July 21, 2022 - This Week's Box Contents Featuring New Potatoes

 

Cooking With This Week's Box

Red New Potatoes:  

Summer Farmer Skillet Dinner (See Below)

New Potatoes with Garlic & Butter 

Summertime Pan-Braised Chicken with New Potatoes & Greens 

Photo from sallysbakingaddiction.com

Sierra Blanca Onions:  

Caramelized Onion, Goat Cheese & Kale Pizza with Balsamic Drizzle 

Cowboy Burgers Topped with Onion Rings 

White Cauliflower:  

Roasted Cauliflower with Spicy Sake Dipping Sauce 

Sweet & Spicy Korean Cauliflower 

Dry Pot Cauliflower 

Vietnamese Pickled Vegetables 

Orange Carrots:  

Carrot & White Bean Burgers

Baked Red Lentil Falafel with Lemon-Herb Tahini Dipping Sauce 

Summer Squash (Zucchini and/or Sunburst Scallopini Squash):  

Garden Greens Goddess Pizza 

Zucchini Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies 

Green and/or Silver Slicer Cucumbers:  

Smoked Salmon Cucumber Rolls 

Cucumber Sushi Roll 

Shredded Chicken Wraps with Avocado, Cucumber and Cilantro 

Thai Basil:  

2021 Thai Basil Vegetable Feature Article with 15 Recipe Ideas! 

Photo from southyourmouth.com

Fresh Italian Garlic:  

Charred Kale and Garlic Pizza 

The Best Garlic Dip 

Broccoli:  

Broccoli Slaw with Red Cabbage

Seriously Good Broccoli Slaw with Raisins and Sunflower Seeds 

Green Beans:  

Southern Style Green Beans & Potatoes 

Linguine with Pesto, Green Beans & Potatoes 

Green Curly Kale:  

Kale, Mushroom & Ricotta Calzones 

Kale Pesto and 15+ Ways To Use It! 

Kale Pesto Lasagna 

Red Cabbage:  

15 Ways to Use Up Red Cabbage 

Cauliflower Tacos with Shredded Red Cabbage and Avocado Crema 

Pickled Red Cabbage 

Cauliflower Po’ Boy with Cabbage Slaw 

Hello Friends—

This week’s box is what summer is all about!  Freshly dug new potatoes, carrots, beans, zucchini…..so many delicious vegetables that really need very little to be so tasty.  Plus, we’ll continue to build on this week’s selections with sweet corn coming in likely next week along with fresh tomatoes!  This week I’m featuring a favored farm recipe that I created and shared back in 2017.  Many members have made this recipe and offered positive feedback, so I wanted to give it a little attention this week for the benefit of our newer members.  This recipe for Summer Farmer Skillet Dinner (See Below) came about because this is what Richard and I eat a lot during the summer.  The recipe is the guide, but within that guide you can adapt it to whatever vegetables you have available.  Potatoes and carrots will make a good vegetable base this week and then it’s up to you to add green beans, zucchini, or whatever is in your refrigerator that needs to be used up!  Another key part of this recipe is topping it off with a cooking green.  You could use the green curly kale in this week’s box, or if you have some green cabbage from a previous week that would work as well.  Really, it’s a very forgiving recipe!  I also included links to two other previously published recipes that I turn to every year during the summer when we have fresh potatoes.  New Potatoes with Garlic & Butter and Summertime Pan-Braised Chicken with New Potatoes & Greens are very simple recipes, but I think you’ll find both to be satisfying and delicious!

Throughout this week’s list of recipe ideas you’ll find several summer pizza recipes including Charred Kale and Garlic Pizza and Garden Greens Goddess Pizza.  I was on a roll with cucumber recipe ideas, and you may notice there is a “rolled” theme to this week’s recipe suggestions.  What can I say, sometimes in life and cooking you just have to “roll” with it!

Alright, I’m going to wrap it up here.  There is a lot of great potential in this week’s box, so I hope you’re able to find some tasty ways to use this week’s vegetables!  If you haven’t been paying attention to our private Facebook Page, I encourage you to check it out.  There have been some great recipe suggestions and ideas recently.  Thank you to everyone who is participating!  Have a great week and I’ll see you back here next week, hopefully along with sweet corn and tomatoes!

---Chef Andrea 

Vegetable Feature: New Potatoes

by Andrea Yoder

Potatoes are a vegetable everyone’s familiar with, but not all are created equally and this week’s potatoes are, in our opinion, very special.  If you’ve been with us for previous CSA seasons you know we draw attention to this point every year because frankly, we just don’t want you to miss out on this experience!  There is a short period of time early in the summer when we have the opportunity to eat “New Potatoes.”  New potatoes are not a variety, but rather a term used to describe potatoes that are harvested off of a plant that still has green leaves on it.  Our usual practice is to mow down the potato vines about a week in advance of harvest.  In the week between mowing down the vines and actually harvesting the potatoes, changes take place in the plant that help to set the skins and make them easier to handle without damaging the skin.  It also gives them a more durable skin to protect the flesh and make them better for storage.  These potatoes were dug this past Saturday from plants with green vines.  Freshly dug new potatoes have a flavor and texture unlike other potatoes throughout the season.  It is a fresh, pure potato flavor and the skin is tender and delicate.  When you cut them you’ll notice they are very crispy and sometimes a little brittle because they have retained all their juiciness!  Once cooked, the flesh is moist, creamy and smooth with a distinctive flavor that’s hard to describe.  Trust me, when you taste it you’ll know what I mean!  

The new potatoes in your box this week are a variety called Red Norland.  They are an early, red-skinned potato with creamy white flesh.  They need to be handled with care so as not to disturb the skin and expose the flesh.  This year our potato field is in a location where the soil is a bit more sandy.  Despite having rain the day before harvest, these potatoes came out of the ground very easily and are probably the nicest new potatoes I’ve ever seen!  

We’ve given them the “white glove treatment” through the harvest and washing processes to preserve the integrity of their skins, but we encourage you to handle them with care as well.  Wash them just before use and give them a gentle scrub if needed. There is no need to peel them, so my recommendation is to just skip that step.

I encourage you to slow down and really savor the flavor of these new potatoes as these first few weeks will be the only time during the season you’ll be able to have this taste experience of freshly dug potatoes.  You really don’t need to do much to them and, in fact, I’d encourage you to do as little as possible!  Honestly, most often I simply boil or roast them with fresh garlic and top them off with butter, salt, pepper and sometimes fresh herbs.    

Potatoes should be stored in a cool, dark place, but not in the refrigerator.  We store our potatoes in a warmer cooler at about 48-50°F which is most ideal.  If potatoes are stored in colder temperatures (such as your home refrigerator), the starches will convert to sugars which is not what we want in a potato (save that characteristic for sweet potatoes!)  So in a home setting, it’s best to store them in a cool, dry location outside of the refrigerator where they will not be exposed to light which can cause the potatoes to turn green and bitter.  If the potatoes have set their skins, in general they will store for a few weeks at room temperature in a brown paper bag (never in a plastic bag).  However, because new potatoes are so fresh and we have not allowed them to set their skins, they will not store as well and are best eaten within one week. 

Summer Farmer Skillet Dinner

by Chef Andrea 

Yield:  4 to 6 servings

1 pound ground pork or beef

1 cup chopped onion

2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced

⅓ cup white wine

2 cups potatoes, skin on, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 cup carrots, medium dice

1 cup zucchini, medium dice

2 cups green or yellow beans, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 cup cream, divided

½ cup coarsely chopped fresh herbs (thyme, parsley, savory, oregano, rosemary etc.)

4 cups greens (kale, cabbage, amaranth, chard, beet greens, or any other seasonal cooking green), washed and chopped into bite-sized pieces or shredded

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. If you have a broiler in your oven, position the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the broiler.  If you do not have a broiler, preheat the oven to 400°F.  
2. Heat an 11-12 inch oven proof skillet on the stove top at medium-high heat.  Add the ground pork or beef and cook until browned.  Add the onion and garlic and continue to cook for a few more minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.
3. Add the white wine to the pan and then layer the potatoes and carrots on top of the meat mixture.  Season again with salt and pepper. Cover the pan and simmer for 5-8 minutes or until the potatoes and carrots have started to soften but are not all the way cooked.  
4. Add the zucchini, green beans and ½ cup of the cream to the pan.  Season this layer with salt and pepper.  Cover the pan again and simmer for another 5-6 minutes. 
5. Remove the cover and sprinkle the herbs on top.  Spread the greens on top, and season with salt and pepper.  Pour the remaining ½ cup of cream around the edge of the pan.  Cover the pan again and simmer for about 5 minutes or until the greens are wilted.  Remove the cover and simmer on the stovetop for an additional 5-6 minutes or until the cream is reduced by about half.  
6. Spread the shredded cheese on top of the greens.  Remove the pan from the stovetop and put it in the oven under the broiler or in the hot oven.  Bake just until the cheese is melted, bubbly and starting to brown.  
7. Serve hot.  If you have any leftovers, they will reheat well for another meal or they are delicious served with toast and eggs for breakfast.  

This is a basic recipe that can be altered to use any seasonal vegetables you have available.  Add the vegetables that will take the longest to cook to the pan first and finish with the quick cooking greens on top.  And the best part is…you only dirty one pan!  This has become one of our favorite, simple ways to make a hearty meal using seasonal vegetables without a lot of fuss and enough leftovers for the next day!  Perfect Farmer food at the end of a long summer day!