Hello!
We hope that you have big cooking plans for the Fourth of July and that you plan to shop the market for the ingredients!! Bill will have so much delicious food this week. And many items are just perfect for the grill or a potluck party. Here are some ideas …
1. Green bean salad
2. New potato salad
3. A fresh veggie tray with young carrots, sliced green peppers, kohlrabi matchsticks, and broccoli
4. Grilled summer squash (just slice it lengthwise in half, cut slits into the inside face, stuff with garlic slices and grill face up with a light coating of balsamic and olive oil)
5. Roasted beets on the grill – easily turned into a beet salad after grilling. And why not add some of the goat cheese that I mention below?
So that’s right, we have GREEN BEANS! Do you remember last year’s beans? Bill grows truly amazing beans. This week he’ll have French Filet (tiny, thin and very fancy) and traditional green beans. He will have dragon tongue beans later. Hand-picked green beans are one of life’s pure joys (especially when YOU have not been picking them!). We like to blanch them and then add a vinaigrette with some chopped SHALLOTS and GARLIC. I also found this good-looking recipe on the 101 Cookbooks website (check out http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/vibrant-tasty-green-beans-recipe.html).
Vibrant Tasty Green Bean Recipe
The following recipe is best made just before serving time. But as I mentioned in the main post you can make/prep this ahead of time by cooking the leeks and dill first and setting them aside. Instead of cooking the green beans in the skillet, blanch them in a pot of boiling, well-salted water for about a minute. Drain the beans and dunk them in a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and place the beans in a bag or bowl in the refrigerator until ready to use. When ready, combine the components - you can do it at room temperature, or heated quickly in a skillet or pan.
4 leeks, well washed, root end and tops trimmed, sliced lengthwise into quarters and then chopped into 1/2-inch segments
1/3 cup fresh dill, well chopped
3/4 pound green beans, tops and tails trimmed and cut into 1-inch segments
extra-virgin olive oil
fine-grain sea salt
In a large thick-bottomed skillet of medium-high heat add a generous splash of olive oil, a generous pinch of salt and the leeks. Stir until the leeks are coated and glossy. Cook, stirring regularly until a lot of the leeks are golden and crispy. I stir every minute or two in the beginning, and more often as they brown using a metal spatula. All in all it takes me roughly 7 - 10 minutes to brown the leeks. At this point stir in the dill, and then stir in the green beans. Cook for a couple more minutes - just until the the beans brighten up and lose that raw bite. Turn out into a bowl or onto a platter and serve immediately. Serves about 6.
New Potatoes
The new potatoes are also just unbelievably delicious right now. We prefer to eat them simply – just boil in salted water, drain, and then add melted butter, salt, and pepper. Throw in some rosemary if you’re feeling adventurous. The new potatoes have a very creamy texture, even without butter. Or try this awesome sounding recipe from 101 Cookbooks at http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/grilled-potato-salad-recipe.html.
Grilled Potato Salad Recipe
When I went to grill the potatoes and squash I set each piece on the grill, I suspect you could also use one of those grill baskets with success as well. I also thought about finishing this version with chopped jalapeno, cilantro and toasted sesame seeds - you can make it as simple or embellished as you like, depending on your individual tastes. I used a red-leafed lettuce here.
10 medium-sized new potatoes, unpeeled and quartered
3-4 small yellow summer pattypan squash, cut in half
1 bunch of green onions or spring onions
a big splash of olive oil
2 lemons, cut in half
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
clove of garlic, mashed and chopped
a couple drops of toasted sesame oil
salt
1/2 a head of lettuce, washed and cut into bite-sized pieces
Toss the potato wedges, squash, and green onions with a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Place them on a medium-hot grill. Place the lemons on the grill as well, cut side down. Grill for 10-20 minutes or until golden and cooked through - moving around the grill if needed and flipping to get color on all sides. The squash will likely cook faster than the potatoes, remove pieces and place on a platter when they are done grilling.
While everything is grilling, whisk together the rice vinegar, olive oil, garlic, sesame oil, and a couple pinches of salt. When the onions come off the grill, let them cool for a couple minutes and then cut into 1/2-inch segments. Set aside.
Toss the lettuce with a splash of the dressing, and turn it out onto a large platter. Now toss the vegetables (but not the lemons) with a big splash of the dressing and arrange it on top of the lettuce sprinkled with the reserved grilled green onion segments. Garnish with the lemon (which I like to squeeze over my salad just before eating for an added layer of extra mellow tang that goes great with the potatoes. Serves 6 (or so) as a side.
Garlic
We have been harvesting this year’s garlic crop for the past several days, and we have many more days to go. That said, NOW IS THE TIME to start buying some garlic! It’s absolutely perfect right now. It may be our best garlic year ever. The heads sized up really well, and the cloves are nice and big. Bill will be bringing hard-neck and soft-neck varieties. The flavors are almost indistinguishable, but those with a serious garlic sensor could tell that the hard neck is better. Hard neck also has fewer, large cloves than the soft-neck. What you see in the stores is invariably soft-neck because it stores much longer (many months as opposed to several months). Braided garlic is also a soft-neck variety.
New Cheese Vendor!!
Did you notice the newest vendor at the Bloomington Farmers Market? We are very fortunate that Leslie Cooperband of Prairie Fruits (Urbana, IL) has decided to make our market one of her newest outlets for fabulous goat and sheep cheeses. I visited her website at http://www.prairiefruits.com/ and saw that she’ll have some cheeses on sale this week because the hot weather impacted some of the cheese varieties. I DEFINITELY plan to stop by her stand to pick some up!! We brought some home last week, and the boys loved it. (They have a pretty refined palate for being so young, although they have a hard time describing flavors. When we asked Noah, age 6.5, to use some words to describe Leslie’s cheese, he said, “It’s a foot away from awesome.” High praise!)
For the next market, here’s what you can expect:
Green beans
Summer squash
New potatoes
Cabbage
Carrots
Shallots
Green Peppers
Fennel
Kohlrabi
Sugar Snap Peas (maybe)
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Spinach (very little)
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Salad Mix
Kale
Collard Greens
Arugula
Basil
Parsley
Broccoli
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call us at 309-467-9228. You can also email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com, although during the farm season we can’t guarantee that we’ll be checking the email as often as usual.
Best,
Mercy
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