Sweet Peppers and Fennel

Late July CSA Share
In the CSA shares this week you will find Fennel, pictured on the right. We have some tips for using fennel in a post from last year but here is another recipe to try. This is slightly adapted from the MACSAC cookbook that many of you have purchased.

Orange and Fennel Salad with Mixed Greens

1 bulb of fennel, cut in 1/2 and remove core
2-3 blood oranges or 4-6 tangerines
salt & pepper
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup dry sherry (optional)
4-5 cups mixed greens ( to divide on 4 plates)

Slice fennel as thin as possible (use a food slicer or mandolin if available).
Cut one of the oranges (two tangerines perhaps) in half and squeeze out the juice and pulp. into the bowl. Peel & section the remaining oranges. Poke the sections with a sharp fork so they will absorb the dressing.
Mix sliced fennel, juice & oranges with olive oil and sherry- season with salt & pepper.
Let stand for 10 minutes then serve over a bed of greens on individual plates.


No hot peppers in the share.... Those long green peppers may look like a hot pepper but they are not. The dark long green ones (on the left in the photo above) are "Carmens", an italian bull-horn type pepper. It is one of my favorites. They yellow one on the right is similar. We call it a cubanelle or italian sweet pepper. For some reason, most info about this pepper says it is often fried but we often just eat it raw like the other sweet peppers.
If we ever put hot peppers in your share ( and we hope to later in the season), we will put them in their own bag and label them so you will know.

Mixed spicy greens. In the shares you will often get a choice of a type of green that you can cook. Kale, Chard and mixed spicy greens are the most common in the middle of the summer. The bag of mixed greens are often a little on the spicy side. You can sautee them just like you would other cooking greens but you could also mix them with lettuce to spice up your salad.
Don't be afraid of cooking greens. Just try not to over cook. I usually start by sauteing some garlic and onion in butter or olive oil. Once they are translucent, I just toss in my greens (ususally chopped a bit and if necessary, I will seperate the stem from the rest of the leaf and cook that a little first since it is a little longer) Once the leafy stuff goes in, just cook for a little bit until the color gets bright and shiny then get it right off of that heat! drizzle a little lemon juice, vinegar or tamari over them. Serve as a side or on rice or pasta. Experiment and have fun!