Day 22: Christmas Salad

This salad is a beautiful contribution to any holiday table, and took about ten minutes to make.

1/4 pound spinach, cut into strips

1 beet, peeled and chopped 

1 watermelon radish, chopped

1 red radish, chopped

2 green onions, chopped

1/8 cup cilantro, chopped

Boiled eggs, peeled and sliced.

1/3 cup walnuts

3 T sugar

feta cheese or goat cheese, optional

Balsamic vinaigrette 

1. Mix spinach, radishes, green onion, cilantro, and beet together in a large bowl. 

2. Heat a saucepan to medium-high heat. Add sugar and walnuts. Stir continuously until sugar melts and walnuts are covered. Immediately pour onto wax paper to cool.

3. Serve spinach salad topped with walnuts, feta cheese, egg, and vinaigrette.

Day 22: Christmas Salad

CSA Session 6 Week 1

This weeks basket includes Spinach, Mixed Kale, Green Onions and Carrots.

Even though its the start of a new session, we still have the same vegetables and they are still growing good. 

If you want some "less healthy" spinach, you can try this Hot Spinach Dip. It has cheese and garlic so it probably will be good. And if you'd rather have your Spinach in a Salad form, here is 16 different Spinach Salad recipe.

Kale can be great in anything. Like this Quiche. Or one of these 57 different Kale recipes.

Carrots are also good in plenty of things. Like these Parmesan Roasted Carrots. Or one of these 28 different carrot recipes.

I hope you enjoy your vegetables and have a Merry Christmas!

-Maggie

CSA Session 6 Week 1

Day 21: German Sweet Potato Salad

Jay’s last name may be Sleichter, but the German flavors in our meals come from my side. I love sauerkraut, bierocks, and German potato salad. We have more sweet potatoes than regular potatoes, so I sought out a warm German potato salad that used sweet potatoes.

And of course, we used purple sweet potatoes, because... K-State alumni! 

Here’s the link to the recipe.

Day 21: German Sweet Potato Salad

Day 20: Seven Layer Salad

This is my favorite for potlucks! And 12tomato web site is a great one for recipes. So, rather than recreat what is already yummy, here ya go:

Seven Layer Salad

Day 20: Seven Layer Salad

Day 19: leftover salads, new salad dressing

My girls did such a great job making the salad, they made enough for two nights! So, how about just a new homemade salad dressing?

You know those frozen cherry tomatoes I keep mentioning? Well, pull out about 1 1/2 cups of them and make this dressing in about five minutes.

Homemade Tomato Basil Dressing

• 1 1/2 cup frozen cherry tomatoes 1/2 cup olive oil1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar1/3 cup chopped fresh basil1/2 teaspoon finely chopped garlic1/2 teaspoon salt1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper2 Tablespoons sugar
  1. Place frozen cherry tomatoes and minced garlic in a saucepan on medium-high heat, with lid on. Shake pan gently every 2-3 minutes. 2. Once cherry tomatoes start to pop open, smash them with a potato masher in the pan. 3. Add remaining ingredients. Whisk until blended. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally.4. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. 
  Serve warm on salad immediately, or chill in fridge until ready to use.

Day 19: leftover salads, new salad dressing

Day 18: Buffalo Chicken Salad

You know that great taste combo you get with a hot, spicy chicken wing with a cool ranch dip? This is the salad version.

Our girls put the veggie part together, using two kinds of green lettuce, green onions, purple radish, 2 carrots, red radish, white radish, and a watermelon radish. Add boneless Buffalo wings, cut into pieces. Top with ranch (always homemade Hidden Valley Ranch in our house), and croutons for crunch. 

Day 18: Buffalo Chicken Salad

Day 17: Warm Kale Honey Salad

As promised, here is that warm kale salad I mentioned on Day 16. For this salad, I am using dinosaur kale, because it holds up best to heat, in my opinion. 

I know the recipe calls for 12 cups of kale. But Lordy that’s a lot of kale, even for our Sleichter squad. I use about 6-8 cups of kale in my version. 

Now the bacon? Totally go with the full 12 slices. Because ... more bacon.

Ingredients

• 12 strips Bacon- diced
• 2 large Shallots, peeled, sliced into thin rings, and separated
• 2 tablespoon garlic infused olive oil
• 6-8 Cups Dinosaur Kale, stems removed & chopped
• 1/4 Cup Walnuts
• 1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese, grated
• Salt and Pepper, to taste

Honey Dijon Vinaigrette

•  4 tsp Dijon Mustard
• 2 ½ tsp Honey
• 2 TBS White Balsamic Vinegar2 tablespoons brown sugar
• ½ cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• ¼ tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
• ½ tsp each: Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper, or more to taste

Instructions

• Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add the bacon. Cook to desired crispiness and transfer to a paper towel lined plate, reserving 3 tablespoons of the bacon drippings in the pan.  Set the bacon aside.
• Turn heat up to medium high. Add the shallots to the skillet with the bacon drippings. Fry until golden in color, stirring constantly, about 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon to a paper towel lined plate. Set aside.
• Reduce heat to medium. Add garlic olive oil to skillet. Add the kale to the pan and sauté until kale is warm and deep green in color, about 2-3 minutes. 
• Make the vinaigrette: whisk together all ingredients in a small bowl or place them in a container with a tight fitting lid and shake until well incorporated. Taste and adjust for seasoning.
• Assemble: Transfer the warm kale salad to serving plates or a salad serving bowl. Top with walnuts, bacon, crispy shallots and parmesan cheese. Serve with Honey-Dijon Vinaigrette.

Day 17: Warm Kale Honey Salad

Day 16: Everyday salad... but a salad for every day?

I had every intention of making a specific warm kale salad today, but then I had to go to my normal job, then kid appointment, 4-H, veggie deliveries, feed the fam, and school board meeting. So frozen pizza for supper!

But I want to keep up the streak. So here is an everyday salad from one of my favorite recipe sources, gimme some oven. Really. It’s called everyday salad

Day 16: Everyday salad... but a salad for every day?

Day 15: Olive Garden Copycat

Tonight’s menu was copycat Olive Garden potato gnocchi soup, so it only make sense to copycat their salad, too.

They make it easy to copycat, since we can buy the Olive Garden Italian salad dressing. Mix together Muir and Hornet lettuces, sliced onions, carrot strips, black olives, Parmesan cheese, and of course croutons. (We had eaten all the peperoncinos and I was not driving back to town just for that...but it’s much more authentic that way.) Top with the Italian dressing and enjoy!

Day 15: Olive Garden Copycat

CSA session 5 week 5

 This weeks CSA delivery includes Spinach, Lettuce, Turnips, Carrots and Beets.

With this basket we have decided to Lettuce Turnip the Beets. Since cooking is ALWAYS better with music.

These Beetroot Amaretto Rolls are something that I've wanted to make pretty much since trying them at the national festival of breads last summer. 

I've never had a spinach soup but this Lemony Chicken and Spinach Soup sounds really good. Also you can't go wrong with a good Spinach Artichoke dip.

If you're looking for some ideas with the greens here is where you can find different salads galore to try.

Turnips taste good raw, cooked or in a million other ways to eat them. Here is 7 different ways to eat turnips. (To be honest some of them don't make much sense to me but they're very interesting)

Enjoy!

-Maggie

CSA session 5 week 5

Day 14: Bring on the Berries

Do you get annoyed by those Web sites that make you scroll for pages to get to a recipe? Ya, me too. So, here ya go:

Kale Berry Salad

4 cups dinosaur kale, chopped

1/3 cup blackberries

1/3 cup raspberries

1/4 cup pecans, roasted

4 T feta or goat cheese

1/4 cup olive oil

1/8 cup balsamic vinegar

2 T honey

2 tsp brown mustard

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 tsp salt

Pinch black pepper

1. Mix olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, mustard, garlic, salt, and pepper together in a bowl. Whisk until mixed well.
2. Place washed, chopped kale into a large bowl. Pour dressing over the kale and set aside.
3. Rinse raspberries and blackberries and add to kale.
4. Roast pecans in a skillet on medium-high heat until just starting to brown. Add to kale.
5. Sprinkle feta cheese on top of salad, and serve. 

Day 14: Bring on the Berries

Day 13: Blackened Chicken Salad

 A girls gotta take advantage of warm days in December. So, grilled chicken it is! 

I wanted lots of variety in today's salad, so I picked lettuce from three different spots in our hoop building. 

For some extra crunch, I added some purple kale. Green onions are a must. Then, because this salad has a Mexican taste, I grabbed some fresh cilantro. Carrots were already picked and ready to use, and cherry tomatoes came out of the freezer, roasted for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. But you could use fresh cherry tomatoes, too.

I had to buy the avocado. You can't win them all.

Blackened Chicken Salad

4 chicken breasts

1 tsp paprika

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp cumin 

2 T olive oil

1/4 lb assorted lettuce (about 4 cups), washed and chopped

1/2 c cherry tomatoes

2 green onions

4-5 stems cilantro

4 yellow carrots, chopped

2 avocados, chopped

tortilla strips, optional

shredded cheddar cheese, optional (but always at our house)

1. Preheat grill.

2. Mix together in a large bowl the paprika, garlic powder, smoked paprika, cumin, and olive oil.

3. Add the chicken to the spice mixture and cover chicken thoroughly.

4. Place chicken on preheated grill. Grill chicken for 7-9 minutes per side, cooking to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.

5. Meanwhile, combine the lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, carrots, and avocado. 

6. Remove chicken from grill. Allow to rest 2-3 minutes, then slice into strips. 

7. Serve on top of lettuce, with your favorite salad dressing. (Catalina is my go-to for this salad.) Add tortilla strips and shredded cheese, if so desired.

Day 13: Blackened Chicken Salad

Day 12: Oven Roasted Bok Choy Salad

Do you want to see how we keep growing vegetables in our high tunnels when it's so cold out? Those cute little plants get tucked in every night! More specifically, they get covered with row cover.

Then, when we are ready to pick, or on warm days, we peel back the row cover to these beauties.

Today's salad features bok choy. Most of our new customers say ... bok what? Bok Choy. It's what happens when a green can't decide if it is celery or lettuce or cabbage. Technically, it is a Chinese cabbage. Bok choy is packed with antioxidants and is a great source of Vitamin A and C. Isn't it pretty!

Usually, I'll trim off the leaves and treat them like I do kale, and use the stems like celery. Bok choy is good to eat raw, but my preference is to saute or roast it. And if I'm roasting one veggie, why not roast three?

Hopefully you took our advice last summer and stuck some of those cherry tomatoes in the freezer. Roast those beauties until they pop open. And what's a salad without carrots?! 

Oven Roasted Bok Choy Salad

6 bok choy leaves, rinsed and chopped into 2-inch segments

4 carrots, peeled and diagonal cut in 1-inch pieces

1-2 cup frozen cherry tomatoes

Feta cheese

Balsamic vinaigrette

Olive oil (I used garlic infused)

Salt and Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400. 

2. Toss bok choy, carrots, and frozen cherry tomatoes in bowl with 2-3 T olive oil.

3. Spread veggies out onto baking sheet. Season veggies with salt and pepper.

4. Roast veggies for 20-25 minutes until fork tender and bok choy leaves just start to blacken.

5. Broil veggies on high for 1-2 minutes to crisp up the bok choy leaves.

6. Remove from oven and serve immediately, topped with feta cheese and balsamic vinaigrette.

Day 12: Oven Roasted Bok Choy Salad

Day 11: Salad is for the birds?

Maggie threw this salad together for us tonight, quite successfully in my opinion!   Since it’s topping looked like bird feed, and included boiled eggs from our own birds, it is now officially called Bird Salad in our household.

She used 1/4 pound fresh picked spinach, and topped with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, roasted chickpeas, Parmesan cheese, and dried mixed berries. Topped with sliced boiled egg and your favorite dressing. Five minute salad with lots of crunch.

Day 11: Salad is for the birds?

Day 10: Spinach and sweet

Popeye the Sailor Man knew what he was talking about, eating all that spinach. It is good for you, packed with vitamins and minerals.

Source: https://www.herbazest.com/herbs/spinach

But Popeye didn't know the best way to eat spinach. From a can?!?! Blech! Raw spinach has much more flavor and texture than any canned product, and doesn't get all mushy with dressing. 

My favorite spinach salad is very basic. Mix together and serve immediately the following ingredients: 

    1/4 pound of fresh spinach, torn

    1 can of mandarin oranges, drained

    1/4 cup almond slivers, lightly roasted

    Raspberry vinaigrette 

We tried two kinds of raspberry vinaigrette today, both available locally from Ray's. The Fat Free dressing had much more raspberry flavor to it, definitely recommend that one. Yes, for once the healthier option is the yummier option!

Day 10: Spinach and sweet

CSA Session 5 week 4

This weeks basket has Bok Choy, Yellow Carrots, Watermelon Radish, Red Radish, Purple Radish, Garlic and a head of Red Lettuce.

We've been working on a Salad every day for 30 days, so here is a weeks worth of salads.

Italian Salad

Carrot Salad

"Pink Goo" Salad

Fajita Salad

Cranberry Kale Salad

You Eat With Your Eyes Salad

Chef Salad

Rollups (Saladish)

These Salads are all a good way to use your greens and try something new. My favorite was the You Eat With Your Eyes Salad, but the Rollups were pretty good too and they technically are salad (since it has the greens)

Enjoy!

Maggie

Mama Linda adds: this basket is great for stir fry, too. In stir fry recipes, I’ll use the stem of the bok choy like celery, chopped and sautéed. Then, slice up the leaves and add them the last 2-3 minutes of cooking. 

But don’t take my word for it. This one has a nice orange sauce with it. Or, if the warm weather inspires you to fire up your grill, here

is another recipe featuring bok choy and radishes. In the mood for soup? This one looks delicious — I’ll let you know, because it’s definitely on our menu for this week.

CSA Session 5 week 4

Day 9: Chickpeas

Jay’s turn to cook tonight, and he chose a warm salad. More specially, it is warm Swiss chard and chickpea salad. This was warm in temperature and in spice, and is based on this Web site. 

Jay added bacon to our version of it, because as much as we like veggies, we do love bacon! He used our rainbow chard, which not only provides the green, but the stems add the bright red pieces. 

Day 9: Chickpeas

Day 8: Italian salad

It’s Friday night at the end of a big week. So, we needed a lazy salad. We also had pasta and breadsticks, so.. Italian salad it is.

This one had green lettuce, green onions, shredded carrots, pepperoni, slivers of mozerella cheese, and croutons. Add Olive Garden Italian dressing, olives, and pepperocinos for an Olive Garden level salad.

Quick. Tasty. Lazy... I mean, simple..

Day 8: Italian salad

Day 6: Carrot Salad

I'm going back to the potluck tradition for today's entry: carrot raisin salad. 

There are nearly as many versions of this recipe as there are rows of carrots at our farm. Unless I'm baking, I never follow a recipe exact. Tonight's salad as a combination of this recipe and this recipe. 

Funny thing, though. Even if you’ve been married to the same guy for 21 years and counting, you can learn something new. Like Jay doesn’t like raisins but does like cranberries. Hence another adaptation.

My version for five of us looked like this:

3 orange carrots, peeled and shredded

3 purple carrots, peeled and shredded

3 yellow carrots, peeled and... you guessed it ... shredded

3/4 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup mayonaisse

2 T sugar

2 T milk

1/4 cup sour cream

Blend together in a bowl the mayo, sugar, milk, and sour cream. Add a little lemon if you want some more tang. Stir in the cranberries and carrots, until the dressing is evenly dispersed. Chill until ready to serve. 

It added some nice color to our tumeric-rosemary rice, oven roasted radishes, and pan fried duck.

Day 6: Carrot Salad

Day 7: Pink Goo Salad

We eat weird things around here. I get it. And we rarely know the name of what we are eating. Like yesterday, when I roasted this veggie, not knowing if it was a type of radish or turnip or parsnip or what.

It was a daikon radish. And in my defense, a new variety. But I digress.

When you eat weird nameless things, you start naming dishes weird names. Like the Pink Goo Salad featured today.

Secret time, I don’t like raw radishes. At least not when they are spicy. But this recipe with its raw radishes was delicious to me. And Jay. And the kids.  So the pink goo salad is here to stay. 

If you’d like to make your own pink goo salad, the actual recipe is, well, we can't find it. But I can tell you how Jay made it.

In the salad pictured above, Jay used purple meat daikon, Red King daikon, white daikon, Watermelon radishes and carrots. Peel and shred all of those into a bowl. Add in a cup of Craisins (or raisins, whatever is your preference). Mix together a cup of mayo, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 2-4 tablespoons honey (or half that amount of sugar), and 3 tablespoons lemon juice. Stir dressing into slaw and refrigerate a bit before eating.

Now you too can enjoy your pink goo.

Day 7: Pink Goo Salad

Day 5: Fajita Salad

After Jay and our high schoolers were out picking carrots after school, it was just too cold for a basic salad tonight. And so, we made up this gem: beef fajita salad.

We started out with an assortment of lettuce. I am a bit spoiled, so I walked out to hoop B and picked three kinds of lettuce: Miur, Cherokee, and hornet. Don’t let me fool you; I don’t know which is which, and I had to ask Jay. I just say “I want some of the light green, some of that darker green, and some dark purple lettuce.”

Then I negotiated with my helpers, and they picked me a rainbow of carrots, a fresh green onion, and a yellow onion.

And because I’m really spoiled, I walked to the basement and got a package of beef fajita meat from last year’s 4-H steer.  I sautéed the beef with the chopped onion, and added a little Italian dressing and lime juice. 

I’m a big believer that every dish needs a contrast of tastes (sweet and salty) and textures. So, I tossed these tortilla strips together, but added about a teaspoon of cumin and half teaspoon of paprika in the oil before tossing with the tortillas and baking.

I chopped all the veggies and tossed together without a care. 

Then, it was time to build. Lettuce and veggies, fajita beef and onions, cheddar cheese, Catalina dressing, and tortilla strips. 

YUM.

Day 5: Fajita Salad

Salad Spree, Day 4: Cranberries and Kale

 In honor of Thanksgiving last week, today's salad includes tangy cranberries and toasted pecans. I mean, it's virtually a dessert! 

Okay, maybe not quite. But it is a sweet salad. 

I have a few friends who will admit they don't like kale. I argue they haven't tried fresh kale. Did you know that veggies and fruits start losing sugar the moment they are picked? So the fresher the veggie, the better it tasted. I knew this academically, but it wasn't until I tried kale that wasn't ours that I realized what a difference fresh makes.

And so I challenge you. Come out to the Farmers Market this Saturday by the mall in Manhattan and get some freshly picked kale from Jay and his helper of the day. Or email us and arrange a delivery. Try one of these salads. And give fresh kale a try. 

But I digress. Here is the recipe for this week's salad: kale salad with apple, cranberry, and pecan. We used dinosaur kale, red king radishes, plus cranberries, pecans, goat cheese, and green apple. The dressing turned out a lot better than the previous orange gloop.

Remember, kale likes to sit in dressing for a while before you eat it. Make this salad ahead of time, for the flavors to really build and mingle.

Salad Spree, Day 4: Cranberries and Kale

You Eat With Your Eyes Salad

Day 3 of the Salad Spree features of a rainbow kale salad. 

Maggie said this is the prettiest salad I've ever made. Katie called it a veggie charcuterie board. John called it baby food salad. 

You win some, you lose some.

This salad is based on this recipe from loveandlemons.com. Kind of sounds like love 'em or leave 'em, which is how most people feel about kale: you either love it or hate it. The secret to kale is to soften it before you eat it. Kale prefers to have the salad dressing put on ahead of time, and will maintain that nice crunch in its leaves. And kale is good for you -- actually helps provide calcium, iron, and potassium to your diet. 

This salad had a few new ingredients to our household, including raw beets, roasted chickpeas, and pepitas. But, it sure looked pretty! The full list of ingredients for our version are as follows: purple kale, red beets, orange carrots, yellow carrots, purple carrots, watermelon radish, sunflower seeds, avocado (had to buy that), pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and roasted chickpeas.

Except... the salad dressing. I dont know if it's because I had to use a food processor instead of a blender. I don't know if it's because I didn't cook the carrots enough. But the carrot ginger dressing looked more like carrot baby food. Tasted great, especially after we added 1/4 cup of orange juice to try to thin it out. But a little gloppy.

Still, the variations in flavors and textures made this salad really yummy. It's definitely on the make-again list.

You Eat With Your Eyes Salad

CSA session 5, week 3: Colors galore

This weeks basket has green onions, cilantro, kale, collard greens, watermelon radish, a beet and carrots. For once, you're not getting sweet potatoes!

One of our favorite things to eat is this egg drop soup recipe. We always make it with plenty of extra egg. 

What are the holidays without homemade cheese balls! This cheese ball is perfect for anyone who likes garlic and cheese, and also features our green onions. So it sounds great to me.

With all these greens starting to grow in our garden, we're trying a new thing called 30 days of salads. These rollups aren't technically a salad, but what really makes things a salad? There's a green thing, some veggies and some protein. That makes it a salad. Right?

While we haven't tried this fancy kale salad, we're making it tonight and it sounds like a delicious way to use your kale, watermelon radish, beet and carrots! 

We hope you enjoy this week's basket. Check out our Web site for daily salad recipes. 

CSA session 5, week 3: Colors galore

30 days of salad, day 2: Chef Salad

With six Sleichters in the house, it's challenging to make something everyone will eat. We don't really allow picky eating; you get what you get, and you don't throw a fit. Still, it's nice to have a meal where no one turns their nose up.

Impromptu salad bar does just that. This chef salad on steroids is the result of our latest salad bar. We had Muir summer crisp lettuce; chopped rainbow carrots; green onions; purple onion; chopped cooked chicken breast; pickled carrots; white radish; boiled eggs; croutons; and the leftovers from the charcuterie board, including pepperoni, ham, horseradish cheese, and cheddar cheese.

Above is Lainie's creation, with more egg and less dressing. I'm a sucker for homemade ranch, so mine is the drenched bowl below. The nutritional value of a salad is directly related to the dressing. Don't be like me. A light hand on the salad dressing is much better for you.

And those picked carrots I mentioned above? That's Jay's contribution to the meal, a recipe he found last week while making collard green roll-ups. They are a tangy addition to salads, but also yummy on lettuce wraps or as a topper on stir fry.  

The summer crisp lettuce will last for a couple weeks, if you rinse the leaves and spin them out with a salad spinner, so shake them off before storing them in the fridge. The longest we've had a head last here was 4 weeks, but usually we eat them before that much time has past. 

30 days of salad, day 2: Chef Salad

30 Days of Salad, Day 1: Roll-ups

Most of us have eaten our fill of delicious pies, desserts, and cream-filled appetizers... or is that just our house? The calorie overload was delicious and worth it. But, with that in mind, now is a great time to start a salad spree. So, the Sleichter squad goal is a salad every day for 30 days.

But, since we rarely do things "normal", we are starting the salad spree with lettuce roll-ups. Except without lettuce. Like I said, not normal. 

Recipes are just a suggestion for most of our meals, but it is nice to have a starting point. Lettuce roll-ups are made for improvising, as you can use about any green and fill it with about any filling. Usually, we do assorted chop veggies, cut up fried chicken, and your favorite salad dressing.

For today's recipe, we started with PF Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps. But, we had frozen chicken strips instead of ground chicken. I made the sauce in a saucepan, and substituted soy faux peanut butter for the hoison sauce. And we used collard greens instead of lettuce. It was yummy and kid-approved. We added potstickers and egg rolls, to make it feel more like a Chinese restaurant meal. 

To prepare the collard greens for roll-up, bring a pot of water to boil. Cut off the stem on the collard green leaves, and shave off about half of the thick middle rib of the collard green, so it isn't as thick and easier to roll. Rinse off the leaves. Dip them into the boiling water for about 5 seconds, just until they start to soften. Remove and let cool slightly, while you blanch the remaining leaves. They are now ready to fill.

Collard greens aren't a nutritional powerhouse; their only benefit is added calcium and potassium. But, they are a great filler, a low cal, fat free option to fill you up and keep you from eating other foods... like those cream-filled appetizers and pies.

LS 

30 Days of Salad, Day 1: Roll-ups

CSA Session 5 week 2: Thanksgiving!

 

In this week's CSA baskets we have Lettuce, Carrots, Purple Sweet Potatoes, Orange Sweet Potatoes, watermelon radish, purple daikon radishes, and a bunch of red radishes.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. This Thursday, if we want to be exact. This week's basket is full of vegetables to make your Thanksgiving great! The sweet potatoes can be made into a delicious sweet potato pie. Like most recipes for sweet potato pie, this one calls for the orange sweet potato,  However, you could also use the purple ones and have a pie with a pop of color on your table of Thanksgiving goodies. 

Pie isn't the only use for sweet potatoes you can make Sweet Potato Casserole, or make some Baked Sweet Potato Fries, or make a Sweet Potato Carrot Bake, which all of us loved.

Of course, there's more than just sweet potatoes this week. The lettuce, carrots, and radishes would make for a delicious salad for Thanksgiving. With how beautiful these heads are, I'd hate to not use them. If salads aren't really your thing, you could eat them plain in a veggie tray!

 The vegetables are so colorful that you just have to try one (or maybe all) of them. My favorite is the watermelon radishes and purple carrots. The flavors of the two are just absolutely delicious. If we didn't have to sell them, I'd probably be eating the purple carrots all year long. The watermelon radishes are full of color and flavor- it brings a delicious punch in such a pretty package. It's one that you wouldn't expect at first, but once you try it you can't get enough.

For our family's Thanksgiving, we're always the ones in charge of bringing the vegetables. We normally would bring a salad or two, a veggie tray, and some pie. By the end of the night, the veggie tray would be gone, the salad pretty much gone and there would still be plenty of pie left for tomorrow! Of course, this year since we're staying at home, its going to be a little different- but we're still going to have our sweet potato pies.

I hope that you and your family have a great Thanksgiving!

By Maggie

CSA Session 5 week 2: Thanksgiving!

CSA baskets- Session 5 Week 1

 This weeks basket is: 2 pounds sweet potatoes, kale, 1 pound of carrots, radishes and a garlic.

Our breakfast this morning had a few tasty treats that are in todays basket. We had this Bacon and Eggs Phyllo Breakfast Pizza and it was wonderful. 

We're also making these Sweet Potato Gnocchi's which can go well in any soups and to top that, you can freeze it and use it at a later date! Its so fun to make because it adds some fun color to the soup. 

If you really would like a fun baking challenge, you can try this Sweet Potato Souffle Pie. I think it would be hard, but would have a great taste in the end.

-mcs 

CSA baskets- Session 5 Week 1

Sweet potato gnocchi

I don’t often make pasta from scratch, but this recipe for sweet potato gnocchi is worth the effort. It’s actually pretty easy to do, makes enough for a few meals, even for a family the size of ours. If you use almond or rice flour instead of wheat flour, it’s a gluten free pasta option. And they are delicious, whether you use the purple or orange sweet potatoes. 

This recipe I use for the gnocchi also explains how to sauté them as a side dish. But our favorite use of sweet potato gnocchi is in this chicken gnocchi soup that tastes like the Olive Garden soup.

Sweet potato gnocchi

Session four, week 5 CSA delivery

 In this week’s basket, there is one spaghetti squash, 1 pound of beets, 1 pound of carrots, 2 onions, a garlic and some cilantro.

A fun recipe for your beets and carrots is theMaple Roasted Beets and Carrots. It sounds really good. Now for your spaghetti squash, this Harvest Squash Casserole sounds like something great for a cold night (not that there's going to be any this week) 

Feeling creative? Our market customers brag about their carrot pesto.We haven’t made this yet ourselves, but our family sure enjoyed the other pestos we’ve tried. Except for baby John; he called it green slime. 

Personally, green slime on spaghetti squash is always a winner for me.

Session four, week 5 CSA delivery

Halloween Market

 Happy Halloween from the Sleichters! We're taking advantage of tonights harvest moon to get some picking done before the market.

We will be at the market tomorrow in Manhattan with plenty of vegetables including...

• Sweet Potatoes
• purple and orange
• Potatoes
• Radishes
• black, red, watermelon, daikon
• Onions
• Carrots
• Orange, Yellow and Purple
• Garlic
• Beets
• Turnips
• The very last of our Tomatoes
• and Kitchen Squash galore
• Butternut, Spaghetti, Red Kuri, Delacata, Pink Banana and more

Yep you read that right. I said Kitchen Squash. We've picked SO many vegetables this year that we've ran out of storage room so we have 3 mineral tubs of squash sitting in our kitchen. They're really in our way and I trip over at least one tub daily.

If you'd like to see some great Halloween treats and goodies to make with your vegetables, just check out our CSA blog post here. 

We hope to see you at the market tomorrow and Happy Halloween!

Halloween Market

Session 4, Week 4: Happy Halloween Week!

It's a perfect week for Halloween treats, so each of today's veggies comes with a Halloween theme recipe! In this week's basket there will be Cherokee purple tomatoes (probably the last ones of the year), red radishes, a black radish, jalapenos, and some of our almost 2,000 pounds of sweet potatoes. 

Now this basket is full of things to help make some pretty creepy-cool Halloween goodies. These Radish "eyeballs" are sure to bring a little bit of a spook to your table. Also in this basket is a black radish which can be made into a spooky cauldron in less than 5 minutes. These Halloweño Jalapeño popper mummies are honestly really cute as well, and I hope to try them out myself soon. (even if its not close to Halloween). Want something a bit more kid friendly? How about the cute sweet potato monster cookies? 

The cooler weather is great for soup, and homemade Tomato Basil soup is a favorite in our house. This recipe calls for two 24 oz cans of tomatoes, which you can replace with about 4 Cherokee purple tomatoes, diced, juice and all. I plan on making it later this week, and adding a little food coloring to make it a creepier, Halloween color.

I really hope you enjoy this weeks basket and have a happy Halloween! (and look out for that snow although its WAY too early for it to be snowing in my opinion.)

Session 4, Week 4: Happy Halloween Week!