Cooking With This Week's Box:
This Week’s Summary of Recipes and the Vegetables They Utilize:
Edamame: Summer Succotash Salad with Orzo (see below)
Purple Amethyst Beans: Summer Succotash Salad with Orzo (see below)
Zucchini or Yellow Summer
Squash: Herb Garden Zucchini Pizza
Green and/or Silver Slicer
Cucumbers: Easy Cucumber Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette
White Spanish Onions & Red
Onions: Summer Succotash Salad with
Orzo (see below); Easy Cucumber Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette; Italian Egg Bake
Missouri Garlic: Summer Succotash Salad with Orzo (see below)
Red or Golden Grape, Sunorange or
Chocolate Sprinkles Tomatoes: Summer
Succotash Salad with Orzo (see
below)
Carrots: Flourless Carrot Cake
Green Bell and/or Green Italian
Frying Peppers: Crock Pot Chicken
Philly Cheese Steak
French Orange, Sugar Cube or
Sivan Melon: No recipe
recommendations….just enjoy this melon as it is!
Red Seedless or Yellow Seeded
Watermelon: Watermelon Salsa
Sweet Corn: Summer Succotash Salad with Orzo (see below); Creamy Corn Pasta
Tomatoes Variety: Easy Cucumber Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette;
Baby Arugula: Arugula Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
This is the point in the season where we have trouble
fitting everything into the box! We have
a lot to work with in this week’s box, starting with Edamame! If you’ve never cooked edamame before, please
read this week’s vegetable feature for more information. It’s quite simple, but
important to cook edamame before you try to remove it from its pod. I like to add these sweet, tender beans to
salads, such as the Summer Succotash
Salad with Orzo (see below) featured in this week’s newsletter. This is a simple salad featuring fresh
edamame, tomatoes, red onion, corn and the gorgeous purple amethyst beans in
this week’s box. This is a great way to
use the purple beans and retain their dark, majestic purple color.
There’s nothing like the flavor of fresh sweet corn and
sometimes the simplest dishes are the most enjoyable when you have good
ingredients to work with. This recipe
for Creamy Corn Pasta comes as a
recommendation from one of our CSA members who posted the link in our Facebook
Group. This recipe has just a few simple ingredients
including sweet corn and fresh basil from your garden. You can also garnish this dish with some
fresh, diced tomatoes.
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| Easy Cucumber Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette Photo posted by April N on geniuskitchen.com |
There were several other good recipe recommendations from
members on our Facebook group this week including this simple recipe for Easy Cucumber Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette. This is a simple salad pairing cucumbers with
chunks of fresh tomatoes and thinly sliced red onions. It’s a great salad to serve with dinner and
will keep well so you can take leftovers in your lunch the next day.
Last week this recipe for Herb Garden Zucchini Pizza was featured at Loveandlemons.com blog.
This is a simple pizza featuring marinated slices of fresh zucchini
paired with mozzarella and basil pesto as the base. After this is baked, you could serve it with
some freshly diced tomatoes and/or arugula if you like.
I typically invest a little more time in Sunday brunch than
I dedicate to preparing breakfast throughout the week. This week I want to make this Italian Egg Bake, another member recommended recipe. This will make good use of some of the fresh
tomatoes as well as some red onions and oregano from our herb garden. This would be delicious served with a little
arugula salad such as this on the side.
This is a simple recipe for an Arugula Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette that would pair nicely with this dish.
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| Cantaloupe Popsicle Photo from Leite's Culinaria |
This is a peak week for melons! Enjoy them while you can, as we’re nearing
the end of melon season. If you have more
than you can eat fresh this week, consider eating the small personal-sized
melon fresh for a snack or breakfast and use the larger Sweet Sarah Cantaloupe
to make these Cantaloupe Rum Pops. These are obviously more for the adult crowd,
but here’s a recipe for kid-appropriate Cantaoupe Popsicles.
While watermelon is delicious just eaten off the rind with
juice running down your chin, you can also use watermelon to make a refreshing Watermelon Salsa. Dice the watermelon flesh and combine
it with red onions, cilantro, jalapeño, etc to make this delicious salsa to
serve with grilled chicken.
This week’s peppers are going towards this chicken version
of Crock Pot Chicken Philly Cheese Steak
sandwich . You cook the chicken and vegetables in the
crock pot and then just build your sandwich.
Lastly, we need something on the sweet side, which is where
this Flourless Carrot Cake comes into the picture!
This cake is supposed to keep for up to five days in the refrigerator,
if you can make it last that long!
That brings us to the bottom of this week’s box. Next week we’re hoping to harvest tomatillos
and poblano peppers for you. We’ll also
likely start seeing some colored sweet peppers next week along with more
tomatoes and corn! Have a great week and
I’ll see you next time—Chef Andrea
Vegetable Feature: Edamame
Edamame (eh-dah-MAH-may)
is a fresh soybean that has grown in popularity in the United States over the
past few years, but has been a part of Japanese and Chinese cuisine for much
longer. In this country edamame is most often found in the frozen
section either in the pod or shelled. True
edamame intended for fresh eating is quite different than oil-seed soybeans and
tofu beans most often grown to make tofu and other processed soy products. The edamame varieties we grow were developed
specifically because they produce a sweet bean that doesn’t have a “beany”
aftertaste and is the preferred variety in Japan and China for fresh
eating.
Edamame resembles a small lima bean encased in a pod. The beans are sweet and tender and best eaten
lightly cooked. Unlike sugar snap peas, edamame
pods are not edible and should be discarded. Edamame is hard to shell when it’s raw. It is easiest to cook edamame in its pod
first and then remove the beans from the pod.
To cook edamame, first rinse the pods thoroughly with cold water. Bring a pot of heavily salted water (salty
like the sea) to a boil. Add the edamame
pods and boil for about 3-4 minutes. You
should see the pods change to a bright green color. Remove the edamame from the boiling water and
immediately put them in ice water or run cold water over them to quickly cool
them. After the beans are cooked you can easily squeeze
the pod to pop the beans out, either into a bowl or directly into your mouth! This is a great skill to teach children so
they can eat them as a snack and help you shell edamame! Once you’ve removed them from the pods, they
are ready to incorporate into a recipe or eat as a snack.
You can also
roast edamame in their pods. There’s a
basic recipe on our website, but basically you toss the edamame
pods with oil and seasonings of your choice.
Serve the beans whole with their pods still on. While you won’t eat the pod, you can use your
teeth to pull the edamame out of the pod and in the process you’ll pick up the
seasoning on the outside of the pod!
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| shelled edamame |
You can
store fresh or cooked edamame for up to a week in the refrigerator, but it is
best to eat them soon for the sweetest flavor and best texture. If you are interested in preserving edamame
for later use, simply follow the cooking procedure above for boiling, cool and
freeze the beans either in their pods or remove them and freeze just the bean. It’s
a nice treat to pull something green out of the freezer in the middle of the
winter to enjoy as a snack or incorporate them into a winter stir-fry or pan of
fried rice.
Children and
adults alike often enjoy edamame as a simple snack, but you can also
incorporate edamame into vegetable or grain salads, stir-fry, fried rice, steamed
dumplings or pot stickers to name just a few suggestions. They pair well with any combination of
traditional Asian ingredients such as sesame oil, soy sauce and ginger. They are also a nice, bright addition to
brothy soups such as a miso soup. If you
follow the suggested method for boiling edamame before shelling them, the bean
will already be fully cooked, so if you are adding edamame to a hot dish or
recipe, do so at the end of the cooking.
Summer Succotash Salad with Orzo
Yield: 6-8 servings
1 ½ cups dried orzo3 quarts water
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp stoneground mustard
1 Tbsp honey
½ tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
¼ cup red wine vinegar
⅔ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 ear cooked sweet corn, kernels cut off the cob
½- ¾ cup edamame beans (cooked and shelled)
1 cup diced tomato
½ medium or 1 small red onion, minced
½ cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese
1 cup bite-sized pieces purple amethyst beans
Handful fresh basil
- Put 3 quarts water in a 4-5 quart saucepot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Generously salt the water, then add the orzo. Cook for 10-12 minutes or until the orzo is tender. Pour orzo and water into a colander to drain the orzo. Rinse with cold water, then set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine garlic, mustard, honey, ½ tsp salt, freshly ground black pepper and red wine vinegar. Slowly whisk in the olive oil until all is incorporated. Taste the vinaigrette and add salt or pepper if needed. Set aside.
- In a medium to large bowl, combine sweet corn, edamame, diced tomato and red onion. Add the cooked orzo and about half of the vinaigrette. Stir to combine. Add more vinaigrette if needed. You want enough that the orzo will soak up the flavor, but not so much that there is excess vinaigrette in the bottom of the bowl. You may not need all of the vinaigrette.
- Add the Parmesan cheese and stir to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning with additional salt and black pepper as needed. Refrigerate for 30-45 minutes or overnight. Just before serving, add the purple beans and fresh basil. Either cut the basil leaves into thin slices (chiffonade) or snip into coarse pieces with a kitchen shears.
- Serve cold or at room temperature.
Recipe created by Chef Andrea Yoder, Harmony Valley Farm
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