box no. 03 | contents

• Lettuce
• Mesclun Mix
• Summer Savory
  
• Young Turnips
• Radishes
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
  
• Summer Squash
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
  
• Scallions

Cucumbers are the highlight of this week – five of them, to be exact. Plus more, for those of you daring enough to take extras from the swap box. Unlike the other summer fruiting crops, you can’t make cucumber fritters or cucumber bread. But there are quite a few ways to use them. Stay tuned for a post this week dedicated to cucumbers with a few tips you might not know about on how to use them.

I am a big fan of caramelized onions and between last week and this week’s box, I have more than a few scallions. I’m going to try an experiment to see if you can caramelize scallions in the same way you can onions – with good results. We’ll see how it goes...

Click here to download a pdf of the Angelic Organics Farm News for box no. 03.

Book ’n Cook | Chickpea & Basil Purée

This week’s Book ’n Cook post is from Patricia Well’s Vegetable Harvest: Vegetables at the Center of the Plate. Patricia is the author of a number of cookbooks including The Paris Cookbook and Simply French. She has lived in France for more than twenty years and her cookbooks and recipes reflect that. Her newest book, Vegetable Harvest, includes recipes for everything from appetizers, soups, salads to meats, poultry, and pasta that all incorporate vegetables, herbs and fresh fruits.


I still had some basil from last week’s vegetable box, so I chose the Chickpea & Bail Purée as the featured recipe from Vegetable Harvest. It’s light, fresh, delicious – and pretty healthy, too!

Click here to download and print a pdf of this recipe:

Chickpea & Basil Purée
Adapted from
Vegetable Harvest: Vegetables at the Center of the Plate

Eat Green Foods Goat Cheese Sandwich

I stopped by the Green City Market this morning to catch my friends at Eat Green Foods in action making their Goat Cheese Sandwich with marinated zucchini and summer squash. This is a delicious sandwich that is so simple to prepare. Start with good ingredients – a great loaf of ciabatta bread (EGF buys theirs from Red Hen Bread), a good quality goat cheese (EGF recommends Prairie Fruits Farm goat cheese, available at the Green City Market), caramelized onions* and fresh-from-the-farm zucchini, summer squash and mesclun mix. You can’t go wrong.

Start the night before by slicing the squash and zucchini into thin rounds. Or, if they are larger in diameter, slice them into thin half-moons. Marinate overnight in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. The next day, follow these five easy steps to a great sandwich:


Finish off the sandwich with a drizzle of olive oil and some salt & pepper. Many thanks to Eat Green Foods for sharing their trade secrets with us. Enjoy!

* For great step-by-step instructions on how to caramelize onions, view this article posted on RealSimple.com.

Drink Your Greens

Greens go in...


Juice comes out...

box no. 02 | contents

• Lettuce
• Mesclun Mix
• Anise Hyssop
• Parsley
  
• Young Turnips
• Radishes
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Summer Squash
• Zucchini
• Spinach
• Choi
• Scallions
• Garlic Scapes
  

As I mentioned in my box no. 01 posts, the greens are my biggest challenge and there’s definitely no relief this week – two bags of lettuce greens, one bag of spinach, radish, beet and turnip greens. Whew! It’s time to pull out the juicer. It’s amazing the sheer volume of greens you can juice and you end up with about one cup of concentrated and potent green nectar. I like to mix it with an equal part pineapple juice to make it go down a little easier. I might experiment with throwing in the anise hyssop to the mix because, frankly, I have no idea what else to do with it and I think it might add a nice flavor.

The only other challenge for me this week are the turnips, so I’ll need to do some research and see what I can come up with.

Click here to download a pdf of the Angelic Organics Farm News for box no. 02.

box no. 01 | wrap-up

This marks the end of the first week. Tomorrow begins a new box and a new set of variables to work with. All in all, it was a great kick off to the season. As expected, I’m left with a good amount of greens, which means next week I resort to juicing. I wanted to try and use up all of the greens the old fashioned way, but alas it’s too much for just myself and my fiancée .

Look out for a new weekly post called Book ’n Cook – I’ll choose a recipe from a cookbook in my collection and post a review of the book and the dish.

Thanks for reading this first week; I look forward to 23 more...

Zucchini Fritters

I discovered this recipe late in the season last year when trying to deal with the abundance of zucchini. I’ve been looking forward to using it more often ever since. These come together pretty quickly and they’re delicious and satisfying. The original recipe is from Martha Stewart Everyday Food and you can find a repost of the recipe at Simply Recipes – a great resource for any recipe you can imagine.

Click here to view the full recipe on Simply Recipes.

Garlic Scapes

It’s unanimous – all of the Eat Green Foods chefs recommend grilling garlic scapes (“and then sautéing them in some butter”, adds Christine).

I wasn’t exactly sure what garlic scapes were, so I consulted Farmer John’s Cookbook for some more info. Here is an excerpt from his book:

Garlic scapes are the curlicue flower stalks we snap off garlic plants in the spring. Not only will you get to enjoy garlic-flavored scapes while you wait for the bulbs to come on, you’ll also get bigger bulbs of garlic later in the season as a result of our removing the flower stalks. Snapping off the flower redirects the plant’s energy down toward the root, and some say this process increases the bulb size by 30 percent or more!

Lasagna with Chard, Ricotta & Walnuts

The kick off dinner to box no. 01 used up all of my spinach, chard and radish greens – and even a few handfuls of lettuce. This recipe takes some time to make, but I think it’s worth it. The hardest part is washing and cleaning all of the greens! Serve with a side salad and you’ve got a delicious, green-packed meal.

Click here to download and print a pdf of this recipe:

Lasagna with Chard, Ricotta & Walnuts
Adapted from
Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets

box no. 01 | contents

• Lettuce
• Mesclun Mix
• Basil
• Sage
• Radishes
• Swiss Chard
• Choi
  
• Zucchini
• Spinach
• Scallions
• Garlic Scapes

The first few boxes are the most challenging for me. Part of that could simply be getting into the swing of things. But the other part is that I find the early vegetables harder to work with. I can think of more than a few things to do with extra corn and tomatoes, but two bags full of lettuce kind of overwhelms me. I learned at the end of last season that a really easy way to use up a ton of greens at once is to juice them, but I’m going to challenge myself (at least with this first box) to use them the good, old-fashioned way – lots and lots of salads.

Last year I had a hard time with all of the radishes, but I’ve got a few radish recipes earmarked to try out this year. Now the radish greens are a different story. I’ve never used the greens. Truth be told, I usually just lop them off and toss them, but I’m going to try out one of the recipes from Farmer John’s cookbook and see how it goes.

Tomorrow, I’m heading to the Logan Square Farmer’s Market to stop by and see the chefs at Eat Green Foods (gourmet prepared foods that use local, seasonal and sustainable ingredients) to see if they have any ideas on how to use the garlic scapes. Stay tuned...

Click here to download a pdf of the Angelic Organics Farm News for box no. 01.

Perfect Pasta for Peas

I finished up the last of the shelled peas tonight in another pea and pasta recipe from Great Food Fast – Farfalle with Salmon, Mint and Peas. But I didn’t have farfalle pasta, so I grabbed a box of orecchiette, whose shape resembles a small ear. As it turns out, peas and orecchiette pasta are a match made in heaven. Have you ever ended up with a pile of peas at the bottom of your bowl because the little buggers are hard to stab with a fork? Problem solved. The “little ears” each cradle a single, shelled pea perfectly and makes eating this dish a breeze.

Peas and Rhubarb

Spring fruits and vegetables come and go quickly at the market. Before you know it, we’re knee deep in cucumbers, tomatoes and sweet corn, so I take advantage of my favorite early season varieties while I still can. Over the weekend, I picked up some fresh, shelled sweet peas and a couple pounds of rhubarb. I made fettuccini with peas, prosciutto and a light cream sauce. For dessert, I prepared a rhubarb crisp with some sweet strawberries and a crumbly, crisp oat topping. Fresh, light and delicious! Both recipes can be found in Great Food Fast – one of the books I featured in an earlier post “Five Cookbook Recommendations”.

First Delivery: June 16

The season will officially kick-off with the first box delivery – Saturday, June 16. I can’t wait to start cooking. I’m already looking for recipes that I can make with beets, greens, broccoli and spinach. Stay posted!

Strawberries from the Market

As soon as the farmer’s market season kicks off, I start to get antsy for my CSA share to begin. But while I’m waiting for my first box to arrive, I frequent the Green City Farmer’s Market, which started on May 16, and just this past weekend, our Wicker Park Farmer’s Market opened its doors. As you would expect, there are a lot of greens, asparagus, spring onions and... strawberries. Beautiful, crimson, fragrant strawberries. I froze some for smoothies, bought a pint and made ice cream, and my favorite use: Strawberry Bruschetta. The inspiration for this recipe came from an appetizer offered at Enoteca Roma. My version takes it one step closer to being dessert – or maybe an indulgent breakfast!

STRAWBERRY BRUSCHETTA | I use the chocolate bread from Red Hen Bread – it has a rich, chocolately flavor with a moderate amount of chips, but it’s not too sweet. You could also use a plain, hearty white or french bread with great results.

Toast the bread, spread with marscapone cheese, layer with sliced or, if they’re small, whole strawberries and drizzle with balsamic vinegar reducation. Enjoy!

For balsamic vinegar reduction, place 1 cup of good quality balsamic vinegar in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Simmer over medium-low heat until reduced by half and it is the consistency of syrup. The reduction will become thicker as it cools. Store in the refrigerator and drizzle on fish, salads, vegetables or fruit.