Summer Rolls

It's too hot to cook.  It was 104 degrees in Silver Lake this afternoon, and it's still 101 as I write this post!  When the weather is blazing hot, I like to make simple and delicious recipes that require no cooking.  Summer rolls are just that kind of dish.

Summer rolls are essentially salad in a wrapper.  And there are so many things to love about them beyond their fresh simplicity.  You make them individually, so make a little or a lot.  They're great finger food -  no utensils needed.  You can make them for vegans, vegetarians, or omnivores.  In fact, you can get quite creative with the ingredients.  You can serve them with a variety of different dipping sauces.  And you can make them in advance, as they keep well in the fridge for hours.

Below is my basic recipe for Summer Rolls.  Do add one or more of the suggested additions that follow the basic recipe.

For each roll:

1 dried rice paper wrapper
1 lettuce leaf, torn into largish pieces
2-3 strips carrot, washed, peeled, and sliced lengthwise
2-3 strips cucumber, washed, peeled, seeded, and sliced lengthwise
3-4 slices avocado
1-2 strips red bell pepper, or 3-4 pieces yum yum pepper
1 green onion, finely chopped
1-2 sprigs cilantro, or to taste
3-4 mint leaves, or to taste

1.  For each summer roll, prepare vegetables as described above.  Set aside.

2.  Fill a 9" or 10" pie plate with warm water.  Working with one rice paper wrapper at a time, dip the wrapper in the warm water until it just begins to soften, just a few seconds.  The wrapper will continue to soften even after you remove it from the water, so take it out while it's still firm.

3.  Lay the softened wrapper on a non-sticky work surface.  Working quickly and starting with the lettuce leaves, arrange the veggies (and other ingredients, see below) in the center of the wrapper.  Fold up the bottom, roll one side of the wrapper over the veggies, then roll it over the other side of the wrapper, leaving the top open.  Alternatively, you can fold up the top, too, if you wish.  Repeat with each wrapper.

Here are a list of ingredients that I like to add to my Summer Rolls:  grilled tofu strips; grilled shrimp; thinly sliced, seasoned and grilled beef, pork or chicken; mango slices, papaya slices, slices of crunchy apple; jicama strips, julienned radishes or daikon strips.

As for dipping sauces:  Ponzu sauce, which is a citrus-y soy sauce is nice.  Peanut sauce is traditional, as is sweet-hot chili sauce.  You can add a little hoisin sauce on the inside of the summer roll, if you like.  Sometimes I sprinkle a few drops of lime juice inside.

To make a quick peanut sauce:  Mix 1/2 C chunky style peanut butter with a few tablespoons of soy sauce and rice vinegar, add a few teaspoons sesame oil and a little agave syrup to taste.  You can stir in a little finely minced garlic, if you like.

Today's bounty included:

From Jaime Farms:  Lettuce, basil, and cilantro;

From Jimenez Family Farm:  Zucchini, garlic, kale, tomatoes, corn, and tomatillos;

From K and K Ranch:  Eggplant, yellow nectarines, apples, and natural Thompson grapes;

From Shear Rock Farms:  Tromboncino squash; and

From Weiser Family Farms:  Purple potatoes, yum yum peppers, and beets.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Mint, Mint, Mint

Many folks' experience with mint is merely as a garnish on desserts.  But mint is an amazingly delicious and versatile herb with myriad uses, both sweet and savory.  Its cool flavor is a great foil to hot chilis.  I like to chop a little mint into tomato salsas and I almost always add chopped mint to my ceviche.  Mint plays nicely with citrus - mint lemonade is a terrific summertime quaff, and mint is especially tasty with chocolate.

Today, I give you three delicious ways to enjoy mint:  Mint tea, mint-cilantro chutney, and mojitos.

Mint Tea
Mint tea is a super easy way to enjoy mint.  Simply dry the leaves, then pour boiling water over the dried leaves.  Allow to steep for 2-5 minutes, depending on how strong you like your tea.

I like to hang fresh mint sprigs from a rack.  They dry out in a few days.  When dry, remove the leaves from the stems.  Compost the stems and store the leaves in an air-tight container.  You can crush the leaves or leave them whole, your preference.  Use a tea ball or a little strainer to steep the tea.

Mint tea is also great on ice with lemon or lime, with or without sweetener.  If you like your iced tea sweet, mix up some simple syrup and keep it in the fridge.  The sugar is already dissolved in the simple syrup, no undissolved mass of granulated sugar at the bottom of the glass.  To make simple syrup:  Mix 1 C granulated sugar with 1 C water in a small saucepan.  Heat and stir until the sugar completely dissolves.  Bring to a simmer.  Cool.  Store in the fridge.




Mojitos
Mint and simple syrup are ingredients in the refreshing summer cocktail called a mojito.  There are many ways to make a mojito.  Here's one of my favorite recipes.  For each serving:

10 fresh mint leaves
1/2 fresh lime, or more to taste
2 T simple syrup (see recipe above)
3/4 C ice cubes
1-1/2 oz. white rum
1/2 C club soda

Place the mint leaves in the bottom of a glass.  Squeeze in the juice of 1/2 lime and add 2 T simple syrup.  With a spoon or a pestle, crush the mint leaves with the lime juice and simple syrup.  Add the ice.  Pour in the rum and club soda.  Stir.  Add more lime juice or simple syrup to taste.



Mint-Cilantro Chutney
If you want to get a little more adventuresome with mint, try this scrumptious mint-cilantro chutney.  It's often served with Indian food, but it's a wonderful condiment on roasted potatoes, grilled meat and fish, and practically anything battered and fried.

1 C fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 C fresh mint leaves
1/2 small onion
2-3 T water
1 T lime juice, or to taste
1 T grated fresh ginger
1-2 t chopped green chili, or to taste
1 t sugar
salt to taste

Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth.

If you don't have a food processor, you can do this with a mortar and pestle, but it will take a little more time and energy.

Today's bounty included:

From Jaime Farms:  Cabbage, mint, and parsley;

From JR Organics:  Red leaf lettuce and Swiss chard;

From Sage Mountain Farm:  8-ball squash, dried purple Italian garlic, yellow candy spring onions, purple carrots, French breakfast radishes, and purple scalliuons;

From Sweet Tree Farms:  Yellow peaches and white nectarines; and

From Weiser Family Farms:  Baby carrots, assorted melons, and baby beets.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Curried Peas and Potatoes with Mint Raita

This week's recipe is a version of a classic Indian recipe called Aloo Mutter, or curried peas and potatoes. It uses several of the wonderful vegetables in today's CSA box - potatoes, peas, and the beautiful fresh mint from Silver Lake Farms for the raita, or yogurt sauce.

There are many ways to make curry. I enjoy mixing and toasting whole spices to make my own aromatic curry powder. Then I grind them with a mortar and pestle. However, for today's recipe, I'm using a fabulous curry blend made at the Spice Station called Vadouvan.

If you haven't been to the Spice Station yet, this recipe is a great reason to check it out. They have an amazing array of spices from all over the world as well as their own wonderful spice blends made on the premises. And if you'd prefer to mix up your own curry powder, you can get everything you need at the Spice Station.

Spice Station owner and CSA shareholder, Brownwen, says their Vadouvan contains domestically-grown curry leaves. She gets them from a grower at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. Imported curry leaves are currently banned by the FDA in an attempt to stop the spread of the Asian Citrus Psyllid, so they're apparently quite hard to come by.

I like to use ghee, which is clarified butter, in this curry. Making clarified butter is easy. Slowly melt a stick of butter and remove all of the milk solids that rise to the top. Clarified butter has a higher burning point. It also keeps for quite a while in the fridge. Just pour it into a covered jar or crock. If you don't want to make clarified butter, you can buy it at most Indian markets and some full-service grocery stores. If you prefer, you can substitute olive oil for the ghee.

Curried Peas and Potatoes

4 T ghee
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic minced
2-3 T Vadouvan
2 T tomato paste
2 # potatoes, cubed, with or without peels
1 # sugar snap peas, shell the peas and compost the pods
2 C vegetable stock or water
1 t sugar (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large skillet with a cover, heat the ghee over medium-high heat. Add the onions and saute until translucent. Add the garlic and saute until the garlic is slightly golden.

2. Stir in the Vadouvan and the tomato paste. Add the cubed potatoes and the shelled peas. Stir to coat with the spices.

3. Stir in the stock or water. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat. Cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender and the sauce has thickened, about 15 minutes. Check once or twice while simmering. and add a little more liquid, if necessary.

4. When potatoes are tender, check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste. You can also adjust the seasoning by adding 1 t sugar. If you'd prefer a thicker sauce, you can add 1-2 T cream or you can take 1 t corn starch or arrowroot powder in a small cup and stir in 2-3 T of the sauce until smooth, then add this mixture to the curry and re-heat, stirring, until the sauce thickens.

5. Serve the curry over basmati rice with raita (recipe below) on the side.

By the way, it's best not to use the Texas Sweet Onions in this dish. Sweet onions in general are best eaten raw. They tend to get mushy when cooked and the qualities that make them sweet and delicious raw work against them when exposed to heat.

Mint Raita

2 C thick yogurt
1 T toasted cumin seed
1 bunch fresh mint, finely chopped
1-2 t fresh lime juice
1-2 green onions, finely chopped (optional)

Stir all the ingredients together in a medium bowl and chill until ready to serve. It's nice to make the raita ahead of time to allow the flavors to blend.

Today's bounty included:

From Underwood Family Farms: rainbow chard, fennel, sugar snap peas, mizuna, yellow carrots, Texas sweet onions, red leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, asparagus, spinach, and Navel oranges.

From Rancho Santa Cecilia: pumello, Golden Nugget tangerines, and avocados.

From Weiser Family Farms: Russian Banana and French Baker potatoes.

And from Silver Lake Farms: mint and mustard and radish microgreens.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Minted Quacamole

Hey Tara,

Been meaning to write this quick note to you before Round 2 began to say how life-enriching (not to mention taste bud-enriching) the Beachwood Canyon CSA program has been for me and my family. Tuesdays have become quite the event, chasing our four-year-old, empty shopping bags waving in the wind, over to your makeshift stand each afternoon and seeing the look of delight on his face every time Farmer John's bounty includes his faves--carrots, celery, cucumber and/or broccoli.

Can't wait to see what the spring session brings!

In the meantime, I've forwarded this tasty little recipe (originally from a Canadian food and drink magazine) that makes good use of a couple of this past week's items.

Bountifully yours,

Mike, Kim & Nicky

MINTED GUACAMOLE

2 ripe avocados
2 tbsp lime juice
1 green onion, thinly sliced
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint

1) Mash peeled, pitted avocados, leaving some chunkiness. Stir in remaining ingredients until combined. Serve with tortilla chips.

Minty Kohlrabi Slaw

above: Dandelion Greens (aka Chiccoria)








Left: Curly Mustard














Here's what Farmer John had for us at the Silver Lake pick-up this week:

Japanese cucumbers (eat the skin an' all!)

Turnips (sautee the tops!)

Red and golden beets (saute the tops!)

Curly mustard (eat raw or sauteed)

Green garlic (eat the whole thing - leaves an' all!)

Mint

Cilantro
Dill
Arugula
Red and green adolescent romaine lettuce

Chiccoria (aka dandelion greens - sauteed or raw)

Kohlrabi (pictured right)

Broccoli raab (aka rapini)

Kohlrabi is a wonderful vegetable that's too often ignored. Actually, it's quite delicious, versatile, and easy to prepare. It's related to cabbage, but with a milder and sweeter flavor and much more juice.

You can prepare kohlrabi myriad ways: It can be boiled and mashed into a puree. It can be baked, scouped out and stuffed. Kohlrabi makes a nice gratin thinly sliced, topped with grated cheese and baked. You might even layer in some thinly sliced turnips, too. Raw kohlrabi can be sliced or grated into a fresh green salad, so I hear from CSA shareholder, Jed, who I chatted with at the Silver Lake pick-up this afternoon.

Kohlrabi also makes a fabulous slaw which is especially good with fresh mint. It's super easy to prepare and tastes great.

Minty Kohlrabi Slaw

1 bulb kohlrabi
8 mint leaves
1 T mayonnaise
2 t white balsamic or white wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut the leaves off the kohlrabi bulb and compost or save for another use (the leaves are also edible).

2. Peel the tough exterior off the kohlrabi. Rinse off the bulb and grate the bulb into a bowl using a coarse grater.

3. Wash and dry the mint leaves. Stack them and slice the mint into very thin strips. Add the mint to the bowl with the kohlrabi.

4. Stir in the mayonnaise and vinegar. Add a little more mayo if you'd like. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

This recipe makes 2 servings, but you can double or triple it.

Enjoy!

Shelley