Tag: seasoning peppers

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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

 

Wednesday Watermelon Wonderment 3-6pm 

Water for watermelons! One of our ponds. This one replenishes the water table.
Water for watermelons! One of our ponds. This one replenishes the water table.

Compared to this time last year, things are blessedly moist right now. The 6+ inches of rain we got at the beginning of the month of May <insert happy dance> has continued to promote explosive growth all over the farm.

So here’s what it brought you for today at ARTfarm, 3–6 p.m.: Sweet salad mix, baby arugula, bunched arugula, a few pints of cherry tomatoes, a few slicer tomatoes, dandelion greens, Italian basil, garlic chives, parsley, freshly dug ginger root, French breakfast radishes, sweet bell peppers, serrano peppers, Indian chili peppers, yellow seasoning peppers, fresh cut zinnia flowers, good quantities of yellow and red fleshed WATERMELONS, loads of sweet and yummy papaya, passionfruit, a few dragonfruit, a few pineapples, and very fresh, delicate and very mild local goat cheese from Dr. Bethany’s Fiddlewood Farm alpine goats!

Cray-cray...this watermelon is sweeeeeet! You can save the seeds for roasting like pumpkin seeds.
Cray-cray…this watermelon is sweeeeeet! You can save the seeds for roasting like pumpkin seeds.

Seedy Farmstand! 10am – 12 noon ARTfarm Saturday 

Come try out one of our new heirloom variety watermelons! You can even prepare and eat the seeds! It’s the year of experimentation!
Since the beginning of May, we’ve received over six inches of rain on the South Shore. Yeah, we’re kind of psyched about that.

Farmer Luca has been growing trials of many different kinds of watermelons and other melons this spring at ARTfarm. Today we will have four types for you to try! (Limited quantities, so arrive early if you possibly can.) Frankly, we love them all, but please give us your feedback on what are your favorites so Luca can plan to grow more of the best ones. They taste sweetest when chilled, if you can wait long enough!

The heirloom watermelon varieties we are growing tend to have many prominent seeds (compared to a commercial supermarket type watermelon). While everyone knows that the modern advent of the seedless watermelon has saved humankind countless tedious hours of spitting, our robust and weighty old fashioned seeds can be useful as more than mere projectiles at an outdoor children’s gathering. Of course they can be saved and planted, but they can also be prepared and eaten: The seeds can be juiced; or sprouted, then ground into a sprouted grain flour and used in gluten-free baking; perhaps a more accessible use for the lay watermelon-seed-eater would be to rinse and dry them, then prepare them much like salty roasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds. Here’s a recipe we found online!

Come to the South Shore this morning and hook up your week with organically produced fresh fruits and veggies, herbs and other treats: Sweet salad mix, teen spicy salad mix, bunched arugula, a few bunches of kale and Kan Kong (Asian water spinach) and of sweet potato greens, loads of bell peppers, all three of our hot/seasoning types of peppers, the end of the tomatoes for this season, Italian basil, parsley, recao (culantro), rosemary, lemongrass, garlic chives, a few bunches of onions, radishes, a couple of shaddock (giant grapefruit-like citrus), lots of passionfruit, pumpkin, various types of watermelons – whole and cut, beautiful papayas, fresh ginger root, and loads of amazing zinnia flowers.

Everything we grow is free of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. We are not a certified organic farm, but we grow everything as though we were – meeting or exceeding national organic production standards set by the USDA and keeping careful records – because we want to. Healthier for us, healthier for you, healthier for the soil, healthier for the planet. We are health nuts and we want to improve our soil with every crop and we are obsessive about it. Don’t get us started unless you’ve really got some time on your hands! 🙂

We have fresh local goat cheese  from Fiddlewood Farms! Freak out! It’s so good!!!


Melonious Saturday! 10AM – 12 noon

The season is shifting from mid-spring into early summer! Pineapples in mere weeks! Dragonfruit blooms busting out! Here comes the fruit!

We now have some beautiful papayas that many of you have been enjoying. They are sweet, with thick flesh and very few seeds, creamy and delicious with a squeeze of lime -or- for a simpler recipe, just add a spoon and your face! The skin of the papaya fruit has traditionally been used as a healing poultice for cuts, abrasions and bruises. Papaya contains digestive enzymes and is often also used for stomach ailments and even as a meat tenderizer. It is a healing, comforting food.

And now, the headliner, MELONS! Luca is a serious watermelon monster. He has grown some beautiful little watermelons with a sweet, almost butterscotch-like flavor. We failed on several occasions to get a picture of its unusual orangey-yellow flesh before it was eaten…finally captured one yesterday.

img_2168In other farm news, Farmers Christina and Luca celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary this week. We got married right here on the farm after a multi-continent-spanning 10 year courtship. (Luca’s parents, who also live here on the farm, will be celebrating their 50th anniversary this summer!) Still growing, still trying new things!

The full list for Saturday: Loads of sweet salad mix, baby arugula, spicy greens, bunched arugula, a few bunches of kale, radishes, onions, cherry tomatoes, slicing and heirlooms, a few cucumbers, loads of green orange yellow and red bell peppers, loads of seasoning peppers, loads of Serrano and Indian chili peppers, garlic chives, parsley, recao, lemongrass, Italian basil, ginger root, pumpkin, loads of passionfruit, loads of really good papaya, ten petite yellow fleshed watermelons, a few super pretty and tasty honeydew-like melons from Punjab India that will blow your mind, cheerful sunflowers and zinnias, and from our partner Fiddlewood Farm we have fresh locally produced goat cheese!