Tomatoes!

This week:

• Basil
• Beans
• Beets
• Cilantro
• Chard
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Peppers
• Hot Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Grape Tomatoes
• Heirloom Tomatoes

Shrimp and Mango Salad with Glass Noodles

4 ounces very thin bean thread noodles (also known as cellophane, glass, or mung bean noodles)
1 pound cooked, peeled, and deveined medium or large shrimp
1 large mango (1 pound), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3 scallions, thinly sliced crosswise
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh basil (I used Asian basil)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh serrano or jalapeño chile, including seeds, or to taste
1/3 cup rice vinegar (not seasoned)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Cover noodles with boiling-hot water in a large bowl and let stand 8 minutes. Drain noodles in a colander and rinse with cold running water. Drain well, then return to bowl.

While noodles are soaking, combine shrimp, mango, scallions, basil, and chile in another large bowl.

Stir together vinegar, sugar, and salt in a measuring cup until sugar is dissolved, then toss half of sauce with noodles and half with shrimp salad. Serve noodles topped with shrimp salad.

From this epicurious post. This was good; next time I'll replace half of the vinegar with fresh lime juice as several reviewers suggested.

Mocha Fudge Cake

Preheat oven to 375, and butter and flour a Bundt pan.

1 cup flour
1½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1¾ cups sugar
5 large eggs, separated
2 sticks butter, softened and cut into pieces
½ cup plus 1 T. cocoa
1 T. instant coffee powder
2 tsp. vanilla
¾ cup sour cream (can use plain yogurt)

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Set aside.
put sugar and egg yolks in food processor, process for 1 minute or until thick and light colored. Add butter and process an additional minute. Add cocoa, coffee, vanilla and process another minute. Add sour cream and process for 2 seconds. Add flour mixture and pulse but don't overmix.

Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold ¼ of the egg whites into the batter, then fold in the rest. (Since I am lazy and at this point have a full food processor and a big mixer bowl full of egg whites, I carefully fold batter into egg whites and the cake has always been fluffy enough.) Carefully turn mixture into Bundt pan, removing air pockets with a knife if necessary. Bake 35 minutes or until it starts to pull away from the sides; you can also use a toothpick test as backup. It usually needs longer than 35 minutes. Cool in pan, then turn out onto plate and finish cooling. Frost with the following:

¼ cup water
2 T. butter
1 tsp. instant coffee powder
3 oz. sweet cooking chocolate, broken into pieces
1 cup confectioner's sugar

Heat the water, butter and coffee in small saucepan. Process the chocolate for 30 seconds in the food processor, then pour in water mixture slowly, while processing. Add sugar and process for 5 seconds. Let stand until thick, then drizzle on cake.

This recipe comes to me from my Dad, but I believe it is from Abby Mandel's Cuisinart Classroom.

Good press for Honey Brook Farms

Our CSA pickup site was in the news this week, featured in a front page article in the regional section of the New York Times. They even had a picture of the garage in South Orange where we pick up our vegetables every week. They also carried this sidebar with information about joining this and other New Jersey CSAs.

As an experiment this week, I weighed the tomatoes we got: 1.2 lb. of grape tomatoes, plus a separate box containing 3.2 lb. of regular tomatoes and two heirlooms weighing in at 2.4 lb combined. That's a total of 6.8 lb. of organic tomatoes.

• Basil
• Cilantro
• Dill
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Peppers
• Hot Peppers
• Potatoes
• Scallions
• Summer Squash
• Tomatoes
• Heirloom Tomatoes
• Grape Tomatoes

Watermelon Granita

1 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons crème de cassis
about 3 pounds watermelon, seeds and rind discarded and the flesh chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

In a small saucepan stir together the water, sugar, and crème de cassis, boil the mixture, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved, and simmer it for 5 minutes. Transfer the syrup to a bowl and chill it, covered, until it is cold. In a blender puree the watermelon in batches, forcing it as it is pureed through a coarse sieve set over a large bowl, pressing hard on the solids. I don't really know how much watermelon I used, but it was probably roughly 5 cups of puree that came out of the blender. Stir the syrup and lime juice into the watermelon puree, and transfer the mixture to an 8-inch-square metal pan. Freeze the mixture, stirring and crushing the lumps with a fork every 30 minutes, for 2 to 3 hours, or until the granita is firm but not frozen solid. Scrape the granita with a fork to lighten the texture and serve it immediately. I was going to garnish with a sprig of mint but forgot....

Slightly modified from this epicurious post.

Homemade mozzarella

It would never have occurred to me to make mozzarella from scratch until Alice & I both read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer. It was an interesting book, and got us thinking even more about eating seasonally and locally, including canning our own produce.

One of the striking things in the book was how casually they make cheese. They even gave a website to order cheesemaking supplies from, so we went ahead and ordered a kit for $25. It comes with citric acid, rennet tablets, salt, a thermometer, cheesecloth, and instructions. The only part of this that's actually hard to find separately is the vegetable rennet, which comes in 10 tablets, enough to turn 40 gallons of milk into mozzarella. We will order this separately in the future if we run out.

The recipes are available online here and here for mozzarella. I think we've tried it a total of six times now, with 4 successes and 2 failures. The failures we attribute to excessively pasteurized milk, and we have been keeping a list of brands that work and brands that don't (Trader Joe's and Farmland have been good, Shoprite and Borden's have not). When it works, it really takes about half an hour to turn a gallon of whole milk into about ¾ pound of cheese. The process can be summarized as curdling the milk with citric acid and rennet, then squeezing out the whey while heating it up until it is firm enough to knead. We've made ricotta twice, too, which is even easier, you just curdle milk with citric acid (which initially looks as disgusting as it sounds) and strain it through cheesecloth. The ricotta ends up drier than store-bought, but we think it may be more like the Italian style.

One trick with making mozzarella is knowing when to add the salt. The first time, I added the salt to the milk initially, and I think it came out with the whey. I think the secret is to add the salt at the very last stage, when the whey is almost entirely out, but the consistency has not yet changed to the glossy, resilient final product.

It's fun to make and watch, and good, but not noticeably better than other fresh mozzarella. As for the locavore credibility, I'm not sure it save you much having the milk transported in gallon form from the dairy, instead of being transported as much more compact cheese. If you're comparing local milk with imported mozzarella, sure, you are eating a more local product if you make it yourself, but if the sources are comparably distant, my guess is that you would have a lower impact buying it as cheese.

Truffled Corn and Wild Mushroom Fettuccine

1/2 lb pancetta or bacon, cut into 1 inch strips
2 cups corn kernels from 3-4 ears of corn
2 1/2 teaspoons of salt (not tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound mixed wild mushrooms (such as wood ear, chanterelle, and/or shiitake, stems wiped clean, and sliced)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 lb fresh fettuccine
1 tablespoon white truffle oil, or more to taste
3 ounces parmigiano-reggiano, grated (about 3/4 cup)
2 tablespoons minced fresh basil

1. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pancetta and cook until crispy, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels and drain. Let cool and coarsely chop
2. Add the corn, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, and the pepper to the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the corn is heated through, about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are tender and give off the juices, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat, add the pancetta, and cover to keep warm.
3. Meanwhile, bring 1 gallon water and the remaining teaspoons salt to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Add the fettuccine and cook, stirring occasionally to separate the noodles, until al dente, 4-5 minutes for fresh, or about 10 minutes for dried. Drain the pasta and return to pot.
4. Add the corn mixture and truffle oil and toss to coat evenly. Add the cheese and basil and toss again. Serve hot.

From Chad and Becky, from their Emeril cookbook (don't know which one).

Bounty

• Cilantro
• Chard
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Onions
• Parsley
• Peppers
• Hot Peppers
• Potatoes
• Scallions
• Summer Squash
• Tomatoes
• Grape Tomatoes
• Heirloom Tomatoes
• Watermelon

Heirloom tomatoes!

• Beans
• Chard
• Cilantro
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Peppers
• Hot Peppers
• Potatoes
• Grape Tomatoes
• Tomatoes
• Shallots

Plus some cut flowers.