Portuguese Kale and Chourico Soup
I had my first taste of Portuguese Kale soup years ago when I was working in Fall River, Massachusetts. Fall River is blue collar town with a history rich in fishing, shipping, manufacturing and sailing. With a large Portuguese immigration population, this kale-chourico soup is on the menu of a lot of the local restaurants. A hearty, warm soup for the colder months; it has become my “go to” soup recipe for kale.
My favorite kale to use is the wintered Siberian Kale harvested straight from our fields in the winter months. After the first frosts of the fall season, the siberian kale takes on a sweeter more mellow flavor. On the farm, we can harvest the Siberian most of the winter as it is a hearty plant that survives the coldest of weather. Part cover crop, part cash crop, we plant the siberian with a mixture of clovers for winter protection. In the spring, the kale and nitrogen capturing clover help feed our soil with rich organic matter that is turned right under.
I think the key to this recipe is finding a good Chourico (Chorizo) sausage. I’ve tried a lot from the supermarkets but they all seem to have an artificial flavor or try to mask poor taste with a spicy heat. Recently, I found what I believe is the best chorizo I’ve ever tasted from a local butcher shop here in Franklin, TN, The Carnivore Market. Located just off 5 points in Franklin, their sausage is a perfection of spice and smokey flavors that immediately melds with all the ingredients of the soup making a perfect bowl. Their chorizo is so good, we have made this soup twice in the last week.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 medium white potatoes, peeled and diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, diced
1 lb (1 bunch) siberian kale, chopped
16 oz. diced tomatoes (perfect use of canned summer tomatoes)
10 oz chick peas (garbanzos beans)
1 lb diced chourico (chorizo in Spain)
1 quart chicken broth
The Process
Heat the oil in shallow pan over medium heat. Add potatoes, onions and cook 8-10 minutes til potatoes are softened. Add garlic and kale. Cover and cook til kale is wilted. Transfer contents to medium sauce or soup pot. Add beans, tomatoes, chourico and broth to the pot and bring up heat to slow simmer. Cook for additional 15-20 minutes to really blend flavors together and bring out the chorizo.
Serve warm.
Delvin Farms Delivers Winter CSA
Our winter CSA is harvested in four pickups over the months of November and December. Each 1/2 bushel of organic vegetables are harvested fresh from the fields or in the case of sweet potatoes and winter squashes from our stores of fall harvest.
Autumn Lentil Potato Soup
November can’t be official until a hearty soup is simmering in a crock pot all day long on a Sunday. Inspired by quirky fingerling potatoes from Delvin Farms & a multi-lentil “autumn” blend from Whole Foods, I quickly threw together the ingredients and have been enjoying the rest of my day not in the kitchen.
Fingerling potatoes are a great source of vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. I left the skin on for taste, texture, and Vitamin-C (a much needed vitamin in gloomy-autumn). Delvin Farms grows organically, so when tossing all of these raw ingredients into my crock pot, I can rest assured I’m not simmering anything but true goodness!
INGREDIENTS:
+ 1/2 small yellow onion, diced
+ 2 garlic cloves, minced
+ 2 1/2 cups fingerling potatoes, sliced into coins
+ 1 turnip, cubed
+ 1 fresh rosemary sprig, finely chopped
+ 3-5 fresh thyme sprigs, finely chopped
+ 1-2 celery stalks, diced
+ 1 cup autumn blend lentils (or a variety of lentils: French Green, Petite Crimson, Golden, Black Beluga, Spaish Pardina, and Ivory White).
+ 6 cups vegetable stock
+ Salt, pepper and/or all purpose spice
+ 1 tbs olive oil
METHOD:
Salute the diced onion and minced garlic in a small skillet with olive oil. Place in a crock pot, turned on “High” and add ALL additional ingredients, diced/chopped/cubed! Go enjoy your day and come back to eat in 5-6 hours!
— Amanda Barnhart is an art director, food enthusiast, and cat lover. She curates & photographs new recipes weekly on her vegetarian food blog, PlatedColor.com. You can see more photos and read about this recipe there.
Corn, Pepper and Black Bean Dip
Corn, peppers and tomatoes are overflowing at Delvin Farms. I picked up these colorful ingredients, hoping to hang onto the taste of summer and spend another evening outside. Many people are back to the swing of the school year and new “fall” schedules, but I’m refusing to let summer go. This dip requires little prep time in the kitchen so more time can be spent soaking in the last of August.
As summer would have it, I prepped this Corn, Pepper & Black Bean Dip amidst an afternoon thunderstorm. Hoping the clouds would clear away before guests arrived for an outside party just as quickly as the mess in my kitchen will disappear too.
Ingredients:
+ 8 mixed size bell peppers, variety of colors
+ 3 cups tomatoes, diced
+ 2 ears of corn, cooked and removed from core
+ 1 can organic black beans, rinsed
+ 1-2 jalapeños peppers
+ 3 medium sized shallots, diced finely
+ 4 tbsp. olive oil
+ 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
+ Dash/Pinch OF all-purpose spice (shown here with local, East Nashville Spice Co. spicy blend)
+ Tortilla chips
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— Amanda Barnhart is an art director, food enthusiast, and cat lover. She curates & photographs new recipes weekly on her vegetarian food blog, PlatedColor.com. You can see more photos and read about this recipe there.
Organic Cantaloupe in August
Our organic cantaloupe are best of the season when august rolls around. The summer heat and sunshine ripen the fruits to a juicy, soft, sweet, orange flesh.
Planting the Cantaloupe:
Our organic cantaloupes are planted from mid may to the end of June. We will plant 4-5 acres of melons in 3 or more plantings of about one acre each. All the seeds are started in the greenhouses in small flats or seed trays and then transplanted into the field. We use a plastic mulch system for our organic production which reduces the amount of weeds around the plants by blocking the light and holding in soil moisture which conserves our irrigation. A small drip tape line is installed under the plastic right next to the plant that delivers the water directly to the root zone of the cantaloupe and not to the weeds between the rows. Plants will flower in 3-4 weeks from transplant and be pollinated by the many bees we have on the farm specifically for that purpose. Cantaloupes will be ready to harvest in approximately 70 days from day of transplant.
Harvesting the Cantaloupe:
We harvest the Cantaloupe in the morning hours before the sun has a chance to heat the melons up and before the have a chance to soak up the day’s heat. After cooling overnight, the melons are firmer and cooler in the center. Not all the melons ripen at the same time so we choose those melons that have a light tan to orange skin with a slight softness around the stem end. Green melons or immature melons are left on the plants to ripen in the next few days. Harvesting on a patch of melons will typically be done over a 10 day period with 2-3 pickings of fruit. Crews will work through the field selecting and piling up those melons that are ready. Next we toss the melons from one person to another and gently place them in the bins for transport. Reminiscent of grade school “field days” and the egg toss, harvesting melons is not much different!
Delivery, CSA and Farmers Markets
Our organic cantaloupes will make it into the CSA boxes several times throughout the season. As we move from patch to patch the cantaloupes are available from mid July to mid September. Succession planting is key in us having the melons available over a long harvest season and is why we will typically have four or more plantings.
We think the best way to consume our cantaloupes is chilling them in the fridge for a few hours and then slicing into chunks directly into a bowl. The sweet, orange flesh needs no additions and is perfect for any meal; breakfast, lunch or dinner. Like many of our organic fruits such as strawberries and blackberries, the cantaloupes are only here for a short season mid to late summer. Enjoy and come see us at the farmers markets.
Looking for something different in a cantaloupe recipe? check out our Mint, lime, cantaloupe chiller recipe, click here.
Delvin Farms CSA Delivers to Nashville
CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)– Supporting Farm and Community. Delvin Farms Organic CSA is Nashville’s largest and one of the longest running CSA programs. Our CSA delivers freshly harvested produce to over fourteen pickup locations in Nashville area from Mid May through the end of October. Why CSA? It it for me? Read on.
Summer is in the air and as it was once said “A young man’s fancy turns to love”. But lately, with more and more community awareness of the importance of buying local, spring not only brings images of young love, it brings images of sweet, sweet strawberries. It brings images of freshly harvested vegetables plucked at the peak of maturity in the early morning dew from a local farm right in your own community. Those tantalizing thoughts then turn to investing your food dollar into a local farm through a CSA program.
CSA is so much more than just “supporting” a local farm, it supports the community. Think of it as your food dollar at work to keep communities alive. Much of your CSA dollar is reinvested locally on employee wages as well as countless community businesses supported by local farms. Land purchases, farm equipment, fuel, utilities, seed companies, local Farmers CO-OP, tire companies (have you ever priced just one huge tractor tire?) truck purchases, truck rentals, organic fertilizers such as fish emulsion, worm castings, seeds for cover crops like wheat, rye, vetch and yes, even sunflowers are purchased by farmers. When you purchase your CSA, farmers in turn use their dollar in the community, supporting local businesses and employees of that said business.
Running a farm is a delicate balancing act which requires careful scheduling, knowledge of the weather, botanical expertise, labor management and a sundry of other skills. CSA provides a living connection between farms and the communities they serve.
At Delvin Farms our commitment is growing the best quality, certified organic fruits and vegetables and delivering them to our members at the peak of freshness, packed with nutrition supplied through our rich, nutrient dense soil. There is a lot that goes into a CSA box, but the most important thing is the care that goes into land and the commitment to grow your food in the most healthy, environmentally sound soil without pesticides, herbicides or harmful chemicals. These are two things that we have cared deeply about since the first day that our first CSA share went out, and it will be the two things that will be our top priority for years to come.
Ready to Join? SIGN UP HERE NOW.
Sweet and Savory Toast
Summer means more time spent outside and less time in the kitchen. Quick, easy snacks or light breakfast meals are a must with schedules packing calendars and sunny skies begging to be enjoyed with family and friends.
Delvin Farm’s blackberries hit the market a few weeks ago and pairing it with mascarpone seemed like a sweet treat for a lazy Sunday morning. I also snatched up the bightest red tomato and basil bundle for another toast recipe I had a craving for with hummus as a base. Toast doesn’t have to be boring and it can serve as a substantial snack, sweet or savory!
TOAST WITH MASCARPONE, BLACKBERRIES & HONEY
+ Toast whole wheat oatmeal bread, let cool slightly before spreading mascarpone (a lighter, Italian cream cheese). Top with whole blackberries and drizzle with local honey.
TOAST WITH HUMMUS, TOMATO, AND FRESH BASIL
+ Toast bread, spread with hummus. Halve tomato and slice into thin wedges. Arrange on toast and sprinkle in small, fresh basil leaves.
— Amanda Barnhart is an art director, food enthusiast, and cat lover. She curates & photographs new recipes weekly on her vegetarian food blog, PlatedColor.com. You can see more photos and read about this recipe there.
Juliet Tomato is Summertime Favorite
We grow a lot of organic tomatoes on Delvin Farms but by far one of the favorites among our family and customers alike is the Juliet Tomato. With a rich tomato flavor but sweet and small seeded, the part plum, part roma, part cherry tomato is so versatile in recipes.
Juliets are a meaty, firm textured tomato with just the right amount of sweetness to add them to salads, salsas, and spaghetti sauces. Eaten simply, we enjoy them sliced in half with a little salt or even with fresh mozzarella and basil. Like a mini roma, they are perfect on sandwiches or a toasted panini.
One of the first tomatoes we harvest in early June, Juliets are with us all summer and will be included in our organic CSA shares and all of our markets till early fall. From a growers perspective, we love the juliet because of the volume of tomatoes it produces on vigorous , indeterminate vines. Plants can grow in our high tunnels to lengths of 10,12,15 feet long and produce hundreds of blooms that turn into clusters of small grape size tomatoes. The fruits are crack resistant and generally all sized uniformly. The plants are the longest producing plants for us and will often keep putting on flowers and fruits well into the fall.
Pasta Salad with Tomatoes and Squash Blossoms
‘Bring a side dish’ means it’s officially summer. I think we can all step up our game in pasta salad and add a new staple to our summer plates. Starting with local ingredients in season helps add flavor and color, plus using a vegetable pasta made from quinoa grain keeps it healthy and packed with protein. When I saw the seasons first pint of heirloom tomatoes from Delvin Farms and squash blossoms, I knew the flavor was going to be out of this world.
Making this recipe will turn heads at the next cookout you have to attend. It would pair well with all of our summer favorites; veggie burgers, hot dogs, and corn on the cob. Cheers to summer time!
INGREDIENTS:
+ 8oz Garden Pagoda Pasta from Ancient Grains
+ 1 large summer squash, diced into small cubes
+ 1 pint heirloom tomatoes
+ 5 squash blossoms, sliced
+ 2 tbs white onion, diced
+ 3-4 tbs purple basil, finely chopped
+ salt and pepper to taste
+ 4 tbs extra virgin olive oil
+ 1 tbs red wine vinegar
METHOD:
Cook pasta according to package, drain and set aside to cool in the fridge. While the pasta is cooling, cut squash, quarter the heirloom tomatoes, dice the onion, and finely chop the purple basil. Set aside half of the basil. Toss all ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Slice the squash blossoms by removing the stem, and cutting it crosswise into thin strips.
To make the dressing, combine 4 tablespoons olive oil with1 tablespoon red wine vinegar and whisk together with ample amounts of salt and pepper. Add the remaining half of the finely diced purple basil.
Toss dressing & vegetables into the chilled pasta. Garnish with more salt, pepper, and basil to your liking.
— Amanda Barnhart is an art director, food enthusiast, and cat lover. She curates & photographs new recipes weekly on her vegetarian food blog, PlatedColor.com. You can see more photos and read about this recipe there.