Thai Butternut Squash Soup

Hi gang, yikes, sorry we've been out of action! This thing called midterms came up out of nowhere. Anyway, currently working on a delicious recipe for Acorn Squash chili. In the meantime, here's a throwback to an old favorite we grabbed from my blog The Almost Italian to give you an idea for your butternut squashes! 

This is a variation on regular butternut squash soup. I add coconut milk, ginger, and sweet chili sauce, making the already rich soup incredibly creamy and a little bit spicy. This is a very healthy recipe, it’s nice chilled with a salad as a summer lunch, or steamy with some chicken and greens for a delicious dinner. It keeps for 1-2 weeks in the fridge, and is one of those microwave exceptions that tastes just as good nuked a week later. Make a big batch (this recipe makes a lot) and keep it in the fridge to for munchie emergencies!

Thai Butternut Squash Soup
adapted from Whole Foods
(serves 6-8)

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsps olive oil
• 2 celery stalks, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed
• ½ teaspoon thyme
• 4 cups chicken broth (or boullion and water)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon chopped ginger
• 1 13.5 oz can coconut milk
• Sriracha and chili sauce to taste

Instructions 

1. Heat oil in large soup pot. Add celery, ginger, and onion. Cook until celery has begun to soften and onion is translucent, 3-4 minutes.

2. Stir in butternut squash, thyme, chicken broth, coconut milk, salt, pepper, and chili sauce. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer until squash is fork-tender, about 30 minutes.

3. Use immersion blender or regular blender to puree soup in batches. This is the only tricky part, but it’s not horrible. I just split the soup into two batches and blend. This is the first time you can actually taste the soup, because the squash is now mixed with the other ingredients. If needed, re-season to taste.

 
4. Garnish with red pepper flakes and serve immediately, or store in fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Enjoy! 

Creamy Kale, Collard Greens, and Potato Soup and Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges

Hello all! Happy week two of the farm share! This week's recipe will give you an idea for what to do with your collard greens and onions- also kale if you have some left over from last week. We'll also be using those sweet potatoes for some quick and easy spiced wedges.

Our own additions are celery and potatoes.

Chop up onion and sauté with vegetable or olive oil in a large pot. Allow to cook for about 1 minute

Chop up celery and add it to the onions along with a teaspoon of salt

Remove the stems from the collard greens and the kale, rip up the leaves into smaller pieces. Add both to the onions and celery.

Chop potato into 1/2-inch chunks and add to the veggies along with 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil.

Once it boils, reduce the heat and let simmer for 20 minutes

After 20 minutes the potatoes should be soft enough for a fork to go easily through them. At this point, pour mixture into a blender and blend until smooth.

Serve with a peeled, halved, hard-boiled egg

And optional Sriracha!

WINE BREAK

For the sweet potato wedges, cut a large sweet potato lengthwise into 1/2 inch wedges. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix oregano, cinnamon, red pepper flakes, rosemary, cumin and salt in a small bowl.

Coat wedges in olive oil and then sprinkle spices over them, flipping to cover both sides.

Roast in oven for 20 minutes, then take out and flip each wedge over. Put back in for another 15-20 minutes

Allow to cool a little before serving!

Creamy Kale, Collard Greens, and Potato Soup

Yield: 6 bowls

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons canola/vegetable oil (or olive oil really)
• 1 medium onion
• 3 stalks celery
• 1 teaspoon salt
• kale ( a generous 2 cups chopped)
• collard greens (a generous cups chopped)
• 4 small/2 large potatoes (any type of potato that isn’t a sweet potato will do)
• 4 cups water
• hard-boiled eggs (optional)

Instructions

1. Wash all those veggies!
2. Dice onion and celery
3. Add 2 tablespoons oil to large pot over medium heat; add diced onions and saute for a few minutes.
4. After a few minutes add diced celery and salt and continue to saute for a few more minutes
5. Remove the center stem section from the kale and collard greens and rip both greens into pieces
6. Add kale to the pot, and let saute for a few minutes
7. Cut potatoes in ~½ inch pieces
8. Add potatoes and 4 cups water to the pot and increase heat to bring to a boil.  Once the soup is boiling, reduce the heat and let simmer for 20 minutes
9. After 20 minutes the potatoes should be soft enough for a fork to go through them easily.  If not, continue simmering the soup.  Once the potatoes are soft, remove the soup from the heat.
10. Carefully pour the soup into a blender and blend until creamy

Optional but highly encouraged: peel hard-boiled egg, cut in half, and place in soup to add some protein and cuteness!  

Note: to hard-boil eggs, place eggs in small pot and cover with water.  Bring the water to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer eggs for 8 minutes.  Drain, let cool (placing them in cold water will expedite this), and peel when cool.

Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges

Yield: about 4 servings

Ingredients

• 1 large sweet potato, or two medium ones
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Cumin
• Red pepper flakes
• Cinnamon
• Rosemary
• Oregano

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Cut your sweet potato lengthwise into long wedges, about 1/2 inch thick
3. Coat a baking tray in olive oil, place wedges on the tray and drizzle more oil over wedges to coat
4. Mix your spices together in a small bowl and then sprinkle over wedges, making sure to cover both sides of the wedges
5. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, then take out and flip all the wedges over before putting them back in for another 15-20 minutes
6. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving!

Enjoy!!

Vegetable Medley Fritters with Garlic Mint Tzatziki Sauce

Hi all! We are Moorea Hall and Alma Pietri, two members of Slow Food and the Food Co-op who love to cook and make up recipes. We will be posting a weekly recipe here of our own devising to help give you some ideas for using your CSA share!

This week's recipe is Vegetable Medley Fritters with Garlic Mint Tzatziki Sauce. For our vegetables we will be using the parsnips, leeks, zucchinis, and pattypan squash we received in this share. We'll also be throwing some mint into the sauce- but let's all be honest and admit we'll be using most of our mint for mojitos.

Start by washing all your produce- this is the local good stuff, but that means it also has some local dirt on it! Then peel your parsnip, like you would a carrot.

Grate up your parsnip, zucchini, and pattypan squash (those are the cute little yellow ones). You don't need to peel the zucchini or the squash. If you don't have a grater you could try *really* thinly chopping everything but it might not stick together as well. Chop the white part of the leek up to the leaves. The medallions will break apart when you mix everything.

Mix all that good stuff together.

Add three eggs (only two pictured) and 1/2 cup of flour. Also one teaspoon of salt and some black pepper to taste. Mix everything up- you can use your hands!

Heat up a skillet, generously coated in oil. Wait a few minutes for it to get really hot to avoid "first pancake" syndrome. Put some nice fist-sized dollops of your veggie mixture in to fry. It should take under a minute for each side.

Flip those babies over when one side is browned.

Yum. Try not to eat too many while you're cooking- it's tempting! Trust me though, the sauce is worth the wait.

Ok so for my version of Tzatziki sauce, which is a delicious Greek specialty, I just mixed together plain Greek yogurt, minced garlic, mint, lime juice, and chopped cucumber. Easy as that.

Serve hot, topped with cool Tzatziki, and you're in business! The whole process really doesn't take more than 30 mins or so! Yay! Enjoy.

Vegetable Medley Fritters with Garlic Mint Tzatziki Sauce
Yield: 16 fritters

Ingredients:

For fritters

• 1 large parsnip, grated or thinly chopped
• 4 small zucchinis, grated (about 2 cups grated)
• 2 medium pattypan squashes, grated
• 1 large leek, cut into medallions (about 2.5 cups grated)
• 3 medium eggs (we used the ones from our lovely Egg Share!)
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt 
• Black pepper to taste
• Canola/vegetable oil for frying

For Tzatziki

• 1/2 plain Greek yogurt (not vanilla guys, unsweetened plain)
• 4 large slices of cucumber, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 lime, squeezed
• 3-4 mint leaves, finely chopped

Instructions:

1. Wash everything, especially the leek. Peel and grate parsnip. Grate zucchini and squash. Chop leek into thin medallions (that will later break apart). Mix everything together in a large bowl. 

- Tip: don't use the stalk of the leek but you can save this to fry up with eggs or use in a stir-fry. Leeks are in the same family as onions and can be substituted. 

2. Add flour, eggs, salt, and pepper to vegetable mixture. Mix together well (we recommend using your hands). 

3. Generously coat a skillet or pan with canola or vegetable oil, turn stove onto medium heat and allow the pan to heat up a little 

- Tip: they hold together much better if you let the pan get hot before putting them in. Think "first pancake"). 

4. For Tzatziki sauce just mix everything together in a small bowl. 

5. Serve your fritters hot, topped with a healthy dollop of Tzatziki!

Last Day to Order Your CSA Share!

Hello all! Today, Thursday the 11th, is the last day to order your CSA share!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER!

Payment is due at first pickup, which is next Tuesday!

Grocery Store vs CSA Share

We did a little experiment using Peapod.com to calculate how much it would cost to buy an equal share of organic veggies from Stop & Shop vs a CSA Share.

For this test we used the sample summer box of:
- Sweet corn
- Eggplant
- Zucchini
- Tomatoes
- Beets
- Cucumbers
- Bell peppers
- Broccoli

We filled our cart with roughly the same amount of produce (12-14lbs of the 8 varieties) and calculated the total cost as:

$38.76

Compare that to the $27.50 per week that the CSA Shares break down to and you can already see the savings. Now factor in the fact that the produce from your CSA Share is

+ Fresher (the produce is harvested one day before delivery, never packaged, and delivered directly from the farm to Vassar to you)

+ Local (you know exactly where your produce comes from and how it is grown, you can even visit the farm and meet the farmers themselves)

+ Supports local farmers (participating in a CSA Share helps the farm guarantee their income)

+ Supports the community (for every share purchased, Glebocki Farms donates an equal share to a local pantry. Last year they donated over 100,000 lbs of produce!)


So if you purchased roughly the same type and amount of produce from Stop & Shop, for the length of the 10 week share, you would end up spending about:

$387.60

Whereas participating in the CSA Share will cost:

$275.00

That's more than $100 of savings! Now we know that it is hard to pay such a large sum at once, but looking at this sample breakdown you can see that you'll actually be saving money in the long run. If you are unable to afford this, we have multiple programs in place to help you participate. Email us at vassarcoop@gmail.com for more info.

CSA Shares!

We're happy to announce this year's CSA Shares! The poster is here but we thought we'd give you a little more info here as well. 

CSA Shares are a great way to support local farmers and get delicious, fresh produce every week. You pay the farmer upfront and then get a weekly selection of their seasonal produce for the length of the share (usually 10 weeks). Above is a photo of one of last year's share.

Glebocki Farm CSA Share

- Full share = 10 weeks

- Cost: $300 to be paid in full at the first pick up 

- Start: September 16th 

- End: November 18th

- Each share includes 6-8 different varieties of vegetables and weighs about 12-14 lbs

- Half Share: If you cannot find anybody to split a share with you but you are still 

interested in buying half of a share, email us and we will try and match you with 

another person also buying half a share.

- Subsidized Share: If you would like a share but cannot afford the full price, please 

email vassarcoop@gmail.com with your name and the amount you would need 

subsidized and we will do our best to match that amount (add part saying we are 

doing this because we know local/organic food is expensive and want everyone who is 

interested to be able to participate)

- Add on Shares:

- Organic Egg Share: a dozen per week - $60

- Organic Raw Honey Share: 1lb every two weeks - $72

- Organic Mushrooms: 1lb of mushrooms a week (Shiitake, Crimini or Portabello) - $80

- Farm Fresh Creamline Milk Share (pasteurized, not homogonized): 1/2 gallon per week - $50

Sprout Creek Cheese Share

- Get 1/2 lb of cheese every week
- Start: September 9 or 16
- End: November 18th
- Option 1: Basic Cheese Share - Doe Re Mi goat cheese every week: $6 a week, $60
- Option 2: Cheese Lover’s Share - new delicious Sprout Creek cheese every week $7.50 a week, $75
- All their types of cheese can be found on their website sproutcreekfarm.org

For more info about the farms. 

TO ORDER click here


-The price of shares must be paid in full at the first pick up (if you have a problem with this please email vassarcoop@gmail.com and we can work out a payment plan)

- Pick ups are every Tuesday from September 16 until November 18 in the College Center from
12-5pm

- Payments can be in cash or checks made out to Vassar Food Co-op

- Email vassarcoop@gmail.com to order or for more information

- All orders must be in by September 12th!