Fall CSA # 4 2013

Fall CSA #4 Sept 27

Hi everybody

It's been a great week graced with some delicious meals and making our Heirloom Tomato sauce all week. Fall has always been my favorite season and now that we work such crazy hours during spring and summer I appreciate it that much more.  We are able to go about things at a slower pace which gives me more time for my other passion cooking! And not only do we work together, but my husband and i cook together too! It's really fun! This year we grew Scotch Bonnet peppers which are a pepper of the islands and i had been looking forward to making my own jerk chicken since this winter.  I was worried that the kids might not approve but they loved it and I highly recommend you try the Jerk Chicken recipe! The flavor is crazy!

In this weeks basket:

1 bag of Chez Nous Mix
1 Bag of Sunflower Shoots
1 Bag of Flower Sprout Tops
1 Bag of Tomatoes from the greenhouse (sweeter than our outdoor ones this year!)
1 Bag of Scotch Bonnets
Pepper/ eggplant/ Zuch Bag
Mint (scroll down to see last weeks Chocolate Chip Mint recipe)
Thyme


Flower Sprouts are a crop that we grow which are similar to Brussels Sprouts but instead of growing in a tight ball they open up.  To encourage the plants to push the buds out we cut the tops of the plants off- which are just as delicious!

Our flower buds probably about the end of November last year!

We've been transforming the greenhouse for our winter crops.

After all the weeds we had to deal with this winter we decided to lay down some fabric.

With heavy hearts pulling out many thriving tomato plants...how we wish we had a movable greenhouse right about now!

Taking out this...

 to plant this....this bed is lettuce and arugula.

 Scotch Bonnets in the large basket.  The jerk recipe calls for 2 to 3 I would recommend freezing any unused ones as they are for use later.

A quite terrible picture of our intensely  delicious jerk chicken. I would recommend using chicken pieces just to get more yummy sauce to chicken ratio! However, we saved the extra clean unused sauce and pan fried the extra meat for wraps the next day with sunflower shoots.

Ingredients

3 1/2 lb chicken leg with thigh (or 1 whole chicken cut up)

Jerk Marinade

4-6 Cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Medium onions, chopped

1 to 3 sliced scotch bonnet peppers -mine are really small though..i used two and it was not hot at all perfect for the kids.
1 Tbsp.  dried thyme (or 2 Tbsp fresh thyme, chopped)
1 Tbsp. ground allspice ( I grind my own can be bought whole at the bulk barn)
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. salt
1 tsp. Black pepper
1 tsp Ground cinnamon
1 tsp Ground nutmeg ( also like to grind my own)
1 tsp Ground ginger 

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
Juice of one lime
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup vinegar apple cider or white

Puree the sauce in a blender or food processor.

Remove one cup to make basting sauce.

Poke holes in chicken to better adsorb flavors and pour over marinade. Marinade for 24 hours. 

Jerk Sauce

1 cup of marinade

2 tbsp of dark rum

2 tbsp of real Maple Syrup or Molasses.

It's been quite a symphony of rosters calls lately as the young cockerels are learning to crow.

Have a great week!