Last week I went for my first CSA pick-up at The Woods. After a long 2011 summer
coveting the bounty our neighbors Bridget and Kay brought back every week, this
year my boyfriend Jens and I split a Full Monty share with them and their two small
kids Ana and Hugo.
The haul on June 4 included eggs from Feather Ridge Farms along with ripe
strawberries and sugar snap peas.
Jens and I usually take turns cooking, and that same night I was up. I had planned
to make a salade niçoise, with green beans, small potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, grilled
tuna, and olives (skipping the anchovies). But our fresh sugar snap peas looked so
delicious that I decided to substitute them for the beans. Lightly steamed, they were
a great twist on this classic summer recipe:
1 large head Boston-lettuce leaves, washed and dried
1 pound green beans, cooked and refreshed (or sugar snap peas)
1-1/2 tablespoons minced shallots
1/2 to 2/3 cup basic vinaigrette*
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 or 4 ripe red tomatoes, cut into wedges (or 10 to 12 cherry tomatoes, halved)
3 or 4 “boiling” potatoes, peeled, sliced, and cooked
1 lb tuna steak grilled to taste and sliced
6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and halved
12 flat anchovy fillets (optional)
1/3 cup small black Niçoise-type olives
2 to 3 tablespoons capers
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
Instructions:
Arrange the lettuce leaves on a large platter or in a shallow bowl. Shortly before
serving, toss the beans with the shallots, spoonfuls of vinaigrette, and salt and pepper.
Baste the tomatoes with a spoonful of vinaigrette. Place the potatoes in the center
of the platter and arrange a mound of beans at either end, with tomatoes and small
mounds of tuna at strategic intervals. Ring the platter with halves of hard-boiled eggs,
sunny side up, and curl an anchovy on top of each. Spoon more vinaigrette over all;
scatter on olives, capers, and parsley, and top with a little vinagrette. (Serves 6)
Basic Vinagrette:
1/2 Tbsp finely minced shallot or scallion
1/2 Tbsp Dijon-type mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 Tbsp wine vinegar
1/3 to 1/2 cup excellent olive oil, or other fine, fresh oil
Freshly ground pepper
**
Halfway through dinner, I realized that I had been so excited about the peas that I
had completely forgotten to boil and add our eggs to the salad. And what eggs they
were—small, smooth, and brown. I had just started to make revised plans for them
(huevos rancheros!), when the label on the Feather Ridge egg carton caught my
attention. A pastoral scene framed in an oval, it depicts white and brown chickens
roaming a barnyard (complete with a red barn topped by a weathervane in the
background); in the foreground, a beaming brunette in a flowered sundress holds a
large basket brimming with eggs, brown on one side, white on the other.
The image could have been timeless, were it not for the lady’s Marcel waved hair,
a style popular from the late 19th century through the 1930s. Sure enough, a little
research on Feather Ridge Farm, which is located in Columbia County in the Hudson
Valley, revealed that the founding family has been in business since 1938, and even
today three generations are working on the farm.
For dessert later that, we had the small and sweet strawberries straight up. I was
wishing that we had some ice cream on hand. Then Jens, whose ancestors were
vikings, challenged me to pronounce the Danish phrase for strawberries and cream:
rødgrød med fløde. Here’s how: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8VziyktyS0
Held og lykke! (Good luck!)
Southside CSA 