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

Sort of Quick Pickled Fennel

Shareholder Dan with his bounty, which this week included blueberries, yum.

Pickling is pretty simple, especially if you make "quick" pickles, which usually means that they're not canned. Canning requires special canning jars and lids and a large kettle or canner. The advantage is that canned pickles will keep on the shelf for a very long time, until you open them that is.

Canning isn't very

difficult, but quick pickles are even easier. However, quick pickles must be stored in the refrigerator and will keep only for a week or two, if they last that long. Quick pickles are less of a production and are often made in small batches.

I adapted this Pickled Fennel recipe from one that appeared in the February/March 2011 issue of Fine Cooking magazine. It's a lovely pickle that's nice on a relish tray. It's delicious with poached salmon, either hot or cold. Fine Cooking uses it in an orange juice and brown sugar sauce with skillet-fried pork chops.

Quick Pickled Fennel takes just a few minutes to make, but the pickle needs to marinate in the refrigerator for 3 days before it's ready to eat.

Quick Pickled Fennel

1/2 t yellow mustard seed

1/2 t whole black peppercorns

1 fennel bulb, trimmed

1 C rice vinegar

1/2 C sugar

1/2 C water

1 T salt

2 T olive oil

1. Toast the mustard seeds and peppercorns in a dry cast iron skillet over medium heat until fragrant, 1-2 minutes. Then grind them with a mortar and pestle or in a spice grinder.

2. Thinly slice with white part of the fennel bulb and pack a wide-mouth pint jar with a screw-on lid with the fennel and spices, alternating layers of fennel and sprinkling the spice mixture.

3. Bring all of the remaining ingredients to a boil in a medium saucepan, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and pour the liquid over the fennel and spices in the jar, covering the fennel entirely. Press the fennel down if necessary. Screw on the lid. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for 3 days before using.

If you have a big bulb of fennel you can double this recipe. You might have a little excess pickling liquid, but probably not much. Remember to compost the green and fibrous parts of the fennel bulb.

You can get yellow mustard seeds and peppercorns at the Spice Station on Sunset Blvd.

If you're interested in more pickle recipes, check out my Silver Lake Farms blog posts from January 23, 2010 for Quick Radish Pickles and October 1, 2010 for Cucumber Pickles. Cucumbers aren't quite in season yet, but radishes are.

A Word or Two About Micro-Greens

If you'd like some ideas for using your micro-greens, here are a few:

Lately, I've been putting a handful of micro-greens, instead of lettuce, on my sandwiches. I've found micro-greens to be an absolutely delicious accompaniment to egg salad, tuna salad, smoked turkey, ham and cheese, hummus on pita, and even hamburgers!

Another wonderful way to use micro-greens is in a Vietnamese summer roll. Summer rolls are simple to make - they're just a bunch of vegetables rolled up in a rice paper wrapper. You can find rice paper wrappers at most Asian markets. They come as thin, dry disks, usually in a round container. Just soak them one at a time in warm water for 30-60 seconds, until pliable and fill with your favorite ingredients, such as lettuce leaves, chopped Napa cabbage, micro-greens, mint, cilantro, Thai basil, chopped green onion, shredded carrots, sliced jalapenos, shredded pickled ginger, avocado. You can add some protein if you'd like in the form of chopped grilled tofu, sliced hard-boiled egg, or grilled and chopped chicken, beef, pork or shrimp. A peanut dipping sauce is a very tasty accompaniment.

Today's harvest included the following:

From Underwood Family Farms: Fennel, red leaf lettuce, yellow carrots, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, green kale, mizuna, and green cabbage.

From Sage Mountain Farm: Easter radishes, romaine, Chantennay carrots, collard greens, purple scallions, rainbow chard, baby leeks, and green garlic.

And from Silver Lake Farms: Pak Choi and arugula micro-greens.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

I'll bet that most of the first blueberries of the season will be eaten fresh, right out of their carton. But here's a delicious alternative: lemon blueberry muffins. You can make and serve them warm for breakfast tomorrow morning, or whip them up tonight and serve them warm, split open, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle for a homey dessert.

For 6 regular sized muffins:

1/2 stick butter, softened, plus extra for greasing the muffin tin

1/2 C sugar + 1 T for sprinkling on top

1 large egg

1/2 t vanilla extract

1 t baking powder

1/8 t salt

1 generous C fresh blueberries, very slightly mashed

1/4 t grated lemon zest, divided

1 C flour

1/4 c milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 6-muffin tin, including the top of the tin. Set aside.

2. Beat butter in a medium bowl until creamy. Add the sugar and continue beating until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the slightly mashed blueberries and about half the lemon zest.

3. Fold in half the flour, then half the milk, then repeat with the remaining flour and the remaining milk. Fold until just combined, don't stir vigorously.

4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins, filling each cup equally.

5. In a little prep bowl, stir together the remaining 1 T sugar and the remaining lemon zest. Sprinkle a little of this mixture on the top of each muffin.

6. Bake until golden, about 25-30 minutes. Allow muffins to cool 20-30 minutes before removing from the pan. Serve warm.

This week's harvest included the following:

From Underwood Family Farms: Texas sweet onions, green leaf lettuce, kohlrabi, purple carrots, Easter radishes, French radishes, blueberries, rainbow chard, and arugula.

From Sage Mountain Farm: Candy spring onions, red fire lettuce, baby leeks, yellow carrots, Russian kale, broccoli leaves, and green garlic.

Thai guavas from Rancho Santa Cecilia; and mustard, radish, and arugula microgreens from Silver Lake Farms.

Enjoy!

Shelley

Lemon Basil Guacamole

Here's an interesting take on a popular dip - Lemon Basil Guacamole. It's simple to whip up and goes great with the traditional dipper, corn chips, as well as pita chips or crudites. I like to snip a bit of fresh basil from my garden. Basil is easy to grow and is happy either in the ground or in a pot. If you aren't growing any of your own, you can find fresh basil at many markets.

Lemon Basil Guacamole

1 large or 2 small ripe avocados
2 T fresh lemon juice
2 heaping T thinly chopped fresh basil
1/4 t salt, or to taste
freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Cut the avocados in half lengthwise. Remove the pit. Scoop out the flesh of the avocado into a small bowl and mash it with a fork until smooth (or you can leave it a little lumpy, if you prefer).

2. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Serve immediately or chill, but serve within 1-2 hours.

If you're not serving the guacamole immediately, place a piece of plastic wrap right on the surface of the guacamole and refrigerate. This will keep it from oxidizing (turning brown). Avocado turns brown quickly when exposed to oxygen. The lemon juice in this recipe works as an anti-oxidant, but creating a physical barrier between the dip and the air will help keep it looking fresh until you're ready to serve it.

By the way, if you're wondering what to do with the beautiful, fresh rosemary from Silver Lake Farms, here's an easy way to use it:

Roasted Potatoes with Rosemary

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Scrub 2 (or more) of your favorite potatoes and cut them into wedges. I like to leave the skins on, but you can peel them if you prefer. Place them in a medium bowl and toss them with 1-2 T olive oil, 1/2 t salt (or to taste), and 1 T snipped fresh rosemary (or to taste). You can snip the rosemary with any scissors. Snip just the green leaves, discard the woody stem. Spread out the potatoes on a baking sheet and place in a hot oven. Roast for about 35-40 minutes, until the potatoes wedges are golden brown. Serve hot.

Today's bounty included the following:

From Underwood Family Farms: Round orange carrots, green kale, candy beets, arugula, Easter radishes, red leaf lettuce, blood oranges, tangerines, strawberries, avocado, and candy spring onions.

From Sage Mountain Farms: Chantennay heirloom carrots, Seiss chard, baby celery, dandelion greens, white radishes, butter lettuce, and Italian green garlic.

From Silver Lake Farms: arugula, mustard, and radish microgreens and fresh rosemary.

Enjoy!

Shelley