Enright Ridge CSA Encourages Others with New Book: "Starting Your Own Urban CSA"

The Enright Ridge CSA is a co-operative community-supported agriculture project. Volunteers came together to make the project a reality; they hired an experienced farmer who provided guidance as they learned about high-production farming, successive plantings, and high-volume production techniques. It was a partial fulfillment of Jim Schenk's dream; he's wanted to have a CSA in Price Hill for nearly three decades.

By its second year, the CSA was providing produce for more than 100 people for six months of the year on less than an acre of land. By the end of that second year, it was time to think about the second part of Jim Schenk's dream--a CSA in every neighborhood. Some of the CSA's members decided to share what they had learned about urban co-op farming, with the belief that other neighborhoods can learn from the Enright CSA experience—both from successes and missteps. 

A lot of people worked together to get a grant, create an outline, research the subject, take photos, and generally do what needed to be done to put a book together. It's taken a couple of years, and we got it posted online last autumn (you can find it here).

But now it's a real, hands-on, analog book, too, and with the grant, we were able to keep the price low. There will be copies available from Enright CSA, and it's even on Amazon now--click here or just search for Starting Your Urban CSA. With this book, author Jim Schenk’s dream may well become a reality, as he inspires every neighborhood across the country and around the world to support flourishing urban farms. It’s time to learn how to feed ourselves again, and the information in this book encourages everyone, everywhere to give it a try.

Let’s Hear it for Root Vegetables!

We’ve had the chance to get an assortment of root vegetables over the last few pickups of the 2013 season—beets, turnips, radishes, carrots, and some potatoes and onions there at the end. Root vegetables are delicious, nutritious, and very versatile. In fact, you may not realize how versatile they are, so here are some ideas.

Roast your beets and then dice them and freeze them to add to salads at the holidays. Such pretty color, and they are tasty, too. Scrub ’em, put them in a baking pan with a little water (about a quarter cup), cover with foil, and roast for 45 minutes. Then let them cool, peel them, and dice or slice them. Freeze them in small amounts in freezer bags.

Use turnips and potatoes along with some greens to make colcannon or champ. I made a delicious batch of this Irish specialty on Halloween—or Samhain—the traditional day to eat colcannon for luck (it was the old Druid new year’s celebration). Peel the potatoes and turnips and cut into quarters; put them in a pot of water and bring to a boil, then boil until tender, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, clean and devein some greens—chard, spinach, kale, cabbage, whatever you have—and chop into small pieces. You can throw the greens in with the potatoes and turnips for the last 10 minutes or so, then drain everything well. Add a little milk and a little butter and whip with a mixer until you have a fluffy light green concoction. Put it in a warm bowl and make a well in the middle to add more butter. Yummy!

Butter those radishes and eat them raw. It’s an English way to eat them, and especially if they are hot, the butter tempers the heat a bit. A great snack!

Make carrot soup. It’s tasty and it just looks like fall, that lovely orange color. There’s a great recipe for carrot soup in a previous blog. (And as a root vegetable bonus, the recipe can be adapted to make beet soup, too!

And, one more idea—take some carrots, onions, and turnips, and maybe some potatoes, too. Peel them and cook them a little; steam the carrots and turnips, boil the potatoes, sauté the onions. Then put them in ovenproof bowls, add some cooked chicken, pour on some gravy, and mix up some bisquick and make a top crust. Voila, a rich and delicious homemade chicken pot pie just bursting with root vegetable goodness!

What are you doing with your root vegetables?

Sunday at Paradise Featured Fun and Funds for Enright CSA

The end of 2013 season celebration and benefit for the Enright CSA was held at the Paradise Lounge, just four doors down from the greenhouse. The new management welcomed us, the weather was perfect, the music just right, the food was excellent, and a good time was had by all who attended. 

Thanks to all the committee who made the party possible; Alison and Jules who found the band, made the poster, and brought cornbread; Jim D. who cased the joint and organized the setup crew; Nancy who brought the giant pot of veggie chili; Diana and Jeanne who provided desserts and hostess items and helped clean up; Michelle who provided slaw and dessert and took tickets; Suellyn who coordinated and emceed the event; the grocers who sold tickets; and various folks who publicized the event and then fetched and carried to set up and take down.

Thanks are also due to Rock Riddlebarger, our member who entertained us on steel guitar and dobro and to Benchwood Wyse, the young, thoroughly professional band who played for two hours and seemed to love it. Special thanks to LaShon, Karen, and the rest of the staff at Paradise, and to Steve, the owner, who gave a significant donation so that his regular customers could enjoy the meal and then purchased the cornshock decorations to keep for his next event.

If you were not able to attend, you may still offer a donation for the benefit of the CSA to help balance the books at the end of the season. Just give it to the grocer at the next pick-up, being sure to designate it for the benefit.

--Suellyn Shupe

Add Some Color to Your Freezer

We’ve been getting a goodly number of peppers in shares recently, and there’s more on the share table if you are inclined to do some pepper preservation. Of course you can dry some hot peppers, like chiles, but I found out recently that it’s even easier to preserve sweet peppers and other kinds of hot peppers so you have them on hand for stews and chili as the weather gets colder. As it turns out, it’s a fairly easy process—you don’t have to can or even blanche peppers to keep them for use all winter long.

Wash the peppers, seed them, and cut them into strips. Then arrange the strips on wax paper-covered cookie sheets (as shown in the photo, I kept the strips segregated by color and hotness). Put them in the freezer uncovered, and when the strips are frozen, bag them in freezer bags and put them right back in the freezer. If you want, you can take out just what you need, or thaw a whole bag to add a little fire to a pot of chili.

Another vegetable that’s easy to freeze for future use is the beet. Beets are already about the most versatile vegetable around, great for anything from pickling to adding to chocolate cake or salad or . . . well, the list goes on and on (here's a great recipe for beet fritters and another one for beet or carrot soup). If you want to keep them on hand after the growing season, just roast them, then peel, dice or slice, and put them in freezer bags.

I roasted a dozen or so medium-sized beets in a Pyrex pan, adding about a ¼ cup of water and covering with foil before putting them in a 350-degree oven for about 45 minutes. Then, when they cooled, the skins slipped right off, and I diced them for salads, to add a little color when everything is grey and cold.

Now my freezer is a riot of color, with green, yellow, and red peppers stacked along side deep purple beets. It’s enough to remind me that spring will come again every time I open the freezer door!

Call It Chinese Celery

In the latest shares from the CSA, we've had a choice of bok choy or Chinese cabbage, which might have been confusing to some folks, because bok choy is sometimes called Chinese cabbage. But at the greenhouse, the two leafy vegetables available are Napa cabbage, also called Chinese cabbage, and bok choy, which apparently has the same nickname.

If I were in charge of vegetable nicknames, I would call bok choy Chinese celery. Though the leafy part is different, darker green with unserrated leaves, the stalks are quite like celery, and I’ve used it in the same ways in things like gazpacho this season. It really doesn’t seem much like cabbage to me at all, but whatever you call it, it is good in stir fry and soup.

Speaking of soup, a lot of my soup recipes begin with “pick the leftover meat off a roast chicken and then boil the bones for stock,” and my Hearty Chicken Bok Choy soup is one of them. I always figure on getting two or three meals out of a roast chicken; if you cover the bones with water and add a small peeled onion cut in half, a peeled carrot cut in half, and a celery rib (or bok choy stalk), some thyme, salt, and pepper, and a bay leaf, in an hour and a half you’ll have a nice pot of stock. Strain it, pick off any leftover meat still on the bones, cool the broth and skim the fat off, and then move on to the “real” recipe.

Hearty Chicken & Bok Choy Soup

Leftover meat from a roast chicken

5 or 6 cups of homemade chicken stock

2 cloves minced garlic

1 large onion, diced

1 bunch bok choy, leaves and stalks, chopped

6 small potatoes, peeled and sliced or diced

4 carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt, pepper, and herbs to taste

Put the olive oil in the bottom of a soup pot, heat, and add garlic and onion, cooking until soft but not brown, about 4 or 5 minutes. Add the bok choy, potatoes, and carrots, and toss with the onions until they are heated, 3 minutes or so. Then add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for about 10-15 minutes, until vegetables are beginning to get tender. Then add the chicken meat and whatever herbs sound good—a little thyme, some basil or a bit of pesto, maybe some diced hot pepper if you are so inclined. Continue to simmer until chicken is heated through and vegetables are fairly soft, another 10-15 minutes, and it’s ready.

Two Tickets to Paradise (It's a Fundraiser!)

The Enright Ridge EcoVillage CSA is having an end-of-the-season party and fundraiser on Sunday, October 20,  at the new and improved Paradise Lounge & Garden, located right down the street from the greenhouse at the corner of West Eighth and Enright Avenues. 

Price Hill oldtimers will remember the bar (formerly called the Lyon’s Den) as the place to gather after a football or baseball game. Historically, it was also a popular place to have lunch and a beer after visiting the graveyards nearby. But for this party, we promise no cemetery visits. Just plenty of good food, good music, games, and fun.

The Paradise Lounge is under new management, committed to being neighborhood-friendly, so we’re going to have a nice neighborhood gathering there, which we also hope will raise some funds to balance out the CSA budget as we wrap up this season.

Everyone is invited, so bring your friends and family to Paradise to enjoy music by local bands, a chili supper, local brews, cornhole, and other down-home games.  You can even make your own scarecrow!

It starts at 4:00 pm and goes until 8:00 pm (don’t worry, there’s a television for football fans to stay current with the Sunday games). 

Two can enjoy Paradise a little more cheaply than one; the cost is $20 per person and $35 per couple presale, and tickets will be on sale during pickup and after (from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm) on the next two Saturdays, October 12 and 19, at the greenhouse, 824 Enright Avenue.

If you buy tickets at the door on October 20, the price is $25 per person and $40 per couple. All proceeds support the Enright Ridge Urban Ecovillage Community-Supported Agriculture project.

Your Recipe + Greens

I’m always looking for new ways to cook greens, but though there are many ways to prepare them, the list is not endless. So, I’ve developed a new system as this season begins to wind down. I’m adding greens to any recipe I think they will work with.

How does that work? Well, I’ve already made it a practice to cut up and add some kale or chard to any quiche or frittata I’m making. Wash the greens, chop or slice into thin slivers or small pieces, and add them to the pan before the egg mixture, and they are a great addition. (There’s a blog from 2012 called “Understanding Your Greens” that talks about different kinds of greens and how to use them.)

Baked beans work with lots of additions—I always put in plenty of chopped up green peppers, but next time I may try some chopped up greens, too. You can add them to macaroni and cheese, and definitely to mashed potatoes—adding steamed cabbage and mashing together with the potatoes creates a time-honored Irish dish called colcannon, which is traditional at this time of year, particularly at Samhain, the Celtic celebration that gave us Hallowe’en.

Greens are good in soups, too. You can add them to chicken soup or minestrone, and they aren’t bad in tomato soups either. Add them to broth soups toward the end of the cooking time; for tomato soup, homemade or store bought, steam the greens and then stir them in. There’s a recipe for an African soup or stew made from greens on this blog, and another simple but tasty Swiss Chard Soup with Cream Cheese Croutons that you can make in minutes.

This past week, I made Chicken and Dumplings, a good southern standard, but when I added the chicken to the broth, I also put in a bunch of kale, washed, stemmed and chopped. It tasted great and made the dish a little more healthy for us, too.

So, I encourage you to use your imagination. What recipes can benefit from the addition of greens, or other vegetables? You don’t always have to find a recipe that specifically uses what you have in your share—make dishes you often make and add greens.

“Flavors of the Garden” at Civic Garden Center

Members of the Enright CSA will once again participate in Flavors of Community Gardens at the Civic Garden Center this week. Jeanne Nightingale, Elaine Wolter, Diana Lewis, and Suellyn Shupe will bring recipes prepared from our CSA gardens vegetables for participants to taste. We will also taste from the bounty of many other gardens sponsored or supported by Civic Garden Center.

You may not be aware that the fenced garden on Terry Street was originally a Community Garden sponsored by CGC and established as such via the efforts of Jennifer Belisle, who is a five year member of the CSA. That garden was vital to the project in its first year, and continues to provide plenty, as well as being one of the few that is securely fenced.

All CSA members are invited to attend this free event to hang out with garden people and get some good recipe ideas. You probably won’t need dinner when you get home.

Flavors of Community Gardens

Thursday, September 12

5:30 to 7:30 pm

Patio at Civic Garden Center

2715 Reading Road, Mt. Auburn

—Suellyn Shupe

End-of-Summer Pickled Cabbage Salad

I’ve made various salads with Napa (or Chinese) cabbage before, and I’ve pickled it with carrots and radishes into a kind of Korean kimchi. Over the weekend, I was looking for something that was somewhere in between—a tangy salad, but not quite as tangy as kimchi. I also wanted to eat it the same day as I made it, rather than burying it in the backyard (or, these days, the refrigerator) for a few weeks, as you need to do with kimchi.

I searched for pickled cabbage online and found some recipes for sauerkraut and pickled red cabbage, and I also found various recipes for cabbage salad. I took a little from one recipe, a little from another, and came up with this tasty version, with oranges, golds, and reds mixed in with the green cabbage—a perfect color combination for the beginning of September.

Pickled Cabbage Salad

1 head Napa (Chinese) cabbage

2-3 small carrots (gold or orange varieties)

1 red sweet pepper

1 purple onion

1 small piece of ginger, about 1 inch to 1½ inch

1 teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

2/3 cup cider vinegar

3-4 tablespoons honey or agave

Wash and separate the leaves of cabbage; cut them into strips long ways, then cut the strips into about 2” pieces. Peel the carrots and cut into matchstick size pieces;  seed the red pepper and dice it into small pieces; peel and slice the purple onion thin and chop into bite-sized pieces. Put all the vegetables in a large container with a lid, then sprinkle with celery seed. Peel the ginger and slice very thin; cut the slices into strips. Heat the vinegar and honey or agave in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil, turn down to simmer, and add the salt and ginger pieces. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool down for about 5 to 10 minutes. Pour it over the vegetables, sprinkle with black pepper, put the lid on, and toss until all the pieces are coated with the dressing. Refrigerate at least four hours (overnight is okay, too) before serving.

Improvise and Compensate!

I was involved with a few local theatre troupes in my youth, and we always had rather laughable budgets to put on shows, so our motto was always “Improvise and Compensate.” It’s stuck with me all these years; there are always ways to make do with what you have or substitute something you can get for something that just isn’t attainable.

Well, over the weekend I realized that can apply to cooking, too. I dearly love gazpacho, a cold soup, usually made with tomatoes (but I also have a recipe for a delicious cucumber version). The standard recipe calls for peppers and celery and cucumbers along with the tomatoes, and I’ve posted the recipe in the past. 

But this season, when I had enough tomatoes, I didn’t have any cucumbers, and I had more hot peppers than green peppers, and no celery at all. Still, I had tomatoes that needed to be used quickly, so I decided to try a little improvising, compensating for what I lacked.

What I wound up with was a slightly different but very tasty version of the traditional tomato gazpacho. Since I used mostly things that were in the share last week and this week, I thought I’d post my improvised version of this fresh vegetable favorite.

Improvise and Compensate Gazpacho

6-7 stalks bok choi (just the stalks, not the green part)

2 cups cubed watermelon, seeded

8 small to medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped

2 green peppers, seeded and chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped

2 red onions, peeled and chopped

½ cup cider vinegar

¼ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Put all the chopped up vegetables in a food processor (in batches if necessary), and puree until there are no chunks left. Add the oils, vinegar, salt, and pepper and mix well. Chill and serve cold with croutons, onions, parsley, or chopped cucumbers as a garnish.

Eggplant Caprese Sandwiches—Better Than Burgers!

We got a couple of eggplants two weeks ago, and I’m hoping there will be more to come, because eggplant is one of my favorite foods. It’s also one of the most versatile things we get at the CSA. If you’re a vegetarian, you don’t need any tofu when eggplant is in season, and if you aren’t a vegetarian, you can use eggplant in place of ground or cubed beef in a lot of recipes.

You can make (and I do) eggplant chili, eggplant tacos, eggplant lasagna, eggplant everything, but I think my favorite is to take thick grilled slices of eggplant and make a better burger. The one I’ve concocted this summer is a particular winner. I’m calling it an Eggplant Caprese Sandwich, because you take that grilled eggplant (slice, salt, and let stand about 15 minutes, then drizzle both sides with a little olive oil and grill) and top it with fresh mozzarella slices (put it back on the grill to melt the cheese just a little). Place that on a toasted bun or ciabatta bread, and top with chopped red onions and cherry tomatoes, drizzled with a little balsamic vinegar. Top with chopped fresh basil and the top of the bun and voila, an amazing ersatz burger!

If you like eggplant, too, don’t miss all the other eggplant recipes we’ve posted over the seasons on this blog. Just type Eggplant in the Search box and you’ll find lots of good ideas, but I think the Eggplant Caprese Sandwich might just be the best.

Going Raw

I’m in the middle of an experiment, eating most of my produce raw (or minimally cooked; I have boiled my corn and steamed my greens and green beans). I know it’s good for you, but that was not my motivation—sheer laziness made me give it a try. I have a lot of work piling up in drifts on my desk at the moment, so I’m spending more time than usual immersed in red pencil marks and subject-verb agreement. The idea was to save a little time on meal preparation, especially since my significant other is off on a bike trip to Lake Erie and my son spends dinner time delivering pizzas, so no one around here is currently expecting a cooked dinner.

It was also a good time to try this experiment—we got a few tomatoes last week, and my secret supplier (I’m not telling you where the stand is because they are go fast) has provided an elegant sufficiency the past few weeks—and what’s better than a raw tomato? The cucumbers, peppers, and even squash are also good candidates for raw eating, and a trip to Findlay Market for an avocado, berries, and other fruit, provided more than enough “raw materials” for this week’s meals.

One night I simply chopped up tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and avocado and arranged them artfully on a plate, drizzled on chocolate balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and let it sit for a little while, by which time it had marinated into a delicious mélange.

Even though I’m eating raw, I do some preparation. I had finished up the last of the classic gazpacho I made last week, so I tried some cucumber gazpacho this time. If you got some of those small yellow cucumbers in the share, you know how sweet and tasty they are. I used them and a regular cuke in place of the English cucumbers in this recipe posted on the blog last year, and I had everything else I needed. The recipe just calls for pureeing the vegetables with some oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Absolutely no cooking, and you eat it cold . . . and raw.

I’m not sure how long the Raw Experiment will continue, but we’ll see if anything else I try is worth mentioning in a future blog. And if you have any suggestions for how to prepare raw vegetables—or cooked produce, for that matter—please comment!

Seasons within Seasons within Seasons . . .

The New York Times Dining section featured an article about chefs and restaurants who take the seasonal menu idea to a whole new level: they cook “microseasonally," tailoring recipes according to whether the produce is coming into season, is in full harvest, or is tapering off.

The most obvious example to use is the tomato . . . you are anticipating them so much that, according to the article anyway, you are willing to use the unripe green tomatoes that first appear. (That’s not my experience; I’ve always had the patience to wait for the first tomatoes to turn red, and then late in the season, when frost threatens, I’ll pick the remaining green tomatoes and use them then.) Anyway, the article goes on to say that late season tomatoes, overripe and soft, are sweeter but have a less pleasing texture—they are the best for pureeing for sauces, dressings, and gazpacho. Personally, I have never met an Ohio Valley tomato that was not perfect for gazpacho, but that’s just me.

There’s also a comparison of early season zucchini, still crisp and tasty raw or cooked, and late season zukes that have grown to forearm dimensions. The article notes that the seeds are larger and “more distracting” in those late zucchinis, and I have to say I have considered that without really realizing it. I’m more likely to scoop the seeds out and stuff those big squash, or else seed them and grate them for baking.

Hot peppers get hotter later in the season, of course, but did you know that leeks get stringier and potatoes get sweeter? I did not, but the article makes the point that if you are aware of these small differences as the harvest proceeds, you can tweak your recipes to take advantage of the good qualities and make up for the deficiencies in the produce of the moment.

It’s an interesting concept, and the best part is, the article included several recipes to make its point. These included Tomato Crostata with Honey-Thyme Glaze, Green and Wax Bean Salad with SpicyTomato Vinaigrette, and Fried Green Tomatoes with Bacon Rémoulade. Ooh, la la! To find out more about cooking with microseasonal produce, take a look at the article in the Times Dining Section.

Changing the World, One Bunch of Kale at a Time—There’s a Loan for That

In the last blog entry, I mentioned member Terry Sullivan’s“Real Food” blog, and this time I want to bring your attention to another local food blog by former Enright CSA members Amy and Vince Stross. They’ve been local food advocates for years, but their Tenth Acre Farm blog/website was started fairly recently. I encourage you to visit; hey have an “edible front yard” and lots of good ideas about growing your own food, being self-sustaining, and getting your priorities straight. Take a look at it and look at what they’ve accomplished . . . they aren’t members of the CSA any more because they were growing plenty of food in their suburban yard. It's inspirational, whether you have a garden or just help out at the CSA. What if everyone started to shift to edible landscaping? Talk about making a difference!

Which brings me to the other subject of this blog, which Suellyn Shupe brought to our attention. On Sunday, August 4, there is an event at Peterloon in Indian Hill for people to find out more about the Local Loans for Local Foods program, a “Slow Money” lending network in the Greater Cincinnati/Southwestern Ohio area. Speaker Carol Peppe Hewitt, a co-founder of Slow Money North Carolina, will be in town to talk about how investing patiently in small-scale farming and food production businesses can pay off for everyone, the investors and the folks who take loans.

The event also includes food by Chef Mark Stroud, and there is a $5-$20 sliding scale suggested donation to cover the costs of the event and the food. Peterloon Estate is at 8605 Hopewell Road, Cincinnati, OH 45242, and RSVPs are requested. Visit the Local Loans for Local Foods website for more information about this. Maybe you will be inspired to start your own Tenth Acre Farm, and they can get you started.

Zucchini Chips, Crisp & Tasty!

It was time to think outside the squash to prepare the zucchini in the share last week. Everyone loves a crunchy potato chip—how about zucchini chips? Some recipes call for breading and baking them, like the one below; I’ve done that before to make baked zucchini sticks, which are delicious with cocktail sauce, but I was looking for the real thing, thin and crispy.

So I got out my mandoline and sliced a zucchini very, very thin—paper thin, almost. You could definitely see through the slices. I set them between sheets of paper towels to get some of the liquid out, then I heated oil in an electric fry pot and threw in a few slices at a time. It took awhile for them to brown and crisp up, but when I drained them on fresh paper towels, then added a little salt and Cajun seasoning, they were just what I was aiming for—crispy zucchini chips, as you can see in the photo.

It’s probably no surprise that this is a way to take something good for you and make it not-so-good for you, and it’s not environmentally correct, either—the process used a lot of paper towels. But I think I would have to say it was a successful experiment in making locally grown junk food!

Next time I may try this more healthy (and less paper-towel dependent) recipe to make zucchini chips. I think I’d have to cut them a bit thicker, too; the paper thin slices just won’t hold up to batter. If you still have zucchini to prepare, you can decide if you want to go healthy or junk food all the way with your own zucchini chips.

Low Carb Zucchini Oven Chips

1/4 cup ground almonds
1/4 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/4 t seasoned salt
1/4 t garlic powder
1/8 t black pepper
2 T fat-free milk
2 1/2 cups (1/4 inch-thick) slices zucchini (about 2 small)
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine the first five ingredients in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Place milk in a shallow bowl. Dip zucchini slices in milk, then dredge in dry mixture. Place coated slices on an ovenproof wire rack coated with cooking spray; place rack on a baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes or until browned and crisp. Serve immediately.

Preserving Some Squash for Winter Feasts

One of our Enright CSA members, Terry Sullivan, has her own "Real Food" blog, and I heartily recommend you take a look at it for recipes and suggestions on how to turn our "real" local produce into some delicious dishes. The latest entry is titled "The Problem of Cucumbers," and you may be experiencing that problem--what to do with so many of them--with cucumbers and with squash. Of course, making pickles from cucumbers is always a good way to preserve your excess produce, but did you know that you can pickle a lot of other things, too--including squash?

I looked at the collection of squash I had from this Saturday and what I had left from the week before, and I realized I had a "problem of squash." So, I decided to solve that problem by picking the pattypans. I'd gotten this idea a couple of years ago, from Angie Wolter Utley, who had seen a recipe for pickling baby pattypan whole. We didn't have too many small squash, so I tried cutting big squash into chunks, and it turned out deliciously. I served them at Thanksgiving dinner and took some to a party, where they were a big hit. So, I pickled all the pattypan squash I had left and now I have several jars to enjoy this autumn and winter. It's easy to do, and the recipe is already posted on the blog here.

Since I used the yellow squash for baking experiments earlier on Saturday (see those results here) and I had pickled all the pattypans, all I had left in the way of squash now were a couple of zucchini. I made one into a delicious concoction with a few of the tomatoes--just slice the squash and the tomatoes, put them in rows in a greased casserole dish, and sprinkle with a little olive oil, then top with chopped basil, bread crumbs, and grated parmesan. Cook for about 25 minutes in a 350-degree oven, and you have a simple and tasty side dish.

Then I had one more zucchini, and I had a really crazy idea about how to prepare it in a delicious but not-too-healthy way. I'll let you know how it worked out in my next blog!

Ask the Blog: Using Summer Squash to Bake

Today we got a question at packout that I had been thinking about myself: could you use other kinds of summer squash in place of zucchini in baked goods? It turns out you can, according to the Internet, which has lots of recipes for squash bread and squash muffins and so forth. Just to be sure, I did a little experimental cooking today.

I made some zucchini bread from the recipe I usually use, but I substituted grated pattypan squash for the zucchini. It worked and tasted just fine. Then I used some yellow squash to create a new (though similar) recipe for muffins with walnuts and cranberries. Those were pretty great, too, so I’ve included that recipe here.

So, the answer is, definitively yes—if you have yellow squash or pattypan or any other kind of summer squash, you can peel it, grate it, and use it as you would grated zucchini. So, while the weather stays cool, fire up those ovens and make some muffins!

Summer Squash Walnut-Cranberry Muffins

1½ cups flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ginger

2 eggs

1 cup to 1¼ cups grated/shredded yellow squash, pattypan squash, or zucchini

½ cup (1 stick) melted butter or margarine

1 teaspoon vanilla

¾ cup sugar

3 Tablespoons plain or vanilla yogurt

¾ cups walnut pieces

½ cup dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Measure the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices in a bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, melted butter, and sugar. Add the vanilla and yogurt and mix well, then add the flour mixture in thirds alternately with the grated squash in halves (flour-squash-flour-squash-flour) until well-mixed. Stir in the walnut pieces and dried cranberries, and half-fill muffin papers with the batter. Bake for 20 minutes. Makes about 18 muffins.

Aubergines and Courgettes

We call them eggplant and zucchini, but in other parts of the world, including France and England, eggplant are aubergine, and zucchini squash are called courgettes. Whatever you call them, they are both extremely versatile vegetables that can be prepared in so many different ways it might make your head spin. Eggplant are particularly multipurpose and can be used as a meat substitute in many dishes as well.

If you are looking for something to do with the eggplant and zucchini in this week’s share, be sure to enter either vegetable’s name in the Search box at the upper left in the blog and you’ll find lots of great recipe ideas. There’s even an article about the different types of eggplant that Suellyn Shupe posted a couple of seasons back, in case you are wondering about the purple versus white, yellow, and green varieties, and long or egg-shaped ones versus globe eggplant.

There are recipes for eggplant casserole, baba ganoush (a seriously delicious and easy to make Middle Eastern eggplant dip), braised eggplant, eggplant chili, eggplant enchiladas—we are talking multitudinous ways to enjoy this week’s eggplant! And of course, you can search for zucchini, too; we have not neglected those delicious and adaptable squash, either. Enjoy!

Growing Food for Everyone--A Great Idea, in Seattle, in England, and--in Price Hill?

I read recently that the city of Seattle is planning to establish a city park full of edible plants in a working-class neighborhood called Beacon Hill. It’s a project that was designed as a final assignment for a permaculture design class back in 2009, and it is supposed to have some food ready for harvesting this year.

The plan is to grow fruit, mostly—apples, pears, plums, grapes, blueberries, and raspberries, free for the taking for anyone who needs or wants it—a food forest in the city. That sounds a lot like what is happening with the perennial fruit and nut trees around the Terry Street Garden, although I’m not sure the Enright CSA wants just anyone to come pick the fruit yet. We already have to share it with the deer, after all.

The folks in Seattle are apparently concerned that some people may take more than their fair share of the fruit, but I have also read about a similar experiment in a village in Yorkshire, England, where the result has been a fairly equitable sharing of the bounty. In that town, called Todmorden, they have planted food in every available space, from the parking lot surrounds to the flower beds in front of the police station to the towpath on the canal that runs through town. People take what they can use, and no one—so far—has been too greedy. Everyone is so happy with the situation that they are working on expanding the crops to become totally self-sufficient (at least with regard to their food) by 2018.

“We are gentle revolutionaries,” one of the founders of the Todmorden project was quoted as saying. “Everything we do is underpinned with kindness.” What a nice sentiment, and one I hope prevails in Seattle’s Beacon Food Forest, too. To read more about the Food Forest, visit their website, and to read about the experiment in Todmorden, England, go to this article from the Daily Mail.

Permaculture Class in Delhi Edible Garden

A couple of years ago, on a dark and stormy night—the night before Thanksgiving, in fact—I worked the last Enright CSA packout of the 2011 season with Amy Stross. It was muddy and cold and generally gross, and we had an absolutely wonderful time.

Everyone who came to get their shares was in a holiday mood, and we had to keep moving to avoid freezing in place, so the time passed quickly and before we knew it, the produce was picked up and we cleaned up and headed home. It’s one of my best memories of the co-operative nature of the urban farm headquartered in Price Hill.

Amy and her husband Vince started their own co-operative gardening venture the next season, the Hillside Community Garden in Delhi. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend going out on a Wednesday evening or Saturday morning to see what they’ve done with the hillside behind Mt. St. Joseph College. It’s a wonder; there were herbs and onions and strawberries when I was there in late spring, and I’m sure there’s even more growing now.

But that’s not their only garden project. They’ve also landscaped their own front yard in Delhi with edible plants. It is the neatest thing to see, very lovely and it just goes to show you that landscaping does not have to be just for the eye—it can make your stomach happy, too. And Amy and Vince are going to share some of their secrets at an upcoming Civic Garden Center class in permaculture that will be held in their yard.

The class is scheduled for next Saturday, July 20, from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $10 per person, and you can register for the class online at the Civic Garden Center’s website.