Winter CSA Newsletter Week #28 May 19-25, 2024 “B" week
VEG SHARES
(Photo of the "Default" FULL Share below. See listings to see which share size has what, how much, along with info, guides, recipes.)
FULL VEG SHARE:
SPINACH (1/2 lb) - This green is very versatile (and YES! You can eat the stems, in fact they are very tasty too. ;) It can be eaten cooked or raw, requires little prep, works with sweet or savory ingredients, stands up to other hearty ingredients, and pairs well with rich
, fatty foods such as cheese, butter, bacon, and cream. Raw is popular in salads with, or without, pecans, dried fruit such as cranberries, chunks of cheese, sunflower seeds, and roasted beets. Other possibilities are steaming, boiling, stir-frying, or sautéeing with butter or olive oil. Known as a longer keeper than lettuce, store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for a week or more. Note - Cooks down in size considerably. Guide & Recipes
LETTUCE MIX (¼ lb) - Store in a plastic bag in your fridge. We consider it a “1st Priority Vegetable” and recommend you use it within the first 3 days, as it has a short shelf life. (Although our freshly harvested lettuce will often last a week or sometimes even more!) Guide & Recipes
ARUGULA (3 oz.) - Peppery green. Arugula is highly perishable and will only last about 2 days. This should be the first item you eat from your box. Store in the fridge inside a perforated plastic bag.
ASPARAGUS (1 lb) - Can be eaten raw or cooked many ways—roasted, grilled, steamed, boiled, pan-roasted, fried and can be added to pasta, salads, soups, and stir-fries.Steam with butter or hollandaise sauce, blanch and chill with a vinaigrette, herbs, or other dressing. Generally speaking, thicker spears are better for roasting, grilling, and stir-frying, and thinner stalks are traditionally left whole so their tender, meaty texture can be appreciated. Trim before cooking by holding the ends and bending the spear until it breaks somewhere in the middle; everything from the middle up will be tender enough to eat easily. Store in the fridge either in a vase of water (cut a sliver off the stalk ends first if they are dried) or store them in a loosely wrapped plastic bag in the crisper drawer. Just remember that the sooner you eat it, the better the flavor. Asparagus can also be blanched and then frozen although it will be more mushy when thawed - perfect for soup! Pickling is another option. from our farm and New Forest Farm
RADISHES with greens (1 bunch) - Separate radish from leaves for storing! Keep the greens in a loosely wrapped plastic bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator and eat them soon. Store the colorful roots in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for a week or so. Eat them raw with a sprinkle of salt, slice into salads or on sandwiches for added crunch, pickle or roast with carrots. Guide & Recipes
GREEN GARLIC (1 bunch) - Use anywhere you’d use garlic. Stronger that regular garlic when used fresh, but milder when heat is added. (Note - if you chop or mince ahead of time, oxidation can cause the garlic to turn bright green or blue. It’s still usable.)
HALF VEG SHARE: (see Full VEG Shares above⬆ for info on each item)
SPINACH (1/2 lb)
LETTUCE MIX (1/4 lb)
ASPARAGUS (1 lb)
RADISHES with greens (1 bunch)
GREEN GARLIC (1 bu.)
OPTIONAL ITEM: 1 dozen EGGS and/or BEETS (1 lb) - Store in the fridge in a plastic bag for months. from our farm and Red Door Family Farm Guide & Recipes and/or DAIKON RADISHES - Generally milder than regular table radishes. Store dry in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for weeks - these are long keepers!. Radishes are also delicious roasted - our favorite way to eat them - because it takes out their heat and makes them sweeter! Try also sliced in rounds or matchsticks with your favorite dip or hummus. Adds crunch and great flavor to any stir fry recipe. Guide & Recipes
Other ITEMS available in "Design My Share"
Purple Top Turnips Store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator where they'll keep for a long time. Delicious roasted.
RHUBARB - (1 lb) - These tart green & magenta stalks this hardy perennial vegetable is generally thought of as a fruits. It’s mouth puckering goodness is often sweetened with a little sugar or honey and is used in dishes like crisps, compotes, and pies (from which it gets its second name, "pie plant"). Rhubarb also lends a fruitiness to savory dishes and pairs very nicely with pork and poultry. To use: wash and trim off any dry ends. Some peel the skin but there’s no need to do this and besides it holds lots of color and flavor. Store in loose plastic in the crisper drawer of the fridge, where it will keep for about a week or a little more. To freeze, cut the rhubarb stalks into 1-inch chunks and seal in an airtight bag and it will keep for up to a year.
GARLIC CHIVES (1 bunch) - Garlic chives look similar to chives, but their leaves are broad and flat instead of hollow. Their garlicky flavor enhances cooked dishes, particularly ones where the food is slowly simmered in a sauce, such as red-cooked stews or soups, or in stuffing. Use them also to add flavor to stir-fries. They go particularly well with eggs and seafood—you’ll often find them paired with scrambled eggs or prawns.
CHIVES (1 bunch) - Chives, with long, pencil-like, thin edible leaves with hollow centers and also edible purple flowers, belong to the allium family, making them relatives of onions, leeks, scallions, and garlic. They are typically chopped and are most often used as a garnish but are good on just about anything. Their flavor pairs well with any savory dish. and the bright green color adds visual appeal as well. Note: if added to a dish too early, they will wilt easily. Chives will keep a few weeks in the fridge in a plastic bag although quality will be better if used within a week.
SMALL RED CAYENNE BEANS (1 lb) - These beans are small, plump, and creamy and are great for soups and stews. We call them the “everything” bean, as they’re a good chili, soup, salad, refried, baked bean. (from Meadowlark Organics)
PEPPER JACK CHEESE (6 oz) - A semi-soft Monterey Jack with the delicate flavors of jalapeno peppers. Pairs well with: Sauvignon blanc wine. *NOT organic. (from Meister Cheese)
MES SHARES
Week 1 of the rotation so MES is for Big Sky, Muscoda area, SGFM
FULL: 2 Dozen Eggs
HALF: 1 Dozen Eggs
EGG SHARE
WEEKLY = 1 Dozen
BIWEEKLY = 1 Dozen
RECIPES:
Click the link to more easily print recipe.
Green Garlic Toast
Adapted from New York Times
Yield: 8 servings
Slices of crusty bread
½cup unsalted butter (1 stick), softened
½cup grated Parmesan
2½tablespoons chopped young green garlic stalks, white and green parts
1 tablespoon minced chives
¼teaspoon black pepper
¼teaspoon fine sea salt, more to taste
Large pinch red chile flakes
1 regular (not green) garlic clove, halved
Step 1
Heat the broiler. Place the bread slices on a baking sheet and broil them, flipping them halfway through cooking time, until golden on both sides. Keep warm.
Step 2
In a bowl, stir together the butter, cheese, green garlic, chives, pepper, salt and chile.
Step 3
Rub the toast with the cut side of the regular garlic clove, then spread with the green garlic butter. Broil toast again for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, until the tops lightly brown and the butter melts. Serve hot or warm.
Charred Asparagus With Green Garlic Chimichurri
Adapted from New York Times
4 servings
3 tablespoons finely chopped green garlic
½cup finely chopped parsley
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried oregano
½cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
Salt and pepper
1 pound pencil-thin asparagus, tough ends snapped off
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
4 ounces crumbled feta
Handful of olives
Crushed red pepper, to taste
Step 1
Heat a cast-iron pan or broiler, or prepare a charcoal grill. Make the chimichurri sauce: In a small bowl, stir together chopped green garlic, parsley, oregano, olive oil and ¼ cup water. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Step 2
Spread asparagus on a baking sheet, drizzle very lightly with oil and sprinkle with salt.
Step 3
Transfer asparagus to hot cast-iron pan or to a grill grate that is placed very close to live coals; alternatively if broiling, place pan as close to broiler element as possible. Let asparagus cook for 4 to 5 minutes, until nicely charred, with a few burnt and blistered spots. Asparagus cooked this way tastes best if slightly undercooked and still bright green.
Step 4
Put cooked asparagus on a platter. Stir vinegar into chimichurri and spoon sauce generously over spears. Top with crumbled feta and olives, then sprinkle with crushed red pepper and serve.
On the Farm
Right after last week's newsletter was sent, a second swarm of bees came to Bill's stack of unused hive boxes!
Bill suited up and organized the boxes and frames to gently direct them to the best ones for their new home. They complied and when dark came he wrapped the boxes with the same piece of netting fabric to keep the whole works together and drove it out to the bee yard. There he set it up to the previous one he did the week before and voila! We have another hive of bees!
What a crazy but also fortuitous set of circumstances!
The bees really approved of Bill's frames and quickly flew and crawled on them.
This one in particular really loaded up. While he didn't actually see her on her amidst all the commotion of little black and yellow bee bodies moving about, Bill guessed the queen to be somewhere in the mix on this frame making it the most popular.
Each queen emits a unique scent, and all the others want to be near it. That scent helps keep all the bees together.
Nature is sooooo amazing!
Before all the rains came, Bill and Aidan set up the water lines and watering gun to give recent transplants a good drink. "Watering in" newly planted seedlings help them recover from the disturbance of their transfer and get growing sooner.
Aidan proudly showing me some pasture next to the vegetable fields he's converted to use for growing sweet corn. After this photo, he planted the corn. Checking on it this week after the rain, he found critters - probably the thirteen-line squirrels (they look like a cross between a chipmunk and a little prairie dog) - dug up and ate almost every single kernal. I didn't take a photo of his dejected pose upon that discovery.
After a day of feeling defeated and ticked off at the situation, he's moving forward on his new plan taking into account that we'll most likely have to share some more corn with the rodents, but hopeful about round 2.
(Good thing we have extra corn seed leftover from round 1!)
He's mowed the grassy paths quite short now so hawks and cats can more easily patrol the area and keep the population of the undesired critters down. And while we'll replant some of the beds with corn, we're going to plant others in a different field closer to the farm buildings where they haven't been bothered in the past to hedge our bet.
Bill loves to walk the fields and check the birdhouses.
Below you can see a pair of bluebirds sitting on a fencing panel next to the one they've claimed this summer.
Check out all the asparagus popping up in this field! Liam in headed to the other side to pick as he makes his way back. This'll ensure his bag doesn't get to heavy until he's closest to the end.
On her way across the field Marlee was distracted by a spider web covered in tiny water droplets, Here's her photo of it.
Can you see the "V" of geese flying overhead in the top left? And Marlee picking asparagus to the right of middle? This was just as heavy rains were starting Tuesday - one of our two "harvest days."
We all ended up soaked as we cut lettuce, spinach, arugula and picked radishes, asparagus, and green garlic. Good thing we don't melt! LOL.
I can't resist taking photos of the moon to share with you when it's hanging over the trees in our marsh when it's so big, the sky color is so beautiful, and it feels so calm and peaceful.
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