We hope you are enjoying your hearty and warming winter veggies. This week we wanted to offer something exciting and new to spice up your boxes and so we are offering some dried paprika peppers!
We picked them this summer at their peak and dehydrated them to be enjoyed in the winter. They should keep for at least a year if you store them in an airtight container in a cool dry spot. But don't wait too long to enjoy them- like any spice, the fresher the better, their flavor will be more intense the sooner you use them. I find the best way to use them it to use a spice grinder (I just use and old coffee grinder) or chop them up as fine as you can, and use them as paprika powder in any recipe. But if you can't do that, they can also be rehydrated and made into a paste for stir-fries or soups. These sweet peppers are grown for dehydrating to be used to spice up dishes and are incredibly flavorful!
I have found that home grown/dried paprika is a bit like carrots and tomatoes, once you have had them farm fresh its hard to go back. I have been hearing from many of you in our end of season survey that a favorite parts of the CSA for folks is the flavor of the produce. Produce picked at its ripest, grown within 50km or less and delivered to you the day its picked is incomparable to the grocery store stuff in flavor, so we hope these peppers do it for you like they do for us! They are a little extra work, but we hope you will give them a shot.
This week we will also be offering oyster mushrooms again from Myca Farms. And I would totally recommend you grab some again this week (and some of our winter leeks) so you can make this Creamy Mushroom, Potato and Wild Rice soup with lots of paprika (described below). Its another recipe from Joshua McFadden and one of my absolute favorites I have made this year. I made it last week with our dried Paprika and these mushrooms and it was AMAZING.
Finally this week we have another special add on, since we have it in limited quantities we will be offering it as an extra. It's pink popcorn! It comes on the cobb and you just have to pick it off the cobb and cook it like any other popcorn. It is super fresh and delicious. One cobb makes about one bowl of popcorn.
Cheers!
Farmer Carly
CREAMY MUSHROOM, POTATO, AND WILD RICE SOUP WITH PAPRIKA AND DILL
INGREDIENTS
Makes: 2 liters, serves 4-6
- ⅔ cup uncooked wild rice - I used brown rice this week and it worked just fine, though wild rice would be great!
- kosher salt
- 1 pound mixed fresh mushrooms of your choice (dry ends trimmed, thinly sliced)
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- freshly ground black pepper
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1½ cups leeks (white and light-green parts only, cut crosswise into ⅛-inch/3mm-thick slices)
- 3 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika (sweet or hot)
- ¼ teaspoon caraway seeds (slightly crushed)
- 1 litre chicken stock or vegetable broth (homemade or low-sodium store-bought)
- 1 medium Yukon Gold or other medium-starch potato (peeled and cut into ¼-inch/6mm dice)
- small handful thyme sprigs
- Two 4 inch sprigs rosemary
- 1 cup heavy cream or creme fraiche
- ¼ cup fresh dill (chopped) - I used dried and it worked totally fine
METHOD
- Place the wild rice in a medium saucepan with 1 teaspoon salt and water to cover by about 3 inches (7.5 cm). Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a lively simmer, cover, and cook until the wild rice is fully tender and most of the grains have opened up, about 45 minutes. Check occasionally to make sure the water hasn’t cooked off. All the water may not be absorbed, so drain thoroughly. Set aside.
- Pour a generous glug of olive oil into a large skillet or Dutch oven and set over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms in an even layer and season with the chile flakes and a nice sprinkling of salt and pepper. (Cook the mushrooms in batches if your pan can’t accommodate them all in one layer.) Don’t disturb the mushrooms until they’re nicely browned on one side, then flip them over and cook until all are browned and slightly crisp at the edges, about 10 minutes per batch. Depending on the mushrooms, they may give off a lot of liquid; if so, just keep cooking until it has evaporated and the mushrooms will brown.
- Scrape the mushrooms out of the pan into a bowl and set aside. Return the pan to the heat, reduce the heat to medium, add the butter and the leek, season lightly with salt and pepper, and cook until the leek slices are soft and fragrant, about 10 minutes; don’t let them brown. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for another minute or two, then add the tomato paste, smoked paprika, and caraway seeds.
- Cook, stirring and scraping the pan bottom, until the tomato paste has darkened and thickened a bit, about 5 minutes.
- Add the broth, potato, thyme, and rosemary. Bring to a simmer and cook until the potato pieces are tender and easily crushed with a fork (scoop a couple out to test), about 20 minutes.
- Add the cream, drained wild rice, and cooked mushrooms and simmer gently until the soup has thickened a bit and the raw cream flavor has cooked off, another 15 minutes or so. If the soup is getting very thick, add a bit of broth or water. The soup should be rich and creamy but not gloppy.
- Taste and adjust the seasoning with more salt, pepper, or chile flakes. If you can, fish out and discard the thyme and rosemary stems, then add the dill. Serve hot. The soup will be good in the refrigerator for up to 2 days; I don’t recommend freezing this one, as the mushrooms can develop a weird texture.
