Saturday, September 8, 2012

WG CSA: Weeks Nine, Ten, Eleven and Twelve

Kate at Snowflake Kitchen here, to fill you in on CSA activities over the past couple of weeks. Isn't late summer the best time? Tomatoes are in full swing, corn is still here, and the weather is finally cool enough for a sweatshirt at night.  If you are looking for something new to use your great Windham Gardens produce, look no further.

Sweet Pickled Peppers
Similar to last post's roasted green peppers, these peppers are great on an antipasto platter. Dress them up with a little olive oil, or blend them with cream cheese to create a great dip.

20 green and red bell peppers, seeded and cored
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
4 bay leaves
5 peppercorns
1 cup white 5% vinegar
1 cup water

Roast the peppers skin side up, under a broiler until blistered. Put hot peppers in a pot with a tight sealing lid until cool, so that the peppers steam their skins. Prepare your canner and jars while you separate the skins from the pepper flesh. Set the remaining ingredients to boil together into a brine. Save the skins (see below), but pack the peppers into hot, wet jars. Top with the brine and run a chopstick around the edge. The level of brine will drop - add more and repeat a few times until the level of brine no longer drops. Top with hot, wet lids and process for 15 minutes.

Roasted Bell Pepper Vinegar
Take the leftover pepper skins from above, put in a jar, and strain in two weeks. You are left with a beautiful stained vinegar, great for vinaigrettes.




Caramelized Onions
After I saw this article on Serious Eats, I knew I had to try it. I normally freeze WG caramelized onions in ice-cube portions for all sorts of uses (frittata, soup, eggs, etc.) but it takes approximately forever. Though with this method you must be hyper vigilant, it still yields great results in a much shorter amount of time. Highly recommended.


Aioli
Erin's wonderful garlic stores beautifully, but it also translates to all kinds of cooking projects. When I found the Amateur Gourmet's 60 Second Aioli I knew I had everything to make it on hand. Aioli is like delicious garlicky mayonnaise - a wonderful addition to tuna salad or your crudite platter. We ate it with roast chicken, though I suspect it will go equally as well with salmon.



Tomato Preserves
I'll admit, I was a little slow to warm to a tomato jam at first. But after the first taste, I was hooked. I make three or four different variations on a tomato jam recipe - smoky, spicy, sweet and savory. Head over to Snowflake Kitchen to check out a great sungold jam recipe, that can be adapted to any tomato. I love to make it with WG black cherry tomatoes.

Anything I missed? Something you would like to see? Let us know!

No comments:

Post a Comment