Red Wagon Farm

Massaged Kale Salad

Posted on February 7, 2013 by CSA Admin

Submitted by Amy (CSA member)

This is a suggestion I received from Amy a few weeks ago. She said she doesn’t really measure anything. Just use any and all of the ingredients to taste and according to your personal preferences.

Kale
Salt
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Maple syrup
Red wine vinegar
Craisins
Toasted almonds/sunflower seeds/pumpkin seeds

More protein/fiber additions:

Avocado
Smoked salmon

Massage kale with salt, olive oil and lemon juice. Add maple syrup and red wine vinegar to taste. Toss with craisins and nuts of your choice and top with avocado and/or smoked salmon.

Posted in 2012, Kale, Recipes, Salads-Spring-Summer | Comments Off

Beet and Carrot Coleslaw

Posted on February 7, 2013 by CSA Admin

Submitted by Susie (CSA member)

“This beet and carrot coleslaw has been popular with my six year old and pretty simple.”

beets (boiled and chilled), diced
carrots, diced
cabbage, diced
apple cider vinegar
olive oil
honey, optional

Blend diced vegetables with apple cider vinegar and a small amount of olive oil. We like it on the drier side so for half a head of cabbage I did 4 tablespoons of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of olive oil. I also added a bit of honey to counter the vinegar for the kids.

Also I have found that blending cooked beets with applesauce is a great way to introduce the beets to 1 and 2 year old types.

Susie

Posted in 2012 | Comments Off

Carrot Puree

Posted on February 7, 2013 by CSA Admin

I enjoy cooking with things that remind me of home. Having grown up in New England, two of my favorites are sharp Vermont white cheddar and maple syrup. One of my favorite ways to prepare carrots, which I picked up from eating at fancy restaurants with my grandparents as a child, is a warm puree.

Ingredients:

Carrots, boiled until tender (enough to feed your party)
Pure maple syrup, to taste
Cinnamon, to taste

Optional

Nutmeg, to taste
Cayenne pepper, to taste

Simply boil the carrots until they are soft enough to easily stick a fork into, throw them in a food processor and add cinnamon and maple syrup to taste. Nutmeg as well as cayenne pepper also go really well in here. Tread lightly when adding the syrup and the spices so you don’t mask the flavor of the carrots too much. I find our carrots from the farm to be particularly sweet anyway. I prepared this back in June as a side paired with our ripe sugar snap peas for a new take on peas and carrots, but I find this carrot puree to be a very versatile side that goes well with any sort of white fish or chicken. I’ve also used it in burritos with rice and beans in the same fashion that one might use a sweet potato.

Connor

Posted in 2012, Carrots, Recipes | Comments Off

Kale Salad

Posted on February 7, 2013 by mo

I love this salad. If you try it let us know how you like it. You could use any of the greens you get this week to make this salad. Mizuna, spicy salad mix, or kale.

¼ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons of shoyu or soy sauce
1 bunch of kale (or any green), chopped with ribs removed
½ to ¾ cup unsweetened large-flaked coconut. If you use small flaked use less coconut
Some crushed red pepper (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350F
Dump the washed and chopped kale and coconut with the oils and the soy sauce (and crushed red peppers if using) into a bowl.
Kale Salad
Make sure you mix the sauce all over the kale and coconut evenly.

Spread the contents of the bowl on a baking sheet and bake it for 20 to 25 minutes until the coconut starts to toast. You might need two baking sheets. Stir the kale once or twice while it’s cooking.

You can eat this as a side dish or I like to add some grains for a meal. I had some leftover jade rice. This is a great make-ahead dish and the leftovers are really good for lunches.
Sauteed over rice

– Mo

Posted in 2012, Kale, Recipes, Salads-Fall-Winter | Comments Off

Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms

Posted on February 7, 2013 by mo

You can eat the blossoms raw in a salad or they are really nice in a quesadilla. Just put it in with the cheese and it will soften with the melted cheese. The blossoms have a sort of ‘condensed’ zucchini flavor, but very mild. The stem is very tasty, so make sure you include that in whatever you make. Some recipes say to discard the stem. Don’t do that.
I made some fried and stuffed blossoms. It really isn’t complicated and it is just delicious. First you will want to remove the stamen before you do anything with your blossoms. The stamens are a little bitter.
This is a male stamen. I just gently tear the blossom and remove the stamen.

Zucchini Blossom
You can stuff your blossoms with anything, grains, cheese of any kind, herbs, anything.
I had some goat cheese and basil. So I mixed that up. And stuffed my blossoms.
Basil and Chevre
Stuff Blossom
Get a couple bowls and put a beaten egg in one and some seasoned flour in the other.
Pull the flower around the cheese and dip the blossom in the egg then the flour. You don’t have to be that careful with these. They are really forgiving. Eva stopped by when I was making these and she can’t eat gluten and I just fried some with cheese and without cheese for her and they were really good. Anyway…
Fry the dipped, stuffed blossom in a hot pan with oil. Make sure you press the stem down in the pan so it cooks.
Turn it over and fry the other side and there you go.
Fried Blossom
Three or four of those with a salad and some bread and wine makes a great summer dinner.
The blossoms will keep in the refrigerator for several days so don’t feel like you have to make these right away. I kept last week’s blossoms for 6 days in the fridge before I used them and they were fine.

– Mo

Posted in 2012, Recipes, Zucchini | Comments Off

Kale Chips

Posted on February 7, 2013 by CSA Admin

Stop me if you have heard this one before.
Kale Chip

1 bunch of kale leaves, any kind of kale works. I used curly kale. Rinse, dry, and tear into bite-sized pieces, center ribs and stems removed.
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 300°F. Toss kale with oil in large bowl. Sprinkle with salt. Arrange leaves in single layer on 2 large baking sheets. Give them lots of room or they will steam and not crisp up.

Bake until crisp, about 20 minutes for flat leaves and up to 30 minutes for wrinkled leaves. Just keep checking. I find that opening the oven a few times during cooking to release the steam really helps to dry the chips.

You can add a little sesame oil or truffle oil for added flavor with the olive oil, or sprinkle the chips with a little parmesan cheese or brewers yeast about 5 minutes before they are fully done.

Before and after.
Before and After Kale
These need to be fully dried and not soggy or chewy or they are really not tasty. They kind of shatter in your mouth when they are done right. Everyone loves these, even kale haters. I hope you do too.

– Mo

Posted in 2012, Kale, Recipes | Comments Off

Green Soup

Posted on February 7, 2013 by mo

This is a recipe/formula that has been going around the blogs on the internet. I had never made it before but I have seen several blogs raving about it. Here is the original Basic Green Soup
The recipe calls for chard and spinach but you can substitute any vegetables you have on hand. Broccoli, zucchini, anything you have.
I had some leftover, kind of droopy, chard and kale in my fridge and I was trying to make room for my CSA this week so I decide to try this soup with them.
Look familiar?

The trick to making this soup is to really take your time cooking down the onions. They need to collapse like this. It takes about 30 minutes to get them to this point.
Onions

While the onions are cooking, cook the rice in the 3 cups of water.
Rice
Dump the chopped vegetables into the cooked rice and water. The recipe says to add 4 cups of stock with the vegetables. I just added more water and didn’t use stock. It worked fine and tasted great.
Chopped Greens
I forgot to take a picture of the soup finished, doh. It looked pretty much like this: Anna Thomas Green Soup
I took this to a friend’s house for dinner last night and served it barely warm. It is a nice silky textured soup. I hope you try this with what you have on hand. This is one of those great base recipes to have in your repertoire. I’ll make it again with different vegetables and take a picture.

– Mo

Posted in 2012, Recipes, Soups | Comments Off

Vegetable Cake

Posted on February 7, 2013 by mo

(liberally adapted from several different recipes online)

2 to 3 cups chopped vegetables of any kind
6 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons finely chopped herbs (I used rosemary and sage)
8 eggs
1 handful basil, chopped
1 1/2 cups flour (I used white whole wheat, but you can use gluten free or all purpose, any kind really. There are so many eggs in this that it is a forgiving recipe in regards to flour.)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 to 2 cups grated cheese (I used parmesan but any kind of cheese you have would work.)
Salt and black pepper to taste, depending on the cheese you use. (Some cheese is pretty salty, so be careful here.)
Butter or Pam spray, for greasing pan
Sesame seeds, for dusting baking pan

I sautéed my vegetables but you could cook yours however you like. They just need to be cooked and cool before you mix them into the cake batter.
MInced Veggies

Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease a 9-inch pan. I sprinkled sesame seeds in my greased pan for crunch and interest. You don’t have to do that, but it’s nice if you do.
Mix the wet ingredients and the dry separately, then mix them together like you would a quick bread or muffin batter. Then fold in the cooled vegetables and the cheese. Put the batter into the prepared pan. I like to put a few onions on top of the batter. Again, you don’t have to do that or you could put a different vegetable on top.

This is what it looks like when it is done. Try this with whatever you have on hand.
Vegetable Cake

– Mo

Posted in 2012, Eggs, Recipes | Comments Off

Beet and Watermelon Salad

Posted on February 7, 2013 by mo

This is one of my favorite summer salads and it travels well. Our watermelon isn’t ready at the farm yet, but I still thought I would share this with you since we do have beets. I have used mangos instead of watermelon and it’s good that way too.

1 bunch beets, cooked (either roasted or boiled) and cut into small bites
Equal amount of watermelon cut the same size

For the dressing, I use:

1 tablespoon of sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
¼ cup neutral oil

Mix the dressing and pour it over the beets and melon and let that sit for an hour or so.
I like to serve the beets and melon over some bitter, spicy greens and top it with either feta or a blue cheese and some roasted nuts.
Look how shiny the beets get from steeping in the dressing and how the watermelon picks up the red color of the beets.
Beet Watermelon Salad

– Mo

Posted in 2012, Beets, Melon, Recipes, Salads-Spring-Summer | Comments Off

“Baked” Cauliflower

Posted on February 7, 2013 by mo

This is a great, easy, make-ahead dish for a potluck. It’s good at room temperature and travels well.

Core and wash your cauliflower, keeping it whole.
Trimmed cauliflower
Put the whole cauliflower in a glass pie plate with 2 teaspoons of water, cover with wax paper, and microwave for 7 minutes. How long it will take to cook depends on how big your cauliflower is. Just check it around 5 or 6 minutes. Don’t overcook it or it will fall apart.

While that is cooking, mix:

½ cup bread crumbs
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
Salt, pepper, and any other seasonings you like

When the cauliflower is done drain off any water out of the pan and spread the crumb mixture on the cauliflower. Broil the cauliflower head until the crumb mixture is brown and crunchy.

This is a great dish for summer. The microwave doesn’t heat up the house and the broiler is only on for a few minutes so it doesn’t get too hot from that either.
baked till brown
Serve the cauliflower on a dish with some dressed greens and let people break off as many florets as they like. This is one of those dishes that people who say they don’t like cauliflower will eat.

– Mo

Posted in 2012, Cauliflower, Recipes | Comments Off

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