I always wondered why my roasted butternut seemed bland and uninteresting. From my mother-in-law Lynette, I learned two tricks: cut the butternut small and precook before roasting to get crisp, richly flavoured butternut. And as for roasted green beans – once you try these, in this salad or even by themselves, you will wonder why you never roasted them before.
1 butternut, peeled, seeded and cut into 1cm rough dice
100g green beans, trimmed and washed
1 TBS mustard
1TBS honey
1 TBS cider or other mild vinegar
1/3C olive oil plus extra for roasting
½ cup pecan nuts
1/2C rocket leaves, whole or roughly chopped (i.e. an Erick-sized packet)
Optional extras: crumbled blue or goat’s cheese, toasted sunflower seeds, toss in steamed green beans.
Preheat your oven to 400C. Sprinkle your butternut with salt and steam until al dente, or microwave, covered, without additional water, for about 4-6 minutes. Drain off any liquid, toss with olive oil, and spread on a baking sheet, and roast until browning at the edges, about 30 minutes. For the last 8-10 minutes, toss your pecans with a little olive oil and add to the roasting pan.
In a separate roasting tray, toss the green beans with some olive oil and salt and spread them out to roast. They should take about 20 minutes, and will look quite brown and wrinkled when done – but will taste amazing.
Make your dressing by combining the honey, mustard, vinegar and olive oil with a pinch of salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning. Use this to dress the butternut and green beans when they come out of the oven. Top with the rocket, and serve warm or at room temperature.
This recipe comes from CSA member Annalisa, as another way to use green peppers. You can find last week’s suggestions for green peppers here.
She writes: For two persons, you need one butternut.
Firstly, cut the butternut in half lengthways, take out the seeds and then brush the cut sides with olive oil. Put them in a 200C oven for 30-40 minutes, until they become soft.
In the meantime, in a pan, heat a table spoon of olive oil and soften some chopped onions. Let the onions become golden and then add chopped green peppers.
Leave them cooking for about 20-30 minutes (they take a while), then add spices of your choice (coriander, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, garam masala, etc.).
If you want to add carrots, you can cook them together with the green peppers or cook carrots apart in the way that you like (boiled or roasted in the oven, as suggested here).
Then make some couscous following the instructions on the box.
When the butternuts are ready, fill their cavities with couscous mixed with green peppers, onions and carrots.
I find the butternut delicious with the couscous!
Buon appetito…
Dear CSA members
This is week four of the Summer 2010 CSA.
VEGGIE BAG SURPRISE: NO SURPRISE THIS WEEK
I know, I know, I promised you a mushroom or preserve surprise every other week, and I am afraid there is no surprise this week. We’ve been struggling to get enough decent organic zucchini from our network of small farmers for a very special preserve we want to send you, but thankfully we have tracked some down and will be preserving them later this week. So you should see them in your CSA bags next week. Mushrooms will start up the week after.
OUTING UPDATE
We had to cancel the farm outing this weekend, as not enough members were able to come. We have rescheduled the outing for 1pm, Saturday, 13 March. This will be the only outing held during the Summer CSA, and we hope several of you will be able to join us. Send me an email if you’d like to come, giving your phone number (for emergency cancellations or changes in plan) and the number of people you will be bringing.
NEWS FROM THE FARM
We are really excited to be experimenting with some new crops during this CSA, in response to requests from previous CSA participants for unusual veg. Erick planted some soy beans and chickpeas for us, to be harvested as green and fresh legumes, rather than dried, as you get in the shop. As far as we know, you cannot buy green chickpeas or green soybeans grown locally anywhere in Cape Town, so this is something unique to the Slow Food CSA. Green soy beans and chickpeas are harvested in their pods, and can be steamed or boiled until the seeds inside are al dente. Although you can shell and then cook the seeds (yummy in salads), it’s easier to cook them in their pods, drain, toss with some salt, and squeeze the seeds directly from the pod into your mouth. Yum!
As this is an experiment, Erick has only put in a couple beds of each, so while it is unlikely that everyone will get these over the course of the CSA, a good number of you should get a taste. Please let us know what you think.
RECIPE OF THE WEEK: SOME THOUGHTS ON GREEN PEPPERS
You do find varieties that remain green on the plant when mature, but green peppers are often yellow or red peppers, harvested when immature. They lack the rich acidic flavour (and popularity) of their more brightly coloured friends, and too often their only culinary destination is hidden in a green salad (where they are invariably are served in massive, unpalatable chunks). I did not grow up in a ‘green pepper’ family, and so for most of my life my exposure was limited to those unfortunate salads at friends’ houses, which beg the question: is there a point to green peppers?
Based on some cautious experimentation over the past year or so, I would say yes, a green pepper has potential besides unloved salads and rotting in the back of the fridge (no, I am not omnisciently referring to your fridge in particular – I just have a similar fall-out zone at the back of my fridge, too). So here, for your green pepper edification, are some tips and suggested recipes, on the blog.
Enjoy your veggies!
You do find varieties that remain green on the plant when mature, but green peppers are often yellow or red peppers, harvested when immature. They lack the rich acidic flavour (and popularity) of their more brightly coloured friends, and too often their only culinary destination is hidden in a green salad (where they are invariably are served in massive, unpalatable chunks).
I did not grow up in a ‘green pepper’ family, and so for most of my life my exposure was limited to those unfortunate salads at friends’ houses, which beg the question: is there a point to green peppers? Based on some cautious experimentation over the past year or so, I would say yes, a green pepper has potential besides unloved salads and rotting in the back of the fridge (no, I am not omnisciently referring to your fridge in particular – I just have a similar fall-out zone at the back of my fridge, too).
So here, for your green pepper edification, are some tips and suggested recipes:
1. Chop the blighters finely. For strips, think matchstick-thin. For dice (See below) go as fine as your knife skills allow.
2. Use them as a flavour note, not as a star ingredient. Finely chopped green peppers melt into a vegetable sautee or as the base to a tomato sauce, stirfry or stew, giving an additional dimension to these complex sauces. In fact, green peppers are widely used in Latin cuisines as part of the sofrito, (sautéed finely chopped vegetables that are the flavour base of most dishes).
3. Roasting red and yellow peppers brings them to life; the same is true of green peppers. In fact, whenever possible, and especially for salads, roast.
4. Mix them with other peppers. A combination of yellow, red and green is not only pretty, but the flavours complement each other. Red and yellows bring loud flavour, and green brings a balancing, fresh note to the mélange.
For cooking, try these three applications:
PUERTO RICAN GREEN SOFRITO Sautee spring onions, garlic, green pepper, coriander, basil and/or parsley stems in a little oil until softened. Use as the base for soups, rice dishes, stews and pasta sauces.
NECTARINE SALSA I think that green pepper has a real affinity for nectarines. Using ripe but not squishy fruit, combine: cubes of nectarines and cucumbers, scant finely chopped spring onion, torn coriander or basil leaves, very finely chopped green pepper, and dress with a light balsamic or cider vinegar dressing. Serve with grilled fish or chicken, or toss with cooked basmati rice for a rice salad. Hot cubes of seared halloumi cheese elevate this from delicious to sublime.
WITH LENTILS I always sautee some finely chopped green pepper when making sauteed lentils and herbed dal broth.
Enjoy them!
Dear CSA members
It’s week three of the Summer CSA. Thank you for all the feedback from last week; I am glad the bags seem fuller and fresher than the first week. I will encourage Erick to keep up the good work.
FARM VISIT: 13 FEBRUARY
We currently have no sign ups for the farm visit this weekend, to Erick’s farm, so if I don’t get any positive RSVPs by Wednesday, I will cancel it, and plan an outing for early next month. So if you would like to go this weekend, 13 February at 1pm, please let me know ASAP.
AN UPDATE FROM THE FARM
It’s been a good summer for Erick. He has already harvested over one ton of butternut, and his shed stoep is decorated with curtains of braided onions, drying in the breeze. He says he is drowning in cucumbers, big pumpkins, little squash and baby marrows, so your bags should contain them in the coming weeks. The newest addition to the farm is a very impressive walk-in fridge unit. Erick received a grant to cover half of its cost from the Department of Agriculture, and is slowly paying off the rest of it over time. He says the CSA finances are particularly helpful! With this fridge unit, Erick can keep his vegetables fresher, and pick more in advance, which is useful on very hot or wet days.
He is also hoping the fridge will come in handy with his next big project… wait for it… a dairy CSA! Erick’s nineteen cows produce about 50 litres of milk a day, and Erick has recently gone on a yoghurt and cheese making course to put this lovely organic milk to good use. He is planning to make these products at a neighbouring farm’s dairy in a couple months’ time. He would like to follow a CSA model, and if we get one up and running, you will all be the first to know.
RECIPE(S) OF THE WEEK: ZUCCHINI, PEAR AND GINGER SOUP, and LORETA’S BEETROOT GNOCCHI
Two recipes this week, one for soup, and the other from CSA member Annalisa, for her mother’s beetroot gnocchi. You can see them on the blog, here and here.
From the recipe archive, try Honey Mustard Roast Onions, Butternut Laksa or Coleen’s Green Bean Bake.
Next week I’d like to send some creative ideas for green peppers, so if you have any suggestions or favourite recipes please send them to me.
No veggie forecast for this week; consider it a lucky packet!
Warm, slow regards
Kate
I usually don’t feel like soup in summer, but this one is unbelievably light and flavourful, and can be served cold or warm. Substitute apples for pears if you like. This recipe originally came from Taste Magazine.
Serves two
350g zucchini, finely sliced
2cm fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
½ onion, chopped
1 large apple or pear, peeled, cored and chopped
vegetable stock or water
cream to serve (optional)
basil leaves, torn
In a medium pot, in a little olive oil, sauté the onion until softened. Add the zucchini, ginger and pear with a pinch of salt, and stir occasionally, until they are starting to soften and smell amazing. Pour over enough hot stock or water to not quite cover the vegetables (1 – 1 ½ cups). Simmer for about twenty minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Puree the soup, stir through some cream if you wish, and serve with a drizzle of olive oil and the basil leaves.
