Recipe: Carrot Apple Slaw

Colourful carrots make for a vibrant salad, and this time of year we have carrots in spades and are looking for ways to use them. Visit an apple orchard and pick some red apples to toss in for even more colour. A bright, citrusy vinaigrette and some toasted nuts tie all the flavours together as well as keep the apples from turning brown. I made this recipe for our big Thanksgiving feast, so it'll serve at least 4 adults. Cut the amounts in half for a smaller, more mundane occasion, like Tuesday night.

Ingredients:
Slaw:
- 3-4 carrots (ideally in a mix of colours)
- 1 large or 2 small apples
- ½ cup pine nuts or walnuts
- 1 tbsp butter
- ½ cup chopped parsley
Dressing:
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- juice and zest of 1 lime
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp salt

Steps:
1) Peel and cut carrots into thin, matchstick-sized strips with either a knife, mandolin or grater.

2) Cut apples into similarly sized thin strips or matchsticks (I leave the apple peel on).

3) Melt butter on medium heat and toast pine nuts until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.

4) Finely chop parsley.

5) Combine carrots, apples, parsley and pine nuts (when cooled).

6) Combine dressing ingredients and pour over slaw. Mix well and serve.

Info

1 Comment

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had our first frost last night, but just a light one that did no real damage in the garden. Rose ran out to the front of the house this morning to check on the little cherry tomatoes plants she put in this summer. Happily, they survived and there were smiles all around. She's hoping the last few tomatoes get to ripen before the real frost hits.

Last night was a harbinger of the colder, stiller, less abundant days to come, which seems fitting on a weekend when we celebrate the bountiful harvest season, now coming to an end. We're thankful for the land that feeds us and we think there's nothing better than a great big delicious meal to celebrate that. We also want to thank all our CSA members for supporting the farm this year and hope you have something fantastic to eat this weekend. Happy thanksgiving!

Info

Comment

Recipe: Pumpkin Pie

Little pie pumpkins have the sweetness and soft texture that make them ideal for the custardy filling of the traditional pumpkin pie. Many recipes call for butternut squash or canned pumpkin because standard pumpkins (like the ones we carve at Halloween) are too bland and stringy. However a pie pumpkin is the perfect solution. Try one for Thanksgiving this year!

Ingredients:
- 1 pie pumpkin
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 5 egg yolks
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom

Steps:
1) Cut pumpkin in half and scoop out seeds. Put them aside to roast later on with some olive oil and salt for a tasty snack.

2) Put pumpkins halves in a roasting pan and cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour.

3) Scoop baked pumpkin flesh out with a spoon and throw in the blender.

) Puree pumpkin with 1/4-1/2 cup of water. Use just enough water to get the blender going, but ideally as little as possible to avoid watering down the puree.

5) Simmer pureed pumpkin on low for at least 1 hour. The goal is to reduce to the thickest consistency possible, so if you have time to let it continue reducing while you get your turkey or other Thanksgiving prep going, keep it on the stove.

6) Beat egg yolks with sugar and then add cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cardamom and mix thoroughly.

7) Stir egg mixture into pumpkin puree and then add whipping cream.

8) Pour into pie crust and bake at 425 F for 15 minutes. Then lower the heat to 350 F and bake for another 45-50 minutes. The pie is done when the edge are set but the centre is still wobbly. You may have extra filling left over after you've poured it into the pie crust, and this can be baked separately in a small baking dish for a pumpkin custard treat.

9) Let cool and serve with some whipped cream on top. Happy Thanksgiving!

Info

Comment

Orange Yolks

In putting together this week's recipe I had to pause and admire the beautiful deep orange of our chickens' egg yolks. Pastured chickens eating a diet high in greens and bugs produce eggs rich in carotenoids, which are responsible for the orange hue. While the orange colour itself doesn't mean a more nutrient-rich egg it's a sign of a more varied and complete diet for the chicken, and thus an indirect indicator of a more nutrient dense egg. Ethically it also means chickens who are free to roam rather than being cooped up, and who get to eat what they like best - their enthusiasm for a fresh patch of grass is unequaled.

Egg producers have caught on to consumers' preference for more vividly coloured eggs and are able to tinker with yolk colour via additives in chicken feed, so don't automatically assume that orange yolks mean a happy chicken. As always, it's best to have a relationship with the farmer producing your food so you can ask directly what the conditions are like. I think this is especially true if you consume animal products, where the ethical stakes are higher and consequently the moral responsibility to eat well that much greater.

Info

Comment

Recipe: Eggplant Rice

This recipe is a bit like a deconstructed baba ganoush, remade as a rice dish. Feel free to load it up with more veggies or some meat, or just have it simply as it is, on the side of a main course. We made it to take to a harvest BBQ to celebrate the end of summer, and a late season veggie like eggplant feels just right on a day that turns cool as soon as the sun goes down. Our hosts were the lovely folks of Knuckle Down Farm, fellow Toronto ex-pats turned farmers. Thanks guys!

Ingredients:
- 2-3 small eggplant
- 1/2 cup of rice
Tahini Sauce:
- 5 tbsp tahini
- 3 tbsp plain yogurt
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp water
- zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 2-4 cloves of garlic

Steps:
1) Preheat oven to 400 F. Cut eggplant into 1 inch chunks. Place eggplant in colander, salt lightly and leave to drain until the oven is ready.

2) Spread drained eggplant chunks out on a cookie sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Roast until lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

3) While eggplant is roasting puree tahini sauce ingredients. Cook rice on the stovetop or in a rice cooker.

4) Thinly slice basil into chiffonade strips.

5) Combine eggplant, tahini sauce, basil and cooked rice in a bowl and mix well. Serve hot or cold.

Info

Comment

Fall Greenhouse

Our greenhouse is getting close to its first birthday. Happily, we've gotten great use out of its first year. It serves multiple purposes depending on the time of the year; right now it's mainly being used to extend the growing season of late summer veggies like tomatoes, sweet peppers and eggplant.

The side vents are open in the day and closed at night in the spring and fall.

It's pretty gratifying to see such healthy looking tomatoes in the greenhouse at a time of year when the field tomatoes are dying off. The next step will be some experimentation over the winter with cold tolerant veggies and possibly another, larger greenhouse in the future.

Info

Comment

Eva Mae Farm