Saratoga Farmers' Market

garlic

Garlic Tomato Short Ribs

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Recipe courtesy of Lewis Waite Farm
Serves 6 to 8
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons sea salt
1 Tablespoon fresh ground pepper
6 – 7 short ribs
3 Tablespoons olive oil
5 carrots
2 onions
16 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons savory
1 teaspoon fennel
1 teaspoon dried lavender heads (optional)
3 Tablespoon all purpose flour
3 cups dry red wine
3 cups beef broth
1-28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 bay leaves
¾ cup of pitted black olives

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees
Spread salt and pepper over ribs and set aside.
Heat oil in 8 quart oven proof pot that can be covered later, brown seasoned ribs and set aside.
Cook 2 finely chopped carrots and onions, cook until tender. Toss in garlic herbs and flour. Stir well. Add wine and broth. Bring to boil. Add tomatoes and bay leaves and return to boil for a minute.
Add ribs, cover pot and bake for 3 to 4 hours or until fork tender.
Remove from oven and set aside Add 3 carrots, sliced into 2 inch strips, and olives to sauce and simmer on stove, uncovered for 15 minutes or until carrots are tender.
Return ribs to sauce and serve.

Garlic and the Love of Farming

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

 

Jim and Himanee Gupta-Carlson, owners of Squashville Farm, photo courtesy of Pattie Garrett

My husband Jim and I love garlic. Not just the sight, smell, and taste of the bulbs, which are at their peak season now at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market, but everything about the planting, tending, and harvesting of it.

We began growing garlic seven years ago, well before our backyard land became Squashville Farm. We started with cloves we got from the Row to Hoe Farm. The following year, we purchased garlic in bulk and began saving seed. By 2015, we were harvesting about 600 bulbs a year.

During those years, we also helped form the Friends of the Saratoga Market volunteer organization. In that capacity, we got to know local farmers, learned more about growing food, grew an increasing variety of vegetables, and began raising laying hens, meat chickens, and goats.

This spring, we became vendors at Saratoga’s Wednesday market. At our stall, just past the central pavilion on the north end, you will find lettuce, kale, chard, and other greens; a range of seasonal vegetables; eggs, chicken, and several cuts of goat meat. And, of course, garlic. This is the food we grow to eat and enjoy offering to others.

Garlic comes in numerous varieties, and we like to sample a lot of them. We do this by traveling to the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, where we meet growers and taste their wares. We decide what to plant based on what our taste buds like.

This year, we chose three varieties, one from each of the “hard neck” families. Our Red Chesnok is a purple stripe, great for baking and eating roasted; our Georgian Heat is a porcelain, great for general cooking and longer-term storage; and our Ukrainian Red is a rocambole, known for having a lot of cloves in varying sizes and a true garlic taste.

We planted cloves in November. They sprouted in the spring. The sprouts turned into stalks that produced scapes in June, which we cut off and sold. The stalks then turned brown, telling us it was time to harvest.   

As my husband notes, garlic is magical. It’s a year-round anticipation, planning, and celebration of farm-grown food.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is 3-6 p.m. Wednesdays and 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays at High Rock Park. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and check out the FreshFoodNY app. E-mail friends@saratogafarmers.org for volunteer opportunities.

 

Sugar Snap Peas with Garlic and Mint

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Adapted from the recipe in Fine Cooking, shared by My Saratoga Kitchen Table

Serves: 4

 

Ingredients

*Ingredients currently available at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market

  • 2 garlic cloves*, minced
  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil*, plus 2 teaspoons olive oil*
  • ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1 pound sugar snapped peas*, trimmed
  • ¼ cup chopped fresh mint*
  • Fresh lemon juice
  • Sea salt flakes

 

Instructions

  1. In a small bowl, combine the garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes. Heat the 2 teaspoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the snap peas and cook without moving until blackened in spots, 2 to 3 minutes. Take the skillet off the heat, add the garlic mixture and stir until fragrant, 15 to 30 seconds. Transfer to a serving bowl, toss with the mint and season to taste with lemon juice and salt.

Creamy Roasted Garlic Potato Soup

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Adapted from recipe by Jessica Merchant of How Sweet Eats
yield: SERVED ABOUT 4
total time: 1 HOUR

INGREDIENTS:
*Ingredients currently available to the Saratoga Farmers’ Market

1 tablespoon olive oil*

1 tablespoon unsalted butter*

1 yellow onion, diced*

3 pounds potatoes, peeled and chopped*

4 to 5 cups chicken or vegetable stock

2 bulbs roasted garlic*

1/3 cup cream*

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Roasted Garlic: Preheat oven to 375. Chop off the top portion of the garlic head to reveal cloves. Lightly rub back and forth to remove paper and peel any excess paper off. Pour about a teaspoon of olive oil on top the garlic cloves and let soak for 10 minutes.

Cover with foil and roast in a baking dish for 45 minutes, or until golden brown. To eat or add to the recipe: let cool, then squeeze from the bottom of the garlic head to remove caramelized cloves.

Garlic Potato Soup: Heat a large stockpot over medium heat and add olive oil and butter. Once melted, stir in the onion with a pinch of salt and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and enough stock to cover the potatoes – starting with 4 cups and using more if needed. Bring the mixture to a simmer. Cover and cook until the potatoes are tender and falling apart about 20 to 30 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Carefully add the mixture to a blender. Squeeze out the roasted garlic cloves and add them to the blender too. Puree the soup until totally creamy and smooth. Pour the mixture back into the pot and heat over low heat. Add the cream, salt, and pepper. Taste and season additionally with salt and pepper if needed.

Cultivate Your Sensual Side with Garlic

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

 

Now that the stars of summer – tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants – are starting to exit the Saratoga Farmers’ Market stalls, it’s time to turn attention to one of our area’s more sensually spicy offerings: garlic.

Garlic harvest at Pleasant Valley Farm, photo courtesy of Pattie Garrett

Garlic is typically planted in mid-October after some frosts but before the ground has frozen. It appears in mid-spring as an early green garlic, in early summer as scapes, and in July as bulbs encased in papery outer skins. Underneath those layers are cloves that mellow as the months pass into a warm, rich seasoning for soups, casseroles, roasts, and veggie sides.

Garlic is available in late winter. It is also among the area’s easier crops to grow. If you’d like to try your hand at doing so, now is the time to start.

As you visit the Saratoga Farmers’ Market through October, buy some bulbs to eat and additional ones to plant.

At home, gently break your bulbs apart, separating the cloves. Choose the biggest cloves to plant and eat the rest. Create a space in your garden, where you can plant your cloves two to three inches deep, about eight to 12 inches apart. Place the cloves in the ground, bottom ends down, and cover them with soil. Then, cover these cloves with a thick layer of straw, hay, or even leaves to overwinter.

As the snow melts in late March or April, you should start to see green tips poking through the mulch. Pull the mulch off, and watch your garlic grow. Through April, May, and June, stalks will form and start to thicken. These stalks and the immature bulb beneath the soil are edible as green garlic, a taste of what’s to come.

Around mid-June, the winding, curvy tendrils known as scapes will start to appear on the plants. Cutting them off helps the bulbs grow. By July, the stalks will wither and turn brown. That’s the sign that your garlic is ready for harvesting. Use a garden spade or spoon to gently dig deep around the stalks to get to your bulbs.

Farmers typically cure freshly harvested garlic in dry, airy spaces.

After your harvest, go through your bulbs and save some cloves to plant for the next year.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is Wednesdays 3-6 p.m. and Saturdays 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at High Rock Park through October. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Saratoga Farmers' Market