We really enjoyed meeting those of you who came out for our farm tour on Saturday—it was a great group of folks with interesting questions (and engaged clever children)! In spite of the uninspiring weather, we enjoyed giving you a taste of how and where we grow your vegetables. It’s good for us to step out of our routines to reflect on what we do here and meet the people who keep us going. So thanks for coming out! Stay tuned for strawberry u-picks during the summer.
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This dressing has more garlic than usual, and was made with grilled vegetables in mind, but will work for milder greens if you have a yen for garlic. Still, this is not really strong as garlic dressings go. If that is what you want, just add more garlic cloves.
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This salad combines smoky grill flavors with fresh vegetable crunch, and drapes it all in a mildly garlicky dressing. The little bit of cheese on top rounds out the interplay between the slight sharpness romaine and summer squash have, while the grilling of the two helps to emphasize the sweetness the underlies these two vegetables.
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This is a mash of fava beans studded with small bits of summer squash flash sautéed to crisp them up a bit. This dish could serve as a topping for crostini or something from the grill. Here it is served in small Romaine leaves as a mezze. This dish has flavorings more from the Middle East, but switching the cilantro for mint or basil, and removing the cumin will swing it towards Italy, France, and Spain.
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For when you want something rich with big flavors. This is not a “diet” dish by any means. The recipe looks long, but it really does not take all that long to do this. You could cook all the components and make the custard the day before and then combine them and bake them just before dinner when you need them.
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The strawberries are playing tricks on us this year. A few weeks ago it looked like they were coming on strong, but after that first burst of fruit we’ve got a bit of a lull before the main crop really comes in. The plants are loaded with flowers, so this is just the calm before the storm and we should have the expected bounty of strawberries before too long. For now, we’ll keep it a mystery. You may instead get some of the first blueberries coming in, the very first summer squash of the season, or those wonderful Shiitake mushrooms from our friends at Far West Fungi.
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A quick sauté using a dressing originally used for a Strawberry Spinach salad.
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This is another recipe where cooked vegetables stand in for a normal sauce. The “sauce” could be used on its own or with pasta or grains as well. The recipe uses tilapia, but feel free to substitute other firm white fish such as cod, halibut, etc. Swordfish would work also, or toss it with grilled or sautéed shrimp. This dish is easiest to make the day after you have cooked artichokes. Cook a 2-3 extra to have with this dish, or just eat the leaves one night and use the hearts the next.
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This dressing was made to go with the Strawberry Spinach Salad, but will work to dress other things as well. This would work well on a salad of arugula, mizuna, mei quin, and mushrooms, or would be nice on grilled fish or pork skewers. Just remember to go easy with the sesame oil. Use just enough to detect it, but not enough to flat-out taste it. The same with the soy sauce.
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This soup uses potato to give it a creamy feel, and there is no dairy in it at all. The garlic used is young “green” garlic which has a lovely garlic aroma and a mild flavor without any heat. If you wish, omit it. The soup is excellent either way. This soup is also good served cold a la Vichyssoise. See Notes for ideas. By the way, you do not want this soup to boil- boil this soup and it will turn khaki and smell very broccoli-esque. This recipe includes a step where the stock is simmered with the peelings of the broccoli to add flavor. This is optional, and omitting it won’t hurt.
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It’s a beautiful time of year here on the farm with the apple trees in bloom, most of the fields planted into young crops, the surrounding hills still green from winter rains, and occasional sunny warm days. We’ve been extra busy this spring so we put off our Spring Farm Tour, but there will be even more to show you and talk about when we do our tour Saturday, May 4th 
(see details below). The last couple years we’ve done the spring tour at our new Lewis Road ranch, but this year we’ll show off our home farm again. This is the site of our apple and pear orchards, blueberry patch, and various field crops, as well as our habitat restoration area, goats, hedgerows, riparian corridor, and a field trial we’re doing with UCSC researchers on cover crop rotations for strawberry plantings. Lots to show you and it looks different than it does in the fall for our huge Harvest Fair event.
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This is a twist on Insalata Caprese, the ubiquitous tomato, mozzarella, and basil “salad” that often features as a starter when tomatoes are in season. This version, however, is more of dessert meets the cheese course. The basil syrup called for in the recipe was developed originally for making grown-up sodas.
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As it says, this stock is perfect for braising Chinese greens such as mei quin and other choys. It makes a great base for noodle soups with vegetables, and shiitake mushrooms pair with this quite well. This recipe makes 1 quart, which is more than most dishes call for, but this freezes well and is great for turning leftovers and a packet of quick ramen into something really good without using those little flavor packets full of who knows what. You can freeze this in ice-cube trays and pull out what you need as you go. Use a couple cubes as a base with water for quick soups.
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Frequently, when a chef hears “greens”, the next thing they think is “Get some bacon, ham, or other pork…” They just go together like peanut butter and jelly. This stock is for those occasions. It carries the pork flavor without taking up time to cook the bacon or ham first, and is a lighter flavor and there is little fat to deal with. This is a “basic” version infused with the sweet smoky flavor of ham. (See Ham Stock 2 for a Chinese/Asian boost to make it ideal for things like braising mei quin or using in noodle dishes and soups.) This recipe makes 1 quart, which is more than most dishes call for, but this freezes well.
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This is a simple recipe that requires using Ham Stock Number 2 (see recipe). It is a nice dish to accompany things, especially ham steak cooked in orange juice and hoisin with shiitakes. There is no ham in the dish, other than what was used to infuse the stock.
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Here is my take on the bistro classic of frisee salad scattered with lardons (thick batons of crispy chewy bacon) and topped with a poached egg. There are not a lot of components to this dish, so use the freshest eggs and good quality thick cut or slab bacon. Note that this recipe serves two rather than the usual 4 due to the fact that unless there are two heads of frisee per box, or they are really large heads, that is how much the average frisee will serve.
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This simple syrup was developed for adult flavored sodas, but has other functions as well. It can be used to flavor a dessert “salad” of strawberries and mozzarella a la a Caprese salad, or use it in cocktails or salad dressings. With herbs in the mint family (if it has a square-ish stem it is in the family) you must be careful not to over-steep or you wind up with a bitter taste. Start checking flavor at seven minutes, as eight is the magic number when making a tea with dried mint. Basil and fresh mint can often go longer. Although the anise and fennel are optional, they are there to compound and emphasize the flavors of the basil.
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A classic dressing for Frisee au Lardons (Curly Endive with Bacon and Poached Egg), a bistro classic. Here the dressing is lightened up a bit using more oil than bacon fat. This dressing is also good on spinach, especially if warmed up a little bit.
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We’re in the last stages of our spring field work. May 1st is the deadline I usually give myself for getting hard squash and pumpkins planted. Because powdery mildew almost always becomes a problem with these crops late in the season, we’ve found that the earlier we can get them planted the better. As with most large seeded crops, we can’t plant them too early, however, because the seeds will rot in cold soils—it’s all about timing. In addition to planting hard squashes we will be planting another block of potatoes from the seed that we saved over from last year.
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Although the recipe calls for red radishes, you could use others of a similar shape and size. Also, after a day, the radishes lose their red rims and the entire radish turns a pale magenta. They lose the hot edge of a radish, and will smell a little like sauerkraut, but will not taste as strong. These quickles are not a subtle flavor, but they go well with things like braised beef, corned beef sandwiches, and are great with smoked salmon and especially herring pickled in white wine.
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This salad was inspired by a little plate a chef sent out one hot night almost thirty years ago. It was made with just the stems, peeled and cut into cubes, and was one of those things where the chef was being thrifty. I would have paid gladly for this great combination of cool crunch and silky, nutty flavored sauce.
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This is a big planting week for us. We had a greenhouse full of young green (and red) starts to get into the field. Steve spent much of the weekend on the tractor preparing several fields for planting. Then Monday our crew of 8 workers plopped the starts into the ground — they planted out about an acre of lettuces, cabbages, and fennel.
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Another version of a classic pairing, using blood oranges this time. If blood oranges are not in season, just use another orange or tangerine. The oranges are cut into “suprêmes”, or filets, rather than just rounds as they are more uniform and easier to eat. A mandolin is helpful for shaving the fennel.
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INGREDIENTS:
1 pound asparagus-as thick as you can find ½ pound shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and reserved for stock ½ cup white wine such as Grenache Blanc ½ teaspoon fresh minced gingerContinue reading »
This quickle is meant to show off the colors of the carrots to their best effect, and allow the taste differences of each to still show through. Since some red carrots are only red as far as the skin, this method of cleaning preserves the color and renders the carrots clean and safe. This recipe uses cilantro and coriander seed because the idea of keeping it all in the family appeals to me, but you could use other herbs as long as it is subtle. Using low acid vinegar- around 4 to 5% or 40 to 50 grain- such as rice or white balsamic is easy and preserves the flavors of the carrots. You can dilute other vinegars with water to get to this number if you wish. Stronger vinegar will need more sugar to balance the flavors. You will want a mandolin to make this easy.
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This dressing goes with the Fennel and Blood Orange Salad. If blood oranges aren’t in season, use another orange. The use of fennel oil and orange blossom water add depth of flavor and emphasis to the salad ingredients. Using orange blossom water this way is inspired by Moroccan cuisine where it is sometimes drizzled on a dish at the last moment to add aroma. If you do not have this or the fennel oil, don’t worry, the dressing will still be quite good.
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