THANKSGIVING 2024

WEEK #27 & 28

This week your basket contains: shallots, acorn squash, pie pumpkin, potatoes, carrots, celeriac, celery, BRUSSELS SPROUTS, HAMBURG PARSLEY,  broccoli OR cauliflower, collards, and salad mix (endive, lettuce & mustard greens)

THIS IS YOUR THANKSGIVING DOUBLE BASKET.  We will skip delivery Friday Nov. 29^th and Tuesday, Dec. 3rd. We will be be back on Friday Dec. 6^th and Tuesday, Dec 10th.  If you ordered a pear sampler, there is a visual guide on our web site blog pages as well as on our Instagram.

If you ordered pears from Big Barn Organics, we’ve sent them along today.  Jen let us know that the Comice pears will need a few days at room temperature to ripen to perfection.  If you want to ID the pears in your sampler bag, there is a guide in the blog section of our web site.  It was a bad year for pears in Hood River, and Jen is very appreciative of all the orders from our subscribers.

Thanks to one of our subscribers for the following new version of a recipe we’ve given in the past.  She describes this as “a winter tonic!”

MODIFIED DOUBLE CELERY TURKEY SALAD

Dressing:

¼ head crushed garlic

olive oil

toasted sesame oil

soy sauce

rice vinegar

black pepper

Salad:

1 grated celeriac

few stalks minced celery

2-3 grated carrots

1 lb. cooked turkey

1 roasted beet, diced

Sauté garlic in olive oil briefly, just so that it is not raw.  Whisk garlic together with other dressing ingredients to taste.  To roast the beet, wash,  wrap in aluminum foil and bake in 350-degree oven for about an hour or until easily pierced with a fork.  Allow to cool, then rub off the skin with your thumb.  Dice or shred the turkey.  Mix salad ingredients with dressing (adding beets last and mixing only gently afterward) and serve.

To make pumpkin puree, you can cut off the skin of the pumpkin as if you were peeling an orange. Then, halve the pumpkin and scrape out the seeds and pulp. After this, cut the flesh into 1 1/2-2 in. chunks and steam until soft. Press through a strainer or puree in a food mill. Pumpkin chunks can also be microwaved in a covered container in about 8 minutes. Use the puree for pies or in other recipes. It can be frozen and used later.  Below is the basic pumpkin pie recipe I use for my famous pumpkin pie pizza!  I add a splash of brandy when making a pie, which seems to just kick the flavor over the top of deliciousness.

PUMPKIN PIE

2 c pumpkin, canned or cooked

1 1/2 c milk, evaporated or cream

1/4 c brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 c white sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg, grated or allspice

1/8 tsp clove, ground

2 eggs, slightly beaten

Whisk 2-3 large eggs in a bowl.  Whisk in rest of the ingredients into the egg.  Leave the pie filling at room temperature before pouring the rest of the mixture into the crust. Bake for 35-45 minutes until firm.  Cool completely/refrigerate for up to one day.

QUICK CELERY ROOT SALAD WITH CAPERS AND LEMON

1 lemon, juiced
1 celery root, peeled
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons walnut oil
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons sugar (optional)
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/3 cup juicy capers, rinsed
Small handful Italian parsley, chopped

Peel the celery root and shred it. Stop halfway through and sprinkle with a tablespoon of the lemon juice to keep the root from turning brown. Shred the other half and toss with another tablespoon of lemon juice. Salt and pepper liberally and toss.  Whisk the remaining lemon juice with the walnut oil, olive oil, sugar, and vinegar. Taste and adjust. Toss with the celery root, capers, and chopped parsley.

Our Brussels sprouts are smaller than we would have liked or expected.  Talking with other farmers in the area, the consensus is that cool weather in September is the most probable cause.  We hope that the later varieties that we grow will have enough time to get larger.

(OVER) ———->

The recipe below is one we learned at a winter vegetable variety showcase a few years back.  It is one of the best celeriac recipes we have (and we have a LOT of celeriac recipes)!

ALL IN THE (APIACEAE) FAMILY CELERIAC SOUP

3 Tbs. butter

2 leeks

2 fennel bulbs thinly sliced

2 celeriac chopped

1 cup dry white wine

2 bay leaves

2 sprigs fresh thyme

6 cups water

½ cup heavy cream

For the smoky Ghee:

4 Tbs. ghee

1 tsp. carraway seed

1 tsp. smoked paprika

For the Gremolata:

¼ cup finely chopped parsley

2 cloves minced garlic

2 Tbs. finely diced celery

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Melt butter in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat.  Add leeks and cook until beginning to soften (2-3 min.).  Add fennel and cook until softened (8-10 minutes). Add celeriac along with salt, bay leaves and thyme, stirring to combine.  Add wine and simmer until mostly evaporated.  Add water and bring to a simmer.  Reduce heat to low and simmer until all vegetables are soft enough to puree (10-12-min.).  Puree until smooth either in a blender or with an immersion blender.  Re-heat over medium heat and add cream.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  For Ghee:  Melt ghee in saucepan over low heat.  Add caraway seeds and paprika and cook stirring occasionally being careful not to scorch spices (about 4 minutes).  Remove from heat, allow to cool and strain to remove solids.

For Gremolata:  Add all ingredients to a small bowl and mix.  Serve soup swirled with ghee and sprinkled with gremolata.

From Mona & Jaret at tournantpdx.com

For a different way to serve acorn squash you might try the recipe below.  You can cut the squash into thin wedges instead of rings for easier prep.  You could also use this for your pumpkin.  In fact pumpkin can be used instead of or with squash in any squash recipe.

CRISP-BAKED ACORN SQUASH RINGS

2 eggs, beaten lightly

1/4 cup milk

2 teaspoons honey

3/4 cup yellow cornmeal

1 1/2 cups fine fresh bread crumbs

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 small acorn squash, sliced crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick rounds and seeded

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a shallow dish, whisk together the eggs, milk and honey. In another shallow dish, stir together the cornmeal, bread crumbs, and salt and pepper to taste.  Dip the squash rings into the egg mixture and then into the crumb mixture, coating them well and patting the crumbs on well. Generously butter 2 rimmed baking sheets. Arrange the squash rings in one layer on the sheets and drizzle with the melted butter. Bake for 30 minutes, turning once halfway through, or until they are tender. Sprinkle the squash with salt to taste and arrange on a heated platter. Makes 6 servings. From Gourmet magazine, November 1985

Parsley Root, sometimes called Hamburg Parsley, was widely use in medieval times but is now a mostly “forgotten food”. It’s often cooked with other roots (try it in mashed potatoes!) and is crucial for flavoring some traditional chicken soup recipes and authentic borscht. You can add it anywhere you’re cooking up carrots, celery and onions for a vegetable soup or braise. The leaves are just parsley leaves and would be perfect for inclusion in your turkey stuffing or in the celery root recipe above.  This year our parsnip crop failed, but Hamburg parsley is a great substitute in any parsnip recipe.

Collards take longer to cook than most greens.  We would let them cook longer than is called for in the recipe below.

A VERSATILE RECIPE FOR THE HEARTY GREENS YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH

Hearty greens

Toasted sesame oil

Soy sauce

Furikake* or toasted sesame seeds

Tear the leaves from the tough stems (if any) and boil in water until tender (1 to 3 minutes).  Drain the greens in a colander and push on them to remove as much water as possible.  Roughly chop the cooked greens and place them on a serving platter.  Lightly sprinkle with soy sauce and sesame oil and toss to coat.  Sprinkle with furikake or sesame seeds and serve as a side dish.  From The Farm to Table Cookbook by Ivy Manning  *Furikake is a mixture of sesame seeds, seaweed, and sea salt available in most Asian food stores.