Red Wagon Farm

Shaved Fennel Salad, and other Fennel Ideas

Posted on July 17, 2016 by mo

Last week I mentioned that I really like fennel raw. I think it tastes best raw if it is shaved as thin as you can possibly get it. I used a food possessor for this salad, you can use a mandoline if you have one. Or, just use your knife and as you are cutting think ‘thin fennel, thin fennel’.

I got this recipe from 101 Cookbooks. It is really basic and, like most of the recipes on Heidi Swanson website it starts with a great idea that you can adapt to whatever you have on hand. I had fennel, zucchini, and the ingredients for the dressing. I also had some zucchini blossoms leftover from Thursday’s CSA pickup. I tore them up and added them to the salad. The blossoms add a nice floral/zucchini flavor and I think they are beautiful.

The main idea here is to cut the fennel very thin, and to let the flavors meld and mellow for a hour or so with the dressing before you eat.

I love roasted fennel, but I don’t love the oven on in the summer. Pan roasting is a great option when you don’t want to heat up the whole house with the oven on.

Just heat up a pan to medium and add some oil, I used olive oil. Add your sliced fennel, don’t crowd the pan or you will steam your fennel, not roast it.

Keep the heat to medium and after 8 or 10 minutes turn the fennel. You want it to slowly brown and get really soft and caramelized. This is after about 10 minutes, go slow.

This is going to take about 25 or 30 minutes.

You want it really ‘done’. Yum.

OK. What else? How about those fennel fronds? What to do with them? You can snip off the tender bits and use them like any herb, stuff them in a chicken or fish and roast or grill the fish or chicken.Or, you could make some tea. Pour boiling water over the fronds and wait 20 or 30 minutes and strain it. Drink it warm or chill it and drink it cold.

….there are a lot of fronds in a fennel bunch. I have been using them for my flower bouquets as green filler.

What a pretty and delicious plant. Have fun with your fennel this week. I’ll be at several of the pick-ups. Let me know what you are doing with your CSA vegetables. I love to hear from you! Have a great week.

Posted in 2016, Fennel, Recipes | Comments Off

Grilled Fennel

Posted on July 12, 2016 by mo

Amy said she and Wyatt have been enjoying the beautiful fennel we have at the Farm right now grilled. I usually pan roast or shave fennel raw into salads. So, I thought I would try some grilled fennel for a change.

Before we get to the fennel, look at what I have from my CSA share.

Dang, what a haul. Let’s start with that fennel. Cut the fronds off and trim the bulbs up so they look a bit like this.

These fennel bulbs are pretty small and tender. You can leave them whole to grill, leave the root on so they don’t fall apart. Salt, pepper and oil them and toss them on the grill.

Do the same with any other vegetables you have, you might as well cook the rest of your vegetables, once the grill is hot. Any leftovers will be good with just about anything else you cook this week. I grilled my onions and zucchini and kale too.

The fennel, zucchini, and onions took about 20 minutes to cook. The kale only takes a few minutes. When the fennel is done you will want to cut off the tough root. You can either slice it up or serve it whole. I think it is pretty left whole, but easier to eat cut up. Do what works for you.

We had our grilled fennel and vegetables over polenta. There were a lot of leftover grilled vegetables for a few more meals this week. I liked the fennel grilled. The texture is a bit like cooked celery and the flavor is less anise pronounced than raw fennel. I must confess, I do like the fresh crunch of raw fennel. I hope we have more fennel bulbs in our CSA future.

Enjoy these dog days of summer, and all the great food we are getting.

Posted in 2016, Fennel, Recipes | Comments Off

Broccoli Slaw with Buttermilk Dressing

Posted on July 3, 2016 by mo

Like everyone else in America we are BBQ’ing this weekend with Family and Friends. I love coleslaw with BBQ. I love the fresh crunch of cabbage with a light, creamy dressing. We got broccoli and onions in our CSA share, so instead of using cabbage for my ‘coleslaw’ I’m using my broccoli and an onion. All I have to do is chop them up and make the dressing.

Start with your broccoli and an onion or two.

I like to peel the tough parts of my broccoli stalks , but you can use just the tops, or forget about peeling the stalks if you don’t mind the extra fiber!

I don’t peel too much, just the bottom bits. Now, chop all that up into bite size pieces.

Now make your favorite buttermilk dressing recipe, or use mine! This is kind of thin, I like it like that. If you want yours thicker use more mayonnaise and less buttermilk.

Buttermilk Dressing
1/2 cup buttermilk, well-shaken
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons vinegar, I usually use white, or cider
1 tablespoon honey

Optional add-in ingredients to the dressing or slaw are:

Onions or shallots-I am going to add some extra onions to the dressing

Dried fruit-I have some dried sour cherries I am going to throw in

Nuts-I threw in some roasted pecans on top

Happy 4th Red Wagon Friends!

Posted in 2016, Broccoli, Recipes, Salads-Spring-Summer | Comments Off

Braised Collard Greens with Tomatoes

Posted on July 2, 2016 by mo

You can quickly saute collards like you do kale and chard, but I think collards really shine when they are braised.

Braising breaks down the collards and makes them silky. I love the taste and texture of braised collards served over rice or corn bread.

Here is a basic braised collard recipes. You can sub stock instead of tomatoes if you like, and you can braise the collards for 20 minutes, up to two hours or so for very done collards.
I like them cooked a somewhere in between, like an hour or so. But taste as you go and see how you like your collards.
The beauty of braising is you don’t lose any of the nutrients, they are all in the braising liquid.

Braised Collard Greens with Tomatoes
1 bunch of collard greens, washed, stems removed
14.5 oz can tomatoes
1 large onion, diced
2 – 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup water or cooking stock
salt + pepper to taste
a sprinkling of smoked paprika and a glug of cider vinegar are optional but delicious.

Directions;
Roll washed and stemmed collard leaves in to a large bundle. Slice into one inch ribbons.

Chopped Collards

Heat olive oil over medium heat. Cook onions and garlic over medium heat until onions soften and start to turn translucent. Add tomatoes to the pan, bring to a simmer. Add collard greens and a dash of salt + pepper, in batches, tossing with tongs to wilt. Add water to the pan and simmer on medium heat for 30 minutes or up to 2 hours, until collards are thoroughly cooked.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.

This is what it looks like after about 30 minutes. So, take it to here or further and enjoy.

Saute with Tomatoes

Posted in 2014, Collards, Recipes, Tomatoes-Tomatillos | Comments Off

Herb Ideas

Posted on June 27, 2016 by mo

One of the very special ‘perks’ we get often get in our CSA share at Red Wagon is a choice of herbs.

I thought it might be helpful to start a section here sharing a couple of my favorite things I do with herbs: Herbaceous Salad Dressing and Compound Butters (below).

This is one of my favorite salad dressing, it’s a Herbaceous dressing using parsley or cilantro. This dressing uses hard boiled eggs, not raw eggs like most dressing. So, the worry of eating raw eggs is avoided AND the dressing will keep in the refrigerator for several day, unlike raw egg dressings.

Herbaceous Salad Dressing

2 hard boiled eggs
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp dry or Dijon style mustard
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup oil, any kind or mix of any kind you like or have on hand
1/4 cup of any vinegar you like. Cider vinegar is good here with just a splash of balsamic.
a big handful of parsley or cilantro chopped

Start with your eggs and herbs. I have bantam chickens and their eggs are about 1/2 the size of standard size hen so I needed more bantam eggs to = 2 large eggs.

Parsley and Eggs

Put the egg yolks in a bowl with the dry ingredients and smash them up with a fork.

Egg Yolks

Next stir in the oil and vinegar, it makes a creamy, but not too thick dressing.

Creamed Dressing

Mix in the chopped egg whites and herbs and refrigerate the dressing for a few hours to let the flavors mix and mellow. This keeps for a week or so and is great on all greens and mixed vegetable salads.

Jar of Dressing

The next idea for using the herbs we get is making compound butters.

Compound Butters are a versatile fun addition to simple meals. They are so easy to make, you can use almost any combination of herbs and they keep in the refrigerator for a couple weeks and freeze pretty much indefinitely. If you freeze the butter you can cut off small portions as you need them.

The method for all compound butters is the same, just change the herbs you add.

Directions for all compound butters

Add all ingredients to a large glass or steel mixing bowl. Using an electric hand mixer, beat all ingredients until well incorporated and fluffy. If you do not have an electric hand mixer, you can do this by hand using a wooden spoon.
Place a piece of plastic wrap onto your counter and spoon the butter mixture out of the bowl and onto the center of the plastic wrap.
Grabbing the bottom portion of the plastic wrap, pull it up over the butter and begin forming the wrap around the butter, rolling and forming a log shape. Twist the ends of the plastic wrap and place butter in the refrigerator or freezer.

I had a bunch of dill and a few bulbs of green garlic from last week so I thought I would make a compound butter. This will be great to have on hand this summer when we grill fish or vegetables.

Dill and Garlic

Here is the butter, dill and green garlic on the plastic wrap. I decided to add some lemon zest at the last minute.

Compound Butter

Now roll the mix into a log and don’t forget to label it!

Label Your Butter

Yum…popcorn! I just remembered compound butters are great for popcorn too.

Have a great week and add any questions or comments to the bottom of the post.

Posted in 2016, Herbs, Recipes | Comments Off

Harvesting Garlic Scapes and Grilled Garlic Scape Pesto

Posted on June 18, 2016 by mo

“What are garlic scapes”? We are asked this question at CSA pickup and at the Market probably more than any other question I can think of. The scape is the part of the garlic plant that is trying to bud. We remove it, because it is delicious, and because when the scape is removed the garlic plant focus its energy into making the garlic bulb bigger rather than putting energy into procreating.

It is one thing to tell you that we pull the scape off the garlic plant, but I thought it would be more interesting and helpful to show you a video harvesting some scapes.

Some people cut the scape off the plant and don’t pull them. If you cut them you miss out on the yummy tender few inches hidden in the stalk. The first scape I pulled I didn’t get much of the tender stalk out, the second one shows how you ideally want to harvest scapes.

We have a recipe on this site for garlic scape pesto. I like garlic scapes grilled so I think I will makes some grilled garlic scape pesto and see if I like it as well as the original/raw version.

Here is the Garlic scape pesto recipe. I just grilled the scapes and followed the recipe.

Grilled scapes taste almost like green beans with a little garlic flavor. They are very mild.

Grilled Scapes

Put all the pesto ingredients in the food processor and give it a whirl.

Ingredients

…and there you go. Grilled garlic pesto. You can thin your pesto or leave it thick like this.

Pesto

Have a great Father’s Day weekend. I think we will grill some pizza and have the pesto on the pizzas.

Posted in 2016, Garlic, Recipes | 1 Comment

Directions for all compound butters

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