Week #9, July 13 2017

Farm News

Steve has begun seeding our fall and winter storage carrots, and has already planted three acres. The seedlings are beginning to come up. The big question is whether any of these fields will need to be re-seeded after the rains. Carrot seedlings are delicate and have trouble emerging from the ground if there’s a crust.  It’s pretty normal to have to re-seed at least one carrot field. I guess we don’t need the irrigation pipe this week!

It rained 4.5 inches this past week (2 inches on Monday night and 2.5 inches today).  That’s not bad, considering the Madison area got 5 – 6 inches and a farmer-friend wrote that they got 10 inches.  That’s crazy.  We feel lucky.  Our fields were getting dry, so the first 2 inches were welcome.  The second round, not as much.  Your produce is quite clean despite the mud; the crew gave it their full attention.  Wash the beets carefully but that’s the only thing that will hold grit.  A few items show storm damage.  You can see dings in both the snap peas and basil but it’s cosmetic damage.  Enjoy your produce and let’s hope for some drier weather.  Beth

Let’s talk daikon radishes and Korean food

Everyone gets one purple and one white radish this week.

We are sending Korean daikon this week, the same type you received three weeks ago.  I love Korean radishes!  They are so much sweeter than the Japanese types.  We might switch completely to the Korean types in future.  First, we need to evaluate how they perform in fall plantings.

Uses: Daikon radish make excellent salads.  Both Pat and Lauren gave us recipes for pickled daikon three week ago and both featured bahn mi recipes this week.  Great minds think alike.  The recipes have overlapping ingredients but each recipe is distinct.  We are sending about 1 lb total this week, a perfect amount for salad although you may need to adjust the ingredient quantities since we sent more radishes three weeks ago.  Here are their recipes.
– Summer Squash and Kale Tacos with Quick Pickled Radishes
– Pork, Broccoli & Snow Pea Lettuce Wraps with Pickled Daikon
– Grilled Pork Tenderloin Banh Mi Sandwich (A Local Thyme recipe this week)
– Bahn Mi Burgers (below)

I am enchanted with Korean cuisine.  If you are interested in Korean food, you must check out Maangchi’s website.  She has the best Korean recipes and videos, including an extensive list of daikon recipes.  I enjoyed the Maangchi site this winter, making Tteokbokki (Hot and spicy rice cake), various stews, and Bibimbop (Rice mixed with vegetables, meat, an egg, and chili pepper paste), skipping half the ingredients but excellent with her White Radish Salad (Musaengchae).  

I am eager to try her newest Cubed Radish Kimchi (Kkakdugi) recipe; I love kimchi and have always found homemade daikon kimchi recipes more reliable than those made with napa cabbage.  When it comes to kimchi, I am an amateur compared to Maggie who makes gallons and gallons each year.  I’ll get her to share one of her recipes in a future newsletter.  If you don’t have Korean red pepper flakes, you can substitute paprika mixed with some cayenne, although the Korean pepper is ground more coarsely.  Korean red pepper flakes have a lot of flavor but moderate heat.  

In Madison, I shop for Korean staples at the Oriental Food Mart on Park Street, and at an Asian grocery at the northwest corner of Odana and Whitney Way.  Lee’s Oriental on University is good too.  The owners at Oriental Food Mart on Park Street are very helpful.  If you have questions, that’s the place to go.  Beth

Ari, Steve and Sophie enjoy a New Years Eve feast at Koreana restaurant outside Toledo.  At least five dishes on the table contain daikon.  We try to stop at this excellent restaurant during our annual cross-country trip to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah with family.  This year, we managed to stop on both legs of the journey!

Veggie List and Veggie Notes
(July 13/14, 2017; week #9, purple EOW, sun Sampler)

Beets with greens, 1 big bunch
Sugar snap peas, 1.7 lb
Cucumbers, 2
Broccoli, 1 or 2 nice heads
Zucchini & summer squash, 2 – 3 lb
Korean daikon radishes, ~2, white or purple
Walla Walla onion, 1
Basil, 1 bunch
Fresh garlic, 1 bulb

Next week’s box will probably contain ‘Caraflex’ cabbage, cucumbers, zucchini, Walla Walla onion, carrots (unless it rains too much) and more.

Beets with greens – Beet greens are tasty. They are similar to Swiss chard in flavor (the two crops are very closely related.)  This week’s greens are a little tough so you should remove the thickest midribs before cooking, and give them a little extra cooking time.  We could have harvested them last week but the fennel harvest was more urgent.  The extra week gave the beet roots more time to plump up.
Storage: Cover and refrigerate.  Separate the tops and roots if you don’t plan to eat the greens immediately, to preserve freshness in the roots.  Beet greens are perishable and should be eaten soon. The beet roots will last for weeks.

Sugar snap peas – Let’s give a big cheer for our crew who persevered with the lengthy pea harvest.  This might be the largest bag of snap peas we’ve ever put in the CSA boxes.  These peas are showing some light storm damage.  You’ll see white spots from rain or hail.  The peas are not as perfectly tender as those we delivered last week but are still sweet and delicious, good for either raw salads or lightly cooked.

Cucumbers – The first cukes!  Enjoy!

Korean daikon radishes – See above.

Fresh garlic – This is the first garlic harvest. We can ship these while freshly dug, without curing.  We’ll complete the garlic harvest soon, but then the bulbs need to cure.  It will be a few weeks until we can send more.  Good thing we have lots of onions.

RECIPES

Visit our Recipe Log, a list of all our 2017 recipes.  We’ve already accumulated several zucchini recipes over the past two weeks.

LOCAL THYME RECIPES

Comforting Classics

Grilled Pork Tenderloin or Tofu Banh Mi Sandwich
Beets, Beet Greens, and Sautéed Onions with Feta and Pine Nuts
Raw Beet Salad
Wagon Wheel Pasta with Peas

Outside the Box Recipes

Hoisin Braised Daikon
Bruschetta with Beets and Goat Cheese
Broccoli Pesto
Chilled Snap Pea Soup with Honey Sage Butter

Quick and Easy Meal

Seared Scallops on Snap Pea Puree

RECIPES FROM LAUREN

BAHN MI BURGERS
I know it looks like a long ingredient list on this one but I promise it will come together in a cinch. The hardest thing you have to do is cut daikon into matchsticks and pickle them. Also note that a technically traditional bahn mi uses a Vietnamese baguette, some sort of delicious slow-roasted pork product (usually pork belly), pork pate, pickled daikon & carrots, cucumber slices, pickled jalapeno, and cilantro so calling this a bahn mi is a bit of a stretch. But it’s darn tasty so we’re going there anywhere.  Lauren

Makes 6-8 burgers
Takes 1 hour

Pickled Daikon
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
3 cups daikon, white or purple or a mix, cut into matchsticks (no need to peel)
Burgers:
2 pounds ground pork
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Spicy Mayo:
1 cup mayonnaise
4-6 tablespoons sriracha depending on your preference for heat
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
For Assembly:
6-8 of your favorite burger buns (or baguette bread sliced into bun size for a more authentic bahn mi), toasted
Cucumber, very thinly sliced
Basil
Pickled sliced jalapeno, optional

1. Make pickled daikon. Combine rice wine vinegar, water, sugar and soy sauce together in a large bowl. Whisk to combine. Add daikon and leave at room temperature to rest while you prepare the rest of the burger. Let pickle for at least thirty minutes. Feel free to do this step the morning or night before preparing the burgers.
2. Make your burgers. Combine pork, garlic, and curry powder in a large bowl along with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Form into 6-8 patties depending on the number of mouths you are feeding. Grill the burgers or cook them in a small amount of vegetable oil on the stovetop until cooked through or about 3-4 minutes per side. Remove to a plate and let rest for 5 minutes.
3. Prepare spicy mayo. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.
4. Assemble burgers. Spread a generous about of spicy mayo on the base of your toasted buns. Top with a 6-10 slices of cucumber followed by burger patty. Add a few basil leaves, some pickled jalapenos (if using) and a generous pile of pickled daikon followed by the top of your bun. Press down slightly to try and make your burger a manageable, bite-able size and enjoy!

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BEET, SNAP PEA & AVOCADO SALAD
Adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty

Takes 30 minutes
Serves 2 as a main dish dinner salad or 4-6 as a side

1 bunch beets
3 tablespoons sherry vinegar (red wine or balsamic vinegars also would work fine)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tablespoon hot sauce
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 Walla Walla onion, thinly sliced
3 cups snap peas, ends trimmed and halved lengthwise
1 avocado, thinly sliced
1/4 cup basil leaves

1. Bring a large pot of unsalted water to a boil on the stove. Prepare beets, by trimming off the tops. Discard the greens or save for another purpose. Cut any beets larger than a golf ball in half. If they are the size of a baseball, cut them into quarters. Drop the beets into the boiling water and blanche for 5 minutes. Strain and rinse under cold water until cool enough to peel. Peel beets. Thinly slice beets (ideally on a mandolin if you have one but a knife will work fine if you don’t).
   Whisk together vinegar, olive oil, hot sauce, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Add sliced onion and beets. Let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, prepare peas. Trim ends and slice in half lengthwise. Mix together peas and basil leaves on a large, lipped platter. Lay avocado over the top. Once onions and beets are ready, pour them over the peas, mint and avocado. Use as much of the dressing as you desire.

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