October 10, 2024 - This Week's Box Contents Featuring Dill

 

What's In The Box

Italian Garlic: We’ve started cracking garlic in preparation for planting our 2025 crop! Garlic is an investment we gamble on every year, but it’s also an investment in our health when we eat it! Adding a little to your meals each day is the most affordable health insurance!

Yellow and Red Onions: The sulfur compounds in onions are what give them their pungency and also make us cry sometimes. As the plant is growing, these compounds are part of the plant’s defense system to protect them from disease and pests. When we consume them, they work as powerful antioxidants that support our health throughout our body systems. We consider onions to be a foundational part of our diets, both for their health benefits as well as the base flavor they contribute!

Orange & Red Italian Frying Peppers: With low temperatures forecasted for early next week, the end of pepper season is upon us. We think you’ll find this week’s frying peppers to be sweet and delicious as they are at their peak of ripeness! If you have one that is a little soft, it’s likely still good. The pepper just gets a little soft as it ripens. If you aren’t able to eat your peppers within a week, pop them in the freezer and use them later as a pizza topping, added to soups and stews, stir-fry or scrambled eggs.

Salad Mix: We are nearing the end of our salad mix for the season. Our fall crops came in a few weeks ahead of schedule with the warm fall. Enjoy with a light vinaigrette, shredded carrots, and thinly sliced peppers for a quick salad. Add protein such as chicken or salmon if you’d like to turn it into a main dish!

Spinach: We are nearing the end of our baby spinach for this fall as well. Use this week’s spinach as the base for a salad or toss it into pasta dishes or soups and wilt it down.

Red Summercrisp Lettuce OR Green Boston Lettuce OR Green Savoy Cabbage: Regardless of the selection in your box, wash the leaves well and either pat dry or dry them in a spinner before storing or using.

Broccoli: Our fall broccoli extravaganza continues! We encourage you to eat both the florets on top as well as the stalks and stems. Check out this week’s recipe suggestions below for some ways to put this week’s broccoli to use.

Orange Carrots: Going into the fall, rest assured we have a strong supply of sweet, delicious carrots! This staple vegetable is a great addition to roasted vegetable blends, soups and stews, cold-weather salads, as well as baked goods and desserts! 

Satina Gold Potatoes: This week’s potatoes have gold skin and gold flesh. They are a moist, waxy potato that is best for pan-frying or roasting, but they may also be simply steamed or boiled. Some of the potatoes may have some slight blemishes or brown spots. As we sorted them, we realized these blemishes are usually just affecting a small amount of the surface and the remainder of the potato is just fine. So we ask that you just cut away any spots with a paring knife and enjoy the remaining 95% of the potato!

Butterscotch Butternut Winter Squash:  This a small variety of butternut known to be sweet and flavorful…. hence the name. Enjoy this small squash simply prepared. Cut them in half lengthwise and bake. Serve with salt, pepper, and a pat of butter…for the main meal or dessert!

Orange Kuri Squash or Sugar Dumpling Squash: Orange Kuri squash is bright orange and round. The flesh is deep orange and rich, perfect for baked goods, soup, and curry dishes. Sugar dumpling squash is a creamy yellow color with green stripes and markings. The flesh is light yellow and sweet. Given their small size, they too can serve as a personal size serving.

Red Beets: A simple way to enjoy your beets is to roast them. You can roast them whole with the skin on or peel them first and cut into chunks and toss with oil. Once roasted, you can use them as a topping for salads, mix them in with quinoa or other grains, or just eat them as a roasted beet!

Dill: Before winter sets in we wanted to share one more bunch of fresh dill with you! Pair it with this week’s potatoes, beets, or carrots. Check out the featured recipe and recipe suggestions for inspiration!

BONUS: Purple or Yellow Cauliflower or Broccoli Romanesco: We are nearly finished with these crops for the season. The harvest is dwindling, and the remaining heads are on the small side. Your box may contain a portion, but if not, we have added extra broccoli.

Recipe Suggestions & Inspiration For This Week’s Box Contents

Caramelized Carrot Tart with Fresh Dill

Beet Salad with Feta & Dill

Creamy Carrot Lentil Soup

Cheesy Broccoli & Potato Bake

Cheesy Broccoli Bites

Broccoli & Wild Rice Casserole

Teriyaki Meatball & Broccoli Kebabs with Peppers & Onions

Beef & Broccoli Stir-Fry

Roasted Butternut Squash with Red Peppers & Rosemary

Cheesy Spinach and Red Pepper Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Coconut Chicken and Red Pepper Curry

Greek Tortellini Salad with Spinach

Roasted Beet Salad with Goat Cheese, Walnuts & Honey Dijon Vinaigrette 

Roasted Carrot and Beet Quinoa Salad

Creamy Lemon Dill Salad Dressing

Creamy Potato Dill Soup

Vegetable Feature: Dill

Dill, sometimes known as dill weed, is an herb in the celery family. The feathery green herb’s leaves are long, soft, and very thin. Dill has a sweet, grassy taste with a hint of licorice. At Harmony Valley Farm, we grow dill starting with our first weekly plantings in April, and end plantings at the end of August. Dill harvest normally ends around the end of September or early in October.  Dill is not frost tolerant, so we try to time our last crop just ahead of the first frost in the fall.

Preparation & Usage: Dill is a popular herb used worldwide, and plays a key role in many traditional recipes everywhere from Russia to India and Egypt to Sweden. There are many countries that combine dill with either butter or cream and use it as a topping on potatoes. Dill is also a popular ingredient to mix into sauces and soups. Stuffed cabbage and omelets can also feature dill as a filling. If cooking dill sounds like too much of a hassle, it can also be added to any fresh salad or used as a garnish. Of course, you can always use dill to create pickles, as well! Dill is best fresh, as it can lose its potency quickly when dried.  While cooking with fresh dill, you are going to want to add it in as a last step, since it will lose flavor through the cooking process as well.

Dill pairs well with potatoes, cabbage, carrots, beets, cucumbers, mushrooms, fish, especially salmon, seafood, yogurt, cream, butter, cheese, eggs, and other herbs such as parsley, chives and basil.

Storage Tips: Dill can be stored loosely wrapped in plastic in the refrigerator for a few days. If you have room and want to keep your dill around a little longer, you can place the bunched dill in a glass of water like a bouquet of flowers, wrap the whole thing in plastic, and place it in the fridge.

For even longer storage, you can freeze dill: Pulse or finely chop in a food processor.  Add just enough water to turn the leaves into a paste, then spoon into an ice cube tray and freeze.  Once you have frozen dill ice cubes, move them to a freezer storage container.  These are great to pop into a soup!

Health & Nutrition: Dill has been used in traditional medicines to treat ailing stomachs, as well as colic in infants.

Additional Fun Facts: The scientific name for dill is Anethum graveolens, and it is the only species in the genus Anethum.  This tidbit is doubly interesting as the Latin name for the genus ultimately comes from a Greek word that means both dill and anise.

Indian Fried Dill Potatoes

Photo from www.myheartbeets.com

This dish is actually called “Aloo Suva” in Hindi or “Aloo Soya” in Punjabi.  Both of which literally translate to “Potato Dill.”   It does not get much more simple than that!  This is a very simple recipe, but it’s loaded with flavor for the addition of the spices and dill.  And who doesn’t love a crispy, fried potato!  The author recommends serving this potato dish as a side dish, or add sausage and turn it into a breakfast dish!                                                                     

Yield:  4-6 servings

4 Tbsp avocado or vegetable oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 pounds potatoes, cubed

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp chili powder

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper

1 large handful of fresh dill, or to your liking

1. Heat oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat, then add cumin seeds.
2. Once the seeds begin to splutter, add garlic, stir-fry of r30 seconds.
3. Increase the heat to medium-high, add potatoes and spices and mix well.
4. Fry for 15-18 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the edges look crispy and the potatoes are fork tender.
5. Add the fresh dill and stir-fry for another minute.

Recipe borrowed from www.myheartbeets.com.

July 25, 2024 - This Week's Box Contents Featuring Dill

 

What's In The Box

Italian Garlic: We are getting closer to fully dried garlic. Now it’s time to get it all topped, cleaned and tucked away in dry storage! It’s best to keep your garlic in a dry location at room temperature.

Sierra Blanca Onions: This variety of fresh, white onion has earned its spot in our onion progression because it forms a sizeable onion ahead of some of our other sweet Spanish & storage onion varieties. This mild onion is excellent when eaten raw, but is also tasty when sauteed, grilled or roasted.

Broccoli: Broccoli for breakfast? Why not?! Add broccoli to your morning scramble, incorporate it into a quiche or breakfast casserole, roll it into an omelet.

Cauliflower or Green Curly Kale: We are almost finished with our early planted cauliflower, then we’ll have a gap until our fall crops come in. One way to preserve cauliflower is to pickle it! Check out the recipe below for Giardiniera. Some boxes will receive Green Curly Kale in place of Cauliflower. Turn this curly kale into kale chips for a healthy snacking alternative!

Zucchini and/or Scallopini Squash: There is a bounty of this item in your box this week! See below for recipe suggestions to put your zucchini and scallopini squash to good use! Scallopini squash is shaped differently but may be used interchangeably in most recipes that call for zucchini…especially if you are dicing or shredding it.

Orange Carrots: This week we transitioned from green top carrots to bulk harvesting the rest of the field. Carrots are a staple vegetable that makes for a quick and easy snack, but also serves as a base ingredient in many recipes.

New Red Potatoes: The potato plants are holding on and still look green and healthy, which means more growth potential! This week’s potatoes are still “new” potatoes and were harvested earlier this week. Please handle them gently when washing them before use as their skins are still very tender and delicate….as is their fresh flavor!

Green Bell Pepper: We’re kicking off pepper season this week with the first, early green bells! Pair these with onions in omelets, on sandwiches, fajitas, etc.

Dill: This feathery, fragrant herb adds a nice, delicate, distinct flavor to dishes. If you are adding it to a cooked dish, do so just before serving to maximize the flavor. Check out this week’s vegetable feature for more info about this herb!

Green and/or Yellow Beans: This week’s beans would make for a beautiful Three Bean Salad (see recipe link below). If using green/yellow beans raw in a salad, it’s best to blanch (par cook) them first to tenderize them.         
       
Jalapeño Pepper: There is one jalapeño in your box, and they have some heat to them this year! Store at room temperature and add a little heat to a fresh zucchini salsa!

Tomatillos or Baby Bok Choi: Our tomatillos are just starting to produce, so rest assured there are more to come! Remove the outer husk before use. The fruit inside will have a sticky, tacky feel on its exterior, which is completely normal. Wash the fruit after you remove the husk and before you use it. Bok Choi is one of our season long crops that we grow from mid-April through October. It may be used in raw salads and is a nice crispy, crunchy substitute for lettuce!

CHOICE: Italian Basil—This week we are sending a box of Italian basil to each site as a “Choice” item that will be packed on the side. If you would like to enjoy some basil, you may take a small handful. Please be courteous to the other members at your site and do not take more than your fair share so there will be enough for all members who wish to select this item as a choice.

Recipe Suggestions & Inspiration For This Week’s Box Contents
The Fluffiest Omelet with Broccoli, Red Onion, White Cheddar & Feta (garnished with dill!)
Broccoli and Bacon Quiche
Potato, Sausage and Broccoli Frittata Casserole
Brats with Grilled Peppers & Onions
Giardiniera (Italian Pickled Vegetables)
30-Minute Cheesy Kale Chips
Three Bean Salad
Yellow Beans with Garlic & Basil
Roasted Zucchini Salsa
Raw Zucchini Salsa
Zucchini Curry
Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bars
Double Chocolate Zucchini Bars
Vegetarian Stuffed Patty Pan (aka Scallopini) Squash
Ricotta Stuffed Patty Pan Squash
Roasted Carrot Salad with Feta & Dill
Baked Carrot Fries
5-Ingredient Carrot Fritters
Roasted Tomatillo & Chickpea Curry
Mexican Eggs In Purgatory (Tomatillos & Jalapeño)
Spicy Ginger Pork Noodles with Bok Choi
Bok Choi Salad with Sesame-Almond Crunch

Vegetable Feature: Dill

Dill, sometimes known as dill weed, is an herb in the celery family. The feathery green herb’s leaves are long, soft, and very thin. Dill has a sweet, grassy taste with a hint of licorice. At Harmony Valley Farm, we grow dill starting with our first weekly plantings in April, and end plantings at the end of August. Dill harvest normally ends around the end of September.

Preparation & Usage

Dill is a popular herb used worldwide, and plays a key role in many traditional recipes everywhere from Russia to India and Egypt to Sweden. There are many countries that combine dill with either butter or cream and use it as a topping on potatoes. Dill is also a popular ingredient to mix into sauces and soups. Stuffed cabbage and omelets can also feature dill as a filling. If cooking dill sounds like too much of a hassle, it can also be added to any fresh salad or used as a garnish. Of course, you can always use dill to create pickles, as well!

Dill is best fresh, as it can lose its potency quickly when dried.  While cooking with fresh dill, you are going to want to add it in as a last step, since it will lose flavor through the cooking process as well.

Dill pairs well with potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, mushrooms, fish, especially salmon, seafood, yogurt, cream, butter, cheese, eggs, and other herbs such as parsley, chives and basil.

Storage Tips

Dill can be stored loosely wrapped in plastic in the refrigerator for a few days. If you have room and want to keep your dill around a little longer, you can place the bunched dill in a glass of water like a bouquet of flowers, wrap the whole thing in plastic, and place it in the fridge.

For even longer storage, you can freeze dill: Pulse or finely chop in a food processor.  Add just enough water to turn the leaves into a paste, then spoon into an ice cube tray and freeze.  Once you have frozen dill ice cubes, move them to a freezer storage container.  These are great to pop into a soup!

Health & Nutrition

Dill has been used in traditional medicines to treat ailing stomachs, as well as colic in infants.

Additional Fun Facts 

The scientific name for dill is Anethum graveolens, and it is the only species in the genus Anethum.  This tidbit is doubly interesting as the Latin name for the genus ultimately comes from a Greek word that means both dill and anise.

Ukrainian Dill Potatoes in Cream Sauce

Photo from www.thestoriedrecipe.com

This week’s recipe is a humble one, but it’s also one that showcases the fresh flavors of both new potatoes and onions complemented by the fresh, aromatic essence of dill.  Recipes similar to this one may be found in the cuisine of other northern climates such as Sweden.  In both Swedish and Ukrainian recipes you’ll find dill commonly paired with staple vegetables such as potatoes, beets and carrots.  This is a simple side dish to any summer meal!

Yield:  4 servings

2 pounds new potatoes

2 tsp plus ¼ tsp salt, divided

3 Tbsp butter

1 medium onion, chopped

½ cup heavy cream

⅛ tsp black pepper

1 cup fresh dill fronds, chopped

1. Wash the potatoes and then cut any larger ones in half or quarters so all pieces are similar sized.  
2. Put the potatoes in a medium saucepan and just cover with cold water.  Add 2 tsp of the salt and stir.
3. Partially cover the pot and bring to a simmer over high heat.
4. Uncover and reduce heat to low.  Stir.
5. Simmer the potatoes until they are fork tender, 5-8 minutes.  Drain.
6. While potatoes cook, in a large skillet melt the butter over medium-low heat.  Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, 3-5 minutes.
7. Add the heavy cream, the remaining ¼ tsp salt and the pepper.  Stir
8. Increase the heat to medium and bring the cream up to a simmer, stirring constantly.  Reduce the heat to low and add the dill.
9. Add the drained potatoes to the skillet.  Use a large spoon to turn them over in the cream sauce, coating them.
10. Gently stir them in the sauce over low heat for 1 minute.  Serve.

Recipe borrowed from www.thestoriedrecipe.com.