Week 7

full share

 

medium share

 

 small share

Hello friends and members!

Welcome to week 7! For starters, EVERYONE SHOULD BE MAKING PESTO THIS WEEK! You have no good excuse not to! And don’t tell me you won’t because you don’t have any pine nuts! Any nut will do (our favorite around here is almonds)–or even no nuts at all! See the recipe section for more.

This weeks share is a little on the skinny side. We had planned on having corn in the boxes–but it’s not ready. We had scheduled and seeded snap beans for this week but they are just flowering now. Ugh. The broccoli that was supposed to be ready is not liking this heat and it’s barely producing. So, we apologize and promise that when those things start rolling in everyone will get their fair share. We know that most of you understand the CSA model and you know that we work our buns off bringing fresh, organically grown produce to your homes, but it still hurts to have to send a less than perfect box!

We’ve got something really fun to share with you: Our “Meet the Crew” section of the newsletter. This week we’re introducing our three on-farm crew members: Ted, Hannah, and Nicole. We thought you’d like to get to know the young folks that labor every day to make this farm successful, so without further ado:

 

Ted

 

Hannah

 

Nicole

 

What’s in the box:

• Zucchini-all shares
• Garlic-all shares
• Basil-all shares
• Onions-all shares
• Head lettuce or kale-all shares
• Beets-medium and full shares
• Cabbage or Broccoli-medium and full shares
• Fennel-full shares
• Carrots-full shares

Recipes:

Caraflex Cabbage– Heather’s favorite type, these little pointy gems can be used like any other cabbage. A little smaller on average than a round cabbage is, these 2-3 pound heads produce a lot of edible leaves. Some nice recipes for using this cabbage are this lovely looking apple almond slaw I found on pinterest, and this Nom Nom Paleo recipe for braised green cabbage. Yum!

Garlic and Basil-We went ahead and harvested garlic for the week (We are just about to start our normal garlic harvest, more in future newsletters) so we could pair it with basil so everyone can make pesto! Everyone should be making pesto this week! Not just a pasta sauce, pesto can be used to sauce a piece of grilled chicken or fish, it can be stirred into white bean dip or hummus to make them more special, or it can be frozen and stored away for later use. We have some pesto that we pulled out of the freezer from last summer and it’s still great! Here’s a cool article on how useful pesto is in the summertime cooking arsenal. Pesto mayonnaise?! YES, PLEASE!

You’ll notice the garlic might be different than you’re used to. This garlic is fresh out of the ground and has not had a chance to dry and cure for several weeks like garlic usually does before it hits store shelves. Because of that you’ll notice how the outer wrapper is not dry, but instead soft and almost like a thick flower petal. The cloves will also have a higher water content than cured garlic. Use it just like you would normal garlic, the flavor is still pretty much the same. Store it loose in the cupboard or counter like you would with cured garlic. If left for a few weeks it would start drying and resemble store garlic bought–but no need to wait.

Beets-Many of you will be getting beets again this week. Need more ideas? I came across this fab looking pink pasta on the Kitchn (maybe my favorite food blog?) this weekend, and I’ve got to share it! If you want to skip the vegan part of it, add a few splashes of heavy cream for a super and totally pink sauce. I also really like the Kitchn’s Beet and Tahini Dip. A friend of ours made a similar one from the Ottolenghi cookbook and we were STUNNED by how good it was! We had it with crackers and bread as an appetizer before dinner, and I promised it would become a go-to recipe for my dinner parties. Don’t forget you can eat the greens like swiss chard, too!

Happy cooking!

 

Sneak peek for next week:

• Onions
• Zucchini
• Broccoli
• Sweet Corn ???!!!???
• Snap Beans

All the best from all of us,

Heather, Brandon, Maybelle, Ted, Hannah, Nicole and Michele