Curzio's Recipes!
Dear Friends:

Do you grow zucchini, or does your neighbor? The summer squash vines quickly grow more than you can handle.

We have offered recipe suggestions in the past with sweet peppers and tomatoes (that are not in season yet).

 
Picking green or yellow "zucchine"
If you grow pumpkin or squash, you should keep in mind that these plants interpolinate very easily between members of the same subfamily. The latin family name is Cucurbita; the subfamily name may be pepo, maxima, moschata ... so yellow or green zucchini belong to the same subfamily and cannot be grown in the same field, unless you want to grow alligator-skinned fruit.

Other than the color, there is no difference in taste between green or yellow. Both will grow to huge sizes if not picked at the right time. For most dishes you will want fruit of 5" to 10" length. 12" and longer fruit will develop large seed that may bother your taste.

 
Omelette di zucchine
Starting with 6" long fruit and the same ingredients + the Swiss chard stems and sweet onions. Start by steaming the Swiss chard. Put a little water in the pan, cover and when the water starts to boil add the stems cut in 1" long pieces for 5 minutes. Then add the leaves. You can cut the leaves in smaller pieces before steaming or after.

 
Start a pan with olive oil, chopped garlic cloves and sweet onions. Add the crushed walnuts and herbes (in Italian "gli odori": basil, oregano, pepper and salt). Add the sliced zucchini and the stems of the chard, cover the pan and simmer on medium flame for 20-30 minutes.

Add the chard leaves for the last 5 minutes.
What happend to the sausage?

I skipped the sausage to make this a vegetarian recipe. We like to cook sausage in a separate skillet without addition of fat. We break the sausage that we purchase in bulk at Model Market (best sausage in Kenosha) in pieces as it cooks in the skillet. When the sausage is brown and has released some juices we transfer it into any dish we cook. In the zucchini recipe above you can add the sausage after 15 minutes (a mezza cottura, in Italian), half way through the cooking.

 
What happend to the eggs?

The texture of zucchini, nuts and Swiss chard is a delight that is enhanced by the flavor of the sweet onions and garlic. A great vegetarian dish, a colorful side dish for meats, or reheat the left-over in a no-stick pan, whip 8 eggs in a bowl and add over the warm veggies. Lower the flame and cover for 30 minutes.

No need to flip the omelette. If it is made with many eggs and is deep, it may take longer to cook.
Proper food separation? Yes, if you avoid starches in the ingredients, meat and eggs can be mixed or added to the recipes mentioned above. You can even add cheese, if you like.

 
Shopping tip:

Do you know what happens to the bones and other scrap of slaughter-houses? Chicken-feed - yes, birds can eat meat products and this is perfectly safe. The same feed was fed to cattle in Europe ... that's how the mad-cow disease has started. By the way, Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian philosopher that started biodynamic agriculture, predicted in the early 1900 that meat fed to cows would make them go mad (herbivores are supposed to eat grass. herbe = grass in French).

In any case, we no longer purchase eggs unless we know what the girls eat!!

Our friend Lynn Lein of Yuppie Hill Farm in Burlington, Wisconsin tells me that she only feeds grains (oats, wheat, soy, corn and flex seed) and every other day fresh veggies.

For quality poultry and eggs, come to the Harbor MarketPlace on Saturday or email Lynn at this address: yuppiehillfarm@hotmail.com, she has an egg-route when the market season is over.

 
A little more biodynamic gardening facts
When traditional farmers go check their crops, they first think: "How can I kill that pest!"

In biodynamic gardening we do not kill. There are ways to control and limit the damage of pest without killing these living beings.

Certainly traditional farmers will never know which variety of garlic is so mild that it attracts earth worms and slugs - we have grown many different varieties but have never observed this love for garlic. There is no damage to the cloves, just to the wrapping.
Two garlic bulbs with a small slug (left) and earth worm (right)
For more detailed info on mild and spicy garlic and the different varieties of our garlic crops, please click here.

 
We hope you enjoy reading our e-news. If you like to share it with family and friends, please remember www.curzio.com - my web site has links to many interesting pages.

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Looking forward to meet you at the Harbor MarketPlace on market day.

Your friends,

Curzio

 
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