess moisture out of the tomatoes, intensifying their flavor. Don’t worry about the salad being too salty, as a lot of the salt drips away.
2. Place the tomatoes in a large bowl and dress with enough extra virgin olive oil to loosen (approximately 6 tablespoons), and 1–2 tablespoons of vinegar, but do add these to your own taste. Toss around and check for seasoning – you may or may not need salt but will certainly need pepper. Add the garlic. Now start to add the horseradish. Stir in a couple of teaspoons to begin with, toss around and taste. If you like it a bit hotter, add a bit more horseradish. All I do now is get some finely sliced flat-leaf parsley (stalks and leaves) and mix this into the tomatoes. Toss everything together and serve as a wonderful salad, making sure you mop up all the juices with some nice squashy bread.
3. This salad is fantastic with roast beef, goat’s cheese or jacket potatoes. And to be honest, even if you put these tomatoes in a roasting tray and roasted them with some sausages scattered around them it would be nice.

Tuna Salad a la Scarlett

By Tejal Rao

Yield: serves 4 as a side or 2 as a dinner

Time: 15 minutes, plus 1 hour for pickling the onions

½ cup rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 red onion , peeled, halved and thinly sliced

2 teaspoons kosher salt

3 Persian cucumbers, peeled if skin is thick and waxy, sliced about ¼ inch thick

2 spring onions, thinly sliced (of chives)

2 lines, juiced, about ¼ cup

5 to 7 ounces olive oil packed tuna

1 avocado, peeled and cubed

½ teaspoon or more finishing salt

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Handful of basil leaves, washed and torn

Handful of cilantro sprigs, washed and torn         

Handful of mint leaves washed and torn

3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Step 1

In a clean glass jar with a tightfitting lid, mix vinegar, sugar and 1 teaspoon kosher salt with ½ cup of hot water, shake until sugar is dissolved. Bring a pot of water to boil, add the onions let them sit for just a few seconds in the hot water, then drain well and transfer onions to the jar with the vinegar. The pickled onions will be ready to use in an hour, or can be made ahead and kept in the fridge for up to a week.

Step 2

In a large mixing bowl, dress the cucumber and spring onions with remaining kosher salt and lime juice. It should be fairly we. Pour into a deep serving plate or wide bowl, along with any extra liquid.

Step 3

Spoon tuna out of oil, use your hands to break up the tuna into bite sized pieces. Add avocado, 2 tablespoons of pickled onions and 1 table spoon of the pickling liquid and mix gently with your hands to dress. Scatter over the cucumber mixture, and season with finishing salt and black pepper. Cover with the torn herbs and generously drizzle with olive oil, eat right away.

Tomates Concassées

This is the French term for chopped, seeded, and peeled tomatoes, I think. Andy likes to make a fresh pasta sauce this time of year and call it “Tomates Concassées” because he read about it in a book years ago. He basically makes a ‘salsa’ but with the Italian red sauce ingredients, all raw but the onions and garlic and of course the noodles. I’ve seen him make it many times, below is my approximation:

3 pounds ripe tomatoes, any color
1 pound onions
3 garlic cloves
some olive oil
1 bunch of basil
juice from one large or two small lemons
salt and pepper to taste

1. Bring a saucepan of water to boil. Rinse the tomatoes, and make a 1-3 inch shallow slit in the bottom of each one. Lower the tomatoes, 2 or 3 at a time, depending on their size, into the boiling saucepan of water. They should only bathe for *5* seconds, no longer. Remove to a plate, rinse in cool water if you like. When all the tomatoes are done, remove peels and seeds, and roughly chop. (I personally admit to skipping the final cool rinse and fully admit to skipping the seed removal, no one has complained about my own sauce yet.)

2. Peel and chop onions and garlic. Saute the onions in a little oil over a medium heat in a wide largish soup pan for a few minutes, then add the garlic. Take care not to burn either. Remove from heat when both are soft and won’t be raw and crunchy in the sauce.

3. Wash and chop basil, then mix it with the cooled onion mixture, and the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (Andy is very liberal with the pepper….) Toss with just cooked noodles, and eat.

GREEK SALAD SANDWICH Bon Appetit May 1995 

12 ounces small tomatoes, cored, halved, thinly sliced
6 cups spinach leaves, stems trimmed
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced cucumber
1 cup crumbled feta cheese (about 4 ounces)
1/3 cup coarsely chopped pitted black brine-cured olives (such as Kalamata)
16 large fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
5 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 large garlic clove, minced
4 5- to 6-inch-diameter pita bread rounds, toasted

Place tomato slices in strainer; drain 15 minutes. Combine tomatoes, spinach, cucumber, feta cheese, olives and basil in large bowl. Whisk 1/4 cup olive oil, 5 teaspoons lemon juice and minced garlic in small bowl to blend. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper. Pour dressing over salad and toss to coat.
Cut pita bread rounds in half crosswise. Divide salad mixture among 8 pita halves and serve.