****Please NOTE****
The 4th of July falls on a Tuesday this year! 4th
of JULY IS NEXT WEEK!?!?!?
We WILL NOT be
having pickup on Tuesday the 4th!
All members who
pickup on Tuesday will pick up on Monday July 3rd
5-7:30 at the Mason’s
We have a couple of
vegetable goals we like to meet for the Fourth of July: first
zucchini, first red tomato, golf ball sized potatoes, first cucumber.
All the vegetables (well they are technically fruit) that flower
and then set fruit; cucumbers, winter squash, summer squash,
tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers, produce slowly at first and then
ramp up production until they peak and then they slow down again.
We LOVE including
summer goodies in our CSA shares and you better believe as soon as we
have 100 peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, or tomatoes in a week we will
be putting them in your box; we can’t really split 20 zucchinis
between 100 families..but have no fear...zucchini is coming to your
box soon!
I don’t usually
include broccoli and cauliflower in the “by Fourth of July’ list
because I assume it’s a given that, with our earliest planting
date, we should have it in late June...but ALAS! All the heading
kohl crops (brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower, and romanesco) took such
a beating from the wind this spring that they are further behind than
usual.
With the heat and
sun now, it’s easy to forget what a dark (like no sun!NONE!no sun
at all!), cold, rainy, March and April we had. We also had, pretty
much, a weekly Crazy Wind Event. Despite all the weather, the early
planting of heading kohl crops went through they are starting to head
up and look awesome. We are thinking cabbage and broccoli in the
next two weeks with cauliflower and romanesco by mid July. We have
succession plantings after that to hopefully keep them coming through
August and September.
CSA week 7
Partial
Lettuce
Mix - partial bag
Green Butter Lettuce - 1
Bulb Fennel -1 med
or 2 small
Green
Onions - partial bundle
Kale - partial
bundle
Garlic Scapes - 3
oz
Red Beets - partial
bundle
Dill - partial
bundle
!BABY
CARROTS! - Partial bundle
Full
Lettuce Mix - bag
Green Butter Lettuce - 1 large
Bulb Fennel - 3 each
Green Onions - bundle
Kale - bundle
Garlic Scapes - 4 oz
Red Beets - bundle
Dill - bundle
!BABY CARROTS! - bundle
General food prep
ideas;
Pre-chopping
things for the week saves a ton of time! Chop stuff up and keep it
ready to quickly use. I’ve been chopping up a couple bundles of
those incredible green onions every few days and keeping them in a
lidded Pyrex container for easily topping EVERYTHING.
Also I’ve been
chopping two bundles and cooking them down with a stick of butter and
then using those as a starter for other dishes. (butter + onions =
something good to eat)
Big Pots and
Pans. If you like making kale chips, it’s worth getting the
large industrial sized baking sheets from a restaurant supply store.
They just barely fit in a home oven but they are really convenient
for making kale chips. (Also a great investment for making lots of
cookies at once :) )
Weekly egg bake –
I’ve had a few people ask for a recipe or guide for the ‘egg
bake’ I often mention. Each week we wisk 2-3 dozen eggs, ~1/2 cup
cream, salt and pepper and add to a large casserole dish. Then I
take about 1.5-3 pounds of whatever leafy greens I have around (kale,
chard, super greens, baby kale, beet tops, etc., ) I saute butter,
chopped green onions, and while that cooks I add the greens; it seems
like a ton of greens but it cooks down, sometimes I add some balsamic
vinegar. I take the sauteed greens and put them in the casserole,
they kind of fall down into the raw eggs, then top with chopped fresh
herbs (lately dill later in summer i’ll switch to basil, and then
parsley in fall) top the whole thing with a generous amount of cheese
and bake until it’s not runny.
Butter Lettuce-
this is the last time for
butter lettuce in the shares until fall. It prefers cool weather.
We have an experimental planting started now to see if we can keep it
coming through the heat but usually summer lettuce is red leaf
or red romaine as
they do better in the heat.
Garlic Scapes-
The scape is the garlic plant making a seed head; if left on the
plant the plant would put more energy into making seed and less into
the bulb. When garlic is scaping we harvest it everyday to get the
scapes while they are young and tender; hopefully before they have
made a full ‘circle’. If left on the plant longer they make a
big curly cue like a corkscrew. You can chop your garlic scape and
use it as you would use garlic in any recipe.
If
kept in a sealed plastic bag your scapes should keep in the fridge
for 2-4 weeks...but we bet they will disappear into casseroles, stir
frys, and dressings long before that. We have been hoarding the
scapes the last week in order to have a nice pile of them for you in
this week’s share. THIS WILL BE THE ONLY WEEK WE HAVE SCAPES IN
THE SHARES.
Other
scape ideas; use a veggie peeler to make long peels and top with
pizza. Coil into a spiral and put on a skewer for the most beautiful
kabob EVER. Give it a quick blend in the blender or food processor
with olive oil and freeze it to use later.
Dill would be great with a cold beet salad, and I
thought you might want to make one too :). Roast or boil beets until
tender, slice or cube and add olive oil and salt. Chop and top with
dill. You could make the dill creamy by adding yogurt, heavy cream
or the cream from the top of canned coconut milk.
Bulb
Fennel
Every bit of fennel is edible; the frothy tops are a lovely culinary
fresh herb. The stems can be frozen and added to vegetable
stock/soup. And the bulb is delicious cored and thinly sliced and
used raw in salad or slaw or lightly sauteed.
