In Your Share . . .

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Date: July 6th 2010

Food & Farm Notes for Henry’s CSA

In Your Share This Week:

Cabbage (1/2 of Red, Savoy, or Flat Green)

Choice of Malabar Spinach or Kale (Red or Green)

Beets

Onions

Basil

Carrots (mostly Rainbow Carrots, a mixture of yellow, orange, white, purple and red)

Farm Notes: Like the saying goes: be careful what you wish for. We got our much-wished-for week of dry weather, which allowed us to catch up on all our weeding and planting. In fact, we got in pretty much all of the seeds that we hope end up as delicious vegetables in your late summer and fall shares, including summer squash, beans, corn, okra, cucumbers, pumpkins, and many varieties of winter squash.

Henry also got his sorghum-sudan-grass cover crop planted immediately upon returning from the Evanston Market on Saturday, since the weatherman was calling for rain Sunday or Monday. Since it hadn't come yet on Sunday, Henry and the family spent the Fourth planting even more of the above. But no rain came, and now a good portion of the field is full of seeds--full of latent life.

I saw heat lightning off in the west tonight, and I heard the weather man say that there is a chance of rain Tuesday and Wednesday. But we need more than a chance. We need rain. The seeds languishing in the powder-dry earth need rain. So join us in wishing now for life-giving rain.

Food Notes: Kale, Malabar Spinach, Basil
Kale is not the most familiar of greens, and Malabar Spinach even less-known. But both are delicious, packed with nutrients, and easy to prepare – see recipes below.

Regular spinach is a cool-weather crop, and the spinach beds that provided you with all that beautiful spinach in May and early June have been tilled down and planted with either a cover crop (the aforementioned sorghum-sudan-grass), or another vegetable crop. But there are a number of greens that thrive in the hot weather, and although none are in the spinach family, they are used like spinach and so are commonly known as hot-weather spinaches: Egyptian Spinach, New Zealand Spinach, and, the most beautiful in my opinion, Malabar Spinach.

Malabar Spinach (Basella alba) is named after the coastal region of India along the Arabian Sea, and is also known as basella and Ceylon Spinach. It is a beautiful, tropical, vining plant with gorgeous burgundy stems and thick, dark green, heart-shaped leaves. The large meaty leaves are remarkably spinach-like in flavor, although the texture is different, with the crisp stems, and the fleshy, succulent leaves. It is ideal for a quick sauté, stir-fry, or in soups.

Most of the following recipes could be adapted for whatever cooking green you have handy -- this week, the cabbage, kale, or Malabar Spinach. (Although if you get one of those light green flat-headed cabbages, I recommend making a simple fresh cabbage salad or slaw because it is unbelievably sweet and tender.)

Italian Kale

1 bunches kale, rinsed, trimmed, and coarsely chopped

2 cloves garlic

Sea salt and hot red pepper flakes (or freshly ground black pepper)

2 to 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1. Bring salted water to a boil in a large pan. Add kale. Cover and reduce heat to medium and cook until kale leaves have turned dark green, about 5-7 minutes. Remove from heat.

2. Heat at least 2 tablespoons of oil with the garlic in a skillet over medium heat and cook until the garlic begins to turn golden, about 5 minutes.

3. Add the kale, squeezing out most of the liquid before adding it to the oil. Cook, stirring, until the kale has wilted entirely and the garlic is cooked through, about 10-15 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and transfer to a warmed platter. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil and serve.

Malabar Spinach with Bacon

1 bunch Malabar spinach, or other cooking green

4-5 strips of bacon,

balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Fry the bacon until crisp. Remove bacon from pan; set aside on paper towels. Remove excess fat from the pan but leave the bacon bits and stuck bacon and a little bit of fat. Add balsamic vinegar to the pan, stir a little bit to loosen the meat. Crumble the crisp bacon. Add to the pan. Add the spinach. Saute for about 2 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste..

Malabar Spinach Soup

This recipe is from chef Nora Pouillon, owner of Nora's in Washington, DC, a certified organic restaurant. Vegetable stock may be substituted for the chicken broth, and you can serve it hot or cold.

1 bunch Malabar spinach

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon turmeric or 1/2 teaspoon Madras curry powder

4 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or water

1/3 cup basmati rice

salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 cups plain yogurt

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and sauté the onion until soft.

Add the turmeric or curry powder and cook another minute.

Add the stock or water, rice, salt and pepper, and simmer gently for approximately 15 minutes or until the rice is cooked. Cut the spinach into chiffonade. Add to pan and cook for another five minutes.

To serve hot: Beat yogurt and garlic into the soup, and reheat gently so the yogurt does not curdle. To serve cold: Allow soup to cool, add yogurt and garlic and purée.

Deep Green Frittata with Kale or Spinach

3 Tb extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, sliced paper thin

1 bunch Malabar Spinach or Kale chopped roughly

4 large eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1. Heat 2 Tb of the oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat until it is hot but not smoking. Add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the kale or Malabar spinach and stir to combine. Cover and cook until the greens have wilted into the onion mixture, about 6 minutes.

2. Preheat the broiler. Whisk the eggs with the salt in a medium bowl just until they are broken up..

Stir the cooked vegetables into the eggs.

3. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in a 9-inch skillet over medium high heat until it is fairly hot but not smoking. Add the egg mixture. Flatten it out in the pan, and cook without stirring until the eggs are set but still liquid on top, about 5 minutes.

4. Place the pan about 5 inches from the broiler heat source and cook just until the top is set, about 4 minutes. Be very careful not to overcook the frittata; it should still be very tender in the center.

5. Flip the frittata out onto a warmed serving platter, cut into wedges and serve immediately.

Basil. Henry’s basil is as fragrant and delicious as anything you’ll find in Italy. If you have too much basil to use in a week, simply make it into a pesto and then freeze it in ice cube trays or small yogurt containers. Then, when you want a quick pasta dinner, all you have to do is boil the pasta and toss it with the pesto (plus some fresh grated parmesan if you like), and you have an instant and delicious hit of summer.

You can make pesto any way you like – with or without cheese, nuts, and garlic – but here is one of my favorite recipes:

Marcella Hazan’s Classic Pesto

(from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Knopf, 1992)

2 cups tightly packed fresh basil leaves

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 Tb pine nuts

2 garlic cloves

salt

1/2 cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano

2 Tb freshly grated romano cheese

3 Tb butter at room temperature

1. Wash the basil in cold water and pat dry.