This week’s box included: tomatoes, okra, salad + kirby cucumbers, garlic, rhubarb, watermelon, potatoes, kale, sweet corn. You can see a photo that can help with identification on our Facebook page or check out our weekly video on Instagram. Quick tip on the watermelons: they last for a couple of weeks outside of refrigeration. Conne’s Watermelon Chaat recipe (below) will use two pounds of it. Have you tried sprinkling a tiny amount of salt onto slices to bring out the sweetness? If you can’t get to all that melon in time, freeze it in chunks cut off the rind. Later, you’ll enjoy refreshing watermelon blender drinks. Hey, it’s hot, and time to lean into watermelon & cucumber for their cooling boost!
Need more storage instructions? Visit our fruit & veggie home pages. Click on the pic and a new page opens with storage instructions and a list of recipes curated by Conne over the years.
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Did you recognize the green stalks in this week’s box? I’m not sure I would have except that I received advance notice. Rhubarb!
Back in 2018 I interviewed Vicky Fry of Fry Farm in Bethlehem about how they were managing to grow rhubarb in the South. As I wrote then, rhubarb is something our northern cousins look forward to as a perennial and the first fruit of spring, but it’s tough to keep rhubarb growing in our humid Georgia summers. The Frys had gotten around that by growing it as an annual, starting it from seed twice a year and keeping it irrigated. They were able to harvest in the spring, and then with transplants, keep it growing through the summer. And the variety they were growing was Victoria, a green variety.
I can’t promise that’s the variety of rhubarb we got in the box today, but since it came from a Southern farmer, I expect they have also found it to be the variety that would produce for them. Fry told me how much she enjoyed rhubarb in the traditional ways – strawberry-rhubarb crisp, strawberry-rhubarb pie (which in colder places are two fruits that tend to produce around the same time), rhubarb muffins. But she also said her customers told her they like to cut the stalks into sticks and dip them in honey. “I wasn’t sure about it at first,” she told me, “but rhubarb has a lot of complex flavors besides the tartness and it’s actually pretty good.”
I admit – I’m not going to eat mine raw. I’ve already chopped up the stalks and they are simmering with plenty of sugar. Stewed rhubarb? My favorite. Stir it into yogurt or serve it on top of vanilla ice cream. It’s one of my favorite fruits and I am so thrilled to see it in August. And quite frankly, I have no other recipes to offer, but of course you can find muffins, etc. on the internet or your favorite old community cookbook.
Nice to see greens again. We were late getting our box today so our bunch of kale was pretty wilted from the heat, but it’s sitting in water now and will crisp up shortly. I’m going to be pretty boring and make Colcannon because someone around here loves mashed potatoes and it’s a good way to get him to eat more greens.
I’m slicing tomatoes and cucumbers and taking the kernels off one of those ears of corn and along with some sprigs of basil and torn fresh mozzarella, that will be salad for a dinner party tomorrow night.
My other two ears of corn will be used for the Corn Polenta recipe below. A fresh version of a comfort food favorite from my childhood – creamed corn.
And that watermelon? Since I haven’t cut into last week’s, this one will be cut up and frozen for slushies like the one we have the recipe for here. I hear I’m not the only person doing that. Last week’s melon is being cut up tonight and will also go to tomorrow’s dinner party, as Watermelon Chaat. Recipe (from my standby The New York Times) below.
Fresh Corn Polenta
From alexandracooks.com
Serve with sauteed vegs and/or a poached egg.
2 ears corn
2 teaspoons butter
Salt
Grated Parmesan
Grate the kernels from the cobs using the coarse side of a box grater. The mixture will be wet and pulpy.
Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the grated corn and season with salt. Simmer for about 3 minutes. It’s ready when it just begins to thicken and set. Add grated Parmesan to taste.
Watermelon Chaat
2 pounds watermelon, cut into 1-inch cubes
3/4 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon amchur powder (dried green mango)
Pinch of ground cayenne (a generous pinch if you like heat)
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 orange, clementine or mandarin, juiced to make approximately ⅓ cup juice
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped jalapeño pepper
3 to 4 fresh mint leaves, thinly sliced
Place cubed watermelon in a wide platter with sides or in a large baking or serving dish and spread into a single layer.
In a small pan, toast whole cumin seeds on medium heat for 3 minutes, until fragrant. Remove and coarsely grind with a mortar and pestle. (You can also grind in a spice grinder, but be sure not to grind to a fine powder as the coarse grains of the spice add a wonderful texture.)
Transfer cumin to a small bowl and add all remaining spices and salt. Add citrus juice, jalapeño and mint and mix well. Pour dressing over cubed watermelon and mix to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate for 1 to 6 hours. Serve chilled the same day.