Zucchini Time

We hope everyone will come out to Pathfinder Produce, this Thursday, July 30, from 1 to 5 p.m. for the best tastes of summer. Our Hoop House garden beds are producing delicious greens and veggies, and other items grown by New York State farmers are being featured.  We hope to see you there!

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It’s high summer and everyone is tremendously busy trying to get all their outside work done, from mowing to painting, from weeding to construction. At the homestead, we had a productive weekend getting our firewood stacked, and my son and I refurbished Della’s doghouse roof with some scrap vinyl siding.  (It’s a lighter shade of tan, so it should reflect the sun’s rays and help her stay cool in summer).  It also was good to see that Mama Robin, who’s diligently been feeding bugs to her offspring in a nest in our garden shed, is about to have her two fledglings leave soon.

At this point in summer, we look forward to the zucchini harvest.  They are so versatile and one of the easiest vegetables for home gardeners to grow, though I typically don’t plant them as I can readily get them at Pathfinder Produce.  Bob, our good neighbor and a prolific gardener, also lets me have all that I want. (If you grow them and are afraid of being overwhelmed, internet sources indicate you can harvest and lightly sauté the flowers, which are considered a delicacy.)

Zucchini, as the name suggests, were developed in Italy; they are descended from a New World summer squash that made its way to the Old World during the era of food exchange in the early 1500s.  Today’s zucchini were probably developed near Milan from earlier hybrids in the late 1800s, and then made their way back to California with Italian immigrants by the 1920s.  

Although foodies view them as a vegetable, Wikipedia says that botanists classify zucchini as the fruits of a subspecies of the cucurbita pepo plant.  Nutritionally, according to Livestrong.com, they are very low in calories, contain no fat, 0 mg of cholesterol, and have about 2 grams each of fiber and protein.  Served raw with its skin, zucchini are high in Vitamin C, potassium and manganese; they also have significant amounts of Vitamin K, Folate, Riboflavin, and B-6.  For many reasons, zukes are an ideal low-cost addition to one’s diet, especially if you are trying to lose weight or just eat healthier.

Zucchini are also popular throughout the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, and of course, are a key ingredient in the French lunchtime staple, ratatouille. (In France and the UK, the vegetable is known as courgette). Zucchini can be eaten raw (shredded in salads), grilled, sautéed, boiled, added to sauces, and baked into any number of breads, cookies and cakes.

This week, I hope to fire up the grill and serve zucchini, perhaps as a side to some chicken or burgers.  Here’s a quick recipe on how to prepare balsamic grilled zucchini for you to try with your family.

Until next time, enjoy some time outside, and eat well!

Lori

Raspberries Revisited

We hope everyone will come out this Thursday, July 23, for our next bountiful market at Pathfinder Produce. Our Hoop House veggies are now available, and offer a great way to share summer's finest flavors with your family!  We hope to see all our friends and neighbors at the Village Commons from 1 to 5 p.m.

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Last week we discussed some of the great things about raspberries from a nutritional standpoint, so this week I thought I’d share a few different recipes that feature these red orbs of deliciousness.  As I was web surfing, it became apparent that raspberries are most commonly used as a dessert ingredient, rather in entrees.  So, I thought, “Game On!”

Truthfully, the best way to enjoy raspberries is just by themselves, with maybe a mere hint of sweetener if they are on the tart side.  But raspberries are so delicious, there really isn’t any reason they can’t be used in everything from smoothies to muffins to salads.

As I continued researching recipes, the inner historian said, “Hey, look in some of your old cookbooks and see what folks used to do with berries.”  My beloved 1940s Irma Rombauer “Joy of Cooking,” which has rarely let me down, was full of sweetened jellies, pies, and ices, but no main dishes.  My 1960s “New York Times Cookbook” by Craig Claiborne, a much used wedding gift, only offered up a recipe for Cold Berry Soup.  I think if I try this I would substitute Greek yogurt for the sour cream in the recipe, and I’m not sure that the addition of red wine would be necessary.

There isn’t an online version of Claiborne’s soup, so here it is:

2 cups fresh raspberries

½ cup sugar

½ cup sour cream (substitute yogurt)

2 cups ice water

½ cup red wine (I’m surprised the master chef didn’t say what type of wine!)

Run the berries through a fine sieve. Add sugar to taste and the sour cream (yogurt).  Mix. Add the water and wine and correct the sweetening.  Chill.

And so, after some searching, I’ve come up with a variety of non-dessert recipes to try:

• A Raspberry and Asparagus Medley
• A Pickled Onion, Blue Cheese and Berry Salad (Let me know if you try this … it’s intriguing but I don’t do raw onions).
• Raspberry Almond Salad (the recipe is about half way down the page).
• Lemon Raspberry Muffins (perfect for breakfast!)
• Greek yogurt with raspberries and honey (also for breakfast :) )

Until next time, we hope to see you at Pathfinder Produce, and be well!

Lori

Raspberry Season

We hope everyone will come out to our next delicious Pathfinder Produce fresh fruits and vegetable market at the Village Commons, this Thursday, July 16, from 1 to 5 p.m.  We offer a tremendous variety of produce, so you can try items that may be new to you, or you can try some of your family’s favorites in new and exciting ways. 

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This weekend I noticed that many wild raspberry plants we have around our fields and pathways are starting to produce berries, which are another delightful taste of summer. As a kid, my siblings and my older cousins would at times go find a patch of red raspberries or black caps for a day’s fun of picking (and eating).  These would be days full of mosquito bites and bramble scratches (which required wearing long pants and long sleeves), but the fulfilled promise of tangy berries was always worth the temporary discomfort.

According to Wikipedia, raspberries are the edible fruits of the plant genus Rubus, a member of the rose family (I guess the common thread is the thorns and tough stems).  The most-widely grown commercial cultivars are from crosses between the R. idaeus and R. strigosus varieties.  Of course, growers also market black raspberries, R. occidentalis, and berries of other colors – purple and blue – are now becoming popular.

As is evident from stalking raspberries in the wild, the plants require well-drained soil, with ample sun and water to grow well.  The plants throw out runners and can take over untended sections of banks, roadways or along edges of meadows; birds are another vehicle through which seeds are distributed.  If you are interested in growing a crop of raspberries from cultivated plants, the National Arbor Foundation offers some advice on how to manage your berry plants.

Raspberries, along with other berries, have been popular in the news for several years, given their high concentration of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds.  According to the World’s Healthiest Food’s website, raspberries are rich in a substance called rheosmin (aka, raspberry ketone), which is thought by researchers to increase enzyme activity, oxygen consumption, and heat production in certain fat cells, and can help decrease the risks of obesity and improve liver health.  (Think of it as adding higher octane gas to your tank … it makes for a more efficient and complete combustion of fuel.).

WHF also touts another substance in raspberries, tiliroside, which researchers believe activates a hormone called adiponectin that is produced by fat cells. People with type 2 diabetes don’t produce enough adiponectin, which contributes to regulation problems of sugars and fats in the bloodstream.  Through eating fiber-rich raspberries, patients increase their intake of tiliroside, and researchers think this may improve blood chemistry levels and contribute to better health.

One caution: If you have had a history of gall bladder or urinary tract issues, you may wish to go easy on raspberries (especially the black ones), as they do have a relatively high amount of oxalates that can result in reducing calcium absorption in the body.  Lower calcium absorption can lead to kidney stones; see this advice from the National Kidney Foundation about how to avoid these painful occurrences.

Next week, we’ll look at some of the more flavorful uses of raspberries, and try to share some interesting taste combinations.

Until next time, enjoy those fresh summer flavors!

Lori

Weed Identification and Guacamole Gate

We hope everyone will join us this Thursday, July 9, from 1 to 5 p.m. for another tempting Pathfinder Produce fresh fruits and veggies market.  We’re pleased to announce that more New York State grown produce items are coming to market now, and our oh-so-delicious homegrown Hoop House items are sure to please your family!

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This weekend was a busy one, with area families hosting post-graduation parties, Independence Day picnics, and everyone taking advantage of the nice weather for mowing and other outdoor work.  At the Grace homestead, we spent some much-needed time in the garden.

First on the “to do” list was to weed the transplanted bed of wild strawberries, which have done well.  The plants have adapted to their new garden home and are throwing out runners.  In as much as these are wild strawberries, I should probably add a few domesticated plants, so that way the resulting fruits next year (fingers crossed) will be larger than the end of my pinky.

My son and I also removed weeds from the other two beds, which are mostly planted in spinach, green lettuce and kale.  We had a discussion about how to identify weeds, based on a large mullein plant that is growing on our property.  The garden weeds included crab and quack grass, carpet weed, garlic mustard, plantain and a few others.  There are many handy internet websites available to figure out what weed you’ve got, like those posted by the University of California and the University of Illinois.  Even master forager Steve Brill, who eats his way through NYC’s Central Park, offers an “app for that” from his website.

A few weeks ago I removed many of the spinach plants, which were going to seed, and replanted; I wasn’t sure those seeds would germinate because of all the rain.  However, a few have started to grow.  This weekend, my kale needed to be thinned, and my lettuce had gotten “leggy,” so I tore out the tired plants and put in some fresh rows.  (I was smart this year and actually bought several seed packets of each green, so that I could replant). 

My small crop of peas also has started to come in, so we picked the pods that were ready.  Coupled with other fresh produce -- watermelon, greens, and avocados -- it was quite a delicious weekend.  Little did I know until I perused the news Sunday morning that the “Twitter-scape” was in an uproar over the New York Times’ recommendation of adding peas to the traditional recipe for guacamole.  Even the President and his potential successors weighed in against the addition. (We didn’t put peas in ours … my son makes it with just a bare minimum of ingredients and there are never any leftovers).

Until next time, enjoy the outdoors and all the fresh tastes of summer,

Lori