蕎麦! (Ice cold summer squash & soba on a hot summers day!)

Ice ice baby...

Is the buckwheat soba noodle under appreciated because of it's bleak brown color? Maybe it's not as bright and lively as it's brother Mr. Udon or as common as it's cousin Mr. Ramen but Sir Soba does have some advantages.

I think they have a bit more flavor than other noodles with the slightly nutty undertones. They are also gluten free, if that is one of your needs. Most importantly though, buckwheat soba noodles are better for you nutritionally, with higher sources of fiber, iron and protein. I also really like the texture of them, fully cooked they are a bit chewy and sticky, it's nice trust me.

Phase I

You'll want to either start this dish in the morning or the evening before hand as these soba noodles will need to marinate in this dressing to achieve their full taste-tacular potential.

For the dressing:

1/4 cup light olive oil

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbs honey

3 tbs rice wine vinegar

3 spring onions
1 tbs chopped ginger

2 tsp black pepper

I really recommend purchasing the mini Cuisinart processor if you want to get serious about making great creamy homemade dressings, it's a magical tool.

Pulse all the dressing ingredients in your processor until you have reached a smooth consistency. In a large bowl have ready 1 package of Buckwheat Soba noodles cooked, ready to be dressed with said dressing. Mix thoroughly because these noodles like to stick together. Cover and leave to marinate in your fridge as long as possible.

Phase II
About an hour before you are ready to eat.

Quick Asian-inspired pickles
1 farm fresh summer squash

I first made some quick Asian inspired pickles for this. Slice 1 cucumber into thin half moons, salt and let sit for 10 minutes. Wash off salt, in a small bowl add 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar, a dash of sesame oil, 1 tbs sugar and 2 tbs water. Mix well, add half moons to soak it up while prepping the rest of the meal.

Cut the squash into a thick julienne and let steam until just cooked.

Phase III
Assembly + Eat

toasted sesame seeds
1 sheet of seasoned seaweed laver
1 spring onion

Plate your dressed noodles with your quick pickles and summer squash. Garnish with your toasted sesame seeds, thinly sliced spring onion and matchstick sliced seaweed and enjoy.

Fresh, filling and lots of bright flavor.

Wilson Farm

Week 11 brought some excellent produce, maybe a little too good because we blew through the weeks share by Saturday. On a recommendation by our mom we hit up Wilson Farms in Lexington. We’ve known about this place for a while but for some reason or other have actually never been. Sure enough it is located conveniently about a mile of rt.2.

We’ve picked up a nice brandywine tomato for another caprese. No picture sorry.

We ended up picking up some San Marzano tomatoes, 2 Japanese eggplants, a zucchini, and 2 small summer squashes and 2 ears of corn and basil. We’ve made a fresh ratatouille of summer goodness. We even snuck in our last Parker onion into this batch. We baked this at 350 for just over an hour. We topped some fresh baked Italian bread which was grilled over the flame. The flavors screamed together and melted into the nice bread.

$1.98 for a huge bushel of basil! We actually had a random customer tell us we’d never use this much and it would go to waste. We made more pesto to freeze…

We also picked up a quart of fresh blackberries, 5 nectarines, shortcake and awesome homemade whip cream. We made a little blackberry sauce for the shortcake and topped this with a sprig of mint.

All in all we spent close to $40 for a 3 course meal for two. We are very happy we are part of a CSA program; they are a huge value and well worth it.

Here is our Share!Week 9

Starting at the top from left to right: napa cabbage, spring onions, carrots, mizuna, corn, potatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash.

Let me state right now that week 9 makes us feel good inside. The Salted Cod had a half work day on week 9's pickup date so we took our bike down to central square to make the pickup. Little did we know that it would be this large.

Corn, this was some great corn, very sweet with small kernels. We almost ate a weeks worth of corn in one sitting. Steamed for a 5 minutes lots of good butter, sea salt and black pepper.Made a quick lunch of sauteed squash, spring onions and rice for lunch.

We've also attempted to make kimchi with our napa cabbage. Unfortunately we had a bad recipe and it's not looking too good.

A great Sunday breakfast with our potatoes and onions.

Finally we made a nice fresh sauce with our squash, onions, mizuna and corn. We even threw a corn cob in the sauce for extra flavor! Very nice!