Week 8
If you have a raised bed, a big garden or a farm at some point in the summer you look around and you think holy moly that is a lot of zucchini! We try to find a nice balance with the farm share. Yes, it is a box of seasonal produce but it should be a box of produce and not a box of zucchini! However it is summer and you should get to experience that feeling of needing to find new ways to prepare squash or making several loaves of zucchini bread for the freezer...but only if you want too. We will have all you can eat squash day. There will be big and small, yellow and green and you can help yourself to what you think you can use.
Carrots - Purple Haze is the variety.
Lettuce
Beets - I am hoping to stick with the colorful theme and give you rainbow beet bunches with red, golden and the chioggia (pink on the outside and candy cane on the inside) but if they have not sized up properly you will all get chioggia bunches. We haven't grown these in a few years. They are sweet, less earthy than a red beet and they don't bleed.
Tropea Onions - an Italian heirloom. These are great on the grill and fairly sweet raw.
Mixed Summer Squash
Purple Potatoes
Pickling Cukes - Small Share Only
Kale - Large Share Only - We seeded this on June 1st and planted it out about a month ago. Summer isn't prime kale season but this variety (White Russian) tastes mild even when it is warm out and because it is the first picking it is extra tender. It is good stuff!
Green Cabbage - Large Share Only
Cilantro - Large Share Only
We picked some corn the other day to check it out and it should be coming to a box near you with in the next week or two.
Eat Well.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013
Week 7
People think of pickles as a labor intensive, set aside a day, get out tons of equipment and make a big mess kind of thing but they don't need to be. Sure, making 24 jars of pickles is going to be an undertaking but you don't need to make 24 jars of pickles. There are three recipes below that don't require canning or even canning jars. This week the large shares will receive a couple pounds of pickling cukes and next week the small shares will receive some. Below are recipes for refrigerator bread and butters, refrigerator dills and one for a Thai pickle. None of these take much more time than making a salad and some dressing. Pickling cucumbers are great to just eat out of hand too.
Carrots
Green Beans
Bunched Pearl Onions - The catalog described these as pearl onions but they actually matured a bit bigger and some almost look more like cippolinis.
Basil
Broccoli
Salad Mix - lettuce and calendula petals
Cucumber
Pickling Cucumbers - 2 pounds - large shares this week and small shares next week
Pickles
Thai Pickle - good served with grilled chicken or fish and rice or a nice contrast to a rich Thai curry.
In a small saucepan mix
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoons salt
fresh thinly sliced hot pepper (optional)
Bring mixture to a boil, remove from heat and stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Pour mixture over
thinly sliced cucumbers
2-3 thinly sliced pearl onions.
Cool and let sit for an hour before eating. Unlike the recipes below that keep well we like to eat this pickle within a couple days of making it. We eat large portions - more of a salad serving than a garnish.
Bread and Butter Pickles
In a small sauce pan mix
1 1/2 cups white or cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
Bring mixture to a boil, remove from heat and stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Pour mixture over
sliced cucumbers
thinly sliced onion
Stir to mix and let sit until cool. The cucumbers should release additional liquid as they sit creating more brine.
Put in jars or any non reactive container and store for a few days before eating. These will keep for about a month.
Quick Dill Pickles
This recipe is from Martha Stewart. It has the extra step of letting the cukes sit with salt for an hour but it still very straight forward. Instead of bunched dill we will have dill heads available at the stand if you want to make dill pickles.
Martha's Quick Dills
People think of pickles as a labor intensive, set aside a day, get out tons of equipment and make a big mess kind of thing but they don't need to be. Sure, making 24 jars of pickles is going to be an undertaking but you don't need to make 24 jars of pickles. There are three recipes below that don't require canning or even canning jars. This week the large shares will receive a couple pounds of pickling cukes and next week the small shares will receive some. Below are recipes for refrigerator bread and butters, refrigerator dills and one for a Thai pickle. None of these take much more time than making a salad and some dressing. Pickling cucumbers are great to just eat out of hand too.
Carrots
Green Beans
Bunched Pearl Onions - The catalog described these as pearl onions but they actually matured a bit bigger and some almost look more like cippolinis.
Basil
Broccoli
Salad Mix - lettuce and calendula petals
Cucumber
Pickling Cucumbers - 2 pounds - large shares this week and small shares next week
Pickles
Thai Pickle - good served with grilled chicken or fish and rice or a nice contrast to a rich Thai curry.
In a small saucepan mix
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoons salt
fresh thinly sliced hot pepper (optional)
Bring mixture to a boil, remove from heat and stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Pour mixture over
thinly sliced cucumbers
2-3 thinly sliced pearl onions.
Cool and let sit for an hour before eating. Unlike the recipes below that keep well we like to eat this pickle within a couple days of making it. We eat large portions - more of a salad serving than a garnish.
Bread and Butter Pickles
In a small sauce pan mix
1 1/2 cups white or cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
Bring mixture to a boil, remove from heat and stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Pour mixture over
sliced cucumbers
thinly sliced onion
Stir to mix and let sit until cool. The cucumbers should release additional liquid as they sit creating more brine.
Put in jars or any non reactive container and store for a few days before eating. These will keep for about a month.
Quick Dill Pickles
This recipe is from Martha Stewart. It has the extra step of letting the cukes sit with salt for an hour but it still very straight forward. Instead of bunched dill we will have dill heads available at the stand if you want to make dill pickles.
Martha's Quick Dills
Monday, July 15, 2013
Week 6
I saw my friend Melissa at Newaukum Valley Farm posted a picture of their first ripe slicing tomato and I also noticed that Puddleton Farm is selling tomatoes to the Co-op. Dang, I am jealous. I spent way too much time yesterday looking for a tomato at our place. We have a few handfuls of ripe cherries and few big tomatoes that are blushing. The good news is we have tomato ripening weather forecasted for the week. Hopefully there is a tomato sandwich in all our futures soon.
I am including a recipe for swiss chard fritters from the cookbook Jerusalum. I don't often make it to the library in the summer but since I had been on the waiting list for the book for a couple months I made an exception. It is a beautiful cookbook and I loved the stuff I made out it. We had the fritters with some home made falafel and grilled zucchini a couple weeks ago. I told Kelly that I had finally found a way to love swiss chard and he told me not to fool myself. He responded that what I really like is feta cheese. Perhaps, but I do think I made a discovery. The recipe has you boil the chard and while I don't normally boil vegetables it made the chard a lot milder and more spinach like which I preferred.
One thing you will notice you don't have in your box is garlic and unfortunately you will be noticing that all season. We lost our entire crop to a grey mold. Usually when we have a crop failure it isn't that noticeable because it may not affect all varieties or we have another planting that makes up for it. We only plant garlic once and we are always paranoid about disease. This year our paranoia was actually warranted. In addition to not having garlic and loosing money to labor it also means that we need to buy garlic seed this year. We try our hardest to insure success in the garden but if there is one thing I have learned is that there will always be good and bad in the garden no matter how hard we try. There are just too many factors we can't control. The first summer I farmed with Kelly I went home twice because I was so distraught that things weren't perfect. I have learned to live with a little imperfection and while both Kelly and I were very upset about the garlic we realized that all we can do is try to learn from it and focus on the rest of the garden and the rest of the garden looks good! We both apologize that your boxes will be garlic free this season.
However you choose to cook your vegetables I hope you have many delicious meals this week.
Lettuce - We are back to regular head lettuce this week. I am curious to know if you enjoyed the mini heads you had last week.
Carrots
Zucchini/Summer Squash Mix
Mixed Herb Bunch
Swiss Chard
Potatoes
Raspberries
Napa Cabbage - Small Only
Green Beans - Large Only - the first picking
Scallions - Large Only
Swiss Chard Fritters adapted from the cookbook Jerusalum
I considered not blending all the ingredients and adding a few chopped stems for texture but in the end I decided to just trust the authors. The one thing I did omit was grated nutmeg. Kelly and I both liked the herby green flavor these had.
Heat grill.
Slice the squash long ways into 1/4 inch slices.
Brush with oil and season with salt and pepper.
Grill until each piece has nice grill marks and is tender when pierced with a fork.
Remove from grill and cut into smaller pieces.
Toss with vinaigrette made from 2 parts olive oil, 1 part lemon juice and just a touch of dijon mustard. Garnish with some freshly chopped parsley, mint, dill or cilantro or a mix of herbs. A little feta cheese won't hurt this recipe either! Serve warm or at room temperature.
I saw my friend Melissa at Newaukum Valley Farm posted a picture of their first ripe slicing tomato and I also noticed that Puddleton Farm is selling tomatoes to the Co-op. Dang, I am jealous. I spent way too much time yesterday looking for a tomato at our place. We have a few handfuls of ripe cherries and few big tomatoes that are blushing. The good news is we have tomato ripening weather forecasted for the week. Hopefully there is a tomato sandwich in all our futures soon.
I am including a recipe for swiss chard fritters from the cookbook Jerusalum. I don't often make it to the library in the summer but since I had been on the waiting list for the book for a couple months I made an exception. It is a beautiful cookbook and I loved the stuff I made out it. We had the fritters with some home made falafel and grilled zucchini a couple weeks ago. I told Kelly that I had finally found a way to love swiss chard and he told me not to fool myself. He responded that what I really like is feta cheese. Perhaps, but I do think I made a discovery. The recipe has you boil the chard and while I don't normally boil vegetables it made the chard a lot milder and more spinach like which I preferred.
One thing you will notice you don't have in your box is garlic and unfortunately you will be noticing that all season. We lost our entire crop to a grey mold. Usually when we have a crop failure it isn't that noticeable because it may not affect all varieties or we have another planting that makes up for it. We only plant garlic once and we are always paranoid about disease. This year our paranoia was actually warranted. In addition to not having garlic and loosing money to labor it also means that we need to buy garlic seed this year. We try our hardest to insure success in the garden but if there is one thing I have learned is that there will always be good and bad in the garden no matter how hard we try. There are just too many factors we can't control. The first summer I farmed with Kelly I went home twice because I was so distraught that things weren't perfect. I have learned to live with a little imperfection and while both Kelly and I were very upset about the garlic we realized that all we can do is try to learn from it and focus on the rest of the garden and the rest of the garden looks good! We both apologize that your boxes will be garlic free this season.
However you choose to cook your vegetables I hope you have many delicious meals this week.
Lettuce - We are back to regular head lettuce this week. I am curious to know if you enjoyed the mini heads you had last week.
Carrots
Zucchini/Summer Squash Mix
Mixed Herb Bunch
Swiss Chard
Potatoes
Raspberries
Napa Cabbage - Small Only
Green Beans - Large Only - the first picking
Scallions - Large Only
Swiss Chard Fritters adapted from the cookbook Jerusalum
I considered not blending all the ingredients and adding a few chopped stems for texture but in the end I decided to just trust the authors. The one thing I did omit was grated nutmeg. Kelly and I both liked the herby green flavor these had.
1 bunch swiss chard leaves, stalks removed
Flat leaf parsley
Cilantro
Dill
1/2 tsp sugar
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 eggs
3oz feta, crumbled
olive oil
Lemon wedges, for serving
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, add chard and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain, let cool and then squeeze excess liquid from the chard.
Place chard and all other ingredients except the feta, olive oil and lemon in a food processor or immersion blender cup and blend. Fold the feta into the mixture.
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Spoon a heaped tablespoon of the batter for each fritter. Press down gently on the fritter to flatten it. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes per side, until golden brown. Remove & keep warm while you fry the rest of the fritters in batches.
Serve warm, with lemon wedges.
Don't feel like making fritters. Any of your herbs would be good in the below salad.
Warm Grilled Zucchini/Summer Squash Salad
Heat grill.
Slice the squash long ways into 1/4 inch slices.
Brush with oil and season with salt and pepper.
Grill until each piece has nice grill marks and is tender when pierced with a fork.
Remove from grill and cut into smaller pieces.
Toss with vinaigrette made from 2 parts olive oil, 1 part lemon juice and just a touch of dijon mustard. Garnish with some freshly chopped parsley, mint, dill or cilantro or a mix of herbs. A little feta cheese won't hurt this recipe either! Serve warm or at room temperature.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Week 5
We pulled our first baby onions out of the field this morning. Another week or two and we will have some beautiful pearl onions. The peppers look fantastic and we should begin harvesting those soon as well. Kelly did an awesome job of keeping up while I was gone. I don't think he slept much but the farm looks great. Of course there are a couple things that should have been done earlier but our list always has things on it that should have been done already!
I liked sending out the produce list early last week and will try to do that more often in the future so you can plan your meals for the week a little easier.
Lettuce - a mix of small leaf head lettuces
Carrots
Beets - bunched with greens
Cucumber
Snap Peas
Summer Turnip
Scallions
Raspberry
Napa Cabbage - Large shares this week and small shares next week.
Fava Beans - Large Only
Korean Scallion Pancakes
A woman Kelly worked with in Maine use to make these for every farm get together. They are simple and really delicious.
1 bunch Scallions, sliced. Most people just use the green part but I slice the white part really thin and leave the greens in larger pieces.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1teaspoon salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 to 3/4 cup ice cold water
1 tsp soy sauce
Gently mix everything together. The ice cold water will give you a crisp pancake. If your batter seems thick add more water.
Cook over medium high heat in a well oiled skillet. Your pancake should be crisp on the outside and a little chewy on the inside. You can make a large pancake and slice it in wedges to serve or make several smaller pancakes. There are tons of variations of this recipe - some without egg, some with rice flour.
Dipping Sauce
Mix two parts tamari or soy sauce and one part rice or red wine vinegar. Add a small amount of sesame oil if you are in the mood.
We pulled our first baby onions out of the field this morning. Another week or two and we will have some beautiful pearl onions. The peppers look fantastic and we should begin harvesting those soon as well. Kelly did an awesome job of keeping up while I was gone. I don't think he slept much but the farm looks great. Of course there are a couple things that should have been done earlier but our list always has things on it that should have been done already!
I liked sending out the produce list early last week and will try to do that more often in the future so you can plan your meals for the week a little easier.
Lettuce - a mix of small leaf head lettuces
Carrots
Beets - bunched with greens
Cucumber
Snap Peas
Summer Turnip
Scallions
Raspberry
Napa Cabbage - Large shares this week and small shares next week.
Fava Beans - Large Only
Korean Scallion Pancakes
A woman Kelly worked with in Maine use to make these for every farm get together. They are simple and really delicious.
1 bunch Scallions, sliced. Most people just use the green part but I slice the white part really thin and leave the greens in larger pieces.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1teaspoon salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 to 3/4 cup ice cold water
1 tsp soy sauce
Gently mix everything together. The ice cold water will give you a crisp pancake. If your batter seems thick add more water.
Cook over medium high heat in a well oiled skillet. Your pancake should be crisp on the outside and a little chewy on the inside. You can make a large pancake and slice it in wedges to serve or make several smaller pancakes. There are tons of variations of this recipe - some without egg, some with rice flour.
Dipping Sauce
Mix two parts tamari or soy sauce and one part rice or red wine vinegar. Add a small amount of sesame oil if you are in the mood.
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