This week’s box includes: Butternut squash, potatoes, apples, cucumbers, Cubanelle pepper, sweet potato, apple butter! You can see a photo that can help with identification on our Facebook page or check out our weekly video on Instagram.
Need 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 Ward Cameron over the years.
————————————–
What, no okra this week? Did you notice? I imagine that means we’ve seen the last for this year. It is almost October, after all. The much cooler termperatures forecast for this weekend signal the end for the heat-loving summer produce.
Orange sweet potatoes top my list for this week. Yum. Roasting is the easiest way to cook these, the sweetest of the sweet potato varieties. Prick the skin and pop into a 400F oven, cook until they melt into softness. Don’t forget to place a pan beneath the tubers to catch the caramelized juices that bubble out, an indication that they’re done. Once removed from the oven, rest before carefully slitting, pinching them open and adding your favorite toppings.
Looking for a new sweet potato topping? Try Tahini Butter, courtesy of the NY Times. Whisk 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, ¼ cup tahini, 2-3 tablespoons fresh lime juice, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil and 1 clove of grated garlic until smooth. Taste, and adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and more lime juice as needed.
Make cooked sweet potato cubes part of a superfood salad for dinner by adding a grain (rice works but other grains like wheatberries, quinoa or farro have more nutritional umph), black beans, jammy or hardboiled egg for more protein, fresh cilantro, onions, sour cream, chopped pecans, cubes of feta, etc. Drizzle with tahini butter for the win.
Onward to the jar of apple butter in this week’s box. What a fun surprise! Sure, you can spread it on toast all month long. If you’re in the mood for a couple of fun ideas or just don’t like apple butter alone, try incorporating it into the recipes below.
Baked brie already makes a great party appetizer. Take it to the show-stopper level this fall by wrapping the enclosed wheel with cotton strings before baking. The dough puffs out between the strings while baking resulting in a crust that looks like a pumpkin after removing the strings. Tuck a cinnamon stick “stem” and sprig of sage into the center to complete the effect. The following recipe is adapted from Serious Eats.
Baked Brie en Croute
1 six- to eight ounce round of brie, camembert, or other soft-ripened cheese, slightly chilled (see notes)
10-inch square chilled puff pastry dough
All-purpose flour, for dusting
¼ cup apple butter, for topping
1 large egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
Preheat oven to 350°F. Using a sharp knife, score top rind of cheese in a crisscross pattern, spacing cuts about 1 inch apart.
Place puff pastry on a lightly floured work surface and roll to an even 1/4-inch thickness. Spread a circle of apple butter in the center of the pastry in roughly the same dimension of the cheese wheel.
Set cheese, scored side down, in center of the apple butter. Trim the corners from the dough to round them off. The dough doesn’t need to be perfectly round.
Fold the excess dough up and over sides of cheese, pleating it neatly on top to enclose cheese. Gently pinch dough together in center to seal gathered pleats.
Cut six pieces of cotton string into 18-inch lengths. Array in an asterisk pattern where the strings cross in the middle making 12 nine-inch “arms”.
Place the enclosed cheese, pleated side up, on the center of the strings. Tie the ends of each individual string over the top of the cheese. (Prepared cheese wheel can be wrapped tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerated until ready to bake.)
To bake, place the wrapped and tied cheese wheel on a parchment-topped baking sheet with the pleated side down. Brush the top and sides evenly with egg wash. Bake until pastry is crisp and golden brown all over, 25 to 35 minutes.
To serve, let rest 5 minutes. Cut and remove the strings. Press a cinnamon stick in the center where the strings crossed to be the pumpkin “stem”; add a sprig of sage leaves. Serve with crackers, toasted baguette slices, pecans and/or apple slices.
***
A few tablespoons of apple butter could also be added to this pork chop recipe from the NY Times. Riverview’s excellent chops would shine here, with their higher fat content. Need to connect with us on those? We’re at a couple of farmers markets each Saturday, and deliver every Friday.
Skillet Pork Chops and Apples With Miso Caramel
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 ½ tablespoons white miso
2 (1- to 1 ½-inch-thick) bone-in pork chops, patted very dry
Salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon neutral oil (such as grapeseed or canola)
2 tablespoons apple butter
2 small or 1 large Granny Smith or other tart-crisp apples, cored then sliced ¼ inch thick
In a liquid measuring cup or small bowl, combine 3 tablespoons water with the brown sugar, vinegar and miso; stir with a fork until smooth. Season the pork chops all over with salt, then the pepper. (Don’t skimp on the pepper; it’s an important element to balance the caramel.)
Heat a large skillet over medium. Add the oil and the pork chops to the skillet. Cook, flipping every 2 minutes, until browned on the outside and the internal temperature in the thickest part is around 135 degrees, 10 to 15 minutes depending on thickness of pork chops. If your chops have a fat cap, using tongs, stack both chops on top of each other, then grab both chops together and hold upright to sear the fat caps until crisp, about 1 minute. Transfer to a plate to rest for 5 minutes. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat.
Add the apples to the skillet in a single layer and heat over medium. (Snack on any that don’t fit.) Cook without touching until browned underneath, 2 to 4 minutes. If the pan is smoking at any point, reduce heat. Pour in the brown sugar mixture and cook, scraping up browned bits and stirring, until thick enough to coat the back of the spoon, 1 to 3 minutes. (Keep your eye on the sauce toward the end so it doesn’t burn.)
Turn off the heat, add the pork chops and their juices back to the skillet and turn to coat in the caramel. Serve the pork chops with a spoonful of the apples and caramel.
——————
We’ve had our share of weird weather woes this month. The last week found us inundated with rain in Ranger, which made it difficult to get into the fields. Thankfully, we were able to harvest the bulk of our late-season corn before Saturday’s storm hit – literally, we were driving as fast as reasonable to beat the front as it swept in. Meanwhile, some of our nearby partners have been experiencing a drought. Farming. Exciting.
~Suzanne