Beans
The journey of the dry bean on our farm is a long one. It may in fact be longest out of any crop we grow. The dry beans get seeded in May along with most of our other crops. They sprout, get thinned, weeded and watered through the summer.
Every Monday on our weekly field walk, we check the beans and test them with our teeth to see how dry they are. But mostly we like to break open the brown pods to see the colorful little beans hidden within them.
We wait until the plants are completely dead in late September or early October to harvest them.
Then we pull the entire plants out of the ground and stuff them into burlap sacks. We throw the sacks in the loft of the barn, away from mice, to dry over the winter.
When springtime rolls around and we start to come out of hibernation we invite all our friends over, put on some dance music and stomp the beans out of their shells. This is old-fashioned threshing at it's best.
We then store them in buckets while we seed, weed and water next year's beans out in the field. Winter comes again and we finally have time to sit around the coffee table and sort the beans. We tell jokes and recall the season as we sort good from bad and pick out the chaff.
While this season's harvest sits in the barn, the final product of last season is distributed to our Winter CSA members, a bit of protein to help us through the coldest part of the year.
Growing dry beans has nothing to do with yield, efficiency or profit. It's a crop that brings our community together not once but twice a year to process a crop into food for our members. What could be more magical than that?
This week's share:
1/2 pound dry beans
salad mix
cabbage
leeks
onions
rutabaga
purple top turnips
hakurei turnips
parsnips
carrots
potatoes
celery root
salsify
watermelon radishes
Catherine Berwick's Parsnip & maple syrup cake
Ingredients
- 175g butter, plus extra for greasing
- 250g demerara sugar
- 100ml maple syrup
- 3 large eggs
- 250g self-raising flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp mixed spice
- 250g parsnips, peeled and grated
- 1 medium eating apple, peeled, cored and grated
- 50g pecans, roughly chopped
- zest and juice 1 small orange
- icing sugar, to serve
For the filling
- 250g tub mascarpone
- 3-4 tbsp maple syrup
Method
- Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease 2 x 20cm sandwich tins and line the bases with baking parchment. Melt butter, sugar and maple syrup in a pan over gentle heat, then cool slightly. Whisk the eggs into this mixture, then stir in the flour, baking powder and mixed spice, followed by the grated parsnip, apple, chopped pecans, orange zest and juice. Divide between the tins, then bake for 25-30 mins until the tops spring back when pressed lightly.
- Cool the cakes slightly in the tins before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely. Just before serving, mix together the mascarpone and maple syrup. Spread over one cake and sandwich with the other. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.
Recipe from Good Food magazine, November 2009
Carrot, Potato, and Cabbage Soup
Ingredients:
4 large carrots, thinly sliced
2 large potatoes, thinly sliced
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1/4 medium head green cabbage, thinly
sliced
2 cloves garlic, smashed
6 cups chicken stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon salt
ground black pepper to taste
Directions:
1.Combine the carrots, potatoes, onion, cabbage, garlic, chicken stock, olive oil, thyme, basil, parsley, salt, and pepper in a stock pot over medium-high heat; bring to a simmer and cook until the carrots are tender, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a blender in small batches and blend until smooth.