Harmony Valley Farm: June 9, 2022 - This Week's Box Contents Featuring Cilantro

This week crops in the fields have really started to change and grow. We are still heavy into spring greens with this week’s box, but that will be shifting pretty soon. This is our final week for green garlic, hon tsai tai, pea vine and asparagus. Next week we are planning to start harvesting strawberries, kohlrabi, broccoli and zucchini! Our first crop of beets are still small, but we’ll be including them in your boxes within the next few weeks along with fennel. Every moment of the season gives us something to enjoy and something else to look forward to!

Spinach Quesadilla Photo from naturallyella.com

Lets dive into this week’s box starting with the featured vegetable, cilantro! The featured recipe this week, Red Lentil & Coconut Milk Soup with Spinach, Rice and Spiced Yogurt (See Below), is a recipe I adapted from a Deborah Madison recipe. The ingredient list for this recipe is a little long, but it comes together pretty quickly. You just need to have a little patience while it simmers and the red lentils soften. This soup is very flavorful with an interesting combination of spices that provide a nice background flavor for the soup. This is also a very nutrient-dense soup as fresh cilantro and spinach is blended in towards the end of preparing this soup. You can eat the soup on its own, but it becomes a more substantial dish when served with hot cooked rice and a dollop of the spiced yogurt. While the recipe calls for spinach, you can use any cooking green in this recipe such as pea vine, bok choi, sauté greens, chard, amaranth, kale or even tat soi. The versatility of this recipe makes it a great CSA greens recipe as you can prepare it at any time of the year with whatever greens are available! I also think it would be good garnished with some fresh chopped tomatoes in the summer or maybe add some sweet peppers in late summer/early fall. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

While we have a lot of greens in this box, there are many different ways you can put them to use. The mini heads of romaine lettuce are the perfect size for making Korean Steak and Noodles Lettuce Cups and Grilled Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps. The bok choi can be used to make these tasty Soba Noodles with Mushrooms & Bok Choi or use it to make Stir-Fried Bok Choy with Peanut Sauce, a recipe that would pair nicely with these Cilantro Pesto Chicken Skewers.

Mixed Greens Spread photo from twistsandzest.com

For those of you who are into smoothies, I have to mention the Frosty Sorrel and Banana Smoothie recipe one more time. This is one of my personal favorite spring recipes, but others have offered a lot of positive feedback on this recipe over the years and again this spring. It’s a great way for kids and adults to enjoy greens! Some members also posted in our Facebook Group that they used last week’s pea vine in smoothies, so I had to give it a try this week. It is so delicious! Mild flavored, fresh and invigorating are the words that come to my mind. Both sorrel and pea vine are packed with vital nutrients and energy that you can really feel when you eat them, especially if you start your day off with them in a smoothie! Go ahead, give it a try! By the way, how are you doing with that challenge I posed last week to try to incorporate more vegetables into breakfast? If it’s going well and you want to try something a little outside of the box, consider making Armenian Cold Yogurt & Sorrel Soup or Savory Miso Oatmeal with Greens & Jammy Egg. These savory recipes are actually appropriate for any meal of the day, breakfast included! The oatmeal recipe calls for kale, but you could easily substitute hon tsai tai, sauté mix or even turnip greens.

Alright, I’m going to wrap it up for this week. As always, let us know what you’re cooking by posting your creations in our private Facebook group. We have new members joining every week and it’s a great way to engage with a like-minded community! Have a good week—Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Cilantro

by Andrea Yoder

Cilantro is a very important crop on our farm and is one of our top “bread and butter” crops that we supply to our major wholesale distributors in this region. Last year we planted 370 pounds of cilantro seed starting in April and planting nearly every week through the end of August. This strategy allows us to move right from one crop into the next as we harvest cilantro starting in mid to late May through October or the first part of November. Over the course of the season we will end up planting 16-18 acres of cilantro total! Each crop has the potential to yield as many as 18,000 to 24,000 bunches! Some of our experienced crew members can make more than 100 bunches of cilantro an hour when they are harvesting. That is a lot of cilantro and, as you can see, it’s a big deal for us!

Our first crop of cilantro this spring

Cilantro, also sometimes called coriander, is used extensively in a wide variety of cultures and cuisines across the globe ranging from Mexico to Asia. While we often think of it as an herb which is used more sparingly as an accent to other foods, don’t be afraid to use cilantro in more bold ways where it is a main ingredient. With many herbs, recipes tell you to pick the leaves off the stems and only use the leafy part. I am an advocate for using stems as well, especially for herbs with tender stems such as cilantro. There’s a lot of flavor in those stems, so it seems like such a waste to throw them out!

Cilantro is often used in salsas, fresh vegetable salads and as a condiment for tacos, curries, soups and more. It’s also a delicious ingredient to incorporate into spreads and sauces such as chimichurri (with cilantro in place of traditional parsley), pesto, vinaigrettes, etc. You can also incorporate it into smoothies and green drinks because of its contributions to health related to detoxifying the body.

Cilantro in harvest totes,
ready to be washed & packed!

Some people love cilantro, others are learning to like it and some have an aversion to it because to them, it tastes like soap. This latter group is actually a pretty small subset of the population. To them, a natural chemical compound in cilantro has an unpleasant soapy taste. If you experience this, we’ll let you take a pass on eating this vegetable. But for everyone else, eat your cilantro as it has some valuable health benefits! It is an excellent source of zinc as well as vitamins A, C, E and K. It also works as a chelator and detoxifier for our bodies removing toxins, heavy metals, molds, yeast and fungi. It’s on the green cleaning team, which is why it’s a common ingredient in green smoothies and drinks!

For the longest shelf life, we recommend you remove the twist tie and wash your cilantro in a sink of clean, cold water. If you have a salad spinner, use it to remove excess water from the cilantro before storing it in a plastic bag or container. If you don’t have a spinner, just blot or shake off as much excess water as you can. Before storing, remove any damaged or spotty leaves. It may also be helpful to put a dry paper towel in the bag or container you’re storing it in. For best results, use within 7-10 days.

Red Lentil & Coconut Milk Soup with Spinach, Rice and Spiced Yogurt

Yield: 6 servings

2 Tbsp butter, coconut oil, or sunflower oil

1 cup minced green onion and/or green garlic (see note)

1 ½ tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ground cardamom

½ tsp ground cinnamon

Pinch of hot red pepper flakes

2 cups red lentils, rinsed

6 cups water or vegetable stock

2 bay leaves

3 cloves

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

6-8 ounces (4-6 cups) spinach or other seasonal greens, roughly chopped

¾ cup chopped cilantro (stems and leaves)

One 15-ounce can coconut milk

Juice of 1 large lime or lemon, or to taste

Steamed rice, 6 servings (optional)

Spiced Yogurt (recipe follows)

Spiced Yogurt

½ cup plain yogurt

½ tsp ground turmeric

½ tsp ground paprika

¼ tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

A pinch of salt

Place a 4 quart saucepot on the stove with medium heat. Add the butter, coconut oil or sunflower oil and heat until it just starts to shimmer. Add the minced green onion/green garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Next, add the turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon and red pepper flakes. Stir to combine and sauté for about 30 seconds more. Immediately add the lentils and 6 cups of water to the pan. Increase the heat to medium high and bring the soup to a rapid simmer. Add the bay leaves, cloves and 1 ½ tsp salt. Cover and adjust the heat to hold it at a simmer.
Simmer for 10-20 minutes or until the lentils are soft and breaking down. Remove from the heat and carefully extract the bay leaves and cloves. Stir in the chopped cilantro and spinach or other greens until they start to wilt down in the hot soup.
Now it’s time to puree the soup using either a stand blender or an immersion blender. If using a stand blender, carefully transfer the soup to the blender. You may need to work in batches depending upon the size of your blender. You may choose to blend it completely smooth, or blend it a little less and leave some of the texture of the greens in the soup.
Return the soup to the pan and put it on the stove over low heat. Stir in one can of coconut milk along with lemon or lime juice. Taste the soup and season with salt and black pepper as needed. You may also need to add more lemon or lime juice until the flavor is balanced to your liking. Heat the soup just enough so it is hot, but do not cook it too much more or the greens and cilantro will lose their fresh flavor.
Prepare the spiced yogurt by putting all the spices, a pinch of salt and the yogurt in a small bowl. Mix until well combined.
To serve, put a portion of hot, cooked rice in each bowl and ladle the hot soup over it. Serve with a dollop of spiced yogurt.

Note: This is a great CSA “greens” recipe that may be adapted over the course of the season to include whatever seasonal greens are available. Some options may include spinach, bok choi, pea vine, nettles, chard, amaranth, kale or tat soi. While this version of the recipe calls for green onions and/or green garlic, you may substitute whatever type of onion is available throughout the season. You may wish to create some variations of your own along the way such as adding some fresh chopped tomatoes as a garnish in the summer or sautéing some sweet peppers along with the onion in late summer. Have fun with it!

Recipe inspired by and adapted from Deborah Madison’s recipe for Yellow Pea and Coconut Milk Soup with Spinach, Rice and Spiced Yogurt as published in her book, Vegetable Soups From Deborah Madison’s Kitchen.

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

June 9, 2022 - This Week's Box Contents Featuring Cilantro

Cooking With This Week's Box

Vegetable Feature: Cilantro

Red Lentil & Coconut Milk Soup with Spinach, Rice and Spiced Yogurt

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