Box #10

I hope you all are enjoying your apple pies! Admittedly I got the giggles several times while writing that newsletter. It was based on the experience I had last weekend when I made my own apple pie (which by the way turned out great!).

There were a few misprints in the St. Paul newsletter this week. First most everyone in St. Paul got red onions, not yellow ones as the newsletter claimed. Second, I should have written ‘summer squash’ under the What’s in the Box heading because not everyone got zucchini. Some folks got crookneck squash which is pear shaped, dull yellow and bumpy. Other folks got patty pans which resemble yellow or white spaceships. All of the summer squash is very comparable to zucchini and is completely interchangeable in any recipe.

We ran a lot of different things in the boxes this week. If you are wondering what to do with something here is a run down:

Cool Beans: Beans are starting to come in (finally) and I expect we will be into them in a big way next week. Our beans are of the pole variety, meaning they are the kinds that need to be trellised. They are very easy to grow and pretty easy to pick compared to the varieties that grow in bush form. You’ll find the standard green beans and also some purple, yellow and purple-flecked beans. The purple ones will turn green when cooked, however the yellow ones will stay yellow. When cooking green beans, I’ve found that they can lose flavor if they are boiled in water. So instead I just put them in the pan by themselves and gently heat them until they release some moisture. They cook nicely in their own juice and have amazing flavor.
Green beans (or purple beans or yellow beans or purple-flecked beans) freeze fairly well. I slice them into one-inch pieces, blanch for three to four minutes, put them in jars or bags, toss them in the freezer and enjoy them all winter long. They also of course can be canned and are wonderful pickled.

Cucumbers: Cucs are a bit behind this year probably due to the cool weather. In any case we are starting to run them too. Boyceville used to be a major pickle town. It had a pickle factory that accepted cucs from area farmers. Most folks around here back then planted at least an acre of them as a cash crop. My mom spent many summer days as a youngster picking pickles and still enjoys them! The pickle factory closed down about 20 years ago but the town still celebrates its cucumber roots by holding the Boyceville Cucumber Festival every summer.
Baby cucumbers make the best pickles and may be canned or made into refrigerator pickles. There are many recipes and variations. To make refrigerator pickles simply boil up a brine of water, vinegar and salt (I use 6 cups water, 3 cups vinegar and ½ cup salt), place some dill heads in a jar and maybe a clove of garlic or two, toss baby cucs in jar and dump brine over them. Place this in the refrigerator and wait about 24 hours for the flavors to come through. Then enjoy your pickles, they will keep in your fridge for at least a month.

Tomatillos: This is the first year I’ve tried these and I really don’t know all that much about them. So, according to The Encyclopedia of Country Living: “Tomatillos are also known as Mexican Husk Tomatoes and are closely related the ground cherry. Serve raw in salad, sliced plain, or with dip as finger food. Or use to make slasa verde or dip. Or cook and add to dishes (tomatillos add an herb-lemon flavor). Or slice and add to a veggie soup or bean casserole.” Here is the salsa verde recipe given in the same book: Combine two cups chunked, uncooked tomatillo, one cup chunked onion, ¼ cup dried epazote, maybe a little minced hot pepper and one teaspoon garlic salt. Churn in a blender until smooth. Add one cup sour cream. Serve chilled.

Other things we started running on a small scale this week include: cherry tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes and broccoli. Peas made their last appearance this week as did the red/pink potatoes (glad so many of you liked these, they are a variety called Red Romance). Beets and turnips also made final appearances this week (though you’ll probably see beets again).