Each week we send out members a variety of recipes and storage tips for the products that are in that week's share.  Over the years we've built up quite a collection of recipes and storage tips for our Vermont food stuffs.  Browse recipes at left, and storage tips at right.

HEATHER's FALL HARVEST PUMPKIN SOUP

1 pie pumpkin, about 3 lbs
2 medium or 3 small white turnips
1 or 2 fennel bulbs
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
3 Tbs olive oil
1 qt chicken or vegetable broth
1 qt water, as needed
Fresh or dried herbs to taste: thyme, sage, parsley, fennel greens
Pinch or red pepper flakes
Salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 350; cut pumpkin in half, place in baking pan cut side down, add 2 inches water. Bake until tender, about an hour. Cool to handle, discard seeds, scoop out flesh and chop up a bit if it's in large pieces. Set aside for now.
Now you could make a nice vegetable stock with the pumpkin shell, and the parings from the onions, fennel, and turnip. Cover with water in a large stock pot and simmer 15 minutes. While this cooks, you can chop and sauté the vegetables.
Dice the turnip, fennel bulb, and onion. Mince the garlic.
Heat olive oil in large soup pot, add onion, sauté 5 minutes; add the rest of the vegetables and sauté until fragrant and slightly browning. Add the salt, pepper, and seasonings. Stir around a couple of minutes, and then add in the pumpkin. Set a mesh strainer over the pot and very carefully pour in the vegetable stock. Simmer about 30 minutes, adding more stock or water as needed.
This can be a thick chunky soup or a velvety smooth puree, so add as much broth or more water as needed to make the desired consistency. A splash of cider is also lovely. Puree if you wish.
Garnish with fresh snipped parsley/fennel greens and/or some roasted pumpkin seeds.

Heather's Fave Grilled Vegetable Sandwiches

This is a sandwich stack, meant to be eaten with fork and knife! If you like, make full sandwiches with 2 slices of bread, but expect juice to be running down your wrist! We eat this at least once a week in high summer. Serves 4.

Marinade
1/4 cup oil
2 TB soy sauce
2 TB balsamic vinegar
1 tsp prepared mustard
1 clove minced garlic
salt & fresh ground pepper

Vegetables
1 sweet onion cut in thick rounds
2 squash, cut into 1/2 diagonal slices
1 or 2 eggplant, cut into 1/2 slices
1 pepper, cut into thin strips

1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 TB finely cut basil ribbons
4 slices bread for open face stacks
1 or 2 tomatoes, sliced
1 mozzarella ball, sliced

Whisk together marinade ingredients in a large bowl. Toss cut vegetables in marinade and set aide. Mix basil into mayo to make the sandwich dressing. Heat grill or a grill pan for the vegetables.

Grill vegetables brushing with marinade, until browning and tender. Remove to a plate.
To assemble sandwiches, spread mayo on bread, layer on vegetables, tomato and cheese. Place on medium high heat grill to toast bread slightly and melt the cheese a bit. Serve immediately.

Granola

In honor of the oats this week I thought I'd share this recipe. I make this granola practically every week because everyone in my family eats it nearly every morning. One of my kids likes it dry, another with milk, and another with yogurt. I like to mix it with other cereals or fruit. We eat it for dessert on maple syrup sweetened yogurt. It's a solid, simple granola recipe. You can add as much as another three cups of various nuts or dried fruit without having to change the amounts of oil and sweetener. You can swap honey for maple syrup interchangeably and use other mild favored oils. Though the amounts given of sweetener and oil are what my family enjoys, you can reduce the oil to 3/4 cup and the sweetener to 1 cup.

Mix everything together well. If your honey is solid, put the oil and honey in a small saucepan first and warm on the stove until it becomes liquid enough to mix with the other ingredients. Put all of this in two 9 x 13 pans or a large roasting pan. Put in a preheated 250 degree oven and bake for a total of 70-80 minutes, stirring the granola at 30 mins, 50 mins, 60 mins, and 70 mins taking care to rotate the granola that is on the sides and bottom to somewhere in the middle. It is done when it is golden brown. After it cools completely, store in a tightly sealed container.

10 cups oats
1 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup sesame seeds
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup sunflower oil
1 cup honey
1/2 cup maple syrup

From A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen"A tomatillo is a Mexican fruit similar to a tomato that remains firm and green when ripe. Tomatillos grow inside lantern-shaped paper husks, which must be removed. Wash the tomatillos well to remove the sticky substance that keeps the husks in place. Because they are quite acidic, tomatillos are rarely used raw. Roast them to rid them of excess liquid and soften their texture. Roasted with some fresh chiles, they can be turned into a quick salsa in the blender. Tomatillos exude a lot of liquid and seeds as they roast. Scrape all the flavorful juices into the blender." For a decadent breakfast, try frying thick slices of tomatillos alongside a couple of eggs and serve with bacon. The acid of the tomatillos makes a nice foil for the richness of the protein. Store tomatillos in their husks in a paper bag in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

My advice is to not bother storing and eat it for dinner tonight. But, if you really need to store it for a day or two, pop it in the fridge, husks and all. Boil in a large pot of unsalted water for 2 minutes or less. If you are grilling, peel back the husks without removing them completely, remove the silk and "re-husk"" the corn. Because I'm paranoid about losing my food to fire, I like to spray or dip the husked corn with water. Grill for about 5 or 10 minutes over an open flame, slather with butter and salt and enjoy. As for corn recipes, I see no reason to taint the sweet goodness of corn on the cob with a lot of other fussy ingredients.

Known as "swede" in the U.K., the rutabaga is believed to have originated as a cross between a turnip and a cabbage. Sweeter than a turnip, rutabagas are delicious boiled and mashed with butter (with or without potatoes). Rutabagas should be peeled before use. Keep them loosely wrapped in a plastic bag in your fridge.

Much more than a garnish, parsley has lots to offer. Chopped parsley can be sprinkled on a host of different recipes, including salads, vegetable sautés and grilled fish. Combine chopped parsley, garlic and lemon zest, and use it as a rub for chicken, lamb and beef. Add it to soups and tomato sauces. It is a key flavor ingredient in the mediterranean dish tabouli (I felt compelled to add the recipe below). Parsley is one of those vegetables with huge nutritional benefits, even when using just a couple tablespoons of the minced green. The vitamin content is very high (particularly vitas A, C, K, and folic acid). And what's more, the activity of parsley's volatile oils qualifies it as a "chemoprotective" food, a food that can help neutralize particular types of carcinogens.

Gold balls have a taste similar to rutabagas. These turnips were described in 1879 as "Skin very smooth and quite yellow; flesh yellow, softish, and fine flavored, ... highly esteemed in Scotland and the north of England." Try pickling the turnips, mashing with butter, or cubing and using in soups and stews. I often use turnips in place of celery in cooked recipes like chicken soup and the chicken and biscuits below. Though celeriac is probably a better substitute for the celery similar taste wise, I value my celeriac too much to use in a stock, or in any recipe where the flavor may get lost. Keep turnips loosely wrapped in a plastic bag in your crisper drawer.

The gilfeather turnip was bread here in Vermont. Here is an excerpt from the Slow Food site about gilfeathers: The Gilfeather is an egg-shaped, rough-skinned root, but unlike its cousins, it has a mild taste that becomes sweet and a creamy white color after the first frost. While the hardy Gilfeather turnip does well in nearly any climate, this touch of frost contributes to its unusual taste and texture. Developed and named after John Gilfeather from Wardsboro, Vermont, this turnip is one of the state's unique contributions to cold weather agriculture. Mr. Gilfeather carefully guarded his stock to ensure that no one else could propagate the vegetable. However, some seeds slipped by and a few folks have continued to grow the Gilfeather Turnip after Mr. Gilfeather died." These turnips are truly unique, and we are fortunate that the seeds made their way to other Vermont farmers. Try boiling and mashing the gilfeathers with potatoes. Turnips can be kept for a couple of weeks loosely wrapped in a plastic bag in your crisper drawer.