What did you do with Your July 7th CSA?

Ah yes, I am tres late in posting this question, but maybeI'll get some answers -- and you all better do something with your share soon because another one is just around the corner!

As a reminder -- and an incentive for any readers who mioght want to share recipes but aren't in the cSA -- here's what you got last week and what I said about it then:

· A bag of lettuce – not the really sweet stuff of spring. It is actually a bit late for it to be hanging in there, but we have had a lot of rain and cool nights, so it is here for this last appearance until fall. Unlike earlier greens, which needed the lightest of dressings – you can feel free to slather it on for these tougher leaves. Or just use them as a garnish like bed for your beet salad.
· A bag of spinach – almost the same story as above, though the spinach holds it together a little better (especially the variety I grow, after much experimentation – Bloomsdale Longstanding, really resistant to bolt).
· Swiss chard bundle with a chive blossom (or scape). I love Swiss chard – there is a recipe in the quail egg section of the blog that is my standard Swiss chard fare. You can use quail or chicken or no egg in it. Chard is in the beet family, and the different colors do taste differently – the closer to red the chard is, the more you will know it is a member of the beet family. The stem and the leaves are edible, but you will want to separate them to cook them because the stem takes longer to cook. Do check out the blog recipe for chard with eggs as well as using chard in the stuffed chicken. The shallot scape is an edible flower that you can use as you would an onion. Taste a little before you chop it up and put it in something; it packs a wallop. I added it because it can be used instead of onion in the stuffed chicken recipe.
· An herb bunch – mostly basil, but a small amount of oregano and tarragon included. I added this this week because of that darn chicken recipe. You could use this bunch, chopped, as the herbs called for (I did). If you aren’t succumbing to the immense pressure to make that chicken, you could just leave the bunch sitting around to make things smell like summer (and don’t worry about wasting basil – you are getting a lot more).
· A bunch of beets – they are beautiful this week – you get a selection of yellow, Detroit (dark red) and Chioggia (red and white).
· John’s broccoli. I haven’t seen it yet, but he assures me it is professional. John can grow cabbage and broccoli. When I plant either of these, I get cabbage and broccoli bugs the size of a Toyota. So let’s all just take a minute to thank our lucky stars for John (who is baking your bread as I write this).
· Beans – Fin de Bangol to be exact. John may be able to grow a cabbage, but I am the Queen of Beans. These are the thin French variety. Do not put these in a casserole with mushroom soup. Do not boil them all day with bacon (we may have some beans for that later in the season). Steam or boil them lightly – 2-3 minutes. Then throw them back in a pan with a little butter, maybe some lemon (though I like just butter). Or rinse them in cold water and use them in a salad compose -- dress them lightly in a vinaigrette and top with crumbled bacon (you know I would work it in) and hard boiled egg. Put your beet salad (see the blog for the recipe) next to it.
· 1/2 pint of black raspberries: these are incredible. Just eat them. Do not cook them, do not share them. These are why you are in a CSA – you cannot find them anywhere else.

CSA Chicken Supper

Take a Green Fence Farm Chicken, a couple of our eggs, and, if you are lucky enough to be one of our CSA members, your Swiss chard, beets, herbs, and shallot scape – and you too can have the delicious dinner pictured above (OK, I am no Phil Karsting in my food photography abilities – and you’ll have to make the Olive bread on your own).

The nice thing about this dinner, which consists of chicken stuffed under the skin, garlic greens done in the Jaleo way (see the recipe in an earlier post that Lynn submitted), and beets in sour cream and mustard sauce (which consists of sour cream and some Dijon like mustard – not exactly a Culinary Institute of America level endeavor) is that it can all be done ahead of time – the chicken can be prepared all the way through stuffing, then refrigerated until you are ready to cook; the beets can be cooked and dressed, then refrigerated, anytime; and the spinach can be cooked then just left on the stove until you warm it before dinner. Perfect dinner party fare: Pop the chickens in when your guests arrive (or are supposed to) then 90 minutes later, you have dinner all ready to go, 90 minutes you can sit be out of the kitchen with your guests making sure you get your share of the decent wine they brought or, depending on the quality of your friends, making sure they don’t steal stuff.

To make the chicken you need:
· One 3-4 lb GREEN FENCE FARM chicken (I do not guarantee the results unless you use our chickens. With other, inferior chicken, it could well taste like dried up old chicken McNuggets)
· One finely chopped red onion
· Olive oil to coat your sauté pan
· Two or three largish Swiss Chard leaves, green part removed from stem and used in something else (I just added it to the spinach in the Jaleo Spinach recipe to turn it into a Jaleo Greens recipe), dice the stems.
· 4 cloves of garlic – or garlic and minced shallot scape (flower, for those of you in our CSA lucky enough to be getting one of these this week).
· Whatever fresh herbs you have on hand – though I am partial to oregano and basil (and again, Green Fence Farm CSA members will be receiving a little of each). If you don’t have fresh herbs, just use some dried oregano.
· 1 GREEN FENCE FARM egg and one GREEN FENCE FARM egg yolk.
· 12 oz. cream cheese or cream cheese like goat cheese.
· ½ cup dry cheese, grate (like Parmesan or Asiago)

The steps to making the chicken:

At least two hours before cooking (but actually, you could do this part even 24 hours in advance):

1. Sauté onions in heated olive oil until translucent (about 5 minutes). Add chopped chard stem, garlic, and shallot scape. Continue sautéing over medium high heat, stirring often, until the the stem is soft but not too damp, another five minutes. Turn down the heat, add the fresh herbs and season, sautéing just until the herbs are wilted.
2. In your cuisnart, mix the cream cheese, egg and egg yolk, and dried cheese. Add the sauté mix and pulse 4-5 times – enough to mix and further dice the sauted veggies but not enough to make a bizarrely colored paste. You want to continue to see the dots of color the chard stem adds. Refrigerate for a minimum of one hour.
3. Anytime after the hour is up, prep the chicken. Cut out its backbone and reserve with the neck for stock (and yes, I do have 3000 back and neck bone baggies in my freezer). Turn the chicken on what used to be its back (breast up) and press down with your hand on the breastbone between the wings to break the bone. Loosen the skin by slipping your hand between the skin and breast – be careful not to tear it.
4. Put the refrigerated cream cheese mix in a pastry tube with the biggest tip you can find (or else it will get jammed up with Swiss chard bits and, when you impatiently keep trying to squeeze the tube anyway, even though you know it is jammed, it will blow up in a royal cream cheese, chard disaster. Don’t ask me how I know).Place the point under the skin and pipe the mixture in. You can work it around to go evenly over the breast and into the thighs, even a bit of the leg. Place in a baking or roasting pan skin side up (and though I didn’t make it this way when I was testing this, you could brush butter on the breast to give you an even more golden finished product – I’ll probably do that next time). At this point you can cover the chicken and refrigerate until you are ready to pop it in the oven, Doris Day like, and sashay into your guests who will marvel at how calm you are.
2 hours before dinner:
1. Preheat the oven to 375. Put the chicken in, uncovered, from 75-95 minutes depending on the size. Let sit at least five minutes and cut into quarters for four servings.

To make the beets, boil until fork tender (15-30 minutes depending on size) or roast, and peel. Chop into bite sized pieces if they didn’t already come that way. Mix sour cream or crème fraiche with a teaspoon or two of grainy French mustard and mix that with the beets.

To make the Jaleo greens, follow the Jaleo recipe posted last month, but add your chard and beet greens to the spinach (you may have to remove the beet greens from the stems if the stems are large enough to look chewy).