September 6
Filet beans: small!
"True Lemon" cucumbers: not large
This week's harvest:
NEW: Filet beans, meaning, beans that are small-diameter when ripe. Sometimes called French filet beans. Round yellow cucumbers, called True Lemon.
ONGOING: Tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, Pattypan/Flying saucer summer squash, chard, lettuce, big Nabechan scallions, Dragon carrots. Herb bouquet is marigold, Opal purple basil, Genovese green basil, and cilantro.
MAYBE THE LAST: in this weather, anything. Possibly the last filet beans because they are an *amazing hassle* to harvest: not just fewer beans to the pound, but so delicate that I had to cut them off the vine instead of picking them.
Recipe suggestions:
I have only just heard of "smashed cucumber" salad, and honestly after tenderly carrying all these veg out of the field smashing them seems Wrong to me, but Serious Eats' recipes are usually good.
BEANS: Filet beans are also called "French filet beans", which is why a "bean frencher" does what it does. Cook them as usual, but not very long. A rapid saute in quite a lot of butter works for me.
Julia Child and Marcella Hazan, even after specifying filet beans, both recommend blanching beans before sauteeing them. Well! If you want them very tender indeed! From Mastering the Art of French Cooking:
"A handful at a time, drop the beans into the rapidly boiling salted water. Bring the water back to the boil as quickly as possible [...] test the beans frequently by eating one. A well cooked bean should be tender, but still retain the slightest suggestion of crunchiness. Drain the beans as soon as they are done.
"Turn the beans into a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan and toss them gently over moderately high heat by flipping the pan, not by stirring them. This will evaporate their moisture [...]
"Toss briefly again with salt, pepper and a piece of [8 Tb of] butter. Add the rest of the butter gradually while tossing the beans; alternate with drops of lemon juice. Taste for seasoning. Turn into the [heated] vegetable dish, sprinkle with parsley, and serve immediately."
Storage notes:
Rinse anything outside the big plastic bag before eating. Some crops don't wash well or don't store well when wet, and those will be delivered UNWASHED and OUTSIDE the big plastic bag, possibly in a small plastic bag. Big sturdy things like summer squash will just be loose. Rinse anything outside the big plastic bag before eating.
Everything INSIDE the BIG plastic bag has been washed in at least three changes of water and drip dried.
Basil and cilantro and flowers keep best with their stems in water, like little bouquets, I find. Basil outside the fridge, cilantro in the coolest part of my house or the warmest part of my fridge.
In general: root veg, including carrots, should have their greens taken off promptly, after which the roots like cool dark storage. The greens on our root veg are all edible. All greens like cool humid storage.
Getting ripe for next week:
Some little lettuces might make it to size; the last unusual green, orach, is also coming to size; there should be enough amaranth and molokhia tips regrown for braising greens from one or the other.