From the Land 3.13

announcements

The CSA is still operating during normal hours during spring break. Students: only some of you have signed up for this week. If you are unsure please email or call us.

Also, please remember your reusable and/or plastic bags this week. We’re completely out of plastic bags, and would love some donations from your collection!

job posting: The Prescott Farmers Market is currently seeking a Managing Director. If you’re interested, you can see the job posting here: http://prescottfarmersmarket.org/20130223141/hiring.html. Resumes are due this Friday.

food for thought

full share: DeCiccio broccoli, hakurei turnips, red potatoes, salad mix, Quelites, radishes, Toscano kale, and dill – all from Crooked Sky Farm.

partial share: DeCiccio broccoli, hakurei turnips, red potatoes, and salad mix!

veg of the week

Quelites: Chenopodium album

Quelites is a general term that refers to any wild native Mexican green, but despite their popularity are not commonly found in grocery stores. The Quelites we are receiving today are also known as lambs-quarters. They resemble spinach and can be cooked in the same way. They differ from spinach in that they aren’t quite as fuzzy, are very nutritious, and don’t break down as fast or completely as spinach. They are very popular in Mexican and South American cuisine, and rural New Mexican children are commonly sent out to gather them from the sides of roads and ditches.

Uses: You can use Quelites in any dish you would use spinach. Put them fresh in a salad or add them to eggs – in a quiche, omelette or scrambled eggs.

To store: Store in a plastic bag in your refrigerator’s crisper bin. The greens will lose crispness after the first week, but are still edible for a few weeks after that.

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Crooked Sky Farm
By Alexander Deck

Frank Martin has always enjoyed farming. In 1999 when he started the farm business, he was driving around and turned onto a road called Crooked Sky Road. When he asked how the road got its name, he was told that the natives in that land called that area “crooked sky” because of how the mountains made the sky look against the horizon.

Today, Crooked Sky Farms is broken up between property in Duncan, Virden, and four different urban locations in Phoenix ranging between 10 to 40 acres. One of the reasons Frank farms in the city is that there is not a lot of farmland available around Phoenix, but the biggest reason is to preserve existing farmland.

Crooked Sky sells at the many different farmers markets in Phoenix, has several of their own CSAs around the valley and in Flagstaff and Tucson, as well as contributing to our PCCSA. You can find out more about the CSA and farm here.

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sauteed quelites
adapted from The Food Network
serves 4

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 white onion, finely chopped
• 1 jalapeno, thinly sliced
• 6 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 bag quelites, cut into 2-inch strips
• 1 lemon, juiced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In large saute pan, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil. When the oil begins to smoke, add the onions and jalapeno. Cook for 3 minutes until onions are translucent. Add tomatoes, and cook for 2 more minutes. Add the greens. Cook for 5 minutes until greens are wilted and tender. Add the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Serve.

lamb’s quarters with beans: quelites con frijoles
adapted from mexconnect
serves 4

• 1 tablespoon corn oil (or your favorite cooking oil)
• ½ cup chopped onions
• 1 large clove garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1 tablespoon chile seeds (from ancho, guajillo or any mild dried red chile)
• 2 cups cooked pinto beans
• 1 ½ pounds quelites
• salt to taste

Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the onion, garlic and chile seeds and cook until the onion is just beginning to wilt.

Add the pinto beans and quelites and continue cooking until the greens have wilted. Add salt to taste.

For a vegetarian meal, serve with white rice. Leftover diced pork is a good addition for meat eaters.

peanut mole enchiladas with braised quelites and potatoes
adapted from food and wine

SMOKY PEANUT MOLE

• 2 medium (about 1 ounce) dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
• 1/2 cup vegetable or olive oil
• 1/2 small white onion, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/2 pound ripe tomatoes
• 1 cup dry roasted peanuts, plus a few tablespoons chopped for garnish
• 2 slices firm bread (or 1/2 dry Mexican bolillo roll), torn into pieces
• 2 canned chipotle chiles en adobo, seeded
• 1/8 teaspoon allspice, preferably freshly ground
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, preferably freshly ground Mexican canela
• About 3 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup fruity red wine
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt, about 1 1/2 teaspoons, depending on the saltiness of the broth
• Sugar, about 1 tablespoon

Tear the ancho chiles into flat pieces, then toast a few at a time in a dry skillet over medium heat: flatten with a metal spatula for a few seconds, until they crackle and change color slightly, then flip and press again. (If they give off more than the slightest wisp of smoke, they are burning and will add a bitter element to the sauce.) In a small bowl, soak the chiles in hot water for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain and discard the water.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a heavy, medium (4-quart) pot (preferably a Dutch oven) over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic cloves, and cook, stirring regularly, until well browned, about 10 minutes. Scrape into a blender jar. Set the pan aside.

Preheat the broiler. Broil the tomatoes on a baking sheet 4-inches from the heat source until blackened, about 5 minutes, then flip and repeat on the other side. Let cool, then peel, collecting all the juices from the tomato. Add the tomato to the blender, along with 1 cup of the peanuts, the bread, chipotles, drained anchos, allspice and cinnamon. Add 1 1/2 cups of the broth and blend until smooth, stirring and scraping down the sides of the blender jar; add more liquid if needed. Press the mixture through a medium-mesh strainer set over a bowl.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the remaining oil in the pot over medium high, until shimmering. Add the puree all at once. Stir as the nutty-smelling mixture thickens and darkens for about 5 minutes, then stir in the remaining 2 cups broth, the wine, vinegar and bay leaves. Partially cover and let gently simmer over medium-low heat for roughly 45 minutes, stirring regularly for the flavors to harmonize. If necessary, thin the sauce with a little more broth to keep it the consistency of a cream soup. Taste and season with salt, usually about 1 1/2 teaspoons, and the sugar. Cover and keep warm if using immediately. Mole can be kept in the refrigerator for two weeks.

FILLING

• 2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
• 1 medium red onion, sliced 1/2-inch thick
• 4 cups loosely packed, sliced quelites
• 3 medium red potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice and blanch in salted water until tender
• Salt

ENCHILADAS

• 8 corn tortillas (plus a few extra in case some break)
• 2 1/2 cups Smoky Peanut Mole
• A few tablespoons chopped roasted peanuts, for garnish
• A few sprigs of parsley, for garnish

In a large skillet, heat the oil over moderately high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring regularly, until richly browned, about 10 minutes. Add the sliced greens and potatoes, cover and cook about 3 minutes (just to wilt the quelites). Uncover and cook, stirring frequently, until the greens are tender and the mixture dry, about 5 minutes longer. Taste and season with salt. Remove from the heat. (If not completing the enchiladas immediately, spread the mixture onto a baking sheet and cool completely; return to pan before continuing.)

Set up a steamer (a vegetable steamer in a large saucepan filled with 1-inch of water works well); heat to a boil. Wrap the tortillas in a heavy kitchen towel and lay them in the steamer; cover tightly. Boil 1 minute, turn off the heat and let stand without opening the steamer for about 15 minutes.

While the tortillas are standing, bring the mole to a simmer in a medium-size saucepan (if not already warm). Taste and season with additional salt if necessary; thin with additional water or broth to the consistency of a medium cream soup. Warm the filling over medium-low heat.

When ready to serve, make enchiladas a portion at a time: Lay 2 tortillas on a warm dinner plate, roll a portion of the filling into each one, lay the enchiladas seam-side down on the plate and ladle a portion of the mole over the top—cover the tortilla completely; be generous with the sauce. Sprinkle with peanuts and parsley leaves. Serve immediately.

From the Land 2/22

food for thought
full share: salad mix, carrots, cabbage, herb mix, I’itoi onions, spinach, red potatoes, and black spanish radishes
partial: carrots, cabbage, I’itoi onions, and spinach

announcements

It’s not too late to sign up for a Beef Share! Just shoot me an email and we can add it to your contract. As in the past, it’s $100 for about 16 pounds of beef, mixed cuts. It will come all at once frozen on March 28. Sign up now – there are limited shares available!

upcoming

Slow Food meeting: Tuesday, March 20
Ariel Ruben will present a slideshow of her 2010 trip to Terra Madre, the annual Slow Food conference in Italy. Hosted dinner (donations requested) with dessert potluck.

Prescott Farmers Market: opens May 12!

veg of the week
Spanish Black radish: Raphanus sativus

Yes, it is a radish, but this spicy and bitter, large, black, thick-skinned Brassica is quite different from its small mild French sister. This CSA season we’ve seen quite the variety of radishes, each with subtle appearance and taste differences: the sweet French breakfast and  Valentine varieties, the spicy and pungent Japanese daikon, and now the Spanish Black (sometimes referred to as the SBR). This variety is known as a “winter” radish variety, in part because it takes so long to mature that those planted in November or December are just now ripening, and also because they store incredibly well when kept dry and cold. SBRs are relatively uncommon in the US and much more popular in European agriculture and cuisine.

Uses: Thanks to Harvest to Table for the following tip: shred the root and marinate it in salted water for two hours to take the edge off its pungency. Drain and press the shredded root dry. Serve as a salad with vinegar and oil. Sprinkle fresh minced herbs over the top. Or you can also grate them into a green salad or a soup – try them in lentil or split pea!

Nutrition: With their high fiber and water content, Spanish Blacks are excellent for digestion and elimination. They are nutrient-rich, especially high in vitamin C (one SBR provides almost 1/4 of the recommended daily allowance of C!), which protects cells against damage from free radicals, boosts the immune system, and forms connective tissue within the body. Cruciferous vegetables, radishes among them, contain large quantities of the phytochemicals “glucosinolates”, which when metabolized create compounds known as isothiocyanates and nitriles which protect the liver against cancer. They also increase gall bladder health because of chemicals that increase the flow of bile. Yum – eat up!

To store: Store unwashed and dry in a perforated plastic bag in your refrigerator’s crisper drawer, and they’ll last weeks, if not months!

feeding the world

video: Michael Pollan on feeding the world

As Michael Pollan states in the video linked above, the world easily produces enough food to feed an even larger population than we already have, but the percentage of hungry and undernourished people throughout the world is still much too high. The reasons for this are many, and are quite complicated and vary in each country, but I’ll focus on three main reasons:

grain fed to animals:
Worldwide, over 35% (and over 50% in the US) of the grain grown is fed to livestock. In the US, this grain is enough to feed almost a billion people! Grain-fed meat production is extremely inefficient, using six kg of grain to produce only one kg of animal protein, and 28 kilocalories of energy to produce 1 kcal of protein. In addition, David Pimental (the Cornell ecologist) posits that Americans could still receive more than the recommended daily allowance of meat and dairy protein through existing grass-fed animals. Grass-fed animals can subsist on land that is not ideal for agriculture, therefore allowing farmers to utilize arable land for food for humans.

grain used for ethanol:
For the first time, in 2012 in the US more corn will be used for ethanol production than for cattle feed, and most of this will be exported…yes, for profit. This further decreases the available grain for human use; in fact, for every 10 ears harvested only 2 are eaten by humans. While the corn for ethanol production is no longer directly subsidized, this system still increases world hunger by using agricultural land for fuel rather than for food.

problems of food distribution.
As just one example, the Green Revolution (the mechanization of food production through widespread proliferation of herbicide-resistant seeds and increased fossil fuel dependent agriculture) increased production in an effort to “feed the world”. Unfortunately, the effect was not the desired parallel decrease in global hunger, because the additional food just went to those that, in short, already had enough because they could afford it. Likewise, the profits from this higher production went directly into the hands of those who could afford to adopt the new seeds and high-fertilizer use. Simply put, the hungry are still hungry because they still can’t afford food, and the landless and peasant farmers are still landless and poor because they couldn’t afford to adopt the new measures in the first place.

One thing the Green Revolution did succeed in was creating an extremely cheap food system in the US. High calorie, high fat, and overly processed foods containing cheap ingredients are prevalent. Unfortunately, the environmental, social and personal health ramifications of this system make it not as efficient as it might seem. Soil erosion, groundwater pollution, fossil fuel dependence, foreign labor dependence, obesity, undernourishment, inhumane animal treatment, slave labor, and farmer debt are just a few of the myriad of ways that this system shows its overall inefficiency.

In its stated purpose of “feeding the world”, our current food system has failed. But in the last decade, movements across the globe are rising up in response to this food inequity. The Via Campesina (peasant) movement, food sovereignty, local food, agroecology, permaculture and other sustainable agricultural practices are popping up worldwide to create alternatives to the dysfunctional yet still powerful dominant food system. Stay tuned for next week when we focus on food sovereignty.

For more info:
World Resources Institute “grain fed to livestock”
Cornell University “U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat”
Daily Tech: Ethanol Production

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black radish, carrot and fennel salad with pecorino cheese
adapted from mariquita.com

• 4 loosely-packed cups of arugula, spinach, salad mix, or other greens
• 1 1/2 cup Citrus Vinaigrette (recipe follows)
• 2 black radishes, sliced paper-thin
• 3 carrots in thin 2″ diagonal slices, blanched
• 1-2 large bulb fennel, thinly sliced
• long thin curls pecorino or Parmesan cheese

CITRUS VINAIGRETTE

• 1 1/4 cups mild olive oil
• 6 to 8 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

To make Citrus Vinaigrette, whisk all ingredients together.

Toss the greens with enough of the vinaigrette to coat and place on salad plates. Arrange the radish slices on top, then the carrot and fennel. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette and top with the curls of cheese. Makes enough for 4 to 6 salads.

roasted winter vegetables

• 6-8 cups root vegetables, chopped into 1″ pieces (winter squash, turnips, radishes, carrots, sweet potato, red potato, etc.)
• olive oil
• fresh or dried herbs, your choice

Chop veggies and toss with oil and herbs. Bake at 425 for 30-45 minutes. You can even use the leftovers to make soup: just heat with stock, add some curry powder, fresh herbs, or cream, and blend.

potato-cabbage chowder with spinach and catfish
adapted from askinyourface.com

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 8 stalks celery, chopped
• 1/2 head of cabbage, sliced thin
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1 cup water
• 3 cups milk
• Pinch sea salt
• 6 small unpeeled red potatoes, cut into 1″ cubes
• Handful of spinach
• 1 T. dried sage
• Cooked mild fish such as catfish or trout

Put a pat of butter or ghee into a large soup pot. Add onion, celery, and cabbage and cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes or until onion is starting to become translucent. Add garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Pour in broth, water, milk, and sea salt and increase heat to high.

When the soup comes to a boil, add potatoes, spinach, and sage. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes or until potatoes have reached desired tenderness. Serve immediately, topping individual servings with fish before serving.