In this week’s share, members will find kale, sugar snap peas, salad mix, tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash and/or zucchini, fennel, bunching onions, sweet peppers, Hungarian hot wax peppers, cauliflower OR broccoli. Herbs: sage and thyme.

HALF SHARES will receive green cabbage as well.

As always, scroll to the bottom for some recipes for this week’s produce and information about some of this week’s vegetables.

Family on the farm for two weeks

It’s always fun to see the farm through other’s eyes, especially for the first time.  We talk about the farm pretty much all the time, and we know our family and friends worry about how hard we work. We hope that when they see it, they realize how rewarding it is.

The past two weeks, we were fortunate to have John’s daughter and son-in-law and granddaughter on the farm with us. They helped us with harvests and delivery and Bee, our granddaughter, helped by sampling tomatoes (which she calls “apples”), snap peas and broccoli. 

They also got to meet many of our CSA members during movie night at the farm.

Playing hooky for a day

Your farmers managed to slip away for 24 hours.  Friends of ours recommended a state forest south of the farm and we headed there under rainy skies.  We found the site they suggested right on the lake and found that we had the whole campground to ourselves.  Pretty magical.  Of course we packed lots of produce and we ate darn well.

Eating while camping reminded us that with fresh summer vegetables, it doesn’t require much to create great flavor: extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and garlic is usually a great base for any dish whether it’s roasted, grilled or sauteed. 

We hope that you’ll keep this in mind as your boxes of vegetables grow larger in these final weeks. Don’t get overwhelmed.

Recipes and information on this week’s vegetables

Members Jan and Dan sent us an email this week describing a stir fry they made using up all many of their veggies.  We know we have lots of foodies as members (ourselves included), but we really mean it when we say KEEP IT SIMPLE.  We routinely say “I’m going shopping” as we walk out to the field, or the walk-in cooler to be inspired for a meal.  That’s part of eating seasonally, too.  Letting the fresh produce do the work and inspiring a meal or dish.  We challenged ourselves the other night to open up a cookbook and chose something we hadn’t made before.  Heather-Marie chose a recipe using tomatoes, while John chose a recipe from our new book “Six Seasons” using charred broccoli.

Fennel

This is a new item for the farm and we love adding new things.  Most often when buying fennel in a grocery store, it comes with the stalks and fronds trimmed off.   We are harvesting them with it all attached as you can eat it all.  The bulbs can be eaten raw or cooked, although the bulb can be tough so should be cut thinly.  Trim the stalks and fronds off when ready to cook and use the fronds as you would any herb.  Fennel has a light licorice flavor.  Fennel goes well with seafood and also is paired with citrus in dishes, too.

Bunching onions

This week, we’re including bunching onions in your shares. They are an early onion that does not work for storage. If you think it looks like an overgrown scallion, you’re not too far off. We have used these onions in several recipes that called for scallions and found it to be sweet and flavorful.

Summer squash

Remember that there are three summer squashes in our field and in shares: patty pan, magda, yellow squash and zucchini. The squashes look different but can be used interchangeably. Our favorite method for cooking these squash is slice them in half, cover with about a teaspoon or so of salt and let it sit — for as long as time allows. Then, you can roast it or grill it and toss into salads or simply cover with olive oil, herbs, garlic, butter or even salad dressing.

Brenna’s Excellent Fennel Salad

When John’s daughter, Brenna, was here visiting us, she made this excellent salad.  Neither John nor Heather-Marie, have cooked much with fennel so this was a treat.   

Fennel bulb, and stalks

Apples

Celery

Lots of herbs

Olive oil

Lemon juice

Salt and pepper

1. Cut fennel pretty thin

2. Cut apples and/or celery pretty thin

3. Chop up some fennel greens and some herbs (whatever is around: mint, oregano, thyme, whatever) and toss that in a bowl with chopped stuff 

4. Mix it up with some oil, kosher salt, lots of lemon juice, and toss it around with some pepper

5. Finish with flaky salt 

Roasted Cauliflower/Broccoli Leaves from green-talk.com

Use any leaves: Cauliflower, Broccoli, Kale or any green
Cauliflower or Broccoli heads
Soy Sauce to drizzle over the leaves
Scallions, and/or bunching onions
Four cloves of garlic
Sesame Oil or Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Pre-heat the oven at 200 °C/400°F. Wash the cauliflower/broccoli and leaves and cut into bite-size pieces, discarding the toughest outer layer of leaves. Smash a few cloves of garlic and chop them coarsely. Chop some scallions as well. The whole scallion, not just the white part.
Toss the garlic, onions, and cauliflower/broccoli with a generous splash of soy sauce and oil in a roasting pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the uncovered roasting pan in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the green leaves are crisp and both the florets and the thicker stalks are tender and can be pierced easily with a fork. (Change the time if you are using a convection oven.)