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Recipe: Farm Fresh Edamame (steamed or boiled)

Boiling edamame by jonl

Image via Wikipedia

Recipe: Farm Fresh Edamame (steamed or boiled)

Summary: Once you have fresh edamame you will feel bad for the beans they serve you in restaurants

Ingredients

Farm Fresh Edamame
Boiling Water
Sea Salt flakes

Instructions

  1. Edamame can be boiled or steamed. (we typically steam it) Bring water to a boil in steamer or sauce pan. To steam, place pods in steamer for 5 minutes. To boil, add pods to boiling water for 5 minutes. For both methods, after 5 minutes, remove from steamer or boiling water, place in bowl and add 2 tsp sea salt (or more if desired). To eat, place one end of the pod up in your mouth and squeeze the other end. The beans will pop out right into your mouth. You can also bite lightly into the pod to bite the beans into your mouth. You should be able to taste the salt as well as the beans! The pods are not eaten so have an extra bowl for discarding empty pods!

Quick Notes

Have you had edamame before? We love it and this is the first year we’ve had real success producing a lot of it (and without the deer finding it). If you want to learn a little bit more about this soybean variety known as edamame, check out this link.

Variations

Cook, pop the beans out and toss into salads or other dishes for an awesome treat!

Cooking time (duration): 5

Microformatting by hRecipe.

Ohh – if you missed it – edamame is just a special variety of soybean…  but don’t think you will get good flavor from the farmers cow feed field!

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Heading into September…with fewer tomatoes

Don’t worry – you still have tomatoes but enjoy them while you can heading into September things can change really fast now!  Your share includes cherry tomatoes and a variety of tomatoes called Celebrity.  They store well and are good for slicing and preserving.

Aug-Sept share

Bell peppers -  the mini-apple pepper red variety and standard green peppers  If you need a break from peppers, be sure to freeze a few whole for making stuffed peppers this winter.

Just a little bit more purple – we have included both more Black Beauty (the standard eggplant) and a few more smaller Fairytale eggplants.

A mix of green and purple beans – The green beans are the Kentucky Blue beans and the purple are the same as a few weeks ago.  We picked both varieties when small and tender this week.

Swiss chard – Many of you commented on how much you liked the swiss chard earlier this summer and now here’s more!  Again, don’t let it go to waste so if you can’t make it this week, blanch it and freeze it.  It will be a while before you get fresh swiss chard again.

Cabbage – Another head of cabbage is in each box.  These cabbage heads are slightly smaller but are the perfect size to make some cole slaw or our marinated slaw recipe for picnics this Labor Day weekend.

And finally, a new addition to your share are these hairy little beans called edamame.  Have you had edamame before?  It’s a Japanese delicacy - really just a special variety of soy bean!  It’s something available at sushi, or hibachi resaturants and it is great and easy to make!  Definitely don’t let this go to waste as these fresh ones are much more tender and sweeter than the frozen ones that make their way to restaurants. Check out our featured recipe this week to learn the best ways to prepare your edamame – all you need is 5 minutes boiling water and some salt!

What can you do with your share this week?
-Be sure to prepare your edamame as soon as possible using our featured recipe.

-Go back and check out the recipes from previous weeks for your eggplant, tomatoes, beans, swiss chard and cabbage  – find what you haven’t made yet – or check out our Facebook page for inspired cooking by a bunch of our fans!

Just can’t eat anymore veggies…  well then, read below about preserving by canning or freezing:

The past two weeks on the farm have included a lot of canning and freezing – to let nothing go to waste and to avoid having to buy non-local food later in the year.  You’d be surprised how easy it is to preserve your food and how nice it is to pull out fresh vegetables to enjoy when it is cold and snowy outside.  And freezing, for example, locks in the nutrients until you enjoy your vegetables.  There are many green bell peppers now that you can freeze whole or in pieces so there’s no need to have peppers shipped in from Mexico over the next several months!  And think of how great your chili or soups will be with fresh, preserved vegetables – and you know exactly where they came from!

During the past week, we have frozen green beans, corn, baked eggplant, whole peppers, roasted red peppers, pesto, whole tomatoes and tomato sauce.  We’ve also canned salsa, stewed tomatoes, green beans, pasta sauce (San Marzano!), and pickles (and even pickled peppers)!

Here is a great website to get started. http://pickyourown.org/allaboutcanning.htm You will see separate info listed for canning and also freezing with specifics for each type of food – with pictures!  We use the information on this site as our guide for a lot of our own canning and freezing and it’s always worked out well.

Got some questions – hit us up in the comments section on this page or on Facebook if you’d like some advice or thoughts on the best ways we’ve found to freeze (individually quick frozen vs. immediately bagged) or can (pressure canning vs. hot water method), or if you have questions about getting into canning your food in genreal!  We can also recommend the products we use including the vacuum sealer and the pressure canner.

Actually – here’s EXACTLY what we use:

Presto Pressure Canner and the FoodSaver vacuum sealer – we have had both for years and they work AWESOME!

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Summer’s winding down but the garden’s still going!

Week of aug 23 share

More Tomatoes!  Two different varieties of cherry tomatoes, Celebrity, New Girl and Big Boy.  Also you’ll find another Brandywine (pinkish-red).   Also try the sauce, plum-type tomatoes known as San Marzano.  Don’t miss out making sauce with these sought-after tomatoes!  Or freeze them for later.

Bell peppers–  the mini-apple pepper red variety and standard green peppers

More purple- we have included both more Black Beauty (the standard eggplant) and a few more smaller Fairytale eggplants.

Another green bean variety – This is a pole bean version of the Kentucky Blue beans.  This seemed to be a little sweeter than the other Kentucky blues.

Greens- It’s been a while since you’ve had some greens, so here’s some kale (same variety you had several weeks ago).  It goes great in soups and stews and is packed with vitamins!

Hot Hot Hot!  A variety of Hot Peppers are in the green container..  See the picture below to identify: (from left to right) Poblano, anaheim, jalapeno, cherry bomb (VERY hot) and banana pepper.

Hot peppers

What can you do with your share this week?
-Go back and check out the recipes from last week – find what you haven’t made yet!

-Read this week’s feature about preserving by canning or freezing.

-Get inspired with this great article -100 Ways to Use a Tomato There’s some unique ideas!

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Rotten Eggs

White Eggs in Carton

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s a great way to start your morning breakfast… some tainted eggs. The article on CNN – here – talks about the potential of a salmonella outbreak in the Wright County egg line. Now – that sounds quaint… like a small time egg producer in Wright County had an issue with some naturally occurring bacteria…

From the article : “Wright County Egg packages shell egg products under the following brand names: Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph’s, Boomsma’s, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms and Kemps. The brands are distributed nationwide. The recall affects eggs packed in several different sized cartons, from a half dozen to 18-eggs.

The Egg Safety Center says recalled eggs are in cartons with a three-digit code ranging from 136 to 225 and plant numbers P-1026, P-1413, and P-1946. The numbers are on one end of the egg carton.

Three digit codes… plant numbers that sound like cool weapon upgrades from a video game… On eggs sold under names like “Farm Fresh” and “Sunshine”. yeah.

Well – this fall our layers start laying and we expect to have more than enough eggs for everyone to get their local fix starting this spring. If all goes well and there is a steady demand we will likely increase the flock size next year to ensure you don’t have to worry about factory P-1984, egg lot X-221, chicken serial number 43384953, egg number 1,009,298 being an issue in your kitchen. Local food that comes from people you can look in the eyes and see their farms may not offer the 365 day availability of every culinary desire. But what matters more to you; those grapes from Peru in the middle of winter or safe food raised in a manner you trust because you can see it with your own two eyes?

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