Cooking With This Week's Box
Baby Arugula:
Escarole:
Escarole, Bacon and Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with
Dried Apricots and Pepitas (See Below)
Escarole with Lentils & Sausage (See Below)
Lacinato Kale:
Italian Garlic:
Red Onions:
Mini Sweet
Peppers:
Hot Peppers:
Baby White Salad Turnips:
German Butterball
Potatoes:
Orange Kuri
Squash:
Jester Squash or
Starry Night Acorn Squash:
Orange Carrots:
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| Spicy Blue Cheese Mini Sweet Peppers photo from culinaryginger.com |
We’re coming up on the end of our Peak Season shares as
we near the end of October. If you are
not already signed up for the final four boxes of the season, you still have
time to do so! We have more tasty
selections in store for our November and December boxes including sweet
potatoes, tat soi, Brussels sprouts, radicchio and kohlrabi! This week we’re featuring Escarole, one of
our bitter greens that holds an important spot in our late season greens
lineup. If you’re not familiar with this
green, I encourage you to read more about it in this week’s feature
article. It can be eaten raw or cooked,
so I thought I’d include one recipe for each application this week. This week’s recipes include Escarole, Bacon and Roasted Butternut Squash
Salad with Dried Apricots and Pepitas (See Below) and Escarole with Lentils & Sausage (See
Below). While both recipes
include meat, you could easily omit the meat for a vegetarian option or replace
the meat with a meatless alternative.
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| Spiced Kuri Squash Pie, photo from coconutandlime.com |
Next week we’re planning to start washing and packing
sweet potatoes, so this week we took advantage of a little extra room in the
box to send not one but two varieties of winter squash your way! Orange Kuri squash is very similar to kabocha
squash, so feel free to use it in any recipe calling for kabocha. I’m really excited to use it to make this Roasted Red Kuri Squash and Coconut Soup and this Spiced Kuri Squash Pie. Both of these recipes have some simple yet
interesting flavor twists that made them stand out to me.
We are also including either Jester squash or Starry
Night Acorn squash. Jester is very
similar to delicata squash and while the skin is technically edible, I find it
is more thick than delicata squash and I don’t care to eat it. This feature is also what helps it store
better than delicata squash, a trade off I think is well worth it. Starry Night Acorn squash is a trial variety
for us this year. Of course you can use
it in any recipe calling for acorn squash, although I’ll caution you with the
fact that typically acorn squash is a pretty bland squash which is why most
recipes bathe it in butter and brown sugar!
This variety is supposed to be more sweet and flavorful, so before you
add a lot of sweetener, taste it first.
These two varieties of squash are considered to have more lean flesh and
are appropriate to substitute for each other in most recipes.
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| Arugula & Prosciutto Flat Bread Pizzas photo from foodnetwork.com |
While we’re not finished harvesting greens, we are coming
to the end of our baby greens season.
Use this final bag of arugula to make these simple, yet tasty Arugula & Prosciutto Flat Bread Pizzas or Arugula Salad with Pears and Goat Cheese. In both recipes the fatty ingredients
(Prosciutto and goat cheese) are a fantastic complement to the spicy arugula.
As the nights get chilly and we bring another month to a
close very soon, we’re reminded that winter will be here before we know
it. If you have more vegetables than you
think you can eat this week, consider squirreling away a few things for the
winter. Peppers are easy to freeze, or
turn the hot peppers into Salt-Cured Chiles or HVF Fresh Korean Garlic-Chili Sauce. You’ll be happy to pull these little
preserved gems of vegetable goodness out of the freezer this winter!
That’s a wrap for this week. I hope you enjoy cooking with this week’s
vegetable selections and encourage you to share your escarole creations with us
in our Facebook Group! Have a great
week!---Chef Andrea
Vegetable Feature: Escarole
By: Chef Andrea Yoder
Description & Growing Information: Escarole is in a family of vegetables called chicories
which also includes radicchio. Escarole has a pretty
long growing season and some years it’s hard to get them to full size. It is a cold-hardy
green that is best suited for growing in the fall and is sturdy enough to be
able to take some frosty, cold nights. In fact, we don’t even think about
harvesting escarole until it’s had some chilly nights! The flavor changes
dramatically after they’ve had cold treatment. This green does just fine
uncovered when freezing temperatures are in the low 30’s and high 20’s, but it
can sustain some damage when we get a hard freeze. So, some years we do cover
this plant to protect it from freezing too hard on those really cold
nights. Due to a warm fall this year, our escarole and radicchio crops
are coming in a few weeks ahead of schedule.
We’ve been hesitant to start harvesting them because they had not yet
had that cold treatment. Thankfully, we
did have several chilly nights last week and when we tasted them earlier this
week we were pleasantly surprised by how mild their flavor is with a slight
sweetness.Escarole resembles a head of
green leaf lettuce, but it does have some distinct differences. First of all the leaves are more broad and a
bit more thick when compared to leaf lettuce.
The center of a head of escarole and the portion of the leaves near the
base are generally blanched to a light yellow or white. While all the leaves are edible, these light
colored center leaves tend to be the most tender and mild flavored. As such, this is the portion of the plant you
may wish to prioritize for eating raw and save the darker outer leaves for
cooking.
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| White Bean & Escarole Pizza |
Preparation & Use: Escarole
may be eaten raw or cooked. When eaten raw, the bitterness is going to be
more pronounced. You’ll find that
cooking mellows the bitterness and accentuates the sweet qualities. It’s
also important to note that different ingredients help to balance the flavor of
escarole, both raw and cooked. Fatty
ingredients such as sausage, prosciutto, bacon, duck, hard cheese, olive oil, olives
and nuts such as pine nuts and hazelnuts provide a nice counter balance to the
bitterness of escarole. Acidic
ingredients also perform similarly, which is why you’ll often see recipes for
escarole that include vinegar or fruit such as apples, citrus, pears,
persimmons and pomegranate. Of course it
also makes sense to pair escarole with other fall vegetables such as garlic,
onions, beets, potatoes and winter squash.
Escarole is popular in Italian cuisine where it is often
used in soups or sautéed and/or braised along with white beans, lentils, pork
and garnished with a variety of cheeses.
There’s a classic preparation
for escarole that some Italian cooks call Scarola Affogata, which
means “smothered escarole.” In this dish, garlic is sautéed in olive oil
until golden, then chopped escarole, salt and red pepper flakes and seasoning
are added to the pan. The greens are cooked until they are soft and tender.
This is then served as a side dish, or you can use the greens for another
purpose, such as on top of a pizza or slathered on a piece of thick, crusty
bread.
Storage: Store escarole in a
plastic bag in the refrigerator until ready to use. When you are ready to
use it, separate the leaves from the base and wash well in a sink of cold
water. If you are using the escarole for
a raw salad, shake or spin off excess water to dry the leaves. If you are cooking it or adding it to soup or
stew, it’s ok if there is still some water on the leaves.
Escarole with Lentils and Italian Sausage
Yield: 4 servings
1 cup dry lentils
3 cups chicken broth
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 pound Italian sausage
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 head escarole, stems removed and roughly chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
½ cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
- Place the lentils in a medium-sized pot. Pour in the chicken broth and season with a bit of salt and pepper. Bring the lentils to a boil, cover the pot tightly, and reduce the heat. Simmer until the lentils are tender, about 15-20 minutes. Remove from the heat. Drain most of the juices away and reserve the lentils. Leave just enough juice so the lentils don’t dry out.
- Heat the oil in a large skillet or frying pan over medium heat. Add the sausage and cook until browned and cooked through, about 10 minutes. If using links of sausage, transfer the cooked sausage to a cutting board and let rest at least 5 minutes before slicing into disks. If you are using bulk sausage, just crumble.
- Add the onions to the pan and cook over medium heat until they are soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook 1 more minute. Add the cooked lentils, escarole, salt and pepper and cook until the escarole is wilted, about 3-5 minutes. Add the sausage back to the pan and stir everything until fully incorporated.
- Remove from the heat, garnish with shredded Parmesan cheese. Serve with crusty bread for sopping up the liquid.
Recipe created by Chef Jamie DeMents from Coon Rock Farm
(www.coonrockfarm.com).
Escarole, Bacon and Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Dried Apricots and Pepitas
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| photo from heatherchristo.com |
Yield: 4 servings
2-3 cups butternut squash, peeled and chopped into
bite-sized pieces
3 Tbsp olive oil
Kosher salt, to taste
1 head escarole, roughly chopped
2-3 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
½ cup dried apricots, thinly sliced
¼ cup roasted and salted pepitas
Vinaigrette:
1 shallot, minced
2 Tbsp fresh Italian parsley, minced
2 Tbsp whole-grain mustard
2 Tbsp honey
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
Kosher salt, to taste
- Preheat the oven to 375⁰F. Toss the squash with the olive oil and season with salt. Roast the squash for 15-18 minutes or until golden browned on the edges and fork tender. Set aside to cool.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the ingredients for the vinaigrette and season to taste with salt.
- In a large bowl, combine the escarole, cooked bacon, apricots and pepitas with the butternut squash. Just before serving, drizzle some of the vinaigrette over the top and gently toss to coat. You want just enough vinaigrette to lightly coat all the ingredients. Season to taste with salt and serve immediately.
Recipe created by Heather Christo and is featured at heatherchristo.com.
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