CSA Week #4: Zesty Garlic Scape Pesto

What came in our CSA this week:

Beets
Garlic scapes
Bibb lettuce
Mesclun greens, mixed
Sugar snap peas
Cucumbers
Spring onions
Tatsoi

The farm seems to be in a precarious state of recovery, with more rains potentially imminent, but I think the excessive moisture has made all the greens that didn't drown robust and crunchy. The lettuces in particular are delicious.

I did another cooking demonstration at distribution today; the featured item was garlic scapes, so I made two varieties of pesto - a buttery one with pine nuts and parmesan, and a tangy, zesty one without.

Zesty Garlic Scape Pesto

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup garlic scapes, coarsely chopped

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 cups grated parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest

Salt, to taste

DIRECTIONS

Combine scapes and lemon juice in a food processor or blender and process about 1 minute, or until scapes are very finely chopped. With food processor running, add oil in a stream and blend another minute, . Add parmesan, lemon zest, and salt; process until desired consistency is acheived.

Serve as a dip or tossed with hot pasta. Enjoy!

4th of July Cherry Pie

Apple pie may be the flavor that comes to mind in conjunction with the phrase "all-American," but apples are far from in season on Independence Day. The fruits ripe for pie on the fourth of July are cherries, blueberries, and peaches.

This fourth, we had a small grilling get-together on the rooftop of my teensy Manhattan apartment. I definitely traded square footage for location, roof access, and a great view when I rented this place - my building overlooks the treetops in Tompkins Square and out onto the midtown skyline. Both the Midtown and Seaport fireworks displays are viewable from the roof; we grilled everything from tofu to sirloin and listened to the booming explosions ricochet off the skyscrapers.

After fireworks, we tramped downstairs for a cold, sweet bowl of vanilla ice cream and a slice of red, white and blue Cherry-Blueberry Pie.

This pie is filled with an assortment of tart red cherries and sweet golden cherries, plus a big handful of the juicy blueberries that have just come into full fruit here in New York. I made the crust with butter, rather than shortening, which made it a little harder to maneuver but was worth the tender, flaky crunch.

Cherry-Blueberry Pie

Crust:

I made a butter crust using this recipe, which has very specific directions for crust-making and latticing; my only caution would be that I made the quantity of dough the recipe calls for in a 2-crust 9-inch pie for my lattice, and it was still not quite enough. If you're going to make a lattice, I advise you to make the full two-crust amount, just in case. I also added about 2 tablespoons of sugar to the dough, which gave it a sweet, crispy flake.

Filling:

1 cups fresh sour cherries, pitted
2 cups fresh sweet cherries, pitted
1 cup fresh blueberries
1-2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)

Directions:

Combine fruit, lemon juice, zest, and sugar; stir in cornstarch and let stand while rolling out crust. Pour filling into bottom crust and lay lattice over top. Brush lattice with egg white and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake pie at 400 degrees on top rack of oven for 20 minutes (put a heavy baking sheet on the lower rack for more even baking). After 20 minutes, tent edge of crust with foil collar to prevent further browning and bake for an additional 20-30 minutes, or until lattice is golden. Cool for about an hour to allow the liquid to set; serve warm with ice cream.

This was my first bash at homemade lattice crust, and though it had its trials and tribulations (try rolling out chilled dough on hot kitchen counters in the summer with no air conditioning!), the end result was definitely worth it. I appreciated the explicit directions in the recipe (from The Pie and Pastry Bible), which protected me from the usual errors of overkneading or adding too much water. The recipe, which has a split-butter strategy where you cut in about two thirds of the butter and then toss in the other third in big chunks, explains that this keeps the flour from absorbing too much water and creating gluten, which causes the crust to be chewy and elastic. The bigger bits of butter are rolled out into flakes, which add dimension and texture to the crust. All the fresh fruit made the pie very juicy - perhaps a little too much so - but everyone gave it rave reviews, and it was the perfectly sweet end to an evening of fire and festivities.

CSA Week #3: Chicken Cheddar Omelette

What came in our CSA this week:

(all organic)
1 dozen large brown eggs
Palatine extra-sharp cheddar cheese
Creamline lemon yogurt
Tatsoi
Napa cabbage
Bibb lettuce
Red lettuce
Sugar snap peas (!)
(conventional)
Dark cherries
Strawberries
Lemon-apple juice

The incredible bounty of this week's share surprised me; I was expecting less, based on reports that Norwich Meadows Farm (and much of upstate New York) has been suffering from terrific flooding. The water has swamped some of their fields and left almost all of them unnavigable by tractor, so all harvesting has to be done by hand. They're short-staffed and in need of help, so if anyone feels like taking a daytrip to Norwich, NY, let me know...

Anyway, the flooding, understandably, delayed distribution until Thursday, but this week I had the pleasure of doing a cooking demonstration of my Sugar Snap Peas with Lemon-Mint Gremolata at distribution, as sugar snaps were the featured item in this week's share. I got a lot of positive feedback, and I had so much fun cooking in the fabulous kitchen in NYU's food studies department!

Anyway, this morning I cracked open the first speckled egg and spilled its dark golden orb into the pan. In went grated cheddar, diced chicken (leftover from a Singaporean experiment), and a handful of crisp baby lettuce from last week's mixed greens. A little salt and red pepper, and voila - a healthy, delicious omelette as sunny as today turned out to be.

"I am going to make a peanut butter sandwich."

Allow me to introduce you to precocious epicurian prodigy Baby Kate. In this blast from the past, little Kate (here at the promising age of four, in a nautically-themed outfit) will give you step-by-step instructions on how to make that famous culinary item beloved by children everywhere, the peanut butter and honey sandwich.

(All italicized text is a direct quote from Baby Kate's gastronomical premiere in 1988, available on home video. Please try to ignore 80s kitchen decor.)

"You get some bread and put some honey on it..."

"Then you get some peanut butter and put it on the other side. Then you smooth the peanut butter. I am just getting all the peanut butter off so I can get some more..."

"Then you put it on..."

"...and eat it! Mmmmm...I sure do know how to make 'em!"


I believe that in this video I go on the feed the sandwich to the cat.

Thanks to mom for digging out the old camcorder and capturing these stills! Also, my apologies for my recent absenteeism - next life goal: to get responsible living to coincide with responsible blogging. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to all of you who asked after me this week - thank you for making this slice of pie feel special!

More updates very soon. 'Til then,
- (Grownup?) Kate