Cucumbers New Orleans Style

New Orleans, though spared a direct hit from Hurricane Isaac, was pummeled by wind and rain this week. Now it looks like the remnants of that hurricane will hit the Ohio Valley just in time for the fireworks on Labor Day Eve. Bummer, but a little rain beats our own encounter with a hurricane a few years back. And we can use the rain.
For another connection between the Queen City and the Big Easy, try this New Orleans-style Cucumber Casserole, a recipe adapted from an old edition of The Joy of Cooking by Enright CSA member Mary Jo Bazeley. We definitely need to expand our horizons when it comes to preparing some of our produce (think eggplant for breakfast—I’m not kidding, that recipe coming soon!) and this one does a good job of making cucumbers into something that is neither pickled nor fit for tea with the queen.
Jazzy cucumbers, in fact—I’m looking forward to trying this one myself.

Creole Cucumber Casserole
3 large cucumbers
5 slices of bread crumbled and dried

Place bread crumbs on bottom of 9x12 pan. Pare and seed cucumbers, then wrap in paper towels to drain. Meanwhile prepare Creole Sauce:

Creole Sauce
Melt 2 tbsp. butter over low heat.
Add and cook, covered, for about 2 minutes
1/2cup chopped onion
1 minced clove garlic
6 shredded green olives
Add and cook until the sauce is thick, about 50 minutes
1 ½ cups canned or fresh tomatoes
½ cup chopped green pepper
1 bay leaf
A pinch of thyme
1 tsp chopped parsley
1 tsp. dark brown sugar
½ tsp. of salt
A few grains cayenne
1 tbsp dry sherry
¼ cup chili sauce
½ cup diced ham
½ cup sliced mushrooms (optional)

Slice cucumbers, then mix with Creole sauce. Pour over breadcrumbs. Dot with pieces of cheese (Mary used a queso cheese, although any cheese should work.) Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes. The cucumbers were a tad crunchy but the cheese was starting to burn, so it might be a good idea to add the cheese later in the baking cycle so it just melts and does not burn.

Okra Even Inspires Poetry

Okra is such a delectable vegetable, it has even inspired poetry and song. Chris Smithers' "I Got No Love" is sung by a peddler of vegetables who has "Okra, enough to choke ya, and beans of every kind." (Sound familiar?) And the Florida Okra Fest (slogan, "Celebrate the Pod) features "The Okra Song," which begins:


Okra it gets slimy
When you cut it with a knife
Love is just as slippery
You gotta hang on for dear life

I even came across a poem that mentions okra by a well-known Cincinnati poet, Nikki Giovanni. (She was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, but grew up in Lincoln Heights.)

Knoxville Tennessee

I always like summer
Best
you can eat fresh corn
From daddy's garden
And okra
And greens
And cabbage
And lots of
Barbeque
And buttermilk
And homemade ice-cream
At the church picnic
And listen to
Gospel music
Outside
At the church
Homecoming
And go to the mountains with
Your grandmother
And go barefooted
And be warm
All the time
Not only when you go to bed
And sleep

--Nikki Giovanni

Who Loves Okra?

Okra is like eggplant—either you love it, or you don't. I love okra. (I love eggplant, too, but for all you okra avoiders, I hated kale before I joined the CSA. Now I eat it all the time and I like it very much too. So, you could change your tune!)

Anyway, I've been eating okra all my life, and yes it's hairy, and slimy after you eat it, and apparently in other parts of the world it is called "lady fingers." All things that make it sound more like a prop in a horror movie than a tasty ingredient in stews, gumbos, and jambalaya. I like it that way, or just steamed with tomatoes as Smothered Okra.

It's also tasty fried, though I don't think it's particularly good for you that way, and I'm not a dab hand at deep frying, so I usually eat this when I'm at a BBQ joint. So, how do you like your okra? Do you like your okra at all? If you don't, just put it on the share table—the okra lovers among us will be happy to take it off your hands!

A New Mailbox and a New Mailing Address for the Enright Ridge CSA

When you come to pick up your share on Saturday, you’ll notice a new locking mailbox mounted on the front door of the greenhouse. This gives us an actual street address to use as a mailing address for the Enright Ridge CSA:

Enright Ridge CSA
824 Enright Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45205

If you have any postal mail correspondence to send to the Enright Ridge CSA, please send it to this new address from now on.

You can also use the locked mailbox to drop off any outstanding payments you have for your share—just be sure you include the main name on the share, and you can drop your check right into the mailbox (though we’d recommend putting it in an envelope, just for good measure).

Everything else—including the website address and the email address—stays the same, we’re happy to report. But now we can get mail directly at our physical address. Thanks to the folks who installed the mailbox (plus some additional electronic payment possibilities that we will report on soon), we will definitely have a more efficient method of collecting share applications and payments in the future.

Sun-Dried Tomatoes (in the Oven)

Have you ever bought sundried tomatoes to use in a pasta dish or salad? They are just bursting with tomato taste, but they can also be a bit dear at the grocery or specialty store. With all the tomatoes we've gotten this year, it's easy to make your own at home—you don't even need the sun.

For years I made sundried tomatoes from the roma tomatoes I grew in my backyard. They are the best choice, but this year I found those small round tomatoes (about 2" in diameter) we get from the Enright Ridge CSA are great candidates for drying. I took my share of tomatoes in those small ones last week, and dried a batch of them over the weekend.

Just a few simple steps will get you a delicious bag (or jar) of sundried tomatoes, too. And, when you open a jar of tomatoes preserved in oil in the middle of February—well, let's just say Proust's cookie has nothing on these little jewels for conjuring up summers past in the dead of winter.

Sundried Tomatoes

Small tomatoes--roma or other varieties
Foil
Baking sheets
Salt

Optional Ingredients for Canning Dried Tomatoes
Garlic cloves
Basil leaves
Peppercorns
Olive oil

Cut the tomatoes almost in half, so they open up like a book. Line cookie trays or baking sheets with foil, arrange tomatoes cut side up in rows, and sprinkle salt over the tomatoes.

Put the trays in an oven on low heat (180 to 200 degrees works well) and leave in heated oven for about 12 hours (doing this overnight is a good idea). When the tomatoes are dried (but not burnt), you will probably find some that are not entirely dry but still have some mush in them. That's okay if you are willing to pack them in oil and process them.

So, take any completely dry tomatoes and store them in an airtight container. You can keep these in the pantry and use them for cooking right away. Then, take the ones that have a little softness still and pack them in one or more pint canning jars. Add a peeled garlic clove, a couple of basil leaves, and a few peppercorns. Add olive oil to fill to about a half-inch from the top of the jar. Use the handle of a wooden spoon to push the tomatoes aside and let the olive oil get down between the fruits. Add a little more olive oil as needed, wipe the tops of the jar, put on the caps and bands, and process in a hot water bath for about 15 minutes.

When you open those jars in February, you have great tasty summer tomatoes for pasta, and you can use the flavored oil for salads and marinades.

Remind Me Why People Eat Cows?

I had an amazingly delicious dinner last night—I took stock of what was in the refrigerator and needed to be used, as well as what we’d just gotten in the share this week. I grilled slabs of marinated eggplant as well as a lot of assorted vegetables, including the last of the turnips from a couple of weeks ago, and one forgotten kohlrabi, plus beans, tomatoes, and peppers.

I guess that was the main course; to accompany it, we had fresh sweet corn and southern-style greens, chard steamed and then laced with a little cider vinegar and sprinkled with crispy, crumbled bacon. So, it wasn’t entirely a vegetarian meal, but it didn’t have a hunk of meat as its centerpiece, either.

There was a lot of food on the table, and it was filling, though I didn’t feel stuffed after eating. And I know it’s good for me—a 1 cup serving of chard has 7 calories. That’s kind of amazing. Of course, the bacon adds a few more . . . but the chard also is a good source of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, riboflavin, vitamin B6, calcium, iron, and potassium. The only negative is that it is kind of high in sodium.

There are 34 calories in a cup of cooked turnips, 48 calories in a cup of cooked kohlrabi (though it is also high in sodium), 22 calories in a half-cup of green beans, 33 calories in a cup of cooked eggplant, and about 43 calories in a good-sized tomato. I did add a bit of olive oil before grilling everything (there are 119 calories in a tablespoon of olive oil, but it doesn’t have any “bad” features according to any nutritional charts).

Vegetables are great sources of vitamins and minerals, but they don’t generally have much protein (though once our hazelnut trees are producing, we can get protein from them). For now, I got 5 grams of protein from the bacon in last night’s meal (and only 50 calories, so that’s not a bad tradeoff).

Tonight I am thinking about a vegetable quiche, which provides a lot more protein in the eggs and cheese, though also a lot more calories as well (surprisingly, many more in the eggs than the cheese). One thing I know, it will be delicious, and another day will go by without eating any cows. Though I’m happy to have them around for the milk and cheese in that quiche, I don’t need a steak or burger when I have all these great vegetables.

You read reports all the time about the daily recommended requirements of different food groups—currently it’s 2 to 4 servings of fruit and 3 to 5 servings of vegetables a day. I’m sure I’m not the only who wonders if anyone actually manages to meet this standard, except of course during high season at the Enright CSA. Then, there are times—like last night—when I eat more than my 5 servings of vegetables all in one meal!

Up to Your Knees in Tomatoes? Try Unpeeled Tomato Salsa

I’ve done well keeping up with the produce this season—until this week. We went out to eat twice. Big mistake; that’s all it takes for the tomatoes and peppers and okra and everything else to start piling up.

I had used oodles of tomatoes making tomato bisque and more gazpacho over the weekend, but there were still plenty. I had the idea of making jambalaya, a great thing to make when all sorts of produce is piling up, but I had put it off. Suddenly it was Thursday and there were still a LOT of tomatoes around, even though I put them in eggs, on every sandwich, in cottage cheese, layered with mozzarella and basil, and on and on.

Salsa sounded good, but peeling a bunch of tomatoes to make it did not. So, I thought, let’s experiment. I got out my Swiss Zyllis vegetable chopper (the kind they sell at fancy kitchenware parties; a neighbor lured me to one of those parties years ago, so I have one). I chopped a lot of tomatoes, cored but unskinned, and a few peppers, plus some garlic and onion. Then I added some herbs and spices, and I think the experiment was successful. It’s a bit hot, but not uncomfortably so—serve it with a little sangria and it will balance out nicely, I think.

Quick and Easy Unpeeled Tomato Salsa

8-10 very ripe tomatoes, cored* but not peeled
2-3 bell peppers, green or red or purple or yellow
2 red chile peppers
2 jalapenos, roasted
4 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano (you could substitute chopped fresh basil)
½ tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. coriander
¼ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. lime juice

*Core the tomatoes by cutting out the white center in a cone shape around the stem end of the fruit.

Slice the tomatoes, then chop them finely with the food chopper. Toss them in a good size bowl, pulling out any large pieces of skin that don’t get chopped. Roast the jalapenos by holding them over a gas flame with a fork, or put them under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Scrape off the black bits. Seed all the peppers, the bell peppers, chile peppers, and roasted jalapenos, and chop them up finely. Throw them in the bowl. Chop the garlic and onions and add them to the bowl. Stir things up with a spoon, add the spices and lime juice, and enjoy with chips. Makes about 3-4 cups.

Addendum: Refrigerate overnight (or at least for several hours) to let the flavors meld before serving this salsa.

Happy Birthday, Julia!

I understand there are entire cable channels given over to food and cooking shows these days, but when I was a kid, there were just two such shows on television—The Galloping Gourmet and Cooking with Julia—plus an occasional reality show in our neighbor’s kitchen, where gourmet delights were prepared accompanied by nips of the cooking sherry, in emulation of both Julia Child and Graham Kerr. But that’s another story . . .

Julia Child was the sine qua non of television cooks, and she was out there on UHF, on the public television station. But her shows weren't quite like anything else on educational TV, though they were certainly educational. They were also manic, fun, and endlessly entertaining. I have to admit I’ve never seen one of the modern shows, but I have heard of a few of the cooks, and as talented and TV-ready as they might be, well, they just aren’t Julia Child. What other TV cook has been impersonated by Dan Ackroyd? Or had a movie made about her inspirational cookbook that put Meryl Streep in her shoes? Even today's Google doodle pays homage to her. The lady was and is a classic, there’s no doubt.

Let’s celebrate Julia Child’s 100th birthday today by preparing a delightful French vegetable dish. You might be surprised how much attention she paid to vegetables, even the lowly turnip and parsnip. Mastering the Art of French Cooking is full of lovely ideas on how to prepare produce, sometimes very simply. And there’s just something about successfully navigating a Julia Child recipe that really gives one a sense of accomplishment (as Julia might say).

If you happen to have a copy of the book, break it open and look for a recipe to try in honor of her centennial. If you don’t own the cookbook, you might be surprised how easy it is to find some of the recipes—or at least recipes that are homages to Julia’s classics—on the Internet. Here are a few examples; just click on each to go to the online recipe:

Cucumber Gratin (inspired by Julia’s Baked Cucumber recipe)

Leek and Potato Soup (it only has four ingredients!)

Eggplant Persilade (again, simplicity itself—only five ingredients but delicious together)

And the New York Times has a selection of recipes from one of the world’s most famous cookbooks (and cooks) that, as they say “the home cook still makes” that I know I’m going to look into!

Happy 100th Birthday, Julia. We’ll all chop and sauté a bit of locally sourced produce in your honor—now where’s that cooking sherry?

The new Enright CSA bicycle-art cart

In case some folks didn’t see the posting on Facebook about the new bicycle cart that is getting a workout around the Enright CSA fields, I thought it might be nice to put it on the blog as well.

The bicycle cart comes to us courtesy of the Contemporary Arts Center and artist Till Wolfner, facilitated by CSA member Suellyn Shupe. She got a call from Peter Huttinger, Community Gardens Coordinator at the Cincinnati Civic Garden Center, after he was contacted by the Contemporary Arts Center to recommend an urban farm in Cincinnati that could use a custom-built bicycle cart.

The cart was built to the Enright CSA’s specifications—it can carry produce both from the garden to the greenhouse and to use as a rolling farm stand. Charles loaded it with
50 pounds of freshly picked tomatoes the day it arrived, and easily maneuvered its load to the greenhouse. The whole structure is made of aluminum and is very light. The bicycle has six speeds, making it easy to pedal even fully loaded. It’s also remarkably maneuverable, making it useful both on the street and around the farm fields.

The man who built it is a German artist who specializes in functional art, Till Wolfner, who is associated with an artists’ co-op in Denmark but was an artist in residence at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) this summer. He has returned to the Danish artist co-op, but will make the plans for the Enright CSA cart he built available online in the future.

The Enright CSA cart will return temporarily to the CAC in downtown Cincinnati in September, where it will be part of a special exhibit entitled “Green Acres: Artists Farming Fields, Greenhouses, and Abandoned Lots.” The CAC farm art show opens September 22, 2012, and will remain on view through January 20, 2013. The works focus on farming as a form of activism as well as an art form.

When the exhibit closes, the Enright CSA cart will return to Price Hill to be used in future seasons. But if you have a chance, go take a look at it when it’s on display at the Contemporary Arts Center. We’re part of a movement!

Hey, We Could Make Soup Out of ’Em!

The strange weather continues—here we are in the middle of August enjoying a beautiful fall weekend. Except for the gusty winds, it was a perfectly lovely day for a bike ride over to pick up this week’s bounty from the Enright CSA, including, of course . . . Tomatoes.

Since the temperature is not yet 70 degrees at 11 o’clock in the morning, we don’t have to think cool, refreshing so much. We can think warm, comfort food. And what’s more comforting than a bowl of tomato soup (accompanied, of course, by a grilled cheese sandwich)?

Hence, I present a very simple recipe for a very delicious soup. It’s been in my personal cookbook for so long, I’m not sure where it came from originally. But it ain’t Campbell’s, that is for sure. I think I’ll make a batch for lunch tomorrow.


Tomato Soup

13 medium tomatoes, peeled and cored
5 stalks celery
3 medium onions, chopped and cooked in butter
4 to 6 cloves of garlic
Chopped fresh basil to taste
¼ tsp. thyme
1 bay leaf
3 egg yolks
Parmesan cheese

Blend all ingredients up to the bay leaf in a blender or food processor. Pour into a large cook pot, add three egg yolks and bay leaf. Sprinkle liberally with Parmesan cheese. Bring to a sharp boil and then simmer for 1½ hours. Serve hot, with grilled cheese sandwiches.

Mmmm, Melons!

I don’t think anyone would argue that our area has been experiencing something of a drought this summer (though that long steady rain last night was certainly welcome), and drought can cause havoc with a lot of things we grow. But we have a water supply at Ritter Farm this year (thankfully), and that has allowed the corn and melon crops to flourish.

The melons are just starting to roll in; there probably won’t be enough for everyone to get one on any particular Saturday, but there’s a melon checklist at the greenhouse, and using that, we should all be able to enjoy a succulent melon or two.

Botanically, a melon is a fruit and a berry, but obviously it’s not what we usually think of when we think of as berries. It is nice to have some fruit from the CSA, though. We’ve gotten muskmelons (the family that includes cantaloupes and casaba melons) for distribution, but I’ve noticed a few watermelons at the greenhouse, too.

All melons are originally from Africa and Asia, but they began appearing in Italy as early as the Roman Empire. They were domesticated early, both in the Old World and the New World, and apparently we have a pope’s gardener to thank for the development of the cantaloupe in the 18th century. He grew them in Cantalupo nel Sannio, Italy; hence the name.

Melons came early to the New World; settlers were growing them in the 1600s, and the Spanish introduced them to Native Americans, who developed their own melon cultivars in the American Southwest.

But enough of melon history—and this isn’t an item that needs recipes; just slice one open, scoop out the seeds, and enjoy a wedge. Sweet and tasty, it’s also good for you—melons are cholesterol-free and have very little sodium; they are a very good source of vitamin A, vitamin C, and potassium. I like mine with a scoop of cottage cheese in the concavity, which makes for a delicious summertime lunch.

When Life Gives You Cucumbers, Make Relish

In my refrigerator, I had homemade mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup. Clearly I needed to give homemade pickle relish a try. And heaven knows I had enough raw materials, in the form of cucumbers and peppers.

So, I trolled the Internet looking for likely recipes, and I also consulted the Mango Relish recipe that has appeared on this blog. Then I looked at what I had in the way of ingredients, and I came up with my own recipe, which made three half-pints of relish, enough to enjoy and share. It was fairly quick and easy—and accommodating. I had intended to let the vegetables pickle for about an hour, but a small emergency called me away from the kitchen for longer than that, and the relish still turned out fine. Thus, “1 to 3 hours” in the refrigerator, depending on your own schedule, will work, I think.

After I made the pickle relish and it aged for a couple of days, I found I was the only one home for dinner one evening. I’m not a big hamburger lover, but we always have a few nice sirloin patties from Findlay Market’s Eckerlein Meats in the freezer because my son does like burgers a lot. So, I defrosted one and put it on the grill, then ate it on a homemade bun with homemade mayo, mustard, and pickle relish. I even baked some skinny fries (from a bag, I will admit) to dunk in the homemade ketchup. It was all delicious.

What’s next in the world of condiments? Well, there is still chutney, and as it happens, I have a few recipes for some delicious chutneys that use all sorts of things we have in abundance, such as tomatoes and peppers. So look for more condiment news soon!

Sweet Pickle Relish

2 cups cucumbers, peeled, deseeded,* and chopped (1 or 2 of the smaller ones)
1 cup chopped white onions (about 1 large onion)
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red or purple bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbsps. kosher salt

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup cider vinegar
2 tsps. celery seeds
2 tsps. mustard seeds
¼ tsp. turmeric
¼ tsp. fresh ground black pepper

*Deseed a cucumber by cutting it in half longways and scooping the seeds out with a spoon.

Directions

Chop the cucumbers, onions, and peppers to about a quarter-inch mince. Using a food processor makes them too mushy and too fine; you can chop them with a knife or use one of those push-down choppers, they do the trick well.

Put all the vegetables and the minced garlic in a large bowl or pan and sprinkle with the salt. Cover with ice and let stand in the refrigerator for 1 to 3 hours. Drain the water and ice from the vegetables in a colander, and press out as much liquid as you can from the veggies, too.

Combine the sugar, vinegar, spices, and seeds in a large pot (big enough for the vegetables, too) and bring to a boil. Add the vegetables, bring back to a boil, then turn down the heat a bit and simmer for 10 minutes.

Use a slotted spoon to transfer the vegetables to sterilized jars—you want some liquid, but not too much. Fill jars to about a ½ inch below the top, then get out the air bubbles with a wooden spoon handle and pour in a little of the liquid to fill in the spaces between the chopped vegetables. Put on lids and bands and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Make sure you hear the lids click when the jars cool.

If you plan to eat and share the pickle relish within a couple of weeks, you can just ladle it into sterilized jars and refrigerate without processing; processed jars will keep in the pantry for six months or more.

Recycle Your Carrier Bags at the Enright CSA Greenhouse

Most members of the Enright CSA come each Saturday morning to collect their share with baskets, saddle bags, cloth carriers, and other reusable containers (I particularly like the market bags crocheted from old grocery carrier bags that Angie Utley makes). But no matter how diligent you are, you always seem to wind up with a few of those plastic bags from trips to the grocery store. There are plenty of ways to recycle those these days, but one way that we’d like to encourage is to bring them to the greenhouse.

It’s nice to have a few bags on hand for people who want to separate their hot peppers from mild, or slicing tomatoes from canning tomatoes and so forth; we also use them occasionally to pack up shares for people who pick up after hours. We hope everyone is conscientious about reusing the plastic bags they get at the greenhouse—bringing them back for reuse there the next time you come is an excellent, plan, in fact.

We certainly encourage reuse at the Enright CSA; food scraps and yard and field waste become compost, and many (or most) of the containers we use for produce at the greenhouse had an earlier life before we came to use them. So, it’s not so bad if you occasionally turn up with a few plastic carrier bags if you can bring a few to the greenhouse and we can keep reusing those plastic bags again and again for some produce toting.

If you have some bags to donate, just bring them along on Saturday morning when you pick up your share, and we’ll add them to our stock. And thank you for recycling!

Recipe Request: Cucumber Yogurt Sauce

The Enright CSA blog received a request at Saturday morning pickup for more cucumber recipes—specifically, a recipe for cucumber sauce. My first thought was of Greek cucumber sauce, the stuff you dribble on top of the tomatoes and onions on your gyro at Sebastian’s. I couldn’t remember the name of the sauce, but have since done a little research and found it is called Tzatziki sauce.

However, the requestor, farmer Dave (Rudy) Rudemiller, was thinking of Indian cucumber sauce. Ah, yes—forgot about that, it’s always on the lunch buffet at Amol Indian restaurant. And, a little more research unearthed the fact that it is called raita sauce.

Here’s the most intriguing part—it’s essentially the same sauce. Both are made with yogurt and cucumbers in equal amounts, two cups of yogurt and a medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced. (Quick Tip: Cucumbers are easy to seed, just slice one in half longways and scoop out the seeds with a spoon.)

The difference is in the seasoning, obviously. For tzatziki sauce, add a garlic clove, fresh dill or mint, and salt and pepper to taste. For raita sauce, use ground cumin (or half cumin, half coriander), some chopped fresh cilantro, and sprinkle a little chili pepper and ground black pepper over it to garnish. You can also add a little lemon or lime juice to either one.

So, two sauces with one recipe . . . here are the directions with specific information about the amounts for both ethnicities of cucumber yogurt sauce. Both call for Greek yogurt because it is thicker than regular, but you can use regular as is if you don’t mind it being thinner. You can also strain regular plain yogurt through a sieve lined with a coffee filter to make it thicker, but that can take several hours.

Cucumber Yogurt Sauce

For either type:
2 cups Greek yogurt
1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 tsp. kosher salt

Put the diced cucumber in a colander, sprinkle with salt, and let stand for 30 minutes to draw out the liquid. Drain well and pat dry with a paper towel.

For Tzatziki Sauce:
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 T finely chopped fresh dill (use mint leaves for a different taste)
Optional: 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

For Raita Sauce:
1 tsp. ground cumin (or ½ tsp. ground cumin and ½ tsp. ground coriander)
1 T chopped fresh coriander
Optional: 1 Tbsp. lime juice
Salt to taste
Chili powder and/or fresh ground pepper to garnish

Add all but about a ¼ cup of the diced cucumbers to the bowl of a food processor with the seasonings and optional lemon or lime juice and process until well blended. Stir this mixture and the reserved diced cucumber into the yogurt, taste, and add salt and pepper as needed. Let the sauce meld in the refrigerator for an hour or two before serving; for the raita sauce, sprinkle with a little chili powder and black pepper before serving.

Keeps in the refrigerator for several days, but you may need to pour off water that forms on top when you use it again.

A Dutch Treat: Koolsalade or . . . Coleslaw

We’ve had a number of cabbage recipes on the blog, but none for good old coleslaw. Then I had some delicious cole slaw made by Enright CSA member Leah Berger last week, and so asked for the recipe. That got me thinking about the name, “coleslaw,” so I had to do a little research on that. Turns out that it was originally a Dutch treat, and kool is the Dutch word for cabbage. Now it has a distinctly American reputation; it’s a staple at fast food chicken places (which have been in the news perhaps too much this past week) and a Southern specialty as well. And if you make a kind of coleslaw and then pickle it, it’s called “chow-chow,” which in fact derives its name from the French word for cabbage, chou.

So, that’s it for the etymology lesson for today. Let’s turn this blog over to Leah and her recipe for cole slaw, along with what she plans to do differently when she makes it again . . .

Spicy No-Mayo Coleslaw

This recipe is from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. I have only tried making it once, and feel it leaves room for improvement. I would add a little bit of honey or agave nectar and extra olive oil to balance the mustard, and maybe use lime juice and cilantro instead of lemon juice and parsley. He also suggests adding a Granny Smith apple and carrots, using apple cider vinegar, and adding a little onion for a different twist. I added carrot to mine.

Makes 8 servings
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard or to taste
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, red wine vinegar or freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 small garlic clove, minced
I tablespoon minced fresh chile: jalapeno, Thai serrano, or habanero, or to taste (optional- I used jalapeno and it wasn’t spicy enough for me. If you like spice you might add a little more!)

Whisk above ingredients in a bowl, adding gradually:
¼ c peanut or olive oil

Combine & toss with dressing:
6 cups cored and shredded Napa, Savoy, green and/or red cabbage
1 large red or yellow bell pepper ( I used purple), diced or shredded
1/3 cup chopped scallion, more or less

Sprinkle with:
Salt and pepper to taste

Toss with:
¼ cup chopped parsley leaves

Lammas and Lughnasa at Imago This Saturday

Although Lammas was officially August 1, it's not too late to celebrate--there is a Lughnasadh celebration at Imago on Saturday, August 4, 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. If you are confused at the different names, see the Enright CSA blogs about Lammas here and here.

The reason you'll see the holiday spelled as Lughnasa and Lughnasadh is simply because Irish uses a somewhat different alphabet than English, and when words are transliterated into English, the spelling can vary (like Chinese place names, such as Peking, which is now Beijing). It's all referring to the same thing, a first harvest celebration. [Note that the "dh" at the end of one spelling is silent; the holiday is pronounced "Loo-nah-zuh."]

The Imago website includes the following description about the celebration they have planned for Saturday evening: "Lughnasadh marks the time between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox. Lughnasadh, also called Lammas, is the Celebration of Harvest . . . This is the time of the first harvests." We're lucky that our harvests at the Enright CSA started much earlier and will go on for several more months, but that's just all the more reason to celebrate this harvest festival of Lughnasa.

Celebrating Lammas

Happy Lammastide to all today. It’s August 1, the least-remembered pagan holiday. It celebrates the beginning of the end of summer; the name comes from “Loaf Mass,” which is kind of funny, because it’s a lot older than the Catholic mass. But they tried to christianize it a bit by celebrating the baking of the first loaves of bread with the new crop of wheat.

Its old name is Lughnasa, for the Celtic sun god Lugh. It’s one of the four holidays that comes between equinoxes and solstices. The others are Imbolc (which we call Groundhog’s Day or Candlemas, a holiday for prognosticating an early spring), Beltane (also known as May Day, celebrating the first of the warm weather), and Samhain (we call it Hallowe’en these days). If you notice, all these old holidays are associated with warm weather—expecting it, celebrating its arrival, cautiously noting it is slipping away, and then marking the end of the warmth.

Just being warm meant a lot to folks in the old days, that’s pretty clear. But of course warm weather also meant it was the growing season, which meant there was plenty of food, another big deal for folks in years past. It’s a big deal for us again, since we are growing our own food at the Enright Ridge CSA, so I think it’s nice to celebrate these holidays. (Though I would celebrate them anyway.)

There’s more about Lammas in a post last year that you can read here, but for today, if it doesn’t get too hot, bake some bread (though we’re not growing wheat quite yet) to celebrate.

It’s also the full moon tonight, and I think it’s always auspicious when a full moon falls on one of these four holidays (last year there was a full moon on Halloween). If you’ve had enough of the sun for awhile, get out and enjoy basking in the light of the full moon tonight, eat that bread, and celebrate Lammas.