Pekarek's Produce

Green Bean Salad

This is delicious.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon fresh tarragon or ¼ teaspoon dried

tarragon

1 pound Pekarek’s Produce green beans

1 Tablespoon butter

1/4 to ½ cup thinly sliced onions

2 Tablespoons low-fat or non-fat yogurt

Directions:

1. Combine Dijon mustard, salt, black pepper, and tarragon.

2. Steam green beans, covered, 5 minutes or until tender. Keep warm.

3. Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Add onions; sauté for about 3 minutes. Stir in mustard mixture and green beans. Toss tocoat. Cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Stir in yogurt. Remove from heat and serve immediately

Pizza on the Grill

As the temperatures heat up, I become less inclined to turn on my oven and more excited about grilling! So this week I decided to take a little risk and make a pizza on the grill. It seems a bit intimidating at first, but the results are well worth it.

Ingredients

3 Tbs olive oil
garlic salt
Pizza crust (store bought or home-made)
2 Pekarek’s Produce tomatoes
2 handfuls of Pekarek’s Produce Spinach
Alfredo sauce
Shredded chicken
1/2 lb. bacon

Method

1 Turn the grill on with the burners on high and let heat for 15 minutes, to about 400°F (if your thermometer works).

2 Turn the burners down to medium. Combine olive oil with a pinch of garlic salt. Brush this directly on the grates of your grill.

3 Throw (maybe gently place) your pizza crust on the grill. It bubbles up pretty quickly and won’t fall through the grates. Let it cook about 3-5 minutes. Next use 2 spatulas to flip the pizza crust and cook the other side.

For this pizza, I started with a store bought crust in a can – c’mon, there is no way we have enough time to made a homemade crust in the middle of the week!

4 Add your toppings while the other side is cooking.

I added about 4 tbs of alfredo sauce, followed by the shredded chicken, bacon, tomatoes and spinach. Top with mozzarella cheese if desired. The great thing about pizza is you can put anything on it and make each part of it a little bit different. Also try throwing your garlic bread on the grill. It works great!

Kohlrabi with a twist?

So many people have no idea what kohlrabi is or how to eat it.

We always say the best way is raw! Cut the green skin of and slice into wedges. You can store them in a bowl of water in the fridge to keep them crisp!

But my kids like it a different way – eat it raw WITH cream cheese! I know it sounds crazy, but my kids (2, 3, and 5) love it that way. Let us know what you think?

Week 2 of Pekarek’s Produce CSA 2013

Dobry Den!

Week 2 of Pekarek’s Produce CSA was on June 12. All of our members should have received a printed newsletter, but now its up on the blog as well!

We are excited to say that the last week has been very busy at Pekarek’s Produce. It may be hot, but we are very happy to see the sun come out! We are also happy to say that your produce bags will be nice and full.

The farm has been very busy with planting, weeding, and picking – not to mention a few maintenance activities. Its hard to believe that with the season just into full swing, we have planted our pumpkins and edible squash for the fall already. Lettuce and Spinach is growing beautifully. We are also happy to tell you that you are receiving the first of our Kohlrabi crop this year.

For those of you getting green onions this week, if you wonder how they grow, look at the picture below. This is our first year with a plastic mulch layer. After laying the plastic, we poke holes in it with a glorified pitch fork. Then we crawl on hands and knees to plant each green onion individually. These are really a favorite on the farm, because they are one of our first crops to be harvested and a good reason to get a crew together.

Finally, new this year, we will be inviting all of our CSA members out to the farm for a tour, so watch for more information next week.

What’s in today’s bag:

This week’s full share has:

Radishes, Lettuce, Spinach, Green Onions, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Kohlrabi

This week’s partial share has:

Radishes, Lettuce, Spinach, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Kohlrabi

Recipe Suggestions

Be sure to check out this week’s recipe. If you have a recipe to share, email it to pekareksproduce@hotmail.com or include it in the comments section.

As always, if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions send us an email or give us a jingle and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Your Farmers,

Ryan, Katie, and Crew

Kohlrabi-Ham Bake

It’s easy to see how kohlrabi could throw you off your game the first time you see it. It looks like someone teleported a vegetable from Mars right into your kitchen.

In reality, kohlrabi is incredibly versatile. Kohlrabi, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and kale are all related, so you can expect that any flavor that goes nicely with one, will be lovely with the other. So let’s try this basic version of a kohlrabi-ham bake

Ingredients

3 Tbsp butter
4 kohlrabi, peeled and diced
8 ounces thick ham, diced
2 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley
3 egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
Pinch of mace (can substitute ground nutmeg)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1 Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large skillet, melt the butter on medium heat. Add the diced kohlrabi and gently cook for 8 to 10 minutes.

2 Beat the egg yolk, and whisk in the heavy cream, flour, mace, salt and pepper until well combined.

3 Place half of the cooked kohlrabi on the bottom of an oven-proof casserole dish. Layer on the diced ham and parsley. Top with the remaining kohlrabi. Pour the sauce ingredients over the kohlrabi and ham.

4 Bake for 30-35 minutes or until lightly browned on top. Serve immediately.