Harmony Valley Farm: eat your greens

Welcome to week 4 of our CSA season and the last week of May! The month of May has been interesting, to say the least. In one month we’ve had temperatures in the 90’s and just this last week we woke up to frost in the valley! Despite an unusual spring and the uncertainty of the weather, Mother Nature still delivers and we continue to have food on our tables. This week we’re not featuring one particular vegetable, but rather a category of vegetables that we’re loosely calling “greens.” As I mention in this week’s vegetable feature article (See below), we have long been advocates for “eating your greens every day!” The good news is, greens are nature’s fast foods. They are quick and easy to cook and versatile in their use. This week’s featured recipe is for Marilyn’s Stir-fry Sauce (See below). Marilyn is a longtime CSA member and shared this recipe with me several years ago. It’s a great sauce that can be made in advance so you can make a quick stir-fry on the fly using any seasonal greens or vegetables you have available. It’s called creative cooking, following your instinct and using what you have available to you at that moment. So get creative with your vegetable combinations and use up some of those greens in this week’s box!

Following along with our theme of “Eat Your Greens…Every Day,” I also included recipe suggestions for using radish tops as well as the unique hon tsai tai. There are many ways you can eat and enjoy radish tops, but I like this recipe for Radish top Pasta with Chickpeas and Parsley. While Hon Tsai Tai and Shiitake Potstickers do take a little time to assemble, but they are fun to make and very tasty!

In addition to a lot of green-centric recipes this week, I’ve also included a recipe for Rhubarb Cheesecake and Sparkling Rhubarb Lemonade as well as Cheesy Baked Asparagus with Gruyere Cheese, Garlic & Bacon and Sheet Pan 30-Minute Sticky Apricot Chicken and Asparagus. These spring vegetables won’t be around for very long, so enjoy them while they are in season!

Looking ahead to next week, we’re hoping our first crop of Baby White Salad Turnips will be ready. We’re also hoping to start harvesting cilantro soon, along with more head lettuce from the field. Before I close out this week, I want to thank everyone who has been participating in our private Facebook Group. There have been some awesome suggestions, shares and interaction since the start of deliveries. It’s really fun to see what everyone is cooking up! If you aren’t part of our group yet, we encourage you to join so you don’t miss out on the fun!

Have a good week—

Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Eat Your Greens. . . Every Day!

by Andrea Yoder

Hon Tsai Tai

For those of you who have been with us over the years, you know that spring is the time for green leafy vegetables (hereafter referred to as “greens”). Five of the nine vegetables in this week’s box fall into this category of greens. They include baby arugula, sauté mix, mini head lettuce, hon tsai tai and radish tops. Root vegetables that are harvested with their green tops are bonus vegetables! We have long been advocates for regularly including greens in our diets. We know they are packed with valuable nutrients that keep us healthy and contribute to our overall wellness, but they have other attributes that are worth mentioning as well. For starters, there are so many different kinds of greens in the world and many of them grow in our climate. Greens such as this week’s hon tsai tai are important to our seasonal lineup of vegetables because they thrive at a certain time or in certain growing conditions. Hon Tsai Tai thrives during the cool of the spring and grows quickly thereby providing us with something to eat while we wait for some of the other vegetables to grow and mature. Amaranth is another example of a green selected for a specific time slot. It grows in the heat of the summer when other greens are stressed by the heat and are a challenge to grow. In addition to nutrition, variety and seasonality, greens are also delicious and many of them are quick cooking which is why I like to call them “Nature’s fast food!” Read on and I’ll explain.

Head Lettuce starting in the tunnel Greenhouse

Many people are intimidated by greens and think they are time consuming or hard to cook. My job this week is to help you move past intimidation, because no one should ever be intimidated by a vegetable! For starters, there are some basic cooking principles that can help you figure out the best way to prepare and use your greens. The first question might be “Do I eat this raw or cooked?” We’ll usually tell you in the newsletter, but you can often determine this for yourself. Take a little piece of a leaf and eat it. If it feels tough, chewy or fibrous, it probably should be cooked. If you find the green to be strong flavored or bitter, cooking will help to mellow the flavor. If the green you are eating is tender, and well-balanced in flavor it is most likely appropriate for eating raw, but may also be cooked. Most greens can be used interchangeably with others of similar texture. For example, if you have a recipe that calls for chard, you could substitute beet greens. If you have a recipe for cooked spinach, you can likely substitute other tender greens such as hon tsai tai, nettles or amaranth.

Lacinato Kale

The cooking technique you choose is most often determined by the nature of the green, its flavors and texture. Appropriate ways to cook more tender greens include wilting, sautéing, and stir-frying. Wilting greens is very easy and employs the moisture that is clinging to the greens after washing them. Simply add moist greens to a hot pan, add a splash of liquid and cover the pan to produce some steam. It won’t take long for the greens to wilt down. You can also wilt greens just by adding them to a hot soup, broth or sauce. Sautéed greens are a good stand-by method for true “fast food.” Start with a little bit of oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add base ingredients of your choosing (onions, garlic, mushrooms, etc.) and cook for just a few minutes until they are tender. Add your greens and any other ingredients you may choose to flavor them (soy sauce, miso, ginger, etc.). Sauté just until the greens have wilted down and you’re done! Cooking techniques such as those described above may take as little as 3-5 minutes or up to 10 minutes to complete. Don’t walk too far away from the pan while they are cooking or you risk overcooking them!

Red Radishes in the field, don't
forget to eat the green tops too!

Hardier greens such as kale and collards will require a little more prep and cooking time. You can eat these greens raw and they actually make delicious salads. The key to a delicious kale salad is to cut the kale into small, bite-sized pieces and allow enough time to “marinate” the kale leaves. Dressing the salad in advance allows the vinegar and oil in the dressing to break down the kale leaves and softens them without cooking them. If you are cooking them, you’ll want to make sure you use some source of moisture—added water, broth, stock, tomato juice, etc and allow time for the greens to soften.

As we wrap up this discussion I want to circle back to my comment that greens are “Nature’s Fast Food.” While some greens such as collards and kale do require a little longer cooking time, most greens can be turned into a meal pretty quickly as they are quick cooking and/or may simply be eaten raw. I use this attribute to my advantage when I need to put a healthy meal on the table quickly, which is most days! In less than 10 minutes I can sauté greens and serve them with a fried egg on top or mix them into scrambled eggs, hot rice or pasta, hot beans or soups. I can also use greens to make a quick stir-fry. In the time it takes to cook rice, I can stir-fry greens and other seasonal vegetables along with protein such as beef or chicken. Add a quick sauce such as the recipe featured in this week’s newsletter and you can sit down to a nutritious meal in little time.

For greens that may be eaten raw, the key to quick preparation is to invest a little time in advance to make sure the greens are washed, cleaned and ready to go. I also like to keep a simple vinaigrette or salad dressing in the refrigerator. If I have clean greens and a vinaigrette, I can create a salad very quickly. In fact, it can become a main dish by adding protein such as cooked chicken, beef, tofu, nuts or seeds.

We hope you enjoy incorporating more greens into your daily meals and hopefully these tips have helped you see how to use them to your advantage, both so you don’t miss out on their valuable nutrients, but also for the ways they can help make your meal prep quick and painless so you can eat well in the midst of a busy life.

Marilyn's Stir Fry Sauce

Serves 8-10

This is an all-purpose stir-fry sauce which goes well with a vegetarian meal as well as with chicken, pork, shrimp or beef. It keeps well in the refrigerator in a tightly closed jar, which is why the proportions in this recipe allow enough for two meals.

This sauce is added after the vegetables and meats are stir-fried. The final mixture is then brought back just to a boil before serving.

All the ingredients can be purchased at a good grocery store. The toasted sesame oil is needed for flavor, and can be reduced (but not omitted) to lower the fat content. The minimal alcohol involved is used to bring out flavors prior to its evaporation.

2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil

2 tsp minced fresh garlic

2 tsp minced fresh ginger root

2 cups (14.5 oz can) chicken or vegetable stock

3 Tbsp soy sauce or tamari

2 Tbsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp lemon juice

2 Tbsp cornstarch

3 Tbsp rice wine or cooking sherry (dry cocktail sherry)

In a small saucepan, heat sesame oil. Add garlic and ginger and stir fry for 15-30 seconds over medium heat to bring out the flavor. Add chicken stock, soy sauce, brown sugar and lemon juice. Bring just to a boil, stirring all the time.
In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in the rice wine, then whisk this into the sauce. Heat until the sauce thickens and reaches a full boil. Continue to stir the sauce as it thickens. Simmer just below boiling for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and set aside.
Any portion of sauce that you are not using right away should be cooled and then poured into a quart jar. Store it in the refrigerator until needed.

This recipe was shared by Marilyn Chohaney, long time CSA member and friend of the farm! It may be used to make your own custom stir-fries utilizing any combination of seasonal vegetables available throughout the year. During this time of year you can make some tasty stir-fries using green garlic, scallions, asparagus, radishes, greens, baby white turnips, etc. In the summer you may use peppers, zucchini, white onions, chard, fresh garlic and broccoli. As you can see, there is no recipe with exact quantities and ingredients. This is a loose concept that you can vary and play with throughout the season. You may choose to make a vegetable only stir-fry, or you can add protein of your choosing. Garnish your stir-fry with toasted cashews or almonds, sesame seeds, or even fresh cilantro.

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Vitality... Eat Your Greens Every Day!

By Chef Andrea Yoder

Rainbow Chard

Farmer Richard says “Eat your greens every day!” Yes, this is a direct quote and a message we try to follow in our own lives for our own health and well-being. “Greens” is a general term we use to refer to a wide category of vegetables that includes leafy vegetables such as kale, collards and Swiss chard. This group also includes “salad” type greens such as lettuce, arugula, baby kale mix, and spinach. Of course, we can’t forget the Asian greens including bok choi, tat soi, hon tsai tai, mizuna, komatsuna, and the list goes on! I’ve already listed twelve different vegetables and I didn’t even mention some of the unique greens we grow such as the pea vine in this week’s box, sorrel, amaranth greens, Egyptian spinach, nettles and Portuguese kale. Of course we can’t forget the bonus greens we get when we harvest root crops with their green tops still attached. This would include things such as turnip greens, radish tops, carrot tops and beet greens. In this short paragraph alone I’ve listed over twenty different vegetables that could be loosely categorized as “greens.” Oh man, I totally forgot to mention sweetheart cabbage, kohlrabi leaves, mustard, mibuna, broccoli raab, escarole, radicchio, and endive! If you’re eating out of a CSA box, you can see that it’s actually very easy to follow Farmer Richard’s advice to eat greens every day! I’ve listed thirty different greens and this list still isn’t all-inclusive!

Amaranth thriving in the summer heat

Greens are not just something we grow as a “box filler.” We believe they are an important part of a seasonal diet and we try to provide a minimum of a salad green and a cooking green in most boxes over the course of the season. Of course there are some challenging times of the year when we are more limited in what’s available. For example, spinach and lettuce are challenging crops to grow in the heat of the summer. The seeds are difficult to germinate in hot soil and the product often looks tough and doesn’t taste very good when grown in this season. These crops are much happier when grown in the cool of spring and fall and actually taste much better! During these times of the season, there are other greens we can rely on, such as amaranth which actually thrives in the heat of summer, tastes good and is more nutritious than even spinach! Later in the season as winter approaches, we look for different greens that will be able to survive a frost and actually thrive when grown in colder conditions. This is why we grow vegetables such as escarole and radicchio. So, from a growing perspective, there is some strategy involved in selecting different greens for different parts of the season.

Red Curly Kale

The other reason we grow greens is because they are so nutritious and they are good for us! Food provides us with nourishment and vitality. What is vitality? Vitality refers to a feeling or state of aliveness when you are full of life and energy. The food we choose to eat is a big part of building vitality. When you choose fresh vegetables eaten as close to the point of harvest as possible, you are feeding your body living foods brimming with vitality. The nutrients and plant compounds that we ingest become part of our bodies and give us energy, nourishment, strength and health. Who doesn’t want to feel better! Greens in particular are powerhouses of vitality and nutrition. When we make an effort to include a variety of greens in our diet and commit to eating some kind of “green” every day, we provide our body with a diverse profile of nutrients to work with. Of course every green does not have the same nutritional profile. Iceberg lettuce does not contain the same nutrients as amaranth or kale. Nonetheless, greens contribute a whole host of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other beneficial phytochemicals to our diet that impact our health and well-being in many positive ways. Greens contribute nutrients to our diets that are important to many body systems including our skin, immunity, detoxification pathways, skeletal health and our circulatory system.

CSA Box contents from June 15, 2017

Do you realize how fortunate you are to be a CSA member and have the opportunity to eat

such a wide variety of foods, greens included? Greens have not always been a big part of my personal diet. My exposure to greens as a kid included a little bit of spinach, lettuce and cabbage. I remember seeing collard and turnip greens in the grocery store on occasion, but we never bought them. We didn’t know what to do with them! I admit, I’m envious of CSA kids and families who have the opportunity to be exposed to these greens and they just become part of the “normal” diet. It wasn’t until I became an adult, went to culinary school, ventured out of the Midwest and then landed on a vegetable farm that I even knew many of these green leafy vegetables even existed!

Have I convinced you yet that you should eat your greens every day? If you’re still teetering on the fence, here are a few more points to consider. We all like convenience and there are days when we just don’t have a lot of time to cook and prepare food. When you find yourself in this position, remember that many greens are actually nature’s version of “fast food!” Most greens don’t take long to cook or can be eaten raw. I like to fill my kitchen sink with water, get my salad spinner out and wash all of my greens for the week at one time. I put them in bags or containers in the refrigerator so they are ready for me to use. Then, throughout the week I can very easily incorporate greens into our meals with minimal prep time. Add some greens to your smoothie or scrambled eggs in the morning. Make a quick salad for lunch or make a quick wrap with a tortilla spread with cream cheese and packed with some greens. One of my go-to quick dinners is a seared pork chop or piece of salmon with sautéed greens. Salmon and pork chops are pretty fast cooking and you can add the greens to the same pan just before they are finished. You can have dinner on the table in less than 15 minutes!

Baby White Turnip and Yogurt Dressing Salad

Do you have bad memories of overcooked, boring, tasteless or bad tasting greens from prior experiences or your childhood? I understand. I can still smell that disgusting, overcooked spinach they tried to serve us as part of our elementary school lunch. Please understand, it doesn’t have to be that way! There are so many delicious ways to enjoy greens. Sometimes I like to keep it simple and just season greens with salt, pepper and maybe a splash of vinegar or lemon juice. You could also do something as easy as adding some sautéed garlic, onion or ginger to the pan and then drizzle a little bit of toasted sesame oil on the greens once they are cooked. Soy sauce, mushrooms, dried fruit, nuts, olives, pepper flakes, cream, cheese…these are all simple, complementary ways to dress up some simple greens.

Red treviso radicchio

I want to mention that some greens have a stronger flavor or sometimes bitterness (as in the case of escarole and radicchio) when eaten raw. If you taste a little piece of green and find the flavor to be too strong or pungent, don’t automatically eliminate it as a possibility of something you might like. Other ingredients help to balance the flavors of greens, making them more enjoyable. For example, I do not care to just eat a handful of arugula leaves on their own. I do, however, enjoy eating an arugula salad that has a light citrus vinaigrette, some shredded Parmesan, a few slices of sweet apple and some toasted almonds. The acidity from the vinaigrette, fat from the cheese and nuts and the sweetness of the apple all come together to create a harmonious flavor along with the arugula. Cooking also mellows out the flavors of greens. For example, mustard greens are pretty pungent when they are raw, but are very palatable and enjoyable when wilted into dishes along with beans, rice, etc.

Curried Nettle Stew with Chickpeas & Chicken

Intimidated by cooking greens? Don’t be...in fact, let me just say you should never feel intimidated by a vegetable. It’s just a vegetable! Plus, we’re here to help you learn how to enjoy the vegetables in your box, greens included. Cooking greens is actually pretty simple when you consider a few basic things. Some greens are more delicate and tender, such as spinach, arugula, tat soi, saute greens, hon tsai tai, etc. These greens generally may be eaten either raw or cooked. If you’re cooking them, they are going to wilt down very quickly so you just need a quick-cooking method such as pan-steaming, stir-frying or sauteeing. These greens can usually be cooked in 5-10 minutes at most. Some greens, such as green curly kale, lacinato kale and collards, have a thicker leaf and will require a little longer cooking time to soften and tenderize the leaves. These greens are also often cooked with liquid, either braised on their own or incorporated into a soup, stew or other braised dish. It may take 15-20 minutes or more to cook these greens, depending on your preferences. If it’s your first time cooking a green that is new to you, just take a minute to consider its characteristics and that can help you decide the best way to prepare it. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different ways of cooking greens and figure out your preferred methods.

Farmer Richard eating a Nettle Cupcake

Historically our CSA members have been somewhat divided regarding greens. Half of the membership loves greens and wants more and the other half says “too many greens” and in some cases, “no more greens!” We try to strike a healthy balance and encourage everyone to approach these vegetables with an open mind and a willingness to at least try them. I truly hope you enjoy or learn to enjoy eating your greens and exploring ways to incorporate them into your meals each week. We do our best to grow nutritious food for you and hope you experience health, well-being and a greater sense of vitality when you eat vegetables from your farm. So, let's all make Farmer Richard proud…eat your greens today!