The farm and farmer behind my CSA week 16

I can't believe all my time this week got diverted to working on a few articles for Marlene's Market and Deli's Sound Observer--one article about dried fruits, the other winter greens and hearty roots. I made myself hungry dreaming up winter meal possibilities.

I'd been meaning to post about my CSA all week, now here it is Friday night, all my produce is eaten, and tomorrow I pick up another CSA bag. I slipped the produce picture in below so you can see what I got this week. But in my opinion, a blog about my Stoney Plains Organic Farm summer CSA just isn't complete without a picture and a few words about the farmer.


This is Patrick Meyer,a second generation farmer; his farm is just south of Olympia. He took over the farm after his dad ,Bob Meyer, suddenly died following gall bladder surgery in 2002. In shock over Bob's death, Patrick's mom Patricia wondered what they'd do with the farm.

No one expected Bob's youngest son, Patrick, 26, to step up to the task. But that's exactly what he did.

"He's a carbon copy of his dad," Patricia told me. Like his dad, Patrick loves learning about how to grow everything better and his eyes brighten when he talks about their produce. Look for Bob Meyer's inspring road to farming story and his move from Minnesota to the Northwest in "Northwest Farm Memories" in the new edition of my cookbook Northwest Vegetarian Cooking (formerly Local Vegetarian Cooking)published by Timber Press in the spring of 2010.

Patrick is usually at the Saturday University District market. You can also find his older brother Tom and sometimes his nephew Justin at that market. Their long farmers' market tables are consistently filled with vibrant produce.

This week's CSA brought all these to our kitchen table: snow peas, slicing tomatoes, Golden Rave baby tomatoes, curly parsley, corn ,red beets, lemon basi and red potatoes. Yumm!

Finn again, checking it all out.

CSA week 15 reluctantly sharing the bounty

Skilled at stealing produce, Finn sat close but didn't look directly at my Stoney Plains CSA. I forgot to set the eggs on the bench here, but I knew if I'd gone inside to retrieve them, a number of carrots would have been missing when I returned. He managed to get the potato when I was cleaning up, but he discarded it. I'm not too fussy; I washed it off and used it.

Here is what was in my CSA bag this week: eggs, pears, chesnok red garlic, chives, cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, yukon potatoes and shelling peas. I used some of the potatoes I got from Rent's Due Ranch at the University District farmers' market and along with Finn's potato and I made mashed potatoes with Dungeness Valley Creamery milk (http://www.dungenessvalleycreamery.com/ ). Here's a recipe that's pure comfort food, just change the produce you use to suit any season. If you don't own an oven-proof skillet, place the vegetable mixture into a baking dish and cover with potatoes and bake.

Shepherd's Pie

I just finished revising this recipe for an article for Vegetarian Journal (http://www.vrg.org/). A Shepherd's Pie is on one dish meal baked in a skillet. This is a version of it. Mom's old Betty Crocker Cookbook from 1969 listed instant mashed potatoes in the ingredient list. Whatever you do, use real potatoes for this dish. Free to make this dish your own with rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano, hot peppers or anything else that calls to you.

2 1/2 cups mashed potatoes

1/4 cup salsa

1 cup diced onion or shallots

1 1/2 tablespoons safflower oil

1 jalapeno, minced (optional)

5 cups seasonal vegetables, cut into bite-size pieces (carrots, squash, cauliflower, green beans, summer squash)

1 cup water

1/4 cup white miso

2 tablespoons arrowroot

1 cup cooked, or canned, drained beans (any variety except black)

2 tablespoons cold butter (optional)

Paprika

Blend salsa into mashed potatoes.(Set aside.) Heat a 10-inch, oven-proof skillet and saute onion and jalapeno until soft.

Add vegetables and stir. Add a little of the water, stir, cover and braise vegetables for a few minutes. Blend miso and arroroot into the remaining water. Stir into vegetables with beans and cook on medium for about 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Remove vegetables from stovetop and spread mashed potatoes over the top. Cut butter into chunks and place randomly over the top. Sprinkle with paprika.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Miso gravy will bubble up over the potatoes.

Hint:: Unless you add the jalapeno, this recipe is not very spicy. I often toss in some Mama Lil's peppers (http://www.mamalils.com/)

Stoney Plains farmers

I wanted to include a photo of the farmer, Patrick Meyer, this week, but Patrick wasn't at the farmers' market (http://www.seattlefarmersmarkets.org/markets/u_district) So I asked Justin to pose for a photo for this blog. Founding farmer Bob Meyer passed away unexpectadly in 2002 and wife Patricia and son Patrick now run this farm. Justin is Bob's grandson and I remember Justin years ago as a gangly teenager. Now he's a dad and works at the University District market sometimes. Bob Meyer's story is one of the farm profiles in Local Vegetarian Cooking (http://www.localvegetariancooking.com/)

Look for an updated profile of this farm in the latest version of my Pacific Northwest vegetarian cookbook It will be published by Timber Press next spring. (http://www.timberpress.com/).

Strategies and tips for using CSA produce

It's week 14 of my 20 week Stoney Plains CSA . When I get my bag at the market, I wonder what's in this fabulous grab bag of produce for the week. I slip out the information sheet and gaze at the contents listed: butter lettuce, shelling peas, snow peas, arugula, turnips, corn, carrots, Tsoi-Tism ( a green for salads) and fresh black beans still in the pods. (These are the cream colored beans at the bottom of the photo.) Hidden in their pods, these black beans are a market treasure found in late summer or early autumn. They're so much better than their dried cousins. Each week I look at everything as a dinner possibility and use the list to decide what else I might need to purchase at the market because my purchases rarely spill over to grocery store purchases.

At home, I quickly size up what needs to be eaten first and the turnips looked like my first choice. These underrated greens are similar to collards and kale with medicinal qualities, but the flavor is mild with only a hint of bitterness.

Turnip Greens Soup is something I invented one day when I had that "right now" craving for food.

• Use all the turnip greens--wash, chop and steam
• Puree these with lemon juice, a dash of agave nectar, a pinch of salt and Mama Lil's peppers.
• For a creamy touch, add a drizzle of hazelnut butter from Holmquist Orchards. You can also use almond butter and I usually have some. My favorite comes from Massa Organics http://www.massaorganics.com/ an organic family farm in California

The next day, I made a pizza with onions from Willie Greens Organic Farm (http://williegreens.org/) and the big bunch of arugula.

Onion-Arugula Pizza. (Have I mentioned I'm a lazy cook most of the time?) Here is all I did:

• Use prepared pizza crust, I found a frozen, cornmeal crust at PCC Natural Markets.Peel, slice and saute the onions in olive oil over medium to low heat until soft.
• Add Mama Lil's peppers (also found at PCC Natural Markets, Whole Foods or other food specialty stores), a couple cloves of garlic (pressed or minced)and finally the entire bunch of arugula.
• Cook this until it becomes soft. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the vegetables and this was it. Finally garnish with a grated smoky Gouda cheese from Appel Farms (http://www.appel-farms.com/). Or use your own favorite cheese for garnish. If you don't use cheese, sprinkle with a little sea salt.
  

The following evening it was black beans and corn for a salad, made from a recipe I'd adapted from my book Local Vegetarian Cooking.

Black Bean and Corn Salad provides endless fodder for adaptions. Don't forget, fresh black beans only need to be removed from the pods and cooked. Unlike their dried cousins, they don't require soaking.

• First, steam 2 cups fresh black beans until tender (if you don't have fresh black beans use about 1 1/2 cups canned or dried, soaked and cooked).
• While these steam, combine in a blender: 3 tablespoons rice vinegar, 1 tablespoon lime juice, 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon agave nectar or sugar, 2 teaspoons chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 3 cloves garlic (pressed), 1 jalapeno, minced (remove seeds if you don't like the heat)
• Scrape corn from 2 or 3 medium to large cobs (preferably picked fresh that day). My recipe in the book also uses 1 cup couscous and 1 cup boiling water. This will obviously make the salad go farther. If you want to include this, just pour the boiling water over the couscous and wait five minutes.
• Finally add 1/3 cup sliced green onions, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, salsa (your favorite) to taste and salt (also optional)
  

This salad can be enjoyed with warm corn tortillas or chilled and used the next day as a burrito filling.

The shelling peas were an afternoon snack but what about the lettuce, Tsoi-Tism turnips, snow peas and carrots? Always use tender greens early in the week because they may not make it the entire week. Get other salad ingredients at the market such as cucumbers and tomatoes to go with the lettuce. Slice the turnips and carrots and saute them with the snow peas. You can combine these with rice or use them as a side dish.

I must say, this time of year, it's much easier to use up everything in my CSA box because of the wide diversity. It's much more challenging in the spring with the deluge of greens and I suspect cooking may challenge me near the end in the fall as well.