A Surfeit of Cherries

As the all-too-brief cherry season comes to an end, I found myself in the enviable position of having too many cherries, since the CSA gave us two weeks of sweet and sour cherries this month.  What to do with this abundance?  For the sweet cherries, the answer was simple: eat them by the handful.  But what about the sour cherries?

Sour cherries are often used in baking, as you can see in Christine Loughran’s post about cherry cobbler.  Sour cherries shine in pies, cobblers, turnovers, and tarts.  But, our latest cherry delivery coincided with a four-day heat wave.  So, turning on the oven was the last thing I wanted to do!

The answer?  Cherry curd.  A curd is a custard usually made with sour or tangy fruits such as lemon (and other citrus), berries, or even mango or pineapple. 

Today’s recipe uses both sour cherries and lime.  After making my own curd for a few years now, I find that many fruit curd recipes are unnecessarily complicated and fussy.  A food processor and a fine sieve help streamline the process.

Sour Cherry Curd

Ingredients

1 pint sour cherries

1 lime

1.5 cups sugar

1 stick of butter

4 eggs

Equipment

Cherry pitter

Vegetable peeler

Food processor

Fine sieve

Sauce pan

Instructions

Prepare the fruit:

Wash and pit the cherries, set aside.

Zest* and juice the lime (*Time saving tip: instead of fiddling with a grater, I just peel the lime with the peeler and let the food processor take care of the rest), set aside.

In the food processor, blitz the lime peel and the sugar until the peel is reduced to small flecks.

Add the rest of the ingredients one by one and blitz, making sure each is well incorporated: butter, all 4 eggs, cherries, lime juice.

Pour the mixture into a sauce pan and cook on low heat until it thickens.  This can take 5 – 10 minutes, depending on your stove.  When it’s thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, remove from heat.

 

Strain the mixture using a fine sieve and let it cool completely before putting in the fridge.  The curd should keep for 5 days.

Use the curd as a topping for yogurt (pictured) and ice cream, filling for tarts or between layers in cake, or even like jam on toast, biscuits, or muffins. 

Happy eating!

CSA Cucumber Coolers 😎

As the temperatures are rising, there's nothing nicer than an ice cold drink. This cucumber recipe is an easy and refreshing summer treat, especially for those hot days when you need to give your stove a break!

Ingredients:

3 cucumbers

2 limes

¼ cup sugar

1-2 cups water

*Makes 2 glasses

Directions:

1.     Peel, deseed, and quarter cucumbers. Place in blender

2.     Add juice of 2 limes, sugar, and 1 cup water and blend

3.     Add more water to desired consistency and blend until liquefied

4.     Serve over ice

Different twists: Can add a sprig of mint or even some seltzer water to make a spritzer

Zucchini and Fennel Summer Soup

We’ve has a stressful zucchini situation at the house lately with last week's crop of squash, so turned a few of them into a light summer soup. Without adding any cream, the soup has a silky texture. An easy way to get rid of all of those fennel fronds too or whatever herbs you have in the fridge. It would be delicious with some nice crusty bread, or we garnished with a drizzle of heavy cream and black sesame seeds for crunch.

INGREDIENTS

1 onion
6 cloves garlic
2 lbs zucchini, skin on cut in large chunks (or about 2 large zucchini)
32 oz broth- chicken or vegetable
Any herbs - I used a large handful of each: parsley, garlic scapes, and fennel fronds
salt and black pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Sautee garlic and onion until translucent in oil of choice. Add chicken broth and zucchini in a large pot over medium heat and bring to a boil.
2. Lower heat, cover, and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes.
3. Add herbs and wait till soup cools enough to transfer to a blender or purée with an immersion blender
4. Serve warm or chilled

Sautéed Amaranth with Fennel and Cod

This is a simple and delicious way to use any greens the farm share may send your way (not just amaranth!) The flavorful broth is a lovely complement to a light, white fish. The fennel provides a crunchy texture to the sautéed greens and a herbal accent to cut through the rich broth. 

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. amaranth greens - stems removed (or whatever the farm share gives you!)

6 cloves garlic - chopped 

2 inch section ginger - chopped 

1 white onion - chopped 

1 anchovy

1 cup coconut milk 

½ cup chicken stock 

1 fennel thinly sliced 

¼ cup fennel fronds chopped 

1 lb. cod or other white fish 

Jasmine rice 

Oil for pan

Salt to taste 

DIRECTIONS

1. Add garlic, onions, ginger and anchovy to pan with a few tablespoons of oil. Saute till soft and translucent 

2. Add coconut milk and chicken stock to pan and bring to a simmer 

3. Add amaranth leaves and allow to wilt

4. Season cod with salt and pepper and add to pan. Cover with lid and allow to steam, flipping once 

5. Plate with rice on bottom, amaranth greens and milk laddled on top, sliced fennel, cod, and fennel fronds on top

6. Season with salt

Stop ...it's Cobbler Time!

I follow a mostly plant-based diet about 70% because vegetables taste good and about 30% because they're healthy. True story: a few years back I had blood work done that revealed I was high in fiber. My response: "I eat a lot of spinach." Joining the Norwood CSA Food Co-op just made sense. Since then, the experience with John, my veggie share (and everything else) partner has been filled with experimentation and fun, since cooking and eating are two of our favorite things to do together.

cherry cobbler out of the oven. Mmm!

It's also been fruitful. Literally. This week's delivery yielded two huge helpings of cherries — yay! On the Fourth of July, John operated a genius and incredibly useful food prep tool called a cherry pitter, as I measured things like sugar and flour for this cherry cobbler recipe. Admittedly, I'm fairly liberal in the measurements department, so there may have been some heavy handedness on the white sugar. The end result was just, whoa. I'll say this: if I was adamant about baking real fruit into pies and desserts before, I am now in a class of my own. Greetings from Snobtown, USA.

cucumber and fava bean salad

This week's veggie share delivery included fava beans, which we received in bright green, cartoonishly large seed pods— they're huuuge! First I opened the pod, which contained thick, white seed covers that I boiled for 5ish minutes after learning that eating raw fava beans might be deadly. Then I got to work in peeling open the now-soft and bright green fava beans. The whole process reminded me of opening a Matryoshka doll. I added the beans to a cucumber salad with a few glugs of olive oil, white vinegar, salt and pepper and dill, and bam! Refreshing.

Christine eating cherry cobbler

For vegheads like us, the Norwood CSA Food Co-op is great. I'm a naturally curious person who loves cooking and the Bronx, so I always want to try new dishes and explore new 'hoods. My Wednesday pickups at the Bainbridge Avenue Garden have felt like visits to my own personal farmer's market, where I choose and bag my produce for the week. It's also convenient — right outside the garden is the Bx34 bus stop at Mosholu Pkwy S / Bainbridge Avenue. This is how I return to Woodlawn Heights, where my kitchen and couch are located.

Happy cooking, eating and sharing,
Christine