Winter Squash Recipes

For our first day working at Common Thread Community Farm, my group spent most of our time cutting many different kinds of winter squash, such as Acorn, Delicata, and Pumpkin. Squash is packed with good nutrients such as beta carotene, lutein, and potassium and eating them can help protect our vision and control blood pressure (Nearing,http://www.besthealthmag.ca/eat-well/nutrition/6-reasons-to-eat-more-squash). You also don’t have to worry about these kinds of squash going bad because they can be stored for 3 to 4 months after being harvested. Besides pumpkin pie, I’ve never really eaten any kind of squash so I found some recipes using winter squash that I’ll hopefully get to try out in the next couple weeks:

From Allrecipies.com: Garlic Delicata, serves 8

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/garlic-delicata/detail.aspx

Ingredients

3 Delicata squash

1/4 cup olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Oil a 9x13 inch baking dish.

2. Peel delicata squash, slice in half lengthwise, and remove seeds. Cut into 1/2 inch thick slices. Place in baking dish, and toss with olive oil, garlic, and parsley.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until tender.

From Eating Well Magazine: Southwestern Stuffed Acorn Squash, serves 6

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/southwestern_stuffed_acorn_squash.html

Ingredients

3 acorn squash, (3/4-1 pound each)

5 ounces bulk turkey sausage

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 medium red bell pepper,chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 cups chopped cherry tomatoes

1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed (see Tip)

1/2 teaspoon salt

Several dashes hot red pepper sauce, to taste

1 cup shredded Swiss cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly coat a large baking sheet with cooking spray.

2. Cut squash in half horizontally. Scoop out and discard seeds. Place the squash cut-side down on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until tender, about 45 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, lightly coat a large skillet with cooking spray; heat over medium heat. Add sausage and cook, stirring and breaking up with a wooden spoon, until lightly browned, 3 to 5 minutes. Add onion and bell pepper; cook, stirring often, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in garlic, chili powder and cumin; cook for 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes, beans, salt and hot sauce, scraping up any browned bits. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer until the tomatoes are broken down, 10 to 12 minutes.

4. When the squash are tender, reduce oven temperature to 325°. Fill the squash halves with the turkey mixture. Top with cheese. Place on the baking sheet and bake until the filling is heated through and the cheese is melted, 8 to 10 minutes.

Recipe for Scones

Here is the link to the recipe for the scones I brought to class the other day! Just in case you did indeed like them and were not just being polite. They are one of my favorites because they are so easy and because when you lack a food processor (like me) you get to kneed the dough with your hands like an edible stress ball. And if you happen to own a heart shaped cookie cutter (and not have to resort to using the rim of a Tupperware container to cut the dough) they end up look really fancy!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/strawberry-and-rosemary-scones-recipe.html

Enjoy!

I love "Futomaki"!

I talked about "Big sushi roll (we call it "Futomaki")" former class.   I found a good website about Futomaki and I want to share with you what is it.  

http://www.allaboutsushiguide.com/futomaki.html

You can see first photo that is almost same as my grandmother made.   She just made it for special occasion and family gathering.  It take a long time for preparation to cook the ingredients and is difficult to roll it all ingredients put in the middle.  My grandmother always said to herself when she made it "why the ingredients isn't in the center?"   But I didn't care about the shape because it looked good and is very tasty for me.

She usually use "Sakura Denbu" (you can see what it is the website).   It is very sweet because it is used lot of sugar.  I have not had a sweet tooth when I was a little, I didn't like sweet food.  But I loved it when grandma use Sakura Denbu to Futomaki.  I think it becomes futomaki more tasty!

We usually cut it when we eat.  But once a year Feb. 3rd, we eat one roll of futomaki directly for celebrating "the day before the beginning of Spring", we call it "Setsubun".

This picture is my little one eat it at her big mouth!

Common Thread Farming Hits Home

I began my internship last Wednesday at Common Thread Farm, and was surprised to find a personal connection during my day of harvesting ugly carrots and bagging sweet onions. Asher, an owner of the CSA, asked us all about where we grew up, what our families did and what it was like to live there. I’m from even further Upstate New York – Oswego County, near Lake Ontario – and have honestly always found it unremarkable. I have a very shallow supply of “fun facts” about my hometown. In theory, the first curveball was thrown right down the street from my house. The Oswego River, which flows through my hometown of Fulton, NY and empties into Lake Ontario, is one of the few north-flowing rivers in the world. Benjamin Franklin listed Oswego, our county seat, as one of the four would-be great cities of America, along with New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. We were the only area he was wrong about.

Oh, and we have a guy from our town that was in the NHL for a while, but that’s about all that’s ever really been notable.

Asher immediately started asking if I knew any farmers in the area as I was shucking onions and putting them in 50 lb. bags. My cousin, who grew up two houses down from me all my life, just married a son of the most prominent farmers in Oswego County. The Sorbellos, as I learned from their website (click here), came from Sicily in the late 1920’s and started working as a tenant farmer on plots in the Oswego-Fulton area. Today, the family has something of an “onion empire.” They even wear sweatshirts with the “Sorbello” name on them, the “O’s” drawn as onions.

When the first Sorbello came to Oswego County and bought his first muck farm on Route 48 in Granby, he didn’t know how lucky he was. Muck, or “black dirt” as it’s called in Orange County, is made up of between 20 and 80 % organic matter, which accounts for its dark color and its ability to yield a large quantity of diverse and healthy crops. It takes over 500 years to create muck 1 foot deep. Clearly the richness found in this type of soil is rare. According to this article, my cousin’s new family is farming onions and soybeans on 600 acres of muck soil in the Granby area.

But they aren’t the only ones who supported local agriculture or the small economy of Oswego County – it goes deeper and more personal than that.

According to an Oswego County agricultural planner, it was the Italian immigrants in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s that got the muck industry going. Suddenly I recalled long forgotten stories from my dad, a 2^nd generation Italian, talking about his summer employment on muck farms during the 1960’s.  He started his day at 5 a.m., worked until the height of the afternoon in the searing heat, and bit into a head of freshly harvested iceberg lettuce as his only source of hydration for the day, just as his dad did.

Unfortunately the muck in Oswego County, and everywhere farming occurs, is disappearing. Soil erosion, land overuse, and flooding all contribute to the decrease in this remarkable resource.

Once again, I am reminded of the plight of my hometown – a small city plagued with poverty and unemployment, alcoholism and obesity, and a pervasive apathetic attitude. As soon as I learn about a remarkable natural resource found not far from where I played as a child, something unique that affects my family, something from home that I can be proud of, I am faced with the harsh realities of the dangers of exploitation. Maybe exploitation is too strong of a word, but what I’m really discussing is a lack of sustainable practices, and in many ways, the inability to take care of our own.

Fulton has had a hard go of it in recent years. Factories have shut down, our school systems have experienced dramatic changes in leadership, and language and art programs have been cut. The fertilizer from local farmers leaked into our small lake and blue-green algae has killed dogs and fish and geese populations. Maybe these issues are unrelated, but to me they all speak to a greater cultural habit – the attitude that we do what we can get away with, that we don’t have to worry about the next guy, or what happens tomorrow, or somebody else’s problem. Has competition left us unable to think about the long run, dependent on practices inherently bad for our communities and our environment?

I’m not trying to prescribe some Marxian solution to the complicated cultural, environmental, and economic problems of our time, but I do find some solace back at the Common Thread Farm. On Wednesday I worked, on Saturday I reaped the benefits from my farm share. They taught me what to do, I put faith in them by paying for a semester of goods, they put faith in me by letting me help harvest and sort, and together I think we helped take better care of each other and the community.

MUFFINS :)

I find cooking and baking (and now farming/harvesting!) to be incredibly therapeutic and rewarding. I find that the creation aspect and making something delicious come out of a few ingredients fills me with pride and sense of accomplishment (not to mention that I tend to overeat when I'm stressed). Now that the first few weeks have gone by, it's getting to be that time where the work really starts to pile up. However, there are so many reasons why I'm excited (and terrifyingly anxious, but mostly excited!) for this year. One of the main reasons is that I finally live in an off-campus apartment where I'm able to cook my meals for the first time! For my first two years at Colgate, I lived in the dorms and therefore had to pay for Colgate's meal plan. Let's just say that the unlimited access and endless buffet didn't do me any justice (although they did provide locally sourced food options!).

   To help alleviate some of my stress, I decided to bake this week. I discovered this recipe one night when I was bored one night this summer. I knew I wanted to cook, but didn't want to have to go to the grocery store. After looking through the Magnolia cookbook, I settled on this recipe because it requires basic ingredients. For those of you who haven't heard of the now worldwide bakery that is known for their buttercream cupcakes, you can read more about what they offer AND treat yourself to an early birthday present (http://store.magnoliabakery.com/storefront.aspx :) In my opinion, these cupcakes are far superior to Baked by Melissa and although they may not be as cute, I believe they taste far more natural and fresh.

     Unfortunately, I did not bake cupcakes. Fortunately, I did bake what I like to call HEALTHY-ish Sour Cream Breakfast Buns. So next time you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed, just head into your pantry and whip up this delicious treat.

Here's what you will need:

Serving: Makes Approx. 18 Buns

Buns-

3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
1 1/2 Sticks Unsalted Butter, Softened
1 1/2 Cup Sugar
3 Large Eggs
1 1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 Cups Sour Cream


Topping-

1 1/3 Cup Firmly Packed Light Brown Sugar
2 Cups Coarsely Chopped Pecans
2 Teaspoons Cinnamon


Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Buns-
In medium-size bowl, sift together the flour, the baking powder, and baking soda.

Set Aside.






In a large bowl, on the low speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter with the sugar until fluffy (should be approx. 3 minutes).

Then, beat in the vanilla extract. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Mix in the sour cream. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups.










Topping-

In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar, the pecans, and the cinnamon. Sprinkle the topping evenly (and generously) over the buns.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into center of the bun comes out clean.

First Common Thread Experience

This past Wednesday was the first morning of farm work at Common Thread.  We were lucky with very nice weather, and Elyse, Anna, and I helped harvest carrots and bag onions.  Asher was very patient with us, explaining every step of the process and answering our questions.  We'd have him double check some of our carrot designations as "firsts" (the 'regular' looking carrots) or "seconds" (the 'weird' looking ones that can be taken in addition to the given share) to avoid misplacing them.  Experiencing a morning of work on the farm really enlightened me to the magnitude of the work that needs to get done-- the land does not pause its cycle.  There is a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of labor involved in getting everything clean and ready to be picked up, delivered, or sold.

Asher used a tractor to turn over the soil to try to pull up some of the carrots from the ground.  However, even though I imagine this technology has dramatically increased the efficiency of picking carrots, it has by no means gotten rid of the manual labor required, and has caused some additional problems that would otherwise not exist.  Asher told us that the carrot row had been left for too long, which had caused some rotting in the carrots as well as overgrown weeds.  The weeds got clogged in the tractor every few feet it moved, and we needed to pull them out in order for the tractor to be able to continue turning the soil.  The tractor was not able to get deep enough into the ground, which caused the turning part of the tractor to slice many of the carrots.  The slicing caused a large portion of carrots that would have been "firsts" to be put in the "seconds" pile.  While the technology has undoubtedly helped farming efficiency, it has in no way made it fool proof.  And, in the end, with four sets of hands and a tractor, it still took over an hour to pick the carrots from half of a row, resulting in four baskets of "firsts" and four larger baskets of "seconds".  Carrots take a lot of time to harvest.

My room mates and I have a fall share at Common Thread, so I went on Saturday with a friend to pick up our shares.  This was our second week picking up a share, and after having harvested some of the vegetables myself, it was a new type of experience.  I took a few of the onions that I had helped sort a few days earlier, and instead of seeing an onion as an independent object existing on its own, I saw it as an amalgamation of the work and resources that were put into growing it and getting it into that wooden cubby waiting to be picked up.  Similarly, tomatoes aren't intrinsically "seconds", but someone took the time to, not only plant and nurture them but, sort and place them in a separate box.

On a different note, I really enjoy the vibe of the CSA.  Community supported agriculture is inherently based in community.  There is a foundation of mutual trust, which I felt both with Asher and Wendy, but also with the other people who have shares and pick up at the farm.  Attending with my friend was a more communal experience than going to Price Chopper.  And, despite the rain, we wandered into the field to pick a bouquet of flowers and some herbs.  I'm finding that the CSA experience brings people back into the food-purchasing-equation, as opposed to racing down the impersonal supermarket aisles in autopilot, barely realizing that you're being exposed to extensively thought out ways of getting you to spend as much money and time as possible.

the threat of sugar

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/sugar/cohen-text

This is a link to a National Geographic article, which appropriately focuses on sugar. The article discusses much of the same material that we have been dealing with in our reading by Mintz. For example, sugar’s history as a rare commodity consumed only by the elite, followed by its increasing accessibility to individuals of various socioeconomic classes. I was impressed by the extensive historical background, which the article provided. For the uninformed reader such information will be very enlightening.

I was drawn to this article because I believe it raises some key points. First, it highlights the socioeconomic aspect of the issue regarding unhealthy food. Poorer individuals face a financial constraint when making healthy food choices. This is why racial minorities (at least in the US) are disproportionally affected by the ill consequences of unhealthy food, particularly sugar. Over the summer I was in Mexico, which recently passed the US as the most obese country in the Americas. I noticed that almost no one drank bottled water. Everyone was drinking soda. However, I think the article makes a good point in distinguishing people’s perception of sugary foods. For people with more money, soda is often viewed as an unhealthy food selection. In contrast, people with less money are more likely to view soda as an affordable treat or luxury.

I also believe this article does a good job of bringing to our attention the accessibility of sugary foods and drinks in public schools. This is a major contributor to obesity among children and adolescents. I think initiatives should be taken to limit the availability of unhealthy food options to the public. In my public high school soda was removed from the vending machines. However, my HS was also an open campus school, which allowed sophomores, juniors, and seniors to leave campus when they did not have class. This privilege to leave campus was used almost exclusively to go buy lunch at the local Coop store, as oppose to eating in the cafeteria. I often viewed students making very unhealthy selections for lunch. On one occasion (which I should mention was the most extreme) I observed a student buy a jumbo Hershey chocolate bar and a 2-liter bottle of root beer for lunch.

In conclusion, this article raises awareness of the health consequences of sugar. Given sugar’s addictive quality, this threat should be taken seriously.