24 Carat Cake

Carrots are such a versatile vegetable. They can be used in sweet as well as savory recipes. They're wonderful either raw or cooked. They can be chopped, sliced, grated, pureed, or eaten whole. They're super nutritious and they keep for quite a while in the fridge.

I like to add grated carrots as a nutritious extender in potato salad, egg salad, tuna salad, and macaroni or pasta salad. Just mix some finely grated carrots into any of these old standards for a healthy dose of color and vitamin A.

On the sweeter side, here's a delicious carrot cake recipe adapted from an old edition of the Farm Journal cookbook that was given to me by a dear friend. This recipe makes a two-layer cake, but you can increase the recipe by 50% and make a spectacular three-layer cake fit for a special event.

24 Carat Cake

1-1/3 C sifted all-purpose flour
1-1/3 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
2 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1-1/3 C granulated sugar
1 C vegetable oil
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 C finely grated carrots
2/3 C crushed pineapple, well drained
2 t finely grated orange rind
1/2 C chopped pecans
1/2 C flaked coconut, lighted toasted

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Butter 2 9-inch round cake pans and sprinkle them lightly with flour. Set aside.

3. Sift together the dry ingredients into a large bowl.

4. Add the oil and eggs and beat until well combined.

5. Mix in the remaining ingredients and blend thoroughly.

6. Pour the batter evenly into the 2 prepared pans and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean .

7. Cool the cakes in their pans for a few minutes. Then run a thin knife around the edge to loosen the cake, if necessary, and turn out the cakes onto a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting between the layers and on the top and sides with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting: Cream together 1 stick butter with 8 oz cream cheese. Mix in 1 t vanilla. Gradually beat in about 1 lb confectioner's sugar, until frosting is of spreading consistency. If it's a little too thick, add some milk, orange juice, or orange-flavored liqueur. You can also add finely grated orange rind to the frosting.

Going on Vacation? Don't Toss Those Veggies!

Summertime is vacation time for many, and clearing out the refrigerator is a pre-vacation ritual in my house. With our compost pile and our chickens, not much food goes to waste. But between our garden and the CSA, I can still find my refrigerator full of beautiful fresh produce just days before I leave town. Lately, I've taken to figuring out ways I can preserve my fruits and veggies for later use. Here are a few tips you might find helpful if you find yourself in the same situation.

Summer squashes, eggplant, peppers, mushrooms, and leeks can be sliced and sauteed in a little olive oil until just tender. When cool, pack them in freezer containers and freeze. Use them later in soups, stews, or as toppings for pizza. Remember, they've already been cooked, so add them toward the end of cooking. Defrost and pat dry before using as a pizza topping.

Corn kernels can be cut off the cob raw or after lightly steaming the corn. Allow the corn to cool before packing in freezer containers and freezing. Use the corn in corn chowder, corn pudding, soups, and stews.

Tomatoes lose their structural integrity when frozen, but they can still be used for tomato sauce. If you don't have time to make a slow-cooked tomato sauce before you leave, peel the tomatoes and freeze them whole. They'll be just fine for sauce when you return.

Berries can be frozen whole on a cookie sheet, then packed into freezer containers and frozen. They'll be mushy when you defrost them, but they're fine for smoothies and for mixing into yogurt or oatmeal. Or use them to make jam or preserves.

Stone fruit should be pitted, peeled and sliced into sections, then frozen on a cookie sheet and packed just like berries. They'll be mushy, too, when defrosted, so use as you would berries.

Turn fresh herbs into pesto and freeze the pesto. Don't add cheese until you defrost it.

Root veggies keep for weeks in your fridge, so carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onions and the like will probably been fine while you're gone. However, sometimes I chop and cook carrots and parsnips in a little broth or water until very tender. When cool, I puree them until smooth and pack in freezer containers. I'll turn these purees into soups when the weather turns cooler.

Of course, you might be able to take some of your fresh produce with you when you travel. I frequently pick green tomatoes from my garden and let them ripen on my trip. I'll eat them days later when they're ripe with some locally-bought fresh bread.

If you're really pressed for time, just pass along your fresh fruits and veggies to to friends and neighbors. Who wouldn't love to get some of summer's best.

Today's bounty included the following:

From Underwood Family Farms: Romaine lettuce, Blue Lake green beans, bi-color corn, round carrots, summer squash, pickling cukes, Texas sweet onions, and Cherokee heirloom tomatoes.

From Sage Mountain Farm: Arugula, carrots, pattypan squash, collard greens, heirloom purplette onions, and rainbow chard.

From Sweet Tree Farms: Yellow nectarines and plums.

Enjoy!

Shelley

biology

I'm going to San Rafael on Thursday to take another soil biology class with Dr. Elaine Ingham. If there is such a thing as a Soil Food-Webby, I've become it.

We've been producing compost at Silver Lake Farms for years now but what's lighting my candle at the moment is making just the right kind of compost.

Since taking Elaine's classes, I can't help thinking N:P:K is "out" and F:B ratios are "in".

We're going to start producing different kinds of composts here at Silver Lake Farms. One that is more fungal (F) in nature, and one that is more bacterial (B).

Why?

These two pictures show brussels sprouts seedlings. Both seedlings come from the same batch of seed; they germinated at the same time and followed the same path from a nursery in Lake View Terrace to Tin House Farm in Malibu (Thank you Jill and Patrick Dempsey for supporting Silver Lake Farms!) .

We transplanted the brussels sprouts seedlings into different raised beds at Tin House Farm. The raised bed with the huge specimen next to my hand is filled with soil that has a balanced F:B ratio, perfect for growing vegetables. The bed with the puny seedling is filled with soil that is too fungal in nature for growing vegetables in successfully. Again, both seedlings come from the same stock and were transplanted at the same time.

The difference, as you can see, is amazing.

Thank you Sherry, Rachel, Matt, Beat and Stephanie for coming to the "Grapes of Wrath" screening tonight. Thank you Wild Goodness. We love tending the Bike Farm @ Geffen @ MoCA.

tara

Fattoush Salad

Fatoush is a wonderful Lebanese salad made with many of summer's best vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. And we got all of them in today's box!


The thing I love most about fattoush is that it has toasted pita chips in it to give it a fabulous crunch. You can buy pita chips at most markets; or you can make them yourself by separating the two halves of the pita bread, brushing them with a little olive oil, and toasting them in a 375 degree oven until brown and crisp. I like using the whole wheat sesame pita, but you can use any flavor you like.


Another wonderful things about this salad is that you can use a variety of greens. I like using romaine lettuce and mixing in some arugula or dandelion greens. Sorrel, with its bright, lemon-y flavor, also goes nicely in the mix.


Fattoush Salad

4-6 C washed and dried salad greens, torn into bite-sized pieces
1 large tomato chopped
1 cucumber, quartered, seeded and chopped
1/4 C chopped sweet onion
1-2 green onions, chopped
1/2 C chopped bell pepper (green, red or yellow - your choice)
3/4 C cubed feta cheese
2-4 T chopped Italian parsley
1-2 C pita chips
salt and pepper to taste
dried Moroccan olives or Kalamata olives, optional


Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl, except the pita chips, salt and pepper.

Mix up the dressing:

2-3 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 T finely minced shallot or 1 T mashed roasted garlic
1/4 t salt
pepper to taste


Mix all ingredients together until well combined. Pour over salad and toss. Add pita chips and toss again. Serve immediately.


By the way, sumac is a wonderful herb to add to a fattoush salad. Get some at the Spice Station on Sunset.


Today's bounty included:

From Underwood Family Farms: romaine lettuce, bi-color corn, orange carrots, Hungarian bell pepper (pic above), yellow zucchini, cucumbers, bok choy, and avocados.


From Sage Mountain: Broccoli florets, collard greens, dandelion greens, arugula, and chard.


Cottage Grove provided the tomatoes - Early Girls pictured above. And Sweet Tree Farms provided peaches, plums, and nectarines.


And Silver Lake Farms provided arugula and mustard micro-greens, as well as new basil and cilantro micro-greens (cilantro pictured above). Sprinkle some of those basil micro-greens over your next Caprese Salad.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Arugula Pesto

Pesto is an easy and delicious sauce with myriad uses. It's traditionally made by grinding fresh basil leaves with garlic, pine nuts, and olive oil using a mortar ans pestle. However, pesto can be made from almost any fresh herb or spicy green. Arugula certainly fits that bill. Replace the mortar and pestle with a blender or food processor and you can make wonderful pesto in a matter of minutes.


The proportion of the ingredients is, to a certain extent, a matter of taste. So, feel free to adjust the ingredients to your liking. Here are a few things to consider: Don't let the garlic overpower the fresh taste of the herbs. You might want to consider using milder green garlic or even roasted garlic for a mellower taste. Always, always toast the nuts, no matter which nuts you use. Toasting brings out the flavor of the nut. Use the very best extra virgin olive oil that you have. Olive oil is such an important component of the pesto, you'll want to use your best oil for this.


Arugula Pesto

1-2 cloves garlic
1/4 C toasted pine nuts or walnuts
1/2 - 1 t salt
2 C packed arugula leaves (no stems)
1/2 to 2/3 C extra virgin olive oil


Blender or Food Processor Method: Place the garlic and nuts in the processor or blender and process until finely chopped and nearly a paste. Add the salt and arugula leaves and process until chopped. With the motor running, pour in the olive oil in a steady stream and process until the mixture has an even consistency and resembles a smooth paste. You may need to stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl or blender once or twice.


Mortar and Pestle Method: Chop the garlic and nuts coarsely. Grind them in the mortar with the pestle using a circular motion until they resemble a paste. You can add a little olive oil to make the grinding easier. Stir in the salt. Coarsely chop the arugula leaves and grind them into the garlic nuts paste, one-half cup at a time, adding olive oil as needed, until you've incorporated all the arugula and oil and the mixture is a smooth paste.


Once made, you can use your pesto as a pasta sauce - just stir it into freshly cooked hot pasta with 1/2 c (or more) freshly grated parmesan cheese. As an alternative, you might try substituting crumbled chevre (goat cheese) for the parmesan. A little grated lemon or orange zest adds a little zing. You can get an even bigger zing from some red pepper flakes.


You can also use pesto as a spread on sandwiches such as fresh mozzarella (or chevre) with sun-dried tomatoes on focaccia. Omnivores will find pesto to be a delicious relish for grilled steak, chicken, and fish. Best of all, if you have any left over, you can cover it with a thin layer of olive oil and keep it in your fridge for at least a week, or you can freeze it for months.


The beautiful green color of fresh pesto doesn't last very long. If the darkening of your pesto bothers you, you can avoid it by eating your pesto soon after you mix it up or by blanching the leaves in a pot of boiling water for just a few seconds before grinding. Be sure to dry the leaves as best you can before grinding.


Today's bounty included the following:


From Underwood Family Farms: Yukon and Norland potatoes, blood oranges, strawberries, blackberries, green leaf lettuce, purple carrots, Easter radishes, mizuna and arugula.


From Cottage Grove Farm: Romaine lettuce, cherries, asparagus, and white nectarines.


From Drake Family Farms: Plain or Herbs de Provence chevre.

Thank you Julie, Rachel and Jordan (pictured above) and Amanda, Nik and Willow, for helping distribute the bounty at pickup.


Enjoy!


Shelley

Stuffed French Toast

If you happened to get some of those super ripe white peaches this afternoon and you don't eat them up in the car on the way home, you might want to use them to make this lovely dish over the weekend.

Stuffed French Toast is a simple and delicious treat that makes a wonderful breakfast or brunch dish. This version uses the peaches from today's box, but you can substitute your favorite fruit. If you don't have any fruit, you can substitute jam; and if you want to make this dish even richer, you can add a few crumbles of cream cheese or goat cheese to the filling.

For 4 servings:

Start by preparing the fruit for the filling. If you're using peaches, peel 1-2 peaches with a knife or use the blanching method described in last week's recipe on Peach Clafouti. Thinly slice the peaches and set them aside.

4-5 large eggs
1/2 C whole milk
1/2 t vanilla
pinch salt
butter for frying

1. Beat the eggs with a fork in a small bowl until well blended. Beat in the milk, vanilla, and salt.

2. Pour this mixture into a shallow flat-bottomed dish. Arrange 4 slices of bread in the dish (or work in batches - 1-2 slices at a time).

3. Place several thin slices of peeled peach on top of each slice of bread. Cover fruit with another slice of bread.

4. When the bottom slice of bread has become well-soaked with the egg mixture, gently flip each piece so that the top slice of bread can soak up the remaining egg mixture. Be sure each slice of bread is soaked through.

5. Melt 1 T butter in a large skillet. Using a spatula, gently place as many pieces of stuffed French toast in the skillet as will fit without crowding. Fry on medium heat until the bottom is brown. Gently flip and fry until the other side is brown. Add more butter if necessary to fry the remaining pieces of stuffed French toast.

Serve hot with syrup or powdered sugar.

This recipe is wonderful with slightly mashed bananas and/or berries instead of peaches.

A Few Thoughts on Goat Cheese

There are so many things you can do with goat cheese:

• Crumble it into salad (it's great with roasted beets)


• Crumble it into an omelet (it's delicious eith asparagus)


• Stir some crumbles into hot pasta with cooked crumbled Italian sausage and/or your favorite sauteed vegetables


• Spread it on little toasts and top with chopped fresh herbs for a delicious crostini


• Make wonderful sandwiches such as goat cheese with roasted red pepper and basil pesto on your favorite bread

Here's today's harvest:

From Underwood Family Farms: red leaf lettuce, green cabbage, Japanese turnips, yellow carrots, Texas sweet onions, zucchini, mizuna, French radishes, leeks, and blackberries.

From Cottgae Grove Farms: white corn, asparagus, pluots and peaches.

Chevre from Drake Family Farms; and mustard microgreens and edible flowers from Silver Lake farms.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Peach Clafouti

Don't be daunted by the name of this wonderful dish. A clafouti is a lovely, fruity, custard-y dessert that's great plain or with a scoop of your favorite ice cream. It's easy to make and works well with many fruits. In the fall, it's often made with apples or pears. In the summer, stone fruit such as cherries, peaches and apricots are delicious with this batter.

It's best to peel the peaches for this dessert. The easiest way to accomplish this is to blanch them in a pot of boiling water for about 60-90 seconds. Drain. When cool enopugh to handle, remove the skins. If your peaches are hard, they may require slightly longer blanching or you just may want to wait until your peaches have ripened a bit. Don't use peaches that are super soft; between the blanching and the baking, they'll just disintegrate.

1-2 t butter

1/3 C + 1 T granulated sugar

4-6 medium peaches, peeled, pit removed, and sliced into eighths

3 large eggs

1 t vanilla

1 C whole milk or half and half

pinch salt

1/3 C flour

1 t amaretto (optional)

powdered sugar

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

2. Generously butter a 9" pie pan with 1-2 t butter and sprinkle 1 T sugar over the bottom of the pan.

3. Arrange the peeled and pitted peaches artfully in the bottom of the prepared pie pan.

4. Beat together the eggs, vanilla, milk (or half and half), salt, flour and amaretto. You can do this in a blender, or in a bowl with an immersion blender or an electric mixer, or simply by hand, beating vigorously until the ingredients are very well combined to make a smooth batter.

5. Pour the batter over the peaches in the pie pan and bake until set (when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean) - about 35 minutes.

6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before serving. Dust the top generously with powdered sugar before slicing and serving.

If there's any leftover, it's great for breakfast, too.

Here's today's bounty:

From Underwood Family Farms: romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, orange carrots, sugar snap peas, arugula, bok choy, Easter radishes, Napa cabbage and blueberries.

From Sage Mountain Farm: yellow carrots, Swiss chard, Tuscan kale, fresh green garlic, baby leeks, collard greens, and green onions.

From Cottage Grove Farms: strawberries, peaches and apricots.

From dear SLF friend Zan: lemons and tangerines

and from Silver Lake Farms: mustard and arugula micro-greens.

Tara says: Welcome back Rachel and Katy-Kate-Kate and welcome on board Nik! To Sherry, our conductor: you are THE BEST! Thank you for finding Cottage Grove.

Middle pic: Rachel and Sherry (R)

3rd pic: Nik

Enjoy!

Shelley

Track 1 bi-weekly CSA shares available now !

We have some Track 1 bi-weekly CSA shares available. Pickup dates: 6/10, 6/24, 7/8 & 7/22. Share value: $100 (pro-rated).

Would you like one? Come and get it!!

Track 2 bi-weekly shares sold out - yay!!

See blog and facebook for an idea of what to expect each week.

We offer separate bread and cookie programs. For bread, check out this article in LA Times. For cookies, contact Marilyn at cookiefarm.la@gmail.com

Happy Wednesday!

Tara