Summer 2022 CSA - Week of June 27th
Full share: chard, 3 lettuce heads, 2 cucumbers, radishes, rhubarb, scallions, basil, parsley
Half share: chard, 1 lettuce head, 1 cucumber, radishes, rhubarb, scallions
Happy Tuesday CSA members!
Summer is finally here to stay and it shows on the farm. Cucumbers are coming on like crazy and strawberries and tomatoes are just around the corner! Those summery greek salads are so close you can almost taste them.
It’s also the first week of our summer farm camps! There’s a four week break between the end of spring farm school and summer farm camp, so it’s exciting to see a few of those faces returning to learn about what’s been happening since the seeding and planting they got to try out a little while back (hint: it’s a lot of watering and weeding).
This week’s box is as fresh and delicious as it is diverse. Slice up your cucumbers and radishes and serve raw sprinkled with salt or with buttered toast for a refreshing snack, cook your chopped rhubarb down with a bit of water and natural sweetener for a compote to put on oatmeal or ice cream, chop your herbs and blend with olive oil for a condiment thats good on everything from canned beans to greek yogurt. The possibilities are endless!
CSA PRODUCE TIPS AND RECIPES
Chard: Uncooked, chard will last up to a week in a bag in the fridge. Cooked chard will last around five days. Chard is a biennial vegetable (meaning the complete growing cycle takes place over two growing seasons) but is harvested during the first when the leaves are still tender and delicious and the plant has not yet gone to seed. Young leaves are great raw in salads but it’s more often used cooked. Both stalks and leaves are edible and delicious - just chop the stalks into bite sized pieces and toss them into your pan a minute or two before you add the leaves. Try your chard sauteed in olive oil with lemon, garlic and black pepper; with chili oil and topped with toasted sesame seeds, or added to stir frys.
Radishes: Washed, dried, and stored in a tupperware, radishes can last 1-5 weeks. They do better with their greens removed, which can then be sauteed. This recipe that sautees quartered radishes alongside their greens in olive oil and butter with garlic, shallots, coconut aminos (or soy sauce), lemon and herbs looks amazing.
Recipes:
This heat is perfect for fresh salads -- a few copies of the below recipes (from Salad Freak by __) are available to take from the market stand! Substitute parsley for the cilantro in the cucumber salad and hold onto your rhubarb until strawberries are ready to try the rhubarb and strawberry combo!
When herbs are abundant, I always come back to this recipe: Creamy White Beans With Herb Oil. It calls for chives, cilantro and basil but you can truly use whatever you have on hand (trust me, I have). Serve it with some crusty bread and a refreshing green salad (like this one) and you have a perfect summer meal in 30 minutes.
That’s all for this week!
Until next time,
Sasha