I hope you all enjoyed your first box of our summer season. It was a pleasure meeting those of you who pick up from the farm, and I hope those of you picking up at True Juice met, owner Chris and his wonderful staff (which are all his family members).
When you pick up your produce, please remove the entire liner bag and its contents. Many members transfer items to a take home grocery bag, especially if you have eggs and bread too, as it’s easier to carry.
Packaging: I don’t usually use a lot of packaging to prevent it from entering the waste stream, however, the pandemic food safety standards have mandated new requirements to protect your health. The bag liner is required and prevents everything from being individually packaged. I cannot reuse it so you might as well reuse it at home for garbage. I also cannot reuse any other containers, like paper bags, strawberry pints or egg cartons, but I provide 100% compostable containers for you. Additionally, every farm share box is sanitized before packing, and only one person packs your box to minimize handling of food.
Farm Tours: Please know that you are welcome to walk about the farm when you come out to pick up your produce box. Let me know if you want a tour. If I don’t come out to greet you, I am usually out in the field somewhere.
Questions?: If you have questions or need support, please call (530) 304-3754 or email (dailyblessingsfarmLLC@gmail.com) me directly. Inquiries sent through the Harvie accounts are not being addressed quickly due to Covid-19 so you’ll get a faster response if you just contact me with your questions.
This Week in Your Box …..
Summer Squash: The scallop squash is ready to harvest this week, so you can choose between yellow crookneck, green zucchini, Y-star scallop squash and 8 Ball zucchini. Because the squashes are all different sizes and weights, the weekly price is based on a weight of one pound. You will receive 1 lb or more with a quantity order of “1”. For example, you might receive one 6” zucchini or two 4” zucchini’s, but we weigh it before we pack it to make sure you get a minimum 1 lb.
This is what the Y-star scallop squash looks like.
I’ve also listed the large squashes under extras if you want shred them for baking zucchini bread or veggie hash browns. Alternatively they are perfect for stuffing and slicing “zucchini boats”. These are not massive baseball bats but average around 1.25 to 2 lbs for a flat rate of $2. My favorite squash stuffing is browned sausage with sauteed celery and onion. Then add a box of stuffing mix, melted butter, water and let it sit until the bread has absorbed all the moisture. After slicing the zucchini lengthwise and scooping out the seeds, fill with stuffing and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Gourmet Salad Mix: This is a new salad mix; different than last week’s salad mix. A diverse mixture of 10 different kinds of baby green and red lettuces provides lots of flavors and textures to enjoy. The first cut provides more green leaves and second cut provides more red leaves as the red varieties grow a bit slower. I hope you enjoy it.
Trio Green Beans: The green, yellow and purple beans are producing SO well. This mixture is best blanched to a tender crisp point in about 3 minutes in boiling water. If you need more flavor, toss them into a skillet with some green onion and crumbled bacon. Mmmm
Cucumbers: The traditional Marketmore 76 green cucumbers are finally ready! This week is our first pick. Eat them fresh, make soup or toss them in your juicer for green drinks with your kale this week. Lemon cucumbers and Armenian cucumbers will be coming in the weeks ahead.
Hearts of Romaine: Our romaine lettuce has finished producing as the heat sets in for summer. As the heat causes the outer leaves to become tough, they are peeled away to reveal the crisp tender hearts for salads. It won’t be long until we can toss some cherry tomatoes on top.
Radishes: If you aren’t a fan of radishes, try roasting them with the recipe I provided. One of our farm share members, Cindy, discovered that when you roast them, they taste just like roasted little potatoes. Enjoy a mix of Sora, Cherry Belle and Easter egg radish varieties in white, pink, red and purple.
Red Beets: Another farm share member, Mary, provided a wonderful and simple recipe for pickled beets.
Tamara’s Pickled Beets
This is my version of my family S favorite recipe at summer camp
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 c sugar 1/3 c water
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground cloves
5 whole peppercorns
2 cups beets, peeled, cooked and sliced or 16 oz can sliced beets, drained.
Combine all ingredients except beets in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Add beets and return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered 5 minutes. Let cool and chill in the liquid for 4 hours to overnight. Store in refrigerator up to 2 weeks. Serves 4-6
Tamara Ahrens
Bunching Onions: Sometimes called green onions because they are pulled from the ground before they develop into a large bulb onion, not because they have green stems. Bunching onions can be purple or white actually. Both the stem and bulb are edible.
Swiss Chard: I love how the colors of Swiss chard change through the seasons. The dark reds change to a lighter pink when the weather warms up. Use chard in any recipe to replace spinach. It’s great in lasagna.
Kale: This is my first kale harvest this year. It has really struggled for some reason. Most of this week’s kale is a flat leaf kale called Toscano, or Dino, Kale because it looks wrinkly like dinosaur skin. I have mixed in a couple different varieties however for you to compare flavors: White Russian, Red Ursa, Scarlet, Vates, and Lacinato. Generally speaking, kale with red stems are bitterer than green/white stems, and smaller leaves are much sweeter than the giant, tough bitter leaves. I don’t let my kale grow into giant leaves for this reason. Kale harvested during cool seasons tastes much sweeter than leaves harvested during summer. The flowers are edible too and resemble broccoli. Eat it raw in salads, braise it in cooked entree’s or bake it into chips. I have a great sample of kale chips made with cashews and parmesan cheese. It’s SO good.
Snow Peas: We had a wonderfully cool week so we still have snow peas. They are growing during this time of year under a shade curtain to help keep them productive as summer sets in.
Arugula: My arugula variety is called Astro. It generally has a mild, spicy, nutty flavor but it gets stronger when the little white flowers bloom which are also edible and brighten up a green salad. Have you tried making pesto out of it?
Carrots: I have received several compliments about the short, chubby Parisienne carrots. One member said her husband had stopped eating carrots for years because they always tasted like dirt and he grew up on fresh carrots in Ireland. He was never able to find a flavorful replacement until his produce box arrived last week. His wife said she didn’t get many carrots herself as a result. That made me smile!
Extras:
· Organic Bagels from the Painted Rooster Bakery. These are not gluten free.
· Fresh Lavender Bundles
· Organic Flowers Bouquets from Pistil Farm. Available in a small or large bouquet.
· Organic Soothing Hand Salve. Perfect for those irritated, chapped skin from hand washing.
· Organic Dried Basil made from our own Sweet Italian Basil.
· Organic Dried pepper flakes made from our own mixture of poblano, red and green bell, padrone and paprika peppers · Organic Eggs by the dozen (Lg and XL)
What’s Happening On The Farm?
We are harvesting as fast as we can and weeding as we go. Some rows look amazing and, in some rows, the weeds are getting away from us. If you’d like to come out and help, please give me a call. We still have winter squash to plant too. I only have one family at a time visit so you can enjoy the farm without social distancing worries.
Pollinators: Now that everything is blooming, I noticed so many different pollinators working on the farm. I stopped this morning to listen. . . .the farm was humming with honey bees. I walked down the dahlia row and saw a humming bird dashing around and I chased a butterfly that I have never seen before. We have always had Monarchs and yellow Tiger Swallowtails but this one was black and white. It’s a Zebra Swallowtail. I simply love the wonders of gardening and the bio-diversity that the farm supports. I have a regular visitor in my produce wash sink too. His name is Fred…..he’s a frog. I guess he likes the drippy faucet and all the bugs that I wash off the produce.
I have also named a couple of my new hens. “Special” thinks she is so special and has a preferred perch which is actually the door. Every night when I close up the coop, I have to move Special from the top of the door to a perch inside so I can close the door. Then there is “Letterman”. Chickens are reactive to daylight. They wake up at sunrise and instinctively go to sleep at sunset……. but not Letterman. I walk down to the coops around 9:30 – 10pm to close up the coops and find Letterman out running around as if it were still daytime. Sometimes I have to chase her and catch her just so I can go to bed. For some reason she likes to stay up late….just like late night David Letterman.
Wishing you a great week with delicious food.
Blessings,
Carrie
