crack the plates

Today’s Harvest: jewel of New Paris, food fiend’s paradise. Dear friend Matt piqued my interest on Thursday when he mentioned their edamame & tomatillos, but it was his sweet lady Becky’s tweet–”Just had an amazing peach from @TodaysHarvest. It was so juicy I had to eat it over the sink! MMMMMM!”—that pushed me over the edge. Succulent, local peaches? Fresh edamame? The promise of other rarities? I wanted it all…and so the love affair began.

Today’s Harvest has been in the family for over fifty years, and while not organic (a high priority for me), their food is minimally treated. Perhaps the best part of visiting is interacting with the enthusiastic, knowledgeable staff. They make you feel like they just want you to be happy & healthy, and they’re positive that eating their produce is the way to get there. Who could resist buying food from folks like that? Moreover, who would want to?!

Friday afternoon I picked up edamame:

Poblano peppers:

Tomatillos:

Okra:

And lots of other things. Like PEACHES. (Which are only going to be around for another week, so if you’re already in the area, get ye thence!)

Another reason Today’s Harvest rocks is because the folks know when to harvest okra. I’ve lectured on this topic before: okra should not be allowed to grow past the length of a lady’s finger! Ignore my wrinkly, dry hands and observe:

Much of the world knows it by the name “lady’s finger” not just because it is slender & sports a pointed tip, but because it tastes best when it is diminutive. Long, thick pieces are often dry and woody and full of tough seeds. To be fair, some folks like to use the longer pieces in gumbos & stews, when the vegetable simmers for a long time. I suppose tough okra might hold its shape better for those kinds of dishes. I’m not convinced.

I’d found some veggie chorizo on manager’s special at Kroger a couple weeks ago (don’t worry, it was still very much within date) but wasn’t inspired to make anything til the poblanos came home. I decided to do stuffed poblanos baked in red sauce and accompanied by basmati rice with tomatillo salsa. For the red sauce/salsa,

• I combined two or three ruby tomatoes with a smallish sweet onion, fresh cilantro, cumin, dried oregano, salt, a bunch of minced garlic and one 6oz can of (unsalted) organic tomato paste in my food processor and pulsed til it was thoroughly combined and salsa-like.

I poured this mess into a 13″-9″ casserole and then got to work stuffing the small poblanos. I (gently!) cut each in half and (delicately!) removed the pith and seeds. I stuffed each half with some of the cooked chorizo and pressed it into the red sauce. Like this!

I baked them at 375 for 35 minutes; the first 15 they were covered with foil so as to steam-cook the peppers. (You could also help tenderize the peppers by boiling them for 5 minutes after prepping & before stuffing.) They looked like this when finished:

Ugh, writing this post is making me hungry again.

One of the sweet ladies at Today’s Harvest encouraged me to broil the tomatillos in my big cast-iron skillet and then whip them up with a bunch of other things to make a salsa. How I did it:

• Remove the papery skins from the tomatillos and toss into the skillet.
• Remove the papery skin from a head of garlic and toss into the skillet.
• Cut two jalepenos lengthwise, seed, and toss into the skillet.
• Cook under the broiler for five minutes.
• Remove from broiler, set garlic aside (the internet tells me it can get bitter if roasted too long), stir, and return to oven.
• Cook under broiler for another five minutes. Keep an eye on it, just in case you have a super-powered oven and it blackens everything much quickly. It should look about like this:

Put the contents of the skillet along with the garlic in a food processor with a cup of cilantro, another small sweet onion, and a teaspoon or so each of cumin and salt. Pulse til the consistency looks right, or, you know, about like this:

The finished plate:

Here’s what I came home with today:

Tonight’s dinner was stir-fried kale, several cups of steamed edamame, and six or so peaches. Oh summertime, I’mma miss you when you’re gone.

Today’s Harvest is located at US 40 and Rt. 320, New Paris, OH, 45347, open 10-6 Monday-Saturday. You can call ahead at (937) 877-6030 to find out what they’re especially proud of that day.

One of my favorite quick meals that tastes like it took ages to make is bhindi masala. “Bhindi” is the Hindi word for ladyfinger AKA okra, and masala, as you probably already know, simply means warm spices. I use a superior pre-ground organic blend that I ordered through our local co-op from Frontier.

As a quick aside, I’ve found that it is much easier to find reliable indian recipes on google if one searches using Hindi rather than the english equivalents. (Check out this glossary for some ideas.) That’s how I found my favorite bhindi masala recipe, located here at Tara Shetty’s long-abandoned blogspot. Here’s a picture of tonight’s dinner:

Since I’ve already linked to the recipe, let me use my space here to counsel you all on selecting okra. Yes, I know it is almost out-of-season, so just keep this in mind for next year…unless of course you live in the glorious southern USA states, where it is available fresh in supermarkets year-round.

I grew up in the south–northwest Georgia, for those who don’t know–and I watched my parents grow okra, helped ‘em harvest it, and now plant my own. And so I learned early on, from my maternal grandmother, I think, how to pick okra. In the US and abroad, okra is also called “lady’s finger” or ladyfinger for short.

F-ed up gender & body notions aside, consider that some of the folks who first started calling it “ladyfinger” were likely the people who harvested it in the field. Most of us are so divorced from the growing processes of our food these days that we forget that it comes from farmers who have their own notions about the world and their own intimate connection with their plants. These farmers may have tagged the okra “lady’s finger” because okra tastes best when it is picked at about two inches in length, i.e, about the length of an average woman’s pinky finger. Allowed to grow much longer, the seeds get tremendous and the texture woody–only good for a heavily stewed gumbo, if that.

For best flavor, okra should be picked when it is young and tender. Both genders can judge a good piece of okra at the market by holding it up against the little finger. If it’s much longer, throw it back–it’ll be dry, woody, and the seeds, pearls. If it’s smaller, bag it and find its friends!