THE BEET: VOLUME 13, ISSUE 2

THE BEET : VOLUME 13, ISSUE 2

In this week’s BEET:

1. Sign up for Volunteer Hours!
2. This week's share
3. Windflower Farm News -- Letter from Farmer Ted
4. Recipes
5. What to do with Compost
6. Our Leftovers

CSA Pickup Today 5-7:30pm

PS 56 at Gates and Downing (enter on Downing)

Sign up for your volunteer hours!

Just a reminder to sign up  :)  We are especially in need of people to take the early shift in the coming weeks.  Sign up through the website using Volunteer Spot!  We look forward to seeing you all soon!

http://www.clintonhillcsa.org/

This Week's Share

• Kohlrabi or radishes, your choice
• Red Swiss chard
• Potted herbs (your choice of basil, parsley, and thyme)
• Scallions
• Greenleaf lettuce
• Arugula or Joi Choi, your choice
• Red Russian or Dinosaur kale
• Quarts of strawberries (Fruit Share)
• Calendulas and Shasta daisies  (Flower share)
   

News from Windflower Farm 

It is early days in the CSA season, and salad greens continue to dominate shares. Soon, cucumbers and squashes will be ready for shipping; the heat we are expecting this week is sure to bring them along.   We are tickled with our organic strawberry crop, and hope you are, too. The variety is called ‘Chandler.’ We’ve been freezing some of the berries for distribution in our winter shares, but we’ll send most of it to fruit share members. We’d love it if you returned your berry baskets to us for reuse.

We’d also happily take your empty egg cartons. I imagine some of you are curious about the Styrofoam. I have been told that in the fall there was a fire in the plant that produced the region’s pulp cartons, and that we are stuck with Styrofoam until a replacement facility can be identified. Please return your empties to help us reuse as many containers as possible.

We care about our environmental footprint, and try to reuse or recycle all of our packaging. We have used many of the blue plastic totes you see at your distribution site for as many as ten years. But we are just as concerned about sanitation and food safety. To that end, we pressure wash every shipping tub every week before reusing it. And we never use shipping totes for anything else on the farm. We have separate field harvest crates and separate produce storage crates. To make sure that the food we deliver is safe, we wash everything in a clean environment, using deep, well water, we store it cold, and we ship in clean containers. Nevertheless, you should always wash the produce you receive from us before serving it.

 

Kind regards, Ted

RECIPES

Scallion Pancakes (Buchimgae)  (from Just Hungry)

Buchimgae or jijimi or chijimi is a thin, savory pancake from Korea. It’s basically a pancake-like batter holding together a lot of vegetables and other ingredients. It’s a great way of using up leftovers, and holds up great in packed lunches.

Here are two batter recipes. One is a traditional one using wheat flour and beaten egg, the other one is a vegan and gluten-free variation. Use the one that suits your needs. The traditional one is a bit lighter and crispier, and the vegan one is denser.

• Batter of your choice (see below)
• About 3 cups of finely julienned vegetables: green onions, garlic chives, bean sprouts (no need to julienne these), carrots, greens, etc.
• 1 cup of kimchi cabbage, roughly chopped (or add more vegetables instead)
• Other things of your choice: leftover chopped up or julienned meat or ham, shelled edamame, meat soboro, etc.
• Vegetable oil for cooking
• Dipping sauce:
  • 2 Tbs. soy sauce
  • 1 Tbs. rice vinegar or lime juice, or a Mix _ 1 Tbs. sugar
  • A few drops of hot chili oil (ra-yu), to taste
  • Chopped green onion

Heat up a frying pan or griddle, and coat with oil. (Using a little sesame oil adds a wonderful nutty flavor to the pancakes.) Mix the batter and the other ingredients together - the ratio of filler to batter should be quite high (the batter should just hold together the other things). Spread out as thinly as you can on the hot griddle or frying pan. Cook over medium-high heat until crispy and golden brown, then turn over and cook on the other side. Cut into wedges or squares.

In the meantime, mix together the dipping sauce ingredients. Serve in a small bowl alongside the pancakes. (You can also mix up a large batch of the dipping sauce, minus the green onion, and store it in the refrigerator.)

One pancake is about 350-400 calories, depending on how much oil you use, what ingredients you put in, and so on.

These pancakes can be frozen. Cut into wedges or squares, and wrap well in plastic wrap and store in ziplock bags or freezer containers. Put them in an dry non-stick frying pan over lot heat to defrost and crisp them up.

Batter no. 1 - Flour and egg

• 200g / 7 oz (about 2 US cups) white all-purpose or cake flour
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 250ml / water
• Pinch of salt

Sift the flour and salt together. Combine the egg and water. Add the liquid to the flour gradually, to form a thinnish batter. If you can, set aside to rest for at least 1/2 an hour.

Batter no. 2 - Vegan and gluten-free

After some experimenting, I discovered that using potato flour or dessicated potato flakes makes the pancakes a bit lighter and ‘bouncier’ than using rice flour alone. If you can find potato flour or potato starch, use that instead of the dessicated potato flakes. The gram flour is used mainly to add protein.

• 100g / 3.5 oz (about 3/4 cup, but it’s better to weigh it for accuracy) rice flour (preferably not ‘sweet’ rice flour or mochiko, but you can use mochiko if you don’t have the regular rice kind of flour)
• 50g / 1.75 oz dessicated potato flakes (instant mashed potato)
• 50g / 1.75 oz chickpea (gram) flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• About 350ml water

Mix or sift together all the floury ingredients. Add the water to it in stages, until you have a thinnish batter. (similar to crepe batter) You may need more or less than 350ml (the amount seems to depend on how dry the flours are). If you can, set aside to rest for at least 1/2 an hour.

STRAWBERRY VANILLA COCONUT ICE CREAM  (from Anne, your newsletter author)

Do you have an ice cream maker?  No??? The time is now to get one!  It's about to be that one-of-a-kind NYC HOT.  Yes, you do have one?  Horay!  You're one-step closer to this home made treat!  It's a great way to cool off, and to get little ones excited about being in the kitchen!  If you don't have one, I would recommend the Donvier 1-Quart ice cream maker- but any model will work for this recipe.

• 1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries (1 box)
• 1 can full fat organic coconut milk (shake before opening)
• 2 tablespoons arrowroot powder (substitute cornstarch or tapioca starch)
• 2-3 TBS orange or lemon liquor
• 2 TBS lemon juice
•  1 1/2 teaspoons good quality vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup evaporated cane juice, or sugar
• Pinch sea salt

Wash and de-stem the strawberries.  Slice in half and place in bowl with sugar.  Let sit for 1 hour and marinate.  After juices have released, put in blender with the rest of the ingredients and pulse until the strawberries are well broken down, or if you like very smooth ice cream- blend on high until well combined.

Put mixture into the fridge and let chill for 1-2 hours BEFORE putting into the ice cream maker.  Once chilled- put in ice cream maker, and follow manufacture's instructions!

COMPOST

Feeling guilty about throwing out your vegetable scraps each week? NYC's Green market has weekly drop off locations for you to dispose of your kitchen scraps.  An easy way to store your compost during the week, is to simply put them in a bag in the freezer, or you can get a little bin for your counter top.  Be sure to check with your drop off location about how to properly separate your compost.

http://www.grownyc.org/compost/locations

The nearest ones to CHCSA are:

• Fort Greene Park (Dekalb & Washington Park) , Saturdays: 8am-3pm
• Grand Army Plaza, Saturdays: 8am-3pm

SPEAKING OF LEFTOVERS...

Many of you have been asking what CHCSA does with it's leftovers each week; we donate them to a local soup kitchen!  The Believer's Tabernacle of Faith Church of BedStuy runs a weekly soup kitchen, and our extra veggies help keep it running.  We also donate a small amount to the janitor's of P.S. 56 for helping us clean up each night after distribution.  And right now, we have been donating our extra herbs to the school's small student-run garden.