Week 4

Last winter I decided I would spend some time looking through my collection of old cookbooks and pull out a few retro recipes for the farm share.  I always enjoy looking at them.  In addition to the recipes it is always a bit of a history lesson.  Ones from the two world wars are particularly interesting as is the commentary about homemaking and the rise of industrial agriculture and prepared foods after the wars.  One of my favorites is Cooking by the Garden Calendar, published in 1955 and written by Ruth A. Matson.  I bought it at a junk store in Maine the summer I met Kelly.  The June chapter is called Eat 'Em Young.  I know July is just around the corner but I really enjoy how the June chapter starts so I thought I would share it with you.

"Luckily, there's a spigot at the corner of the garage nearest the salad garden, so I can indulge myself in the supreme delight of pulling a radish or a carrot or a scallion and munching it while the cool of the moist earth still suffuses it.  There is a moment when the pleasures of eating and of growing merge into one splendid ecstasy.  

I feel it in myself as I've seen it on the faces of like-minded lovers of the good earth, watching the gleam of satisfaction as some ardent gardener gazes on the straight, well-weeded rows of young growth.  He bends unhurriedly to pull a Cherry Belle, turns it to contemplate its glorious scarlet from every angle, brushes off the clinging earth-absently wiping his hand on the side of his jeans-and at last bites into the crisp root.  At this moment his face is rapt.  It has the glow of contentment with the future which will bring countless other moments."

It is a little over the top but it rings true.  The sheen of a young red radish is almost iridescent when you pull it out of the ground and while I quickly grow tired of them the first few are amazing in their beauty and a welcome change from all the spring green.   Carrots are even better.  Sometimes, we even do a little dance.  We celebrate the arrival of each vegetable.

I am including a cabbage recipe at the end from a different cookbook and will occasionally share a recipe from my collection.  The main problem is that most of them look horrible!  Cook peas for 20 minutes.  Yikes.  Having people over for dinner, while then, just dress up your mushy peas with a white sauce.  There are a lot of recipes for vegetables in white sauce.  Not necessarily bad, but not particularly exciting.

What is exciting this week?  Zucchini, I can't get enough of it lately.  We had some Zucchini fritters last week with fried eggs on a night I was too tired to cook a big meal and they were delicious.  I will put a link to the recipe below.

Carrots
Mixed Zucchini/Summer Squash
Snow Peas
Raspberries
Lettuce
Broccoli
Cucumber
Cabbage
Kale-Large Only
Snap Peas-Large Only

Red Hot Slaw - We had this last night with dinner.  I use to make a wilted slaw with a hot dressing but it never was wilted enough by just pouring the dressing on it.  Tossing the cabbage in the skillet for 30 seconds until it softened a bit worked great.  I didn't add much salt and didn't actually measure anything.  We liked the lemon juice but I think cider vinegar would be good too.  

4 slices bacon
2 tablespoons minced onion
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper
4 cups finely shredded cabbage

Cook 1 slice bacon until it curls.  Set aside.  Dice remaining bacon and cook until crisp.  Saute onion in bacon fat.  Add lemon juice, sugar, salt and pepper.  Combine with cabbage.  Heat thoroughly.  Put cabbage mixture in serving dish.  Garnish with bacon curl in center and lemon wedges around the outside.

The TIME Reader's Book of Recipes, 1949
Two hundred and thirty favorite recipes of the women who read TIME magazine



Zucchini Fritters

 I added carrots and scallions and they turned out great.  I loved that they were more vegetable than fritter and that you just cook them in a frying pan like a pancake instead of deep frying them.

Week 3

Kelly and I have a fair amount of friendly debates about what should go in the boxes each week.  There are several factors that determine if a vegetable is included in the box.  We ask ourselves several questions.  Do we have enough for everyone this week?  Will we have more of a surplus next week?  When was it in the boxes last?  How is the item usually received?  Did a lot of people trade that item the last time we gave it?  Certain crops, like peas, are only here for a short period of time so you get them every week.  Which brings us to scallions.  I don't know that they are exciting enough to go in the boxes two weeks in a row but Kelly makes a good point when he says that this is the only time of year we have them and they are easy to use.  Fine, Kelly wins that one!  Scallions for everyone and lots of other good stuff too.

Summer arrived on Saturday both on the calendar and in the arrival of a warming weather pattern.  The first day of summer marks our last seeding of cucumbers and summer squash.  This week we will transplant out our first round of fall brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale and so on).  We have  a large seeding of our second round of fall brassicas to finish seeding tomorrow and Kelly amended the front field by the stand for fall carrots last week.   Things are humming along and we are trying to keep up.  When I look around the fields it seems like we are being moderately successful at staying on schedule.  Phew.

Carrots
Head Lettuce
Peas -  most likely snaps but there will be some shell and snow peas on the trade table.
Garlic
Scallions
Cucumber
Summer Turnips
Bunched Arugula - Large Only

I love the food blog that the following recipe comes from - the food always looks so beautiful.  I love using snap peas in spring rolls and lettuce wraps.  These ones looked like a nice change of pace from how I usually make them and mint is always great with peas.

Snap Pea and Avocado Lettuce Wrap

We don't usually cook the summer turnips.  However, one of the produce buyers at the Oly food coop mentioned she likes to put them in miso soup and garnish it with some of the sliced greens.  Yummy.  I googled miso and Japanese turnips after making the soup and thought the recipe below looked good.  You don't have three pounds of turnips so you will have to adjust the recipe a bit.

Sauteed Japanese Turnips with Miso

Week 2

Did everyone eat all their veggies?  I know at least a few of you did because I saw you at the stand on Saturday.  We hope you enjoyed the produce you received last week.

Two years ago we started growing early cucumbers in a unheated greenhouse and we were hooked on the process immediately.

It is a little time consuming to trellis and prune them but we have found a very early variety that we really like as well as a longer, thin skinned Asian cucumber that does well trellised.  We use orange bailing twine, some nifty clips we found online and black ground cloth to control weeds.  This year, we ate our first cucumber in the middle of May.  For those of you who aren't familiar with growing cucumbers in the Pacific Northwest, we are happy when we are harvesting field cucumbers before July.  Perhaps we are motivated because we don't buy things like cucumbers in the store, or because it gives us a longer season to sell cucumbers but mostly we just find it fun.  We didn't include cucumbers in your box this week because there is so much good stuff more typical of this time of year coming out of the fields.  You can look forward to them next week.  

Carrots

Snap Peas

Rainbow Chard 

Head Lettuce

Bok Choy - I included a recipe below for bok choy but you can include it in many things - fried rice, chicken soup or you can chop it up and use it in salads.   

Dill - We were at Wobbly Cart Farm for a pot luck last night and our friend Teva made a yummy dish using orzo, roasted carrots and dill.  I don't often eat cooked carrots but I really enjoyed it.  I think it would be great with beets added (if you don't mind hot pink orzo) or you could just roast carrots and beets together and toss with a bit of dill right before serving - no orzo needed.  

Beets

Scallions

Broccoli

Bok Choy with Ginger and Garlic  

See you soon.  

Week 1

We often have a few really nice days in May that lull me into thinking summer is around the corner.  Then, the next thing I know the cold, rainy weather is back.  As we approach mid June I wonder if we are in the clear.   We have moved through almost all of our first planting of carrots and we are already harvesting out of our second planting of cabbage.  The broccoli actually has nice heads(never a guarantee with spring broccoli).  The peas are picking and one of the new garlics we planted last fall is ready to harvest.  The field zucchinis have cute little zucchinis on them and lots of cheery orange flowers.  We are off and running in a fantastic way.  It is one of the better spring harvests we have had.  Oh sure, I could tell you about what isn't going great but hey this is the first box of the season.  It is way too early for me to be complaining!

We think this box is a great start to your season.  I hope you enjoy it and it makes you look forward to next week.  We thank you for your support.

Carrots
Spinach - The spinach is out of our fourth and last succession of spring spinach.  It is a cold weather crop and we typically only grow it in late winter and spring.  It was my favorite vegetable as a kid and I am hoping one of these years we get a nice fall crop planted.  I just came across some bolt resistant/heat tolerant varieties in a paper published by Oregon State and am hoping to find some seed for this year.
Snap Peas - You can eat the whole pod.
Kale
Radishes - Like spinach, radishes are fast growing, hearty and only around for a little bit longer.  Unlike spinach we usually have a nice fall crop of them as well.
Green Cabbage - Yummy shredded with some radishes, carrots, snap peas and dressed with a miso-sesame dressing or sautéed with a little butter.
Strawberries - Large Only
Cilantro - Large Only

See you this afternoon.