Aloha everyone!  This week we have wonderful salad items in the bag:  Maunawili Greens lettuce, Hauula tomatoes, Nalo Farms arugula, Pit Farms basil, green onions, cucumber, and bananas, and Ho Farms eggplant!

a few recipe ideas:

Easy Arugula Salad

Arugula, Roasted Eggplant, and Ricotta Salata Salad

Eggplant and Arugula Sandwiches with Chick Pea Spread

Thai Charred Eggplant with Tofu

Thai Fried Eggplant with Basil

From the Hawaii Farmers Market Cookbook Vol. 2-

Curry Spiced Eggplant and Green Onion

1 lb long (Japanese) eggplant

4 slices bacon, cut in 1 inch pieces

1 tablespoon curry powder

1/2 cup green onion bottoms, split lengthwise and cut in 2 inch pieces

1 cup green onion tops cut in 2 inch pieces

2 tablespoons Kikkoman soy sauce

2 tablespoons honey

oil for deep frying

Remove the stem caps of the eggplant and cut into 1/2 inch rounds.  Heat 2-3 inches of oil in a saucepan for deep frying.  When the oil is at 350 degrees F, cook eggplant for 20 seconds.  Remove from oil and drain in a colander.

In a skillet over medium-high heat, cook bacon until crisp.  Remove from pan and drain on a paper towel.  Discard all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon drippings.  Add curry powder and green onion bottoms and saute until wilted.  Add green onion tops, soy sauce and honey and cook until green onions are bright green and wilted.  Add eggplant and bacon and toss together until heated through.  Transfer to a platter and serve.

Serves 4.

Enjoy!!

Hi everyone!  This week’s bag has great produce in it.  We’ve got one more week of delicious organic starfruit from Poamoho Organic Produce, Ho Farms tomatoes, Maunawili Greens lettuce, kale from Nalo Farms, and tatsoi, kabocha, and Maui onions from Pit Farms.

I think a great bag like this needs few extra recipes, because I can see a great stir fry with this produce.  Start by cutting your kabocha in half then into smaller half moon shapes (after removing the seeds).  You can cut the rind away or leave it on, just make sure to cut the pieces into consistent sizes that are small enough to cook pretty quickly.  Put the pieces in a bowl and toss them with olive oil, pepper, salt, and whatever other spices you like.  Meanwhile start a large skillet warming with olive or sesame oil.  Toss the kabocha into the skillet, and cook it for long enough to start to get soft.  While the kabocha is cooking finely chop or slice some garlic and some of your Maui onions.  Toss them into the skillet and let them cook along with the kabocha.  While they are cooking wash and dry some tatsoi.  When the kabocha stir fry is almost done, toss the tatsoi in on top to steam slightly. You could also add the kale, probably when you add the onions as it will need to cook a little longer than the tatsoi.  You may want to add a little butter  and/ or additional spices (cumin or 5 spice?).  This could be served with salad and rice, couscous, or quinoa, and steak, salmon, or something like a mango sausage.

Some other ideas for the produce:

Lomi Lomi Salmon

Fall Garden Soup

Simmered Kabocha

Roasted Kabocha with Bok Choy Lentil Soup Just looking at this one makes my mouth water!

Chickpea, Kale, and Tomato Salad

We have posted several other kale, tatsoi, and kabocha recipes, just use the search box on the recipes page to find them!

Bon Apetit!

This week’s bag will include: Maunawili Greens lettuce, Ho Farms long beans, Hauula tomatoes, Poamoho Organic Produce starfruit and papaya, Nalo Farms mixed herbs and Pit Farms corn!

Starfruit is a local favorite, and is best eaten sliced. It’s unusual shape makes a beautiful addition to fruit salads and as a garnish. It’s also great in smoothies especially if you let it get a little overripe! If you have an hour or so and want to try something different with your starfruit here’s a recipe for starfruit chips.  It looks like fruit candy!

We’ve been eating a lot of corn it seems like and we had some the other day that we grilled.  I think that’s the best way to eat corn-especially at the beach or camping-so we are including a few novel grilled corn ideas for you here!

Coconut Grilled Corn

Grilled Corn with Cayenne, Lime, & Cotija Cotija is a Mexican cheese from Michoacan, and is very salty.  You can substitute feta or parmesan for similar flavor.

Mexican Grilled Corn

New Potatoes with Mixed Herbs This recipe can use any mix of herbs, and don’t feel limited to steaming or boiling the potatoes.  You can also try roasting or grilling them (whole or cut, tossed with a little olive oil) or pan fry them, cut into chunks or slices.

Crostini Mixed Herbs Great pupu idea!

Aloha Oahu Fresh clients!  We are very excited to have a delicious and unique bag for you this week.  We will be including a new item from Hana Herbs and Flowers on Maui, Hawaiian Fern shoots (pohole).  We’ll also have organic starfruit from Poamoho Organic Produce, hydroponic lettuce from Maunawili Greens, Ho Farms tomatoes, & cantaloupe, and sweet potatoes from Pit Farms.

Pohole, or Hawaiian Fern Shoots, are typically eaten with `alaea salt, ‘ala’akai (Maui onion `aka`akai lau leaf) dried aku, dried  he` (octopus) and nioi (Chili pepper).

Ho’io (Hawaii’s edible fern): this recipe comes from a blog by a local girl living in Italy

Sauteed Fresh Shrimp with Fern Shoot and Vine Ripened Tomato Salad This one comes from the Hawaii Farmers’ Market site: scroll most of the way down the page, it’s close to the bottom.

Watercress Pesto Also from the HFBF page, this one is the very last one!

Spicy Chickpeas and Watercress

Pohole Salad with Taro

Grilled Sweet Potato Salad

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Black Beans and Chili Dressing

Spinach and Sweet Potato Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing

Nana’s Wilted Lettuce Salad

The story of Hana Herbs and Flowers: this comes from Eileen Comeaux via email, and we thought you might like to know how they got started.

My husband and I saw a sign: “Land for Sale.” Land in this area of East Maui, Hawaii was very high even in 1982, but this land was one mile off the main road.    I went in to talk to the realtor.    She said, “My Son will take you up this weekend.”    Well, it was one of those very rainy weekends and we  didn’t  get up to see it.    But  I did say I would see her on Monday.    I was just going to pop my head in to say  we’d  do it the next weekend.    She said, “I am sorry but I have a man outside who said he would like it.  But  I told him we had this appointment.    If you are not going to take it he will.” I knew the price was good, so I said a little prayer and told her I wanted it.    â€œWhere do I sign?”    I signed our life away and went home to tell my husband what I had done.    I just brought land  we’d  never seen.

The road was awful and it was a very thick jungle.    It was barely a road, more like a hunting trail.    Hunters with dogs came to hunt pigs and gather mountain foods for their families.    This road was a “line road,” Meaning the government came in and drew a line where the road could be.    Well, the hunters  didn’t  follow that pencil line.  When I asked the county to help repair the road I  was told  that they did not physically put the road there, so they were no responsible for it.    State said the county owned it.    County said the state was responsible.

Lucky for me, my husband could see great potential in the land.    We fixed the road with our own four-wheel drive military weapons carrier and with the help of other people that had bought into this mountain.

In the beginning, we had no amenities just a hole for an outhouse.    We cleared a 20 X 24 site for a small house.  My husband, who had only built chicken coops, was nervous, but I said, “Honey, think of it as a slightly bigger chicken coop with windows.”

We’re  on a water catchments system.    We started out with a very small water tank, catching water from the heavens.    Since that  time  we have put up 5,000 and 10,000 gallon water tanks, and this year we put up a big 23,000-gallon tank.    Since there was no electricity, we used solar lights and a gas refrigerator.    Showering was an adventure.    We built a fire under an old hot water tank, and then hooked up some pipes and a showerhead.    Butbecause it was outside it proved to be a little tricky when the wind blew.    The water would slant left or right, so we spent a lot of time trying to catch the hot water before it ran out.

Wanting to be a “stay–at-home Mom,” I started a fresh herbs business.      This was 24 years ago when fresh herbs were just starting to catch on with the  general public.    We sent 100 pounds of Basil to Oakland, CA, once a week.  My husband Rene` worked full time at a nursery close to home and on weekends we harvested basil.    He began to grow tropical flowers, too, and we shipped gift boxes of flowers via FedEx.    The basil business was good until free trade with Mexico made prices drop below the cost of shipping, all this in the middle of the growing season.

We were up late one night, having a few drinks, eating  Pohole  (Maui Fern Shoots) and crying the blues, when Rene` said, “Why don’t we sell this  Pohole?” at first, we laughed because it grows wild all over this mountain.    We tossed it around for about a week then said, “What the heck, let’s give it a try.”

That was in 1994, and in the years since then we gotten many hotels and restaurants, to name a few  Longhi  in  Hana Maui, Pineapple Grill,  Seahouse,  Makenna  resort, Feast a  LeLe, in most Natural Food stores, Hawaiian moon,Mana  Food, Alive and Well and  WholeFoods.    Along the  way  we discovered we needed approvals from the Agriculture Department and the FDA.    In 1996, we received our Export stamp both  Pohole  and Flowers.      That year we also, lunched our website,  www.hanaherbs.com.    Two years later, we got into Food & Wine Magazine and on two PBS programs, one with Graham Kerr and other with Roy Yamaguchi.

For those who  don’t  know  Pohole, it is in the family of the fiddlehead fern but prepared very differently.    You do not need to cook  Pohole; it is best eaten raw or by blanching shoots in boiling water for a fast minute and then quickly immersing them in very cold water.    It’s  best served with tomato and onions in a vinegary salad dressing.

In  2002  we were certified organic by the Hawaii Organic Farmers Association.

Congratulations to Hana Herbs and Flowers!  We are happy to support them and hope you enjoy this unique produce.