Scallop squash and fresh tomatoes

 A veritable rainbow of fresh produce is available at the DeKalb Farmers' Market, located in the pavilion behind Ace Hardware in Smithville. You can find all kinds of squash, zucchini, and cucumbers, including some unique varieties like striped zucchini, patty pan squash, and white cucumbers. Green bell peppers are in, as are some hotter varieties. 

The first beautiful ripe tomatoes are trickling off the vines. You should never pass up an opportunity to try out a new variety, like big purple tomatoes or little yellow tomatoes, and opportunities abound right now. Beans and corn have been in abundance, but this rain may have come too late for some farmers' crops. If you want to put up fresh produce this year, be sure you get what's in season while it's available. 

Baked goods, mouth-smacking barbecue, canned goods, locally roasted coffee, and luscious handmade soaps and lotions are always available. Flower arrangements, dried and fresh herbs, and some flower and herb plants are there to tickle your olfactory and culinary delights.

One of the unique vegetables you'll find at the market is a scallop squash, also known as a patty pan. These squash are the shape of a flying saucer and are delicious and tender even at a larger size. Try out this recipe with a locally grown creamy white patty pan. 

Grate up the squash using either a box grater or your food processor. Place the grated squash in a colander, sprinkle with salt, and set aside to drain for a few minutes. Melt a couple tablespoons of butter and sauté a handful of coarsely chopped onion just until translucent, about 2 minutes. Toss 1 tablespoon of flour with the butter and onions, and cook until the flour turns golden brown. Stir in a couple tablespoons of half and half to form a paste. Add the squash and cook, stirring constantly 5-7 minutes, until the excess moisture has been released to form a creamy mixture. Stir in a couple tablespoons of sour cream and season to taste with white vinegar, salt, and pepper. Mix in freshly chopped dill or basil, and let chill for at least 15 minutes before serving. You could lighten up this recipe by using milk instead of half and half and substituting Greek yogurt for the sour cream. The original version of this recipe can be found here: “Hungarian-Sytle Summer Squashwith Dill Recipe.”

Patty pans come in many colors, from sunny yellow, to pale green, creamy white, green stripes on white, light yellow stripes on mustard yellow, and even dark hunter green. You can pick them when the squash are so young their flowers are still attached and intact or let them get as big as a dinner plate. Some varieties of patty pan squash can even be harvested as winter squash. 

The plants that produce these squash can get enormous. We have one that's almost 6 feet long! They seem less susceptible to annihilation by stink bugs and squash bugs, but our patty pans definitely succumb to the vine borers last year.

I've heard that if you notice the tell-tale wilting of a vine borer in action early enough that you can cut out and destroy the offending larvae, then mound up dirt or compost around the base of the plant, and sometimes successfully save your squash plant. 

Some growers swear by putting aluminum foil around the base of the plant while it's young, or wrapping the stem with panty hose to keep the bugs from boring in. We tried putting a liberal dusting of diatomaceous earth (DE) around the plants and on their stems early this season.

If you haven't planted squash yet, it's not too late. Now is the perfect time since it's rained a little, and there's more rain in the forecast. Squash love rich soil, so add some compost and plant a squash seed. When the soil is warm and moist, it's not unusual for them to germinate in a day.

Another of the summer's delights, the homegrown tomato, is finally ripe. An out-of-season grocery store tomato and a freshly picked, vine-ripened tomato are as different as Earth is from Venus. There is nothing more triumphant to a gardener or farmer than that first perfect tomato, still warm from the sun, eaten right there in the garden without a knife or a napkin.

Roma and paste type tomatoes are great for making sauce, paste, and salsa since they have fewer seeds and a denser flesh. The smaller grape and cherry type tomatoes make an awesome raw snack. Just rinse and pop in your mouth! Try including the small tomatoes on your kebabs and roast them on the grill. 

Slow cooked and painstakingly prepared spaghetti sauce is a fantastic comfort food in colder weather, but after a long day in the garden, I prefer to just throw together a fresh sauce. I'll use any tomato I have, whether it's purple, yellow, red, or striped; chop the tomato into big chunks. Heat up some extra virgin olive oil, sauté a chopped onion for a minute, add a couple cloves of minced garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Dump in the chopped the tomatoes, add whatever herbs you have on hand, and simmer for just a few minutes. I always use basil, but oregano, thyme, chives, rosemary, and savory would all make great substitutions or additions.

If you really want to can your tomatoes, but they're trickling in slowly, you could freeze your daily harvest and save up until you have enough to make it worth the hassle. You can freeze them whole or cut them into big chunks. Lay the pieces flat on a baking sheet until frozen solid then store in a freezer bag.

A gourmet way to feature your favorite tomato is to make a caprese salad. Get a hunk of good mozzarella cheese—the kind that comes in a little bag with water. Slice the cheese and tomato into ½ inch thick slices. Arrange together on a plate, garnish with a generous amount of basil, and drizzle with a good quality olive oil. Take this simple dish to another level by using an usually colored tomato and a mix of purple and green basil. If your basil gets away from you and starts blooming, you can use the flowers to add a floral flourish to your food.

Of course, one of the best ways to enjoy a ripe tomato is in the classic tomato and mayo sandwich. To make your inner-foodie squeal, use fresh baked oatmeal bread and homemade mayonnaise!

Blackberries, a brilliant summer delight

 

 Part of the fun of seasonal eating is enjoying what's available in as many different ways as possible. There is little else as glorious as a sun ripened blackberry fresh off the cane, but if you know a good picking spot or happen upon a gallon at the market, there are numerous fantastic ways you can include fresh blackberries in your diet.

One of the most familiar and most delicious is blackberry cobbler. There are almost as many blackberry cobbler recipes as there are blackberry canes in an abandoned hay field, but here's a very easy, very basic one. Melt ½ cup (1 stick) butter in a 2 quart casserole dish by placing in the oven as you preheat to 350. Combine 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 2/3 cup milk and mix well. Toss 2 ½ to 3 cups of fresh or frozen blackberries with 1-2 tablespoons of sugar. Pour batter into melted better; do not stir. Spoon blackberries over the batter, but don't stir. Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown. I like to add sorghum to my berries, and I add a little vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the batter when I make cobbler. 

Try making your own whipping cream to top the cobbler. Use an electric mixer to whip some heavy whipping cream until it starts to make peaks. Add a teaspoon of confectioners sugar and a dash of vanilla, then whip until it's a little stiffer. Be sure the cream is cold. Some people even recommend refrigerating your bowl and beaters, but I've never taken those extra steps. It's so easy to make, and so much better than the canned whipped cream!

You can also make a fantastic salad dressing from fresh or frozen blackberries. Muddle (mash) a couple tablespoons of berries, combine with a teaspoon of honey, a couple tablespoons of white wine vinegar, and a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil. You can dress up a simple green salad, or even try this dressing over warm sautéed greens.

Light meats like pork, chicken, and white fish pair beautifully with the tart, bright flavor of a blackberry marinade. Starting with the same base as the salad dressing, muddled berries, honey, and white wine vinegar, add spices like cumin, black pepper, salt, and just a dash of cinnamon. Or you could try leaving out the cumin and cinnamon and add fresh herbs, like basil and thyme instead. Spoon over the meat and marinate for a couple hours before cooking. Make extra marinade to serve on the cooked meat.

Another way to enjoy blackberries is to make a refreshing magenta blackberry punch. Using a spoon, clean the skin off a 1” chunk of fresh ginger. Combine ginger, 1 ½ to 2 cups blackberries, one cup sugar, and ¾ cup lemon juice in a blender. Process until well blended. Pour mixture into pitcher and combine with water at a ratio of 1:3, mixture to water. You can add more or less water depending on your preference. 

To make a fizzy punch, dilute with water instead of ginger ale. Serve with a mint or basil garnish. Served cold, this punch is a great way to cool down during a hot summer afternoon. It would be beautiful at a picnic or wedding. And if imbibing your corn instead of eating it on the cob is your style, this punch would pair wonderfully with the brews from Short Mountain Distillery in Woodbury.

Blackberries are part of the group of plant species that transition open ground back to forest. They pop up where ground has been disturbed and goes without being mowed for long periods of time. That's why you'll see them growing along roadsides and in neglected pastures and hayfields. Blackberries are perennials; the canes die back each year, but the roots survive the winter in the ground.

Harvesting blackberries is a fun but delicate task. I wear long pants, long sleeves, solid shoes, and long gloves. It's easiest to pick with both hands free. 

You can cut out the front of a milk jug, put your belt or a string through the handle, and tie it around your waist. It's best for the berries and most comfortable for the picker to go early in the morning, but you should go any time you can. 

Picking blackberries in the summertime was an integral part of my summertime growing up in the South. When the sun is hot and you're surrounded by a blackberry bramble you can smell the fruit ripening in the afternoon heat. I learned by experimentation that the bigger, more supple berries are the juiciest and sweetest. The little ones are more tart but have a very strong flavor. Those little ones are great for making jellies and jam.

It's extremely easy to freeze blackberries. Just pick through the berries to get out any little stems or leaves and arrange in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Put in the freezer until frozen through, then pour them in a freezer bag. You can make any of the recipes above with frozen berries. They're also a great way to pep up a cold winter morning's pancakes or a bowl of yogurt and granola.

Blackberries are an excellent source of vitamins C, K, and E, folate, magnesium, potassium, manganese, copper, and dietary fiber. The intense color of blackberries is due to their high concentration of anthocyanin antioxidants, which support your body's immune system. A cup of blackberry and honey tea sipped the grips of a dreary winter cold can help give your body the boost it needs to heal itself.

Harvesting wild blackberries is a great way to get into foraging for wild foods. Blackberries are easy to spot and positively identify and easy to harvest and process. You can't pick too many, and it would be hard to trample any patch to the point of compromising the next year's growth. Foraging reconnects you with the wild world, of which you are indelibly a part. If you're looking out for a perfect patch of blackberries on the side of the road, you notice more of the natural community of plants that surrounds us, instead of passing it all by in a blur of green as you dash down the highway. 

If you don't have time or can't be bothered to pick these seasonal beauties for yourself, please understand why they're rather expensive. Picking the berries without marring your hands and forearms is an act of grace and rapt concentration, even with sleeves and gloves. The berries are little, and while they do grow in dense patches, it's surprising how long it can take to painstakingly move through a maze of thorny canes as tall as you are. They don't keep very long, so any berries you buy at the market haven't been off their canes very long. 

The blackberry harvest can be a challenge, but it's a welcome challenge. I spend February evenings fantasizing about the sun roasted fruit and fresh cobbler with whipped cream makes. Those sweet culinary payoffs make all the tick bites worth it.

Cabbage and Fermented Foods

 

The beautiful, fresh vegetables are pouring in right now. You can get cabbage, squash, zucchini, potatoes, green onions, lettuce, kale, swiss chard, fresh herbs, cucumbers, and the season's first scrumptious beans. There are always delicious baked goods, canned goods, handmade soaps and lotions, barbecue, and dried herbs. It's almost time for corn and tomatoes. You never know when someone will show up with the first small harvest of those summer gems. Be sure you don't miss out, and drop by every week to check what goodies everyone has!

Fantastic heads of local cabbages are coming out of the fields right now. 

Cabbage is a very familiar vegetable to many people, but that doesn't mean it has to be boring. You can eat it raw, lightly steamed or sautéed, braised, roasted, in casseroles, or fermented, but don't boil or microwave it. Boiling, like with pretty much any other vegetable, boils away many of the water soluble vitamins and nutrients and leaves your cabbage mushy and pallid. Microwaving destroys the healthy enzymes that make cabbage the nutritional powerhouse that it is.

Cabbage contains vitamins K, C, B1 and B6, folate, fiber, potassium, calcium, and manganese. It has cholesterol-lowering nutrients, making it great for maintaining heart health. Cabbage juice is a traditional and effective treatment for peptic (stomach) ulcers, and including cabbage in your diet is a good way to help maintain digestive health. 

One of my very favorite ways to enjoy cabbage is to braise it in the oven with either a dark beer or red wine. You could also stock or even just water as a braising liquid, but I love the rich flavor from using beer or wine. All of the alcohol content is destroyed during cooking. 

For a medium (2 lb) cabbage, quarter and core, then halve the quarters, leaving you with eight wedges. Arrange the quarters in a 9” x 13” baking dish so that they lay flat, barely touching each other. Scatter carrots chopped into 1/4” rounds and sliced onions over the cabbage. Drizzle with some olive oil and pour about a 1/4” of dark beer into the dish. Season with salt and pepper, cover tightly with foil, and bake for about 2 hours at 350 until the veggies are tender. If you use a smaller head or smaller wedges, the cooking time will be reduced. 

About half way through, turn the cabbage wedges. If the liquid is getting low, add more braising liquid. Once everything is tender, turn the heat up to 400, take off the foil, and cook for another 15 minutes or just until the vegetables being to brown. This original recipe can be found at “World's Best Braised Cabbage.”

Sautéing is a quick, easy, healthy way to cook cabbage. The basic recipe is super easy. Quarter and core the cabbage, then slice into 1/2” thick ribbons. Heat a skillet to medium-high heat, add some extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil, and let the oil heat up. Make sure you use a skillet large enough that the cabbage lays in the bottom in just a thin layer. Add the ribboned cabbage and then add about ¼ cup of stock or water. Cover and cook the cabbage for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To dress up the simple sauté, you could add other chopped vegetables, like onions, peppers, or carrots. For a wholesome, meatless but fulling meal serve the dish with quinoa (pronounced “keen-wah”), a fantastic whole grain that cooks quickly and packs a nutritional punch, since it's a perfect protein. You can add exotic seasonings like cumin and coriander and pair it with curried potatoes for a delicious Indian-cuisine inspired dish. 

For a more decadent cabbage dish, try cabbage casserole with bacon and cheese. I usually make this dish with leftover rice. Combine lightly sautéed ribboned cabbage and onions, cooked rice, crumbled bacon, and crumbles of a strong flavored, creamy cheese like Blue cheese or Gorgonzola, with a sparing sprinkle of salt and a couple liberal rounds with freshly cracked pepper. Bake at 350 until the cabbage is tender; timing will depend on the size pan and amount of ingredients stuffed into it. Once the cabbage is tender, crank the heat up to 400 or 425 and lightly brown the top of the casserole.

A really fantastic way to augment of the wide range of nutrients in the whole raw cabbage is to make saurekraut or kimchi by the process of fermentation. Fermentation occurs when the sugars in food are broken down, resulting in lactic acid. The lactic acid lowers the pH (acidity level) of the food below the growth range of dangerous bacteria, preserving the food and all its nutrients without refrigeration.

This food preparation and preservation process can be carried out right in your own kitchen. Essentially all it takes is finely shredding your cabbage and other vegetables and packing them with salt in a ceramic or glass vessel and pressing them to release their juices. The juices mix with the salt to create a brine which covers the vegetables. You let the vessel sit for a few days, a few weeks, even a few months, until it acquires as strong a flavor as you desire. 

Lactic fermentation allows many nutrients to be more easily absorbed during the digestive process. Foods prepared by lactic fermentation add good bacteria to your stomach. That ecosystem of bacteria inside each of us is what is responsible for actually breaking down the food you eat into a form that can be absorbed by your body. Fermented foods also help balance your body's pH. The good bacteria absolutely vital for digestive health cannot thrive in a chronically acidified environment. The standard Westernized diet high in animal proteins, processed fats, and sugars leave our bodies chronically acidified.

Both traditional lore and peer reviewed studies agree that fermented foods are a boon to human health. Properly prepared, they are as delicious as they are nutritious. Local author, Sand Katz, is nationally known for his fermentation skills and knowledge. His book, Wild Fermentation:the flavor, nutrition, and craft of live-culture food is a great introduction to the world of fermenting foods, and it's available at the Liberty Library in the old high school building in Liberty.

Get some fresh, locally grown cabbage at the market this weekend, and delve into the culinary craft of creating your own fermented foods!

Squash season

There's nothing like the first summer squash feast of the season. Those golden, tender slices cooked with onions. Or made into a creamy casserole with cheese, bread crumbs or crackers, and a little milk, seasoned with just a little salt and pepper. The succulent, slightly sweet flesh is so versatile that it pairs deliciously with many other garden veggies.

A couple plants can keep a family's table covered in squash every day for weeks. Its versatility is a major boon, since those sunny yellow squash can really pile up when the season gets going.

Summer squash is full of many important nutrients, including B-vitamins, vitamin C, molybdemun, manganese, and fiber, in addition to being a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, which are lacking in the typical Western diet.

When you're selecting summer squash, choose squash with unblemished, tender skin. If you get any with bruises, you should use those first. Unblemished squash will keep in the fridge for at least a week.

To maintain more the great nutrients in summer squash, avoid boiling it and be sure to eat the skin. You can slightly steam, roast, grill, sauté, and even freeze squash and still maintain all its nutrients. 

Skewer baby squash, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and throw them on a hot grill until tender. Wrap up the whole baby squash or chopped large squash in an aluminum foil packet, place on the grill away from the direct heat, and by the time your chicken or hot dogs are done, the squash will be perfectly cooked. You can also just toss baby squash or chopped squash with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast in the oven at 325 for about twenty minutes. You can add whole baby onions or thick slices of onion to any of those cooking methods with delicious effect.

To freeze squash, thickly slice the bigger fruit or use the little ones whole. Lightly blanch, then freeze in a single layer on a cookie sheet. After frozen solid, place them in an airtight bag. When you defrost it, put you can put it on the grill, sauté, or steam the squash, and it will be almost as good as it is fresh.

One of our farm's favorite ways to cook up squash or zucchini is to sauté it with some swiss chard. Slice up some onions and squash into ¼ inch thick slices. Strip the chard leaves off the ribs and chop the ribs into inch long sections. Sauté the onions, squash, and chard ribs for 3-4 minutes in extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the ripped up chard leaves and cook for another 4-5 minutes. Season with sea salt and fresh pepper and a dash of white whine vinegar. The color combination of this dish is out of this world.

Sauteed squash with chard makes a great side dish that's packed with vitamins and minerals. In addition to an array of phytonutrients and antioxidants, both squash and chard are rich in fiber, which helps regulate the speed at which carbohydrates are converted to simple sugars during the digestive process. Regulating that process minimizes blood sugar spikes. Maximizing your consumption of fresh produce is a great way to help manage diabetes. 

 

You can turn your sautéed squash, onions, and chard into a meatless main course dish by combining it with a whole wheat chunky pasta or tortellinis. The combination of the vegetables and pasta provide you with plenty of protein for a complete meal, but the flavors go great with a meat addition, too.

image from www.crumblycookie.net

Another creative way to use squash and zucchini is to grate the whole thing, skin on, and use it as a beautiful, edible garnish. You can serve it over a great green salad, or feature the grated squash and zucchini as its own salad. Dress the grated flesh with some a red wine vinaigrette. To make the vinaigrette, combine red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil at a 1 to 3 ratio and season with a touch of salt and pepper. Toss with some freshly chopped basil, mint, or oregano for a gourmet touch.

Eating healthy and fresh is easy when there's so much great produce around. Be sure to check out the market this week and load up on healthy, beautiful food for your family!