CSA Harvest Box: week 1

in an email I received from Sun Gold Farms:

This week in your shares you should find lettuce, rhubarb, strawberries, pinto beans, onions, kohlrabi, and a calendula plant. Please double rinse the lettuce (remember the storm?). Refrigerate and use the berries as soon as possible. Since we do not spray fungicides on the berry fields, they do not have a very long shelf life. The pintos and onions are last fall's crop from storage and will go great in the crock pot on these cooler almost summer days. Use your favorite baked bean recipe, or find yourself a ham bone. When using a crock pot on slow, it is not necessary to soak the beans overnight. But you will still want to wash and sort them. The kohlrabi is best just peeled and eaten raw.  Do not cook it.  Treat as a carrot stick. Dip in sauce if you must.  The calendula plant should be potted into a larger pot or put right into your garden. It is an edible flower that looks and tastes great in your tossed salads. Use the flower petals. 
We haven't tried the calendula petals yet; I planted it in our garden and the flower wilted the next day, so we'll try the next bloom. :o)  We did try the kohlrabi just like she said: peeled and chopped up and dipped in ranch!  It was pretty tasty- reminded me a bit of turnips.  A little bit crunchy and pretty bland.  Not really worth all the work it took to peel it, though!  Look at all that tough skin vs. the little pile of veggies in the bowl!  I left one peeled but un-cut so you could see. It's the thing that looks like a peeled potato on the bottom.  At any rate, it made a nice addition to our lunch on Saturday after being at the market!

The pinto beans I used to make probably our favorite bean recipe. Pardon the ugly picture- they really are so yummy. Recipe follows!
Rowen also enjoyed his first taste of pinto beans!  He's been eating them up as finger food all week.

We're not big rhubarb fans, but I found a pie recipe that actually turned out pretty good.  A little too sweet, and I thought it might be by the ingredients but I just went ahead and made the recipe exactly as stated (what?!? me?!? not mess with a recipe!?) well- pies can be a bit of a mystery to me.  So if we end up with rhubarb again, I've made note of the changes I'd make for next time :o)  We served it with strawberry ice cream.  Maybe next time, I'd serve it with BARELY sweetened whipped cream. Or a really light homemade vanilla ice cream. Hm.... the whole wheat crust was fantastic with it, though! Recipe follows-

Sweet Potato Burritos

adapted From Allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups dried pinto beans
• 2 tablespoons "better than bouillon" chicken base (optional)
• 3 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 4 teaspoons prepared mustard
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 4 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
• 12 whole wheat tortillas, warmed
• Shredded Cheddar & Jack cheeses

DIRECTIONS

1. Rinse, pick through, and soak beans 8 hours or overnight.
2. heat oil (i used a dutch oven, but any big pot will work,) and saute onion and garlic until soft. Drain beans, and them to the pot. Gradually stir in enough water to cover the beans by 2 inches, and bring to a low simmer. (no lid) Stir in the chili powder, cumin, mustard, and cayenne pepper.  Simmer about an hour, or until soft.  You may need to add more water to keep the beans covered, but not too much.
3. When beans are soft, add chicken base if using and soy sauce. Adjust spices to taste and mash 'em up a bit.
4. Divide bean mixture and mashed sweet potatoes evenly between the warm flour tortillas. Top with cheese. Fold up tortillas burrito style, and place on a baking sheet.
5. Bake for 12 minutes in a 350 degree oven, or fry in a lightly oiled skillet and serve with sour cream and sliced green onions. Ooooooh so yummy.
6. Freeze the rest for later!

Rhubarb Custard Pie

filling recipe from "A Taste of Oregon"

Crust:

1 Cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, cold - cut in cubes

3/4 cups ice water

1. cut butter into flour & salt in a food processor until it resembles cornmeal.  Form into a ball, adding drops of ice water as needed.  Form into one flat (about an inch thick) disk and one flat rectangle, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least one hour.

2. remove dough from the fridge and let sit at room temperature until barely workable.  Roll out disk into a round, and place in the bottom of your pie pan.  Roll the rectangle into a 13x10" rectangle (roll it bigger so you can trim the ends and make the edges perfect) on a sheet of parchment paper.  Put the dough into a cookie sheet, and use a ruler as a guide to cut it into 8 13" strips and put the sheet in the freezer while you make the custard.

For the Custard:

4 beaten eggs

6 T flour

1/3 tsp salt

3/4 tsp nutmeg

3 cups sugar (if I make this again, I will reduce the sugar to 2 cups!)

2 T sugar (again, will reduce sugar to 1 T - there was a solid sugar crystal lining the bottom of the pie! Kind of tasty... but sooooo much sugar.....)

1 T flour (I'd probably use 2 T, mine was still a little runny.  Not too bad, though...)

6 cups chopped rhubarb (stalks should be no thicker than your thumb or else they need to be peeled. I didn't measure: just used what I had.  I'm sure it was less than 6 cups, though.)

butter

Mix together eggs, 6 T flour, salt, nutmeg, and 3 C sugar.  Sprinkle 2 T sugar and 1 T flour on bottom of prepared crust.  Add rhubarb to egg mixture and pour into crust.  Dot with butter.  

Back to the crust:

remove the strips from the freezer and place four on top of the pie about one inch apart.  Weave the remaining four into them to form a lattice.  Wait a few minutes for the dough to soften up a bit, and then trim the extra off with scissors and tuck it under the bottom crust.

To Bake:

Put a large cookie sheet on the bottom rack of the oven to catch drips, and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, reduce oven to 325 degrees and bake for 45 minutes longer or until set.