• Field Arugula
• Mixed Field Greens
• Chard
• Squash Blossoms
• Onion bunch
• Garlic
• Peppers
• Eggplant
• Thai Basil
• Yellow Squash
• Gold Zucchini
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Gourmet Cucumber

2016 CSA Summer July 23rd: A friend of mine turned me on to a new quick way to make fresh tomato sauce: use a food grater! I had not heard of this and an online search returned many results; the inspiration for the following recipe for a grain-free spaghetti dinner comes from a combination of input from Little Things and Food & Wine. For the sauce, cut the tomatoes horizontally in half and grate them into a bowl, thus removing the skin from the equation. Some recipes suggest using this raw, and certainly you can, but we liked it better by sautéing the garlic and onion first and then adding the freshly grated tomato for a few minutes at the end to marry the flavors. For the grain-free spaghetti, substitute zucchini that has been made into strips with a peeler. This is consumed raw. (There is a video of this technique at Little Things.) Three augmentations that can enhance this basic outline: use your arugula torn over top the zucchini, under the hot sauce to just wilt it into the dish; tear the squash blossoms into strips over the top; grill, roast or sauté the eggplant to add a new dimension to the dish.

2016CSA_Summer_Jul_23 Food and Wine Tomato grated

For a chilled infused salad, cut onion, cucumber and tomato into a bowl, dress with vinegar and steep in the refrigerator until cold. This can be used on top of your greens or can stand alone as a side.

To your health and your pleasure! Enjoy

• sandwich spread (try with grilled cheese and tomatoes)
  

  Pesto Crustini on Nasturtiums

• add to sauces and soups
• blend with yogurt for salad dressing
• stuff salmon or other fish
• add dollop to rice for infusion
• top crustinis or crackers for party snacks
• spread on pizza base, or blend with tomato sauce
• garnish a steak salad
• create your own dip with sour cream or cream cheese

Recipe: Chicken Salad Sandwich

2 cups of chicken
3 tbs of cream cheese
2 tbs of sour cream and 1 1/2 tbs of pesto
blend by hand until creamy
add favorite sandwich garnishes…such as micro celery greens and tomatoes

For a “Spring Chicken Salad Sandwich” consider a few of our favorite garnishes of micro mustard, violets, rose petals, wild crafted garlic mustard, shiso and other greens.

Pesto, essentially “paste”, is also made from our raspberry crops and is used as a different sort of pesto.  Makes great thumbprint cookies, spreads, cake layers, hot tea, etc.

Joshua Wilton explores the raspberry...yum!

(Be sure to check out what Joshua Wilton does with raspberries…this is one of my favorites.)

Rose Geranium medallions from Planet Earth Diversified

Find fresh harvested Chef boxes & zip bags this Saturday: Anderson’s  and Greenwood Market has zip bags too…Zinc has both leaves and hydrosol.

Also known as essential waters, our hydrosols are steam distilled from what we grow here at the farm. Begun as an opportunity to utilize and preserve through the seasons, it also allowed us to upgrade our sustainability goal. Hydrosols that have not crossed an ocean save a bit on energy, and gives us another way to capture the fragrances, nuances of a particular season, a little like wine to me. Especially nice is that it gives another way to extend the season, so to speak, and showcase another facet of use. I am really excited to see what Zinc creates with their hydrosols and have long enjoyed the botanical blends of Dawn Story (New Moon Naturals) in a myriad of products using plant essential waters.

Rose Geranium is one of my all time favorites and regularly showed up as an infused fruit topping or syrup used with yogurt dressing when I was making breakfast as the Innkeeper*.   Homemade cakes would be dressed with fruit stewed in rose geranium and a yogurt cup could be found dressed with our geranium from a simple syrup.  I also liked opening a bottle of sparkling water and stuffing the leaves inside to infuse a bit as i made other things, then combining with fresh squeezed citrus and a dollop of syrup, might be garnished for special occasions.  Works well with the Brut, too.   Fun, overnight infusion into chocolate ganache brownies works well in the fridge overnight with the pieces plated atop a leaf which make very nice serving doily.  As the plates “settle” the next day for service, and the cold falls out, the aroma becomes captivating.

courtesy of Barboursville Vineyards and Palladio Restaurant

One customer shared her revamping a pineapple up-side-down cake recipe by layering the start with rose geranium leaves.  Yum!

Since we will be in attendance at the VABF conference, I am offering special Sunday delivery of the rose geranium choices; Chef boxes are hand selected leaves in bright aroma, and hydrosol comes in 300ml or in 4ml spray* (not available singly; must be included in delivery of something else).  Some rose geranium will be available for  you to pick up at Anderson’s in conjuntion with their extravaganza this weekend.  You will find samples of our pestos and recipes along with other local purveyors; we wish we were not already booked but are glad for the opportunity to stay in touch.  Call 434-985-3570, ext 1 and leave a message if you would like some rose geranium or hydrosol or both, or maybe you want the whole kit!  A box of fresh herb, a refill storage size bottle and your own spritzer to hang out on the line…just give me a call.

Edible flowers on doilies of rose geranium & nasturtium leaves

– syrup

-stewed fruit

-spritzed

-layered

-infused

Baby Ginger Cluster fresh from our tunnel greenhouse

Our first crop of baby ginger! Wonderful sweet and tender. Grown as part of our high tunnel research and featured along with our Red Pepper Hot Sauce in the Historic Cutting of the First Virginia Grown Papaya in Williamsburg VA on 11.10.2010. Check out the Ginger Papaya Salsa on http://news.meetthefarmer.tv using Va grown papaya and baby ginger and our Red Pepper Hot Sauce

Earth B "Q" sauce for the BarBe

And now for the BarBe – Planet Earth Diversified Earth B Q – our newest tasty “Q Sauce” made here on the farm cooking down our heiloom tomatoes – thats 10 cases of tomatoes into a dozen bottles of “Q Sauce” and adding our raspberry paste some herbs and onion and garlic – oh so good on roasted peppers!

Hot Red Pepper Sauce #9 - "2010 Recovery Sauce"

Well Last year we had The “All Wee’ Wee’d Up” stimulus Sauce – so hot! This year Our first hot sauce out is the “Red Pepper Sauce- 2010 Recovery Sauce” No. 9 – sort of like the economic recovery it is just not quite as hot as predicted! (just wait ’till the habaneros really start flowing in..) Also check out our mild “Q” Sauce for the barbee.

Check out the making of the sauce in the video below. We work really hard to make the finest flavor and quality and we do not dilute our sauce with vinegar or use pepper extracts – It Is Just Fresh Juice made on the farm from peppers we grow!

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