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Goldfinch Farm CSA
Goldfinch Farm Newsletters
| For Beth's Ramblings and Rants click here. |
Issue No. 6: Wks of August 18 & 25
GOLDFINCH FARM CSA NEWS
Farmers: Jon & Beth Weaver-Kreider * 252-3894
www.goldfinchfarm.com * screechowl@paonline.com
Machiaw, Rosa Bianca and Nixon
Eggplant is one of those veggies that most of us recognize by only one of its many varieties: large dark indigo-purple globes. There are,
however, many varieties of eggplant, including white ones that actually look like large eggs. The flavor differences are subtle, though real
connoisseurs have stronger opinions.
One of our favorites is the long, slim, lavender-colored Asian variety called Machiaw. Very versatile, the Machiaw is simple to slice up into
stir fries and veggie mixes. Don’t bother to peel it--the skin is more tender than that of its larger cousin. The other night I quartered one
lengthwise and fried it in olive oil until the skin was just a little crispy. Tasty! We’ll try this again.
Rosa Bianca is the whiter variety with a rosy blush. You can use it and the Machiaw in any recipe that calls for eggplant. Try it just for its
wonderful name.
Sometimes the big purple ones come off the plant with a long sloping “nose” protruding off the side, somewhat reminiscent of Richard
Nixon’s profile.
Fry thick eggplant slices in olive oil or butter and eat in a crusty roll, topped with a thin slice of your favorite cheese, some sautéed onions
and peppers, a slice of tomato, a little ketchup. Pesto is very good on eggplant also.
Eggplant Cheese Pie
(based on a recipe from Simply in Season)
2 med. Eggplants, cut into ½-inch cubes
1 onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
In large frypan, sauté the above in 1-2 Tbsp. oil for about 2 minutes. Cover and cook until eggplant is soft, about 5 minutes, stirring as
needed.
Chop some of the fresh basil into the mix, and add salt to taste.
Slice a zucchini (or yellow squash or patty pan). Line the bottom and sides of a greased 10-inch pie pan with squash slices and spoon the
eggplant mixture on top.
Shred 2 cups mozzarella cheese and mix with 2/3 cup of evaporated milk and 1 egg. Pour over vegetables and bake in a preheated oven at
375 for 30 minutes.
I may try this recipe with other veggies, too, perhaps adding a little chopped tomato and tomatillo. I think a little sautéed mushroom would
be tasty too. Nancy, a Tuesday shareholder, put portabellas in the bottom of the casserole dish before pouring in the mixture for eggplant
soufflé from the last newsletter.
India Eggplant
(from Too Many Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, and Other Good Things: A Cookbook for When Your Garden Explodes by Lois Landau & Laura
Myers)
½ c. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, mashed
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 tsp. powdered coriander
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. powdered ginger
Cook slowly 10 minutes until onion is translucent.
Add:
1 med. eggplant, cut into ¾-inch cubes
3-4 tomatoes, chopped
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
Place in buttered casserole. Cook 1 hour at 375.
It’s Beluga Time
It always happens to gardeners at this time of the year. On your way out to the car to go to work in the morning, you check under the leaves
of your zucchini plants and see tiny little baby squashes that need just a little more time to grow. When you get home in the evening, you
look into your garden and you wonder where all those sleek green whales have come from.
Okay, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but nothing in the fields grows faster than the summer squashes. We harvest our squash as often
as we are able, and still we have a few giants coming in. Fortunately, the biggies still have food value and great flavor.
Too Many Tomatoes has a page listing various ideas for “Too-Big-To-Cook Stuffed Squash.” They suggest halving and parboiling until they’
re tender, scooping out the innards, filling with good things and baking at 350 until thoroughly heated.
Last night for supper, we had a delightful sausage-stuffed zuke. I didn’t parboil it first, and it was quite tasty. I cooked up some sausage
with onion and sweet yellow pepper, took it off the heat and added a diced tomatillo, then mixed in some sliced olives and grated cheese
before stuffing it into the zucchini boats. I think next time I’ll add bread crumbs to the mix.
Some of the suggestions from Too Many Tomatoes: Cooked ground beef and spaghetti sauce with a slice of mozzarella broiled on top.
Cooked ground beef with cooked brown rice, green onions, a little water, broiled with Parmesan cheese. Try adding eggs to the stuffing
mix, or cooked spinach or other greens. Chopped ham or salami or bologna. Some firm chopped tomatoes. A bit of a roux. You could put
them in a covered casserole dish with a little broth or tomato juice in the bottom to steam them as they bake.
I wonder if you could cut off the stem end of a beluga and hollow it out with a big spoon, and then squish the stuffing down into the zuke and
bake it whole? It would be fun to slice it up into rounds.
Oven Fries
We have been loving eating oven fries this summer. We’ve discovered that they get crispier if we boil the potatoes for a few minutes before
slicing them. You have to boil them enough that they get a little soft, but not so soft that they mush when you shake them up with the
seasonings. We shake them in a big container with olive oil, a little garlic salt and some thyme. Then roast them, stirring every 5-8
minutes, at 425 for about half an hour.
Critter Watch
The baby birds in the tomato patch fledged about ten days after they hatched. They may have been sparrows, but the adult birds that
seemed most active in the area were kingbirds. Kingbirds, along with bluebirds and swallows, are some of the hardest workers on the
farm, eating up the insect pests at a rapid rate. The bats help with this, too.
We know that foxes live in the area, but had only seen one, about two winters ago. Then last week, as Joss and I were driving out the
driveway, a long red body with a tufty white tail slipped across the road from the parking lot into the neighbor’s lower lawn. We turned left
and I watched for it to cross the creek at the foot of the hill, and sure enough, it glided up through the brush into the sunshine in the
neighbor’s meadow. What a lovely animal!
Throughout our years here, we have been blessing a patch of milkweed at the heart of the farm for a monarch sanctuary, mowing around it,
and sprinkling the seeds from the pods around each fall. We have been rewarded by the presence of monarch butterflies every year. One
of the reasons we prefer to farm without herbicides and pesticides is that they kill both the butterflies and their habitat (monarchs only lay
their eggs on milkweed). If you want a couple pods of milkweed to propagate on your own land for the butterflies, we can point them out to
you when you visit the farm.