Week 3

I've noticed in the past few years that food magazines have become much better at focusing on recipes that use vegetables that are in season.  As someone who grows food I really appreciate that.  I looked through a few pages of the new Food & Wine and there were recipes for both kale and snap peas that caught my eye.  A customer asked what I like to do with snap peas on Saturday and I had nothing to say.  I said " I don't know, I usually just eat them raw".  Sure I throw them in salads and spring rolls and maybe chop a few up for a curry or stir fry but I don't have a go to snap pea dish.  In general, the idea of cooking them doesn't really appeal to me.  They just seem so good as they are.  The truth is I hardly even ever take any home - they mostly just serve as farm snacks.  That isn't to say I don't eat my fair share.  I eat a lot them.  There are often a few peas in my pocket!   I am attaching links to the recipes that caught my eye in the magazine.  The kale one is a grilled pesto.  Kale pesto is a winter staple in our house but I imagine blanching the kale and then grilling it (which sounds kind hard) gives it a completely different flavor.  It includes a pasta recipe that I will not be making anytime soon but the way time flies, winter and hours spent cooking are just around the corner.  The other is a snap pea salad that will involve a little adaptation of the recipe as we are done with green garlic.  However, the garlic that is in your boxes today isn't cured down and while it doesn't have the same flavor of green garlic it still has a nice fresh taste and would be a fine substitute.  If you still have your garlic scapes you could do a mix of the two.  I like that it uses dill and mint and raw snap peas.

Last week you had garlic scapes off of our last garlic to send out a scape and the last to mature, Chesnook.  This week you have recently harvested garlic(some last Friday, some Monday) off the the variety that was the first to scape for us, Bangkok Red.  It is one of the prettiest garlics we grow.  There is still a lot of moisture in the head so don't store it in a plastic bag/container.  It will do best just sitting on your counter.

You may have or may not have noticed that this is your second week without head lettuce.  That is pretty unusual.  Lettuce usually falls into an almost every week category when we plan what goes in your box.  The hot weather we had a couple weeks ago caused two lettuce plantings to bolt.  Lettuce doesn't like heat but usually we only see mature lettuce bolt.  I don't know if the plants were a little stressed to begin with but I was surprised to see not just the oldest planting bolt but also a newer planting.   All in all though things look good the fields and we should be back into head lettuce next week.

Carrots
Cilantro
Cabbage
Snap Peas
Kale
Garlic
Salad Mix- Large Only

Grilled Kale Pesto
Snap Pea Salad

Next week we will fully embrace summer with zukes and cukes!