Radishes

During this CSA season, Preserving Techniques is providing creative ideas
on how to use and preserve the great fresh food Green Junction Farmstead is providing
to their CSA members each week. Typically, these same items will be available
at your local farmers’ market.

Radish - quick pickle

Slice the radishes and put them in a pint-sized jar with some peppercorns, a chile if desired, and ½ cup of vinegar, ½ cup water, and 1 tbsp sugar. Chill and add to tacos, salads, nachos. Ready to eat in less than an hour. Good refrigerated for 2 weeks. 

Radish Greens Pesto

Clean the greens well, blanch if desired for a bright color, drain and squeeze dry. Place greens, a couple of cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp of walnuts or pine nuts and a pinch of salt in a food processor. Start processor and drizzle in olive oil to make a paste. Add more oil if a thinner paste for sauce is desired. Add grated parmesan if desired. Serve over pasta and enjoy! Store in refrigerator for 1 week, or freeze. 

Cheddar Cheese

A true cheddar cheese takes a bit more time than other cheeses. After culturing and adding rennet, the curds form and then they are cut and drained. The curd mass is then sliced and the slices are kept warm for to allow more whey to drain. The the mass is “cheddared” which actually means broken up into curds again.

 

Finally the curds are packed into a press. After pressing the cheese is dried and either waxed, wrapped or sealed for aging. I sealed mine with a vacuum sealer and they are now aging in a small fridge that is kept at about 50°. Now the hard part – waiting three months for it to age!

Open House Leftovers

We hosted an open house and instead of serving store-purchased treats, we decided to feature some of my home-created items. The menu included: home smoked chicken with zesty peach barbecue sauce, homemade mozzarella, chips with peach salsa, fermented carrots, quick-pickled vegetables, and crackers topped with homemade ricotta and peach jalapeño jam. All of the peach items had been canned back in the warmer months of last summer. 

But when the event was over, I had some leftovers.

So, I decided to make some ravioli with the leftover ricotta and some of the smoked chicken.

Making ravioli at my house starts with wheat berries. I used soft white winter wheat for this pasta session. I put the berries in my Komo mill and ground them as fine as possible. After grinding, I scooped out 3 cups of the flour and added it to the mixer with a little salt. I then added in eggs until I got a ball of dough that was pulling away from the bowl. It took 5 eggs today. This can vary due to the type of flour and the general humidity.

After letting the dough rest of about 20 minutes, it was time to roll. I have a Kitchenaid attachment that makes this job so much easier. I rolled the dough through each of the settings until I reached number 5. Whole wheat pasta is not quite as flexible as white flour pasta so I have to leave the dough a little thicker.

Then, I brushed a beaten egg over the whole sheet of pasta. Next, a generous teaspoon of filling was added. I then folded the sheet of pasta over the filling and carefully sealed it while trying to avoid any air pockets.

I used the rolling pasta cutter to trim them out. The ravioli were then placed on a sheet of parchment and frozen. I had a good amount of dough after using up all of my filling so I put the trimmings back through the pasta roller and then cut them into fettuccine.

After freezing, I bagged everything up and it is ready for a quick dip in boiling water when we need a yummy dinner!

Green Pasta

I’ll let Cinda explain this one. But it’s got something to do with being really healthy for you.

Gifts from the Kitchen

Cinda’s niece got home from college and was excited to learn some home-made techniques: scented and unscented lotions, as well as lip balm.

Green tomatoes, early freeze

This year in early October we had a cold front come through for a couple of days and some tomatoes were not quite ripe. I was able to move my self-watering containers into the garage, but my sister’s tomatoes were not so mobile. So instead of letting them freeze in the 25° evening air, I picked them green and decided to make some salsa. The salsa is fairly mild, but should be particularly good for enchiladas in the future. 

Cinda on the News

Shortly after arriving in Grand Junction, Cinda was asked by Brian and Dawn of Green Junction Farmstead to share with their Community Supported Agriculture members some of her unique ideas for preserving the fresh vegetables that were in their CSA pick-up each week. During the event, one of the CSA members, Collette, a TV news reporter, did a short piece on the farm for a local news channel. Enjoy the video and a couple photos from the event below.

First Hard Cheese

Determined to always be learning new food crafting, in 2015, I ordered a cheese press and set about learning to make hard cheese. I have made soft cheeses for a while now and was ready to take the next step in cheesemaking. My first attempt came out reasonably well but I had a hard time with keeping the temperature controlled and slowly heating the curd. A purchase of a couple of hotel pans made the next try a better experience. Using the Sansaire sous vide with the hotel pans made the temperature control accurate and stress free. Cheese making is time consuming. It took almost all day to prepare the curd for pressing, but much of the time was unattended: heating the milk, letting it ripen, cooking the curd, and draining the curd.