CSA Newsletter - August 1, 2020

All good things must come to an end.....

Cale leaves the patch with the last crate of potatoes - but they aren't over for your shares!

Actually (although they never complained!) the crew probably didn't mind the end of potato-digging. Besides, they had to get ready for the next harvest, which is NOW APPEARING IN YOUR SHARE:

TOMATOES: 

Does this answer the age-old question: are tomatoes a fruit or a vegetable?

The rest of your share is full of familiar favorites:

CUCUMBER(S) - enjoy the last munch for a while; our patch has taken a pause

KALE - no pause for kale! 

This week we had lightly massaged kale salad with sesame seeds and cucumber chunks, dressed with a simple vinaigrette. Very refreshing!

 

CARROTS - Paleo Carrot Cake anyone? See below!

Photo by CSA member Sarah N.

BROCCOLI - easy to freeze - and that's what we did this week

Broccoli florets ready for blanching

We learned something about broccoli stems this week - see below!

GREEN/YELLOW BEANS - would go nicely with pasta and potatoes - see photo directly below 

POTATOES - see directly above and then directly below!

This classic Genovese method of preparing pasta with pesto includes cubes of potato and pieces of green bean, all cooked together in the pasta pot until tender.

GARLIC - classic ingredient in pesto, and so much more


SWEET BASIL - this has been a great growing year for basil, and thus we are making lots of....

Here's a batch of our frozen pesto. Doesn't look like much but so versatile to have around. Like for Crispy Smashed Potatoes with Garlic Pesto!

BONUS SQUASH!

STORAGE TIPS: Almost everything can benefit from refrigeration, including the potatoes and garlic, since they are freshly dug. HOWEVER, we suggest putting the tomatoes on the counter to ripen a bit more. A warm day or two will bring their flavor to a full bloom! Reminder that carrots stay crisper if they are stored without their tops. All other veggies benefit from a quick dunk, drain and storage in a plastic bag or veggie-keeper bag. 

NOTES FROM THE FARM:

Ah, tomatoes at last! Seems like ours have been a long time coming, while other local farms have been featuring their tomatoes on Instagram and Facebook for a few weeks. In thinking about why we are on the late side, we realized that we have a whole separate operation in the spring that ties up our greenhouse, hoophouse, and time. And that would be the organic seedlings that we have grown for area gardeners since the early nineties.

This spring, with the farmer's market closed and so much uncertainty about where basics would come from, many folks decided to garden. We were fortunate to have a family member who set up the Square Online Ordering system for our seedlings, and we started to field hundreds of orders - the first ones in early April were being filled while snow was coming down. The A2 Farmer's Market eventually opened and we were able to take the seedling orders to the market for delivery.

Edwin with over 200 individual seedling orders on their way to market

The crew good-naturedly joined in the effort as it became clear we needed a system to fill myriad different orders. We commandeered a hoophouse (that could have been used to plant early tomatoes), filled it with oodles of plant starts, called ourselves The Plantazon Fulfillment Center, and went to town! 

So while we can't post and boast about our early tomatoes, we hope we have helped to give bragging rights to hundreds of area gardeners. For after all, what is more "food secure" than your own backyard? 

And in honor of our tomatoes' first appearance in your share, we offer this song by Joe Reilly: "Hello, Little Tomato"! Many of you know that we are also a music farm and have hosted our farm, food and music festival, Holler Fest, for thirteen years. We had to cancel this year, and were sorry that we couldn't feature all the wonderful local musical talent in this area. Joe Reilly played at the first Holler Fest and every Fest since. He recently shared this clip from his Main Stage set in 2013. Joe is a very cool, creative, compassionate, adult and child-friendly musical talent and only Joe could pull off a beat-boxing rap song to a tomato! Check it out, but warning, it's very catchy! (Billy King - who had a lot to do with growing your tomatoes - on bass).

COOKING NOTES FROM MEMBERS AND THE FARM:

As promised, (see above), here's the link for the Paleo Carrot Cake shared with us by CSA member Sarah. The frosting was from a vegan "cream cheese" recipe and it was a big hit with her visiting family. (The carrot cake recipe is from the book Paleo Sweets by Kelsey Ale.)

And long-time CSA member Sharon shared this recipe for Farmers Market Breakfast Bread - a delicious way to turn some of your share veggies into a nourishing treat! Sharon used a combination of carrots, beets and zucchini/summer squash.

What have you been cooking with your share veggies? We would love to hear!

We were inspired to make soup stock this week with a fridge cleanout - some veggies were looking a bit tired but still had a lot to contribute! If you're getting a little behind on your share veggies, do consider making a soup stock. 

Pretty in its own way

We used carrot pieces and peels, purslane, garlic scape stems, broccoli leaves, an onion, and basil leaves. We also started to add the broccoli stalks when we came across a recipe for Dairy-Free Broccoli Stem Soup with 41 five-star reviews! Well, we had to find out what that was about and discovered a whole community of cooks who prefer the broccoli stems to the florets! Yes, we made the soup; yes it was very simple and delicious; yes we are now believers!

We would stress that we are talking about stems from fresh, local seasonal broccoli. Stalks from one of those huge heads you might buy in the grocery store in the winter are best used as a doorstop! Or you would have to determinedly peel them to arrive at the more tender center. Not an issue with summer stems from the farm. (P.S. The Broccoli Stem Soup called for chicken broth, but we, just a tad smugly, simply reached into the pot on the back burner where our  homemade soup stock was simmering and scooped out the required amount. Maybe that's why the soup was so good!?)

It's officially August - a time when we usually start looking back on summer and forward to fall. But this year presents so many unknowns - school, work, activities - all present questions with no clear answers. We too feel the uncertainty for the future yet have many traditional tasks at this time that represent an assumption, a hope, a faith that there is still good reason to plant: we set 2000 cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and kohlrabi seedlings this week for late fall crops; to harvest - we started the onion harvest and huge solid pungent globes are pouring from the field (stay tuned for next week); to pick - we prepared to decamp to Bean Patch #2 as the first patch wound down; to order - it's time to order our seed garlic to be planted this fall for next year's crop; to put by - freezing veggies, drying herbs and making pickles, getting our canning equipment in order.

We feel for all of you who are wrestling with unknowns at this time and hope that, for the next ten weeks, we can offer a steady assurance that Mother Nature still provides and that we'll do our best to represent for her. Thank you for putting your trust in us!

Have a great week everyone!