ARTfarm Farmshares Saturday 2/12/2022, 11AM-12:30PM: Preorder your Farmshare, Reserve your pickup slot!

Ladybugs are working hard in the fields at ARTfarm, on our pepper plants, the watermelon vines and salad greens. Saturday morning at 11 we’ll start distributions for 40 pre-order customers with fresh greens and more listed below… Once again for your safety and ours we have returned to our pandemic preorders with scheduled customer pickup timeslots this week in order to keep crowds of more than ten customers from forming. We are back serving you in the farmstand, but it is still one-at-at-time, so please follow our super social distancing “ladybug game” as posted on the fence and stay spread out. If it’s raining, you can stay in your car and we’ll call your phone or come get you when your pickup group is called. PLEASE DO NOT ARRIVE MORE THAN 5 MINUTES EARLY for your pickup slot time!! We are trying to avoid crowds forming!! Grateful for life!!

A ladybug hunts for aphids in the fields at ARTfarm. There are many predatory insects that help farmers grow healthy crops while reducing the need for chemical sprays.

Available farmshare listings below. Click the link at the bottom to open the online form and reserve your pickup time and items. Check for your confirmation email before hitting the road… if you can’t find the email, check our help page… Please wear your mask and keep plenty of social distance at pickup!

***Flower Study with Bone & Nest #11*** by Mr. Francis Thomas Capone, from ART SHOW at Café Christine, Jan-Feb 2022. $200 print / $300 piece. Mr. Capone is also still looking for a reliable SUV/pickup/vehicle in the $3-5k range.

Friend-of-the-farm Mr. Francis Capone has a contemporary art exhibit at Café Christine with the unique vibe of the South Shore. Stop by the Café through the end of February and check out his delicate drawings and prints for sale, and relax with some coloring. Crayons provided! Enjoy amazing Café Christine cuisine with lots of ARTfarm produce by Chef Lisa! She is one of ARTfarm’s most consistent chef customers. Outdoor seating for lunch, 11:30am-2:30pm Tuesday-Friday. Menu online, call (340) 713-1500 for reservations.

Still not open for retail. If you’re new to ARTfarm or haven’t been to see us since the COVID-19 pandemic began, please read THIS PAGE to familiarize yourself with our new socially distanced pre-order arrangements. We are not holding regular retail farmstands at this time. In a nutshell:

Order at least one farmshare (minimum purchase) ahead on our website; check for your confirmation email so you know your name will be on the list! Please practice all the protective measures possible: Sanitize hands in your car before approaching the table, Maintain social distance between yourself, farm staff and other customers; Masks up; Let the farmer handle the produce for you; Wait to bag until we’ve totalled your items; Bring change, cash or check and pen; drop payment in the bucket, we will not handle cash. Masks are STILL mandatory. Please help us protect our at-risk family members and customers!

Farmshare choices for Saturday, February 12th, 2022:

We will have 40 timeslots/farmshares available for scheduled pickup Saturday. You can also order and specify a neighbor, friend or family member to pick up your order and theirs. The minimum order is one farmshare, and we are rationing one size farmshare per customer at the moment. Add-ons and extras are not currently available independently of a farmshare purchase; to minimize community contact during the pandemic.

LARGE farmshare, $36, will include:

2 bags of sweet salad mix
1 bag of teen arugula or spicy mix (mesclun-ish: arugula, mustard greens, radish greens etc.)
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 bag sweet corn

MEDIUM farmshare, $19, will include:

2 bags of sweet salad mix
1 lb. slicer and heirloom tomatoes

SMALL farmshare, $12, will include:

1 bag of sweet salad mix
1 lb. slicer and heirloom tomatoes

Extra Add-Ons (non-reservable)

(Must accompany farmshare purchase, these items cannot be purchased individually. No reservations on these items, they are all first come first served during your pickup slot):

Pre-weighed, bagged and priced produce. For extra protection during the pandemic, we have changed our systems so that transactions are short and socially distanced, customers don’t handle the produce and the farmers don’t handle the change. Thanks for helping keep everyone safe.

early birds:

WATERMELON: $2.50/lb. as marked ($7-12)
bag of SWEET CORN: $6 (ears a little smaller, same weight in bag)
CUCUMBERS: $3.50/bag 1lb.
romaine and sweet chonky LETTUCE heads: $3
CHERRY tomatoes: $6/pint
slicer and heirloom TOMATOES: $5/bag 1lb.
ONIONS with green edible tops: $5 per bunch
ZUCCHINI/summer squash: $3/lb. 1 lb. bag
SWEET green pimento cheese PEPPERS: bunch, as marked $3-6
CARROTS: $3 bunch
BABY BOK CHOY, KALE, COLLARDS, DANDELION greens: $3 per bunch
KALE, CABBAGE leaves: $3 per bunch
Chinese CABBAGE head: $5 as marked

plenty:

extra bag sweet SALAD GREENS: $7
large SWEET CORN ears in the husk: $2-2.50
RADISHES: $3 bunch
HOT hot hot peppers: $2 bundle
assorted HERBS bunches: $2 each
GINGER/TURMERICS: $3.50/bag ($7 half pound)
Zinnia flower BOUQUETS: $5
PINEAPPLE slips to grow-ur-own: $2-3 each as sized

Herb bunch choices for this distribution

(Available as EXTRAS)

Italian (Genovese) basil
Thai basil
Garlic chives
Kaffir lime leaves
Cilantro by the bale! or bunch
Dill!! LOTS!!
Lemongrass
Hot peppers incl. Peruvian Lemon Drop, serranos, jalapeños, thai chiles

Please contact us immediately by text and phone at (340)514-4873 if you have reserved a farmshare and cannot pick it up. Supply is limited, demand is extremely high and someone else will gladly purchase your share, if given enough time to respond. We have limited time for distributions and they are scheduled. Our produce is harvested fresh and needs to go home with you same day. This is an honor system since we are not collecting payment until pickup. We do not have cold storage for uncollected shares.

Signup form for
SATURDAY PICKUP
FEBRUARY 12th, 2022!

The signup form will show you a “Thank You” page and send you a confirmation email if submitted successfully. If you don’t find it, please check your spam/junk, inbox tabs, and ‘all mail’ folders for the confirmation email, as this has been a common problem for several customers and with a little searching they typically find it. For more tips, visit our Help page.

Need help with the pre-order signup form? (Click here):

Q: I can’t seem to order more than one item.

A: We have designed our order form limit any one customer from cleaning us out. Sharing is caring. If you’d like extra of something (beyond what you could reserve through our order system), put it in the comments with your order, and remind us at your pickup time: if we can supply it to you we’ll do our best. If you are in the food service industry and looking for bulk availability, please contact us; our order form is for individuals and families to place a single order for a scheduled pickup.

Q: My order isn’t going through.

if the automated confirmation email is not immediately found, check your spam folder
make sure all required fields are filled/selected
just try again
use a cellular device (smartphone or tablet) that isn’t using WiFi internet
restart your browser/device
clear your cache and cookies in your browser/device
reboot your router (unplug it for a minute and plug in again)
visit our “help” page for additional tips

Q: The form says I didn’t enter my email, but I did.

Our pre-order form requires everyone to type their email in twice, and makes sure the two match exactly. We had a lot of customers in such a rush to get their order in that they’d spell their own email incorrectly and then complain that they could not find the confirmation email. Our ‘type it in twice’ system ensures that you’ll find any email mistakes before you submit the pre-order form.

Q: I ordered before, but I’m not getting your emails.

Our pre-order form does NOT automatically sign you up for an ARTfarm email subscription. Do that HERE!

ARTfarm Farmshares Saturday 2/5/2022, 11AM-12:15PM: Preorder your Farmshare, Reserve your pickup slot!

Cilantro is peaking! It’s known as an amazing detoxing, digestive boosting herb. We know it’s polarizing, but for those of you who love the flavor of cilantro, here is Farmer Luca’s latest favorite way to incorporate a big fresh bunch into our farm family’s diet:
“Rinse and toss in the blender: one whole bunch of cilantro, one small onion, two medium tomatoes; extras to taste would be a tiny piece of turmeric, some hot pepper, some cumin. Blend until smooth. Use as a sauce, marinade or base flavoring to whatever you’re cooking like chicken or beans, to create a delicious and healthy meal.” Online recipes often add olive oil, garlic and salt to this. If you have a fave cilantro use, pop it in the comments below to share!

Saturday morning at 11 we’ll start distributions for 33 pre-order customers with fresh greens and more listed below… Once again for your safety and ours we have returned to our pandemic preorders with scheduled customer pickup timeslots this week in order to keep crowds of more than ten customers from forming. PLEASE DO NOT ARRIVE MORE THAN 5 MINUTES EARLY for your pickup slot time!! We are trying to avoid crowds forming!! Grateful for life!!

Cilantro is the green herb phase of the coriander plant. These lovely flowers will feed bees before forming coriander seed pods. We harvest the parsley-like leaves and stems of the young plant as cilantro. The herb is reputed to have powerful detox and digestive-boosting properties and we like to chew it to freshen breath and add it to lots of dishes to remove any heavy metals from the body’s exposures in modern life.

Order at least one farmshare (minimum purchase) ahead on our website; check for your confirmation email so you know your name will be on the list! Please practice all the protective measures possible: Sanitize hands in your car before approaching the table, Maintain social distance between yourself, farm staff and other customers; Masks up; Let the farmer handle the produce for you; Wait to bag until we’ve totalled your items; Bring change, cash or check and pen; drop payment in the bucket, we will not handle cash. Masks are STILL mandatory. Please help us protect our at-risk family members and customers!

Farmshare choices for Saturday, February 5th, 2022:

We will have 33 timeslots/farmshares available for scheduled pickup Saturday. You can also order and specify a neighbor, friend or family member to pick up your order and theirs. The minimum order is one farmshare, and we are rationing one size farmshare per customer at the moment. Add-ons and extras are not currently available independently of a farmshare purchase; to minimize community contact during the pandemic.

LARGE farmshare, $33, will include:

2 bags of sweet salad mix
1 bag of baby arugula or spicy mix (mesclun-ish: arugula, mustard greens, radish greens etc.)
1 lb. slicer tomatoes

MEDIUM farmshare, $23, will include:

1 bag of sweet salad mix
1 bag of teen arugula or spicy mix (mesclun-ish: arugula, mustard greens, radish greens etc.)
1 pint cherry tomatoes

SMALL farmshare, $11, will include:

2 heads romaine lettuce
1 lb. petite heirloom and slicer tomatoes

Extra Add-Ons (non-reservable)

(Must accompany farmshare purchase, these items cannot be purchased individually. No reservations on these items, they are all first come first served during your pickup slot):

early birds:
WATERMELON: $2.50/lb. as marked ($7-12)
CUCUMBERS: $3.50/bag 1lb.
extra bag teen SPICY or teen ARUGULA SALAD GREENS: $10
slicer and heirloom TOMATOES: $5/bag 1lb.
CHERRY tomatoes: $6/pint
SECONDS tomatoes (great for cooking/salsa): $8/bag 2lb.
cute little SWEET PEPPERS, pimento cheese: $3 bundle
CARROTS: $3 per bunch
BUTTERNUT squash: $3.50/lb. as marked
baby BOK CHOY: $3-4 per head
KALE, CABBAGE leaves: $3 per bunch
Chinese CABBAGE head: $5 as marked

plenty:
extra bag of SWEET SALAD MIX: $7
ZUCCHINI: $3/bag 1lb.
DANDELION greens: $3 per bunch
RADISHES: $3 per bunch
assorted HERBS bunches: $2 each
assorted HOT PEPPERS: $2 bundle
baby GINGER/TURMERICS: $3.50/bag ($7 half pound)
Zinnia flower BOUQUETS: $5
PINEAPPLE slips to grow-ur-own: $2-3 each as sized

Herb bunch choices for this distribution

(Available as EXTRAS)

Italian (Genovese) basil
Thai basil
Garlic chives
Kaffir lime leaves
Cilantro by the bale! or bunch
Dill
Lemongrass
Hot peppers incl. Peruvian Lemon Drop, serranos, jalapeños, thai chiles

Signup form for
SATURDAY PICKUP
FEBRUARY 5th, 2022!

Need help with the pre-order signup form? (Click here):

Q: I can’t seem to order more than one item.

Q: My order isn’t going through.

if the automated confirmation email is not immediately found, check your spam folder
make sure all required fields are filled/selected
just try again
use a cellular device (smartphone or tablet) that isn’t using WiFi internet
restart your browser/device
clear your cache and cookies in your browser/device
reboot your router (unplug it for a minute and plug in again)
visit our “help” page for additional tips

Q: The form says I didn’t enter my email, but I did.

Q: I ordered before, but I’m not getting your emails.

Our pre-order form does NOT automatically sign you up for an ARTfarm email subscription. Do that HERE!

How To Cook and Eat Pumpkin (and Butternut)

TBT: Farmer Luca with a large wheelbarrow full of green skinned pumpkins at ARTfarm.

The pumpkins and butternut squashes of winter are so tempting at the farmer’s market. Purchased whole, they make lovely table decorations and can be stored for a long time without refrigeration. The warm orange hue of the edible flesh is cheerful, sweet and packed with vitamin A and fiber. Calabaza (West Indian) pumpkins, typically fat and round with vertical ribs and a deep green skin, are a traditional staple of Ital and Caribbean cuisine and are usually sold by the slice. Smooth buff-colored butternuts, sold whole, are extra sweet in flavor. At ARTfarm we love growing all of these and also squat little Asian pumpkins with thin bumpy skins, and ancient heirloom Seminole pumpkins, super sweet.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine pumpkin is used for a variety of balancing purposes, including controlling blood sugar (diabetes) and as a decongestant. But with all these varieties and uses they can feel intimidating to get started with, particularly whole ones.

Getting Started

How, one wonders, will I ever manage to pierce that thick and unyielding exterior without a chain saw?

We are obsessed with this pumpkin this winter! Offspring of Calabaza Taina Dorada from PR’s Desde Mi Huerto.

Caribbean pumpkin varieties are generally not quite as thick-skinned as the pumpkins of the great cold north. The rinds of pumpkin varieties bred for tropical places are generally so thin and tender (once cooked), in fact, that we often don’t bother to peel before eating. A very nicely sharpened 6″ or 8″ chef’s knife can easily cut off a slice of squash or halve the thing. If you’re still feeling apprehensive, resting the clean pumpkin on a folded up kitchen towel for padding can help keep it from tipping, slipping or sliding. Simply plunge the tip of your knife into the pumpkin or squash near the stem end, blade out, and then brace the top of the pumpkin as you swing the knife handle down in a masterful arc along the voluptuous curve of your squash toward its bottom. (If this isn’t easy, go back and sharpen your knife.) Voila! Repeat at least once more to release a delectable chunk from the whole. You can also cut it in half around its equator for easy roasting. And there is no law against whole roasting a pumpkin, although it may take a bit longer. Wrap it in foil and tuck it into your bonfire!

When everything else in 2020 has gone sideways you’ll rely on this nutritious, rich tasting winter vegetable. It’s sweet and tastes great in EVERYTHING.

Now to prepare:

Pumpkin can be steamed, roasted, fried, shredded into dishes, or eaten raw. The basic preparation after washing and cutting, is to:

Scoop out the innards. (Save the seeds – clean them off, then plant in your garden, or toss with oil and salt and roast for a snack!) You can stop here and eat it raw or chopped and sauteed or grated onto things, and it will keep a week or more in your fridge. – OR –
Roast up a halved squash or whole pumpkin slice in a buttered or oiled baking pan. 350ºF oven ’til easily pierced with a fork, maybe 20-60 minutes depending on the size of your pieces. – OR –
Steam it cut side down in half an inch of water in a covered skillet until the skin is soft/piercable with a fork. Then get creative: here are at least ten quick and efficient ways to add pumpkin to your meals:

Eat a savory moist warm slice, right out of the pan or oven – like a slice of pizza with salt and pepper (skin too!)
Eat a sweet warm slice, right out of the pan or oven – like pie, drizzled with a little melted butter, pie spice and coconut sugar! Easiest dessert EVARRR!
Scoop a few generous spoonfuls of roasted or steamed pumpkin into any slow-cooking savory dish (OMG tomato sauce! stew! mac & cheese! rice! casserole! beans!) to sweeten and thicken sauce
Finely grate raw pumpkin into your morning oatmeal, pancakes or waffle batter with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg before cooking; toss a few pecans on top for a holiday-pie flavored breakfast
Save in the fridge and toss big spoonfuls into a smoothie or other snack
Process steamed or roasted pumpkin further into purée and use as canned pumpkin, for a creamy soup base, or freeze in an ice cube tray for future inspiration
Feed it to babies!
Try eating pumpkin raw: trim off the skin, slice the flesh thin like a tortilla chip using a mandolin, and have it with garlicky hummus!
Instead of roasting or steaming whole or large slices, chop slices into bite-sized chunks and add to sautées and stews, beans, stir-fry…no need to remove the skin
Use in cakes, custards, cookies, breads, muffins, homemade pasta, ravioli… ours never lasts that long…
Make pumpkin pie.

A few farmer favorite recipes:

DIY Fresh Pumpkin Puree

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10-12 minutes
Difficulty: easy peasy. Can you boil water?
Print

You can stop buying canned pumpkin and make your own fresh hot puree in about 15 minutes start to finish. But good luck making it all the way to puree… it smells so amazing, we always end up eating it first. Reserve any leftover steaming or straining liquids for cooking, or to make your pooch happy.

Ingredients

Fresh pumpkin
Water
A skillet or roasting pan

Directions

Wash the pumpkin skin. Carefully, with a large sharp knife or cleaver, cut into halves or quarters, removing seeds (they are a great snack roasted with salt!).
Steam the pieces cut side down in half an inch of water in a covered skillet for 10-12 minutes or until the outside skin is soft/easy to pierce with a fork, and then…
Scoop the soft cooked flesh from the skin. Mash it with a masher, blend or food process it for a smoother puree if desired, and use a strainer or nut milk bag to remove some of the moisture if you’re using it for baking.

Grandma's Midwestern Pumpkin Pie

Servings: never enough, but maybe 8 slices?
Prep Time: 10 minutes filling, 20 minutes if you're making the crust
Cook Time: 45-60 minutes
Difficulty: Easy as pie. The crust is always the hard part.
Print

An old family recipe from Christina’s midwestern roots, updated a bit. A cold slice of this pie is the Best. Holiday. Season. Breakfast.

Ingredients

2 cups cooked pumpkin (1 medium-small cooking pumpkin, roasted and pureed)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream (or 1 12oz. can evaporated milk) (or extra-rich coconut milk)
2/3 cup coconut sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 local farm fresh eggs plus the yolk of a third egg
1 teaspoon ground or 2 tablespoons fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves or allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon lemon or sour orange zest
1 9″ pie crust of your choosing. Does not have to be pre-baked.

Directions

Preheat your oven to 425ºF.
In a large mixing bowl or your blender, beat the eggs, then add sugar and spices. Mix in the pumpkin purée and stir in the cream. Mix well. I like to use the Vitamix for this, especially since I’m always making a double batch.
Pour the filling into your favorite (unbaked, unless you insist) chilled pie crust (frozen is fine) and bake for 15 minutes at 425ºF, then lower heat to 350ºF and bake another 45-55 minutes. Watch the edges for over-browning and use a foil collar or pie protector to keep them from burning. Bake until the center is slightly jiggly but mostly firm and a pie tester comes out mostly clean but not necessarily dry.
Cool the pie on a farmhouse windowsill with gingham curtains near the railroad tracks for about two hours. It will deflate as it cools and develop some lovely cracks to hold the whipped cream.

Nutrition

Per Serving: 420 calories; 29 g fat; 39 g carbohydrates; 5 g protein; 125 mg cholesterol; 310 mg sodium.

Park Slope Thai Pumpkin Custard 'Sankaya' Dessert

Servings: 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Difficulty: Getting fancy, but you can do it!
Print

This tradititonal Thai street food is a sweet custard is steamed inside a small hollowed out pumpkin or squash, and you eat the entire thing, tender skin and all.

Before we were farmers, we lived in Brooklyn NY. There was a family-run Thai restaurant in a little upstairs space on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. We would walk many chilly blocks there from our apartment in Sunset Park/Atlantic Avenue in the winter to eat some spicy Thai chili soups, and would always end the meal with this amazing dessert when it was available. Some dishes you just never forget! This recipe is best with acorn squash and other smallish, squat-shaped pumpkins.

Ingredients

1 whole sweet baking squash about 2-3 lb or 6-8″ diameter (or several smaller ones)
10 cups of water for steaming
4-5 large farm fresh eggs
3/4 cup coconut milk, full fat
1/3 cup coconut sugar (traditional recipes use palm sugar)
pinch of salt
pinch of cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
bamboo or stainless steamer basket, to hold the whole pumpkin; large lidded pot to hold the steamer for cooking; you could probably do this a lot faster in an instapot, or other pressure cooker?

Directions

Wash a 6-8″ diameter (2-3 lb) whole pumpkin or other winter squash. Cut an outward-angled circle around the stem end as if you were making a jack-o-lantern for Halloween. Remove the top and scoop out the soft core of seeds and fiber. If needed, slice a very thin layer off the bottom to allow the pumpkin to sit flat.
Start your 10 cups water to boil in a large steamer.
Beat the eggs with the spices, vanilla, sugar and coconut milk until the sugar is dissolved.
Pour the custard mixture into the hollowed out pumpkin.
Place the pumpkin and its stem-lid (to the side) in the steamer basket in the pot once the water is boiling. Don’t put the pumpkin’s own lid back on itself, but cook it alongside. Place the lid on the pot and steam for about 45 minutes, or until a fork comes out of the custard clean.
Remove the steamer basket from the pot and let the pumpkin cool.
When you are ready to serve, use a large sharp knife to cut a wedge out of the pumpkin like a pie. The custard should be firm. Serve at room temperature. The entire slice is edible, including the skin. Refrigerate any leftovers. Yeah, right!

Nutrition

We’ll work this out and get back to you.

Wellness Blast Thai-ish Soup Recipe

Being a season of viruses, we’ve definitely been cooking up some antiviral recipes lately that can be prepared with or without meat. Late spring is sort of the beginning of the winding down of our veggie season at ARTfarm, but ingredients can be sourced from other local farms or your own backyard Victory Garden. The recipe ingredients list seems long here, but in these days of social distancing we thought it best to give people lots of options and substitutions. It’s mostly a lot of chopping and preps quickly.

Our ginger and turmeric have such tender skins they don’t need peeling. Just wash, chop and go!

We will be presenting a series of articles on starting a small home garden for those of you who have been asking us what to plant and when. Stay tuned on our website, we’ll be offering some information and also soon put up a signup sheet if you’d like to attend a Zoom videoconference class with local experts from UVI’s Cooperative Extension Service to answer more of your questions on starting a home garden.

Tom Khing Michi-Gai Phak*

(Ginger Not-Chicken Coconut Soup)

Feeds about 3 hungry people who really love soup. We usually double it.
10 minutes prep time, 40 minutes cook/simmer time.

This is a garden veggie heavy/homemade sort of homage to one of ARTfarm family’s all time favorite Asian soups: Galangal Chef Kenneth Biggs’ Tom Kha Gai soup. We are substituting ginger and turmeric for Chef’s galangal root and adding more veggies.

The coconut is nourishing and anti-viral, the turmeric color is cheerful, the gingery warmth of the rich smooth broth and onions and chili peppers (if desired) help open the sinuses without acidity, the customizable, whatever-you’ve-got-available veggies make it hearty; it’s just soothing and lovely. The citrus tang and floating cherry tomatoes added at the end offer little pops of sweet vitamin blasts and the cilantro is cleansing to the body.

This recipe is verrry adjustable. You can make it with some, or all, or substitutions for, the various chopped vegetables and herbs in this recipe. Tiny white Japanese enoki or bonapi mushrooms are a fun texture in this if you can get them, but any (or no) mushrooms will do. (Mushrooms may have anti-viral qualities!) This is traditionally a chicken recipe and we’ve suggested tofu or a light milder fish like mahi or wahoo to substitute, but you can make it without – it still has such a rich broth and holds up well if you add other veg.

Ingredients

2 stalks fresh lemongrass, tough outer layers removed
1 one inch piece (a man thumb) baby ARTfarm ginger, grated, no peeling necessary
1 one inch piece (a man thumb) baby ARTfarm turmeric, grated, no peeling necessary
3 large kaffir lime leaves
1 – 2 sprigs Thai basil
1 sour orange or other large citrus: all the juice and a tiny bit of the skin oil or zest
6 cups broth – veggie or whatever you’ve got
1 lb. your favorite protein: a pack of firm tofu, cut into 1” or smaller pieces
– or – chicken (boneless breast or thigh), sliced into thin strips
– or – mahi or wahoo, cubed
1 large onion, sliced thin into crescent moons
8 oz. mushrooms (Japanese or whatever you’ve got)
1 13.5-oz. can coconut milk well shaken**
– or – make fresh coconut milk!!! (Crucian Contessa’s recipe)
2 Tbsp. fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)
– or – a slurry of 2 Tbspn. miso paste dissolved in some of the broth
– or – 2 Tbsp. Bragg’s Aminos to taste

1/2 pint cherry tomatoes
1-4 finely chopped Thai chili peppers to taste
1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro leaves with tender stems
a few sour orange or lime wedges (for garnish, if you’re feeling fancy)

——–optional add-ins (we do all of them!!)——-
* 1 cup pumpkin, sliced thin then cubed into chunks
* 1/2 bunch cooking greens (radish tops, kale, chicory etc.), remove hard center ribs, cut leaves into 1″ pieces or julienned
* 4-5 seasoning peppers, seeded and sliced
* 1 bunch radishes or turnips, washed, root sliced into coins, use the tops as greens
* 2 medium bell peppers, seeded and thinly sliced

How to make it

Using the back of a knife, lightly smash lemongrass; fold and bundle it up to about 4-5″ long, to fit in a large sauce pan. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until flavors are melded, 8–10 minutes. Pull out the lemongrass with tongs and discard, and add microplaned/grated ginger and turmeric to the hot broth.

Add tofu and your big pile of chopped onions, pumpkin, greens, (and seasoning pepper if desired), and return to a boil. Reduce heat, add mushrooms and citrus juice, and simmer, skimming occasionally, until cooked through and onions and pumpkin are soft, 20–25 minutes.

For the last five minutes, turn the heat to low and add radish coins, bell peppers, (chicken/fish if applicable). Simmer until the protein is cooked through, about 3-5 minutes. Ladle some of the hot broth into a teacup and add your miso, stirring until liquified.

Mix in coconut milk, your brown flavor sauce option (fish sauce/miso slurry/aminos), tiny leaves of Thai basil, and kaffir lime leaves. Heat through.

Divide soup among bowls. Serve with garnishes: cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced pieces of thai chili peppers, cilantro, and citrus wedges. OMG it’s so good. If you have any hint of a cold this nutritious soup will blast it out of you!!

*thanks Google Translate. Apologies to Thai people. Hopefully we haven’t said something rude.

** Chef Ken’s coconut tip: if you purchase canned coconut milk, check the fat content (in grams per can, not the percentage). Look for something in the 10+ grams range. Less than that, it can come out too thin – and sometimes canned coconut milk contains emulsifiers that can give it a weird mouth feel.

ARTfarm on St. Croix, USVI

…organically grown food and art

Category: recipes

ARTfarm Farmshares Saturday 2/12/2022, 11AM-12:30PM: Preorder your Farmshare, Reserve your pickup slot!