This week your basket contains:  tomatoes, cherry tomatoes,  zucchini, cucumber, beans (full shares), sweet corn, sweet peppers, carrots, eggplant, lettuce, and basil.

We are very happy to be home!  We had a wonderful time in Sicily, and learned a great deal at the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School.  The primary chef and teacher was a man named Kyle who had worked at Ava Gene’s here in Portland!  It was interesting to see that the harvest at the school was not that different from what we had here (I would have thought they would be hotter and ahead of us significantly).  While they had finished their tomato harvest and processing a week before we arrived, eggplants were in full swing & we learned several eggplant recipes.  One surprising thing we learned was that the tomato sauce they use in Sicily is quite thin compared to what we are used to (and we make here).  In fact, they hot pack their sauce in wine bottles that they seal with a cork and the sauce is thin enough to easily pour out of the bottle.  When we made the recipe below after we got home, we made the sauce by cooking paste tomatoes in a pot until they broke down, put them through a food mill then sautéed it with onions, garlic, and oregano.  I must admit that when the recipe below was described to us, I was more than a bit skeptical, but one taste and I was a convert.  We made it for our daughter when we got home, and her reactions were the same as mine, so I was convinced it was the right recipe to pass along this week.  In the past we did very little oil frying, but they do a LOT of it in Sicily, so it is a skill we will have to practice. One tip for success is to keep the frying oil quite hot (350 degrees or more).  We monitored it with an infrared thermometer at the school and at home.  It is important to note that the moment you put the eggplant in the oil the temperature will drop significantly.  I found it helpful to start with the oil closer to 400 degrees. 

INVOLTINI DI MELANZANE

2 eggplants

oil for frying

2 cups tomato sauce

4 oz angel hair pasta

½ cup grated Parmesan

fresh basil leaves

olive oil

Remove the stems from the eggplants and slice lengthwise into ¼ inch slices.  Deep fry eggplant slices in batches in a large pan until golden, flipping halfway through.  Drain on paper towels.  Cook pasta in well salted boiling water for half the time called for on the packaging.  Toss pasta with plenty of tomato sauce and Parmesan. Reserve some for baking the involtini.  Preheat oven to 350⁰.  Cover the bottom of a 9” baking dish with a thin layer of tomato sauce & olive oil.  Take one eggplant slice and place a small portion of pasta in the middle and roll it up.  Place in pan seam side down.  Repeat with remaining eggplant and pasta packing snuggly in the dish tucking basil leaves between the rolls.  Cover all the rolls with a thin layer of tomato sauce and bake for 25 minutes.   Modified from Ana Tasca Lanza Cooking School.

This will be our last week of corn for the year.  Sometimes these late season ears of corn are best used in a recipe like the one below.

FRESH CORN CHOWDER

4 slices bacon

1 small onion, chopped

2 med celery stalks, diced

6 small ears of corn

4 1/2 Cups of milk

2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon ground white or black pepper

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter

Place bacon in a soup pot and cook over med low heat until it releases all of its fat and is beginning to crisp, 10-15 min.  Leaving the bacon in the pan, spoon off all but 2 Tablespoons of the fat. Add onion and celery and cook, stirring, until tender and slightly browned, 10-15 min.  Remove the kernels from the corn.  Reserve the kernels and add the cobs to the soup pot along with the milk and potatoes.  Push the corn cobs into the milk to fully submerge them. Bring the milk to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the potatoes are tender, 10-15 minutes. Remove the cobs. Stir in the reserved corn kernels along with the salt and pepper.  Simmer gently until the corn is tender, about 5 minutes. With a slotted spoon, remove 1 1/2 cups solids from soup and puree until smooth. Return to the soup and add the butter.  Let stand until the butter is melted, then stir.  Serve!

Our friend Jen at Big Barn Organics in Hood River has bartlett pears available for you!  These are the first pears to be picked, and can be enjoyed as fresh eats, in salads and are the go-to for canning. The cost is  2 lbs $4: 4 lbs $7.50 25 lbs $30.  As always, please email to order and we will deliver them with your veggies when they are available.