Wednesday, October 25, 2023

October 26, 2023 - This Week's Box Contents Featuring Sweet Potatoes


Cooking With This Week's Box



Sweet Potatoes:
Sweet Potato & Carrot Cakes with Cashew Lime Sour Cream (See Below)
Thai Sweet Potato & Cauliflower Lettuce Wraps (See Below)

Yellow Onions:
Onion Cake 
Cream of Onion Soup 


Here we are, wrapping up the final week of October and just a few weeks away from Thanksgiving!  We’re preparing for our first potential ‘hard’ frost of the season coming this weekend, which means we’re harvesting cabbage, sensitive greens and as many root crops as we possibly can!  We’re also putting out row covers to protect our late season fall greens including escarole and radicchio.  One of the benefits of this cold weather is the effect it will have on the Brussels sprouts.  We’re planning to harvest them for the next two boxes and they should taste exceptional after this weekend!  While there are still some fun selections yet to come, we’re excited to be sharing sweet potatoes with you this week! 

Sweet potatoes are a very versatile vegetable and may be used in many ways.  This week’s recipes pair sweet potatoes with some of this week’s other vegetable selections.  Check out this recipe for Sweet Potato and Carrot Cakes with Cashew Lime Sour Cream (see below).  This is a recipe from Amy Chaplin, a very accomplished vegetarian chef and cookbook author.  The other recipe makes use of this week’s lettuce for Thai Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Lettuce Wraps (See Below).  Of course, I sprinkled a few other sweet potato recipes in amongst the list this week with crossover pairings with other vegetable selections.  This recipe for Ginger Coconut Sweet Potatoes is one of my favorites.  You may also consider pairing this week’s fresh baby ginger with sweet potatoes to make this simple, yet elegant Silky Ginger Sweet Potato Soup.

This week’s Peter Wilcox potatoes are one of my all-time favorite varieties.  I think they would pair nicely with this week’s carrots and cauliflower in this ChickenPot Pie Soup.  If you’re looking for some other main dish inspiration for the week, check out this Creamy Garlic Chicken Pasta or perhaps you may choose to make an entrée salad with this recipe for Kale Power Salad with Sweet Potatoes & Spicy Almond Dressing.

This week’s box has not one but two varieties of squash!  Butterkin squash may be used interchangeably in recipes calling for butternut squash.  There are plenty of recipe options contained in these two recipe collections entitled 28 of Our Best Butternut SquashRecipes To Make This Fall and 30 Butternut Squash Recipes To Make This Fall.  Jester squash is similar in use to either delicata or acorn squash, so you may choose to look for recipe ideas that use these two varieties and may be adapted to the Jester squash.  I am looking forward to trying this recipe for Cranberry Apple Stuffed   Squash.

I’m going to wrap it up here with one reminder for everyone.  Next week is the week when we will be delivering both Green & Brown week deliveries in the same week!  So, if you are a brown week customer typically receiving a box every other week, make sure you check your calendar and give yourself a reminder to go pick up your box!  Have a great week and I’ll meet you back here next week!

---Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Sweet Potatoes

by Andrea Yoder

Sweet potatoes seem to be one of our most popular fall crops that CSA members look forward to every year. They are a staple fall vegetable with a long storage potential that will sustain us for the next 4-6 months! They are also very versatile in their uses, which means you have the opportunity to get creative and enjoy sweet potatoes in a wide variety of recipes over the next few months!  

Freshly Harvested Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are a tropical vegetable, which makes it a bit of a challenging crop to grow in our northern climate. Over the years we’ve learned a lot about growing sweet potatoes and have refined a pretty good production system.  We wait until we are past the last frost in late May before we plant our sweet potato slips (slips is the term we use for the young plants we transplant into our field). We plant them into raised beds that are covered with a dark green plastic mulch to trap heat, making the plants think they are in a tropical environment. This summer’s heat wave was actually not too bad for the sweet potatoes, although we had to make sure they received enough water and nutrients through the drip irrigation lines buried under the plastic mulch.  Harvest typically happens in late September or early October. We always cross our fingers for a stretch of several dry days without precipitation to finish the harvest. This fall we were not so lucky as to have the “Perfect” harvest conditions, but with rain in the forecast we knew we had to get them out of the field. So, over the course of just a few days, we had two separate harvest crews in the field at the same time and raced against the weather! Despite a rainy afternoon, the crew pushed on and managed to finish the harvest. Yes, we brought in a lot of mud, and we had a huge pile of very muddy gloves at the end, but it felt great to have 34,000 pounds of sweet potatoes safely tucked away for storage! 

Crates of sweet potatoes ready to "cure" in 
our greenhouse
Straight out of the field, our sweet potatoes taste ok, but not good enough to eat (in our opinion). That’s right, we have a rule around here that you don’t really eat sweet potatoes until they have been 'cured'.  When first harvested they are starchy, not very sweet or tasty, and the skins are very tender requiring careful handling.  Sweet potatoes aren’t truly sweet potatoes until we “cure them.”  Curing is a process by which we hold the sweet potatoes at high heat and high humidity for 7-10 days. During this time, the starches in the potatoes are converted to sugars and the skins become more stable for long term storage. Richard checks the brix levels (a measure of sugar content) before, during and at the end of this process. Once they are cured, we reduce the temperature and humidity levels for longer storage. 

If stored properly you can eat sweet potatoes all winter! The ideal storage temperature for cured sweet potatoes is 55-65°F. If you don’t have the perfect location to store them at their ideal temperature, it’s better to store them at room temperature instead of putting them in the refrigerator.  

Harvesting sweet potatoes!
Sweet potatoes are less starchy and more sweet and moist than a regular potato and have a wide variety of uses. You can simply bake them whole until fork tender and eat the flesh right out of the skin. They are also delicious, cut into bite-sized pieces and roasted or cut them into wedges or thin slices and make roasted fries or chips. Sweet potatoes also make delicious, hearty soups and stews, may be added to chili, shredded, and fried like hash browns, or just simply cook and mash or puree them. They are also delicious incorporated into biscuits, rolls, quick breads, cookies, bars, cheesecake and more! 

Sweet potatoes are also very nutritious! They are a great source of complex carbohydrates and are high in fiber as well as vitamins and antioxidants that are helpful for preventing cancer, reducing inflammation and boosting immunity.  If you’d like to read more about the health benefits of sweet potatoes, you may enjoy this article entitled Sweet Potato—A Valuable Medicinal Food:  A Review.  I also came across an interesting research article entitled Sweet Potatoes for Cancer Prevention citing the health benefits from eating sweet potato peels for cancer prevention! While sweet potatoes are often peeled, they don’t have to be, and you just might want to take advantage of those valuable nutrients!  


Sweet Potato & Carrot Cakes with Cashew Lime Sour Cream

Makes about 14 2 ½-inch cakes
1 ¼ cup red lentils, rinsed
1 ½ cups water
2 Tbsp extra virgin coconut oil, plus more for brushing pan and cakes
1 large onion, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
Sea salt, to taste
1 tsp dried turmeric
1 red chili, thinly sliced, plus more to garnish
⅓ cup finely chopped cilantro stems, from one bunch cilantro
3 medium carrots, grated, divided (about 6 cups)
2 small sweet potatoes, grated
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves, plus more to garnish
2 scallions thinly sliced
1 tsp tamari, plus more to taste
1 ½ tsp brown rice vinegar

Cashew Lime Sour Cream
1 cup cashews, soaked 4 to 6 hours
Zest of one lime
3 to 4 Tbsp fresh lime juice
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp filtered water
½ tsp sea salt, plus more to taste
  1. Combine lentils and water in a small pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover pot, reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, remove from heat and set aside covered while you prepare the other ingredients.
  2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, brush paper with coconut oil (you may have to melt it first) and set aside.
  3. Preheat oven to 375°F if you have a convection setting, or 400°F if you don’t have a convection setting.
  4. Warm coconut oil in a wide skillet over medium heat and add onion. Sauté for about 5 minutes or until golden. Add garlic and a large pinch of salt and continue cooking for another 3 minutes. Stir in turmeric, chili and cilantro stems and cook 2 minutes longer. Reserve about 1 cup of grated carrot and add the rest to the skillet along with the grated sweet potato. Cook, stirring for 4 to 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender but not soft. Remove from heat, stir in remaining carrot, cilantro leaves, scallions, tamari, and rice vinegar and set aside.
  5. Remove 1 cup of red lentils from the pot and save for another use. Place remaining red lentils into skillet and mix to combine. Season to taste with salt and tamari and set aside until cool enough to handle.
  6. Shape into cakes, using a ¼ cup measure as a guide. Flatten them a little, place on prepared tray and brush with coconut oil. Bake for 20 minutes or until browning on the bottom. Flip over and continue baking for another 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown on each side.
  7. To prepare the Cashew Lime Sour Cream, drain and rinse cashews and place in an upright blender. Set lime zest aside and add remaining ingredients. Blend until completely smooth and velvety, scraping sides, as necessary. Season to taste and add reserved lime zest. Pulse to combine and pour into a bowl. Place in the fridge for an hour or until ready to serve. This will last 2 to 3 days in an airtight container.
  8. Serve the Sweet Potato and Carrot Cakes warm and topped with the Cashew Lime Sour Cream.
Recipe borrowed from www.amychaplin.com.


Thai Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Lettuce Wraps

Yield: 2-3

1 cauliflower
Photo from www.cupfulofkale.com
2 medium-large sweet potatoes
2 tbsp oil
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion powder
1 tbsp Thai red curry paste
Salt and black pepper, to taste
250g firm tofu, drained
1 tbsp soy sauce or tamari
Fresh lettuce leaves, washed and dried
Thinly sliced red onions (optional)
Fresh Cilantro, roughly chopped (optional)
Sesame seeds, toasted (optional)

Peanut Sauce:
1 heaping tbsp peanut butter
3 tbsp coconut milk 
1 tsp maple syrup
1 tsp red Thai red curry paste
½ lime
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into ½ inch cubes. Cut the cauliflower into similar sized pieces and place in a large roasting pan with the sweet potatoes.
  3. In a small bowl mix together the oil, garlic, onion, Thai red curry paste and some salt and pepper.
  4. Pour the mixture over the vegetables and toss so they are all coated. Pop in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
  5. Make the peanut sauce by whisking all the ingredients together in a bowl. Thin with a little water if needed. Set it aside for later.
  6. Heat a frying pan on medium high heat with 1 tbsp soy sauce and some oil. Using your hands crumble the tofu into the pan.
  7. Fry for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally and cook until the tofu turns brown and crispy.  When done, remove from heat and set aside.
  8. Check the roasted vegetables. The sweet potato should be soft through and the cauliflower crispy and browned. 
  9. When the vegetables and tofu are finished, put both in a serving bowl and mix together. Serve with the peanut sauce, lettuce leaves and toppings ready to assemble your lettuce wraps!
Borrowed from  www.cupfulofkale.com.
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