CSA Week 5, 2016

CSA Week 5

You MAY have these things: Summer squashes and cucumbers of some variety or color, lettuce (of some variety), beets, beans or new potatoes of some variety, some kind of berries, kale, corn … Looks like the beans are coming in nicely this week – if you get beans in your box, they will mostly likely be regular green snaps, but you may also see yellow, purple, hericot vert, Romano or Kentucky Wonders. There may be some interesting radishes or turnips kicking around too.

If you do have corn, it is the farm rule you really need to try to eat it the day we picked it for the best experience. This is not the corn of the supermarket, it’s sugars will convert to starch and it will not be as lovely.

 

Recap from last week in case you missed it: Some of you are asking about coming to the New Braintree farm. Here’s the recap: You are welcome most anytime. Please email me in advance, if you can. I will try to leave a farm map out for you – that way you can navigate to the crops of your choice.  Please park on our driveway and do not drive into the fields. Otherwise, you can roam freely and happen upon what you like 😉 We welcome you to pick anything you like and only ask you to please be fair to the farm if you would like anything in quantity.

We are picking a TON of cucumbers and summer squashes!!! Need some? Need to get a half bushel or more of any of them to make something with? We will give you the wholesale price, so let me know asap so we can get extra on the truck.

Recipes

Cucumber subs (saw this on Pinterest and thought, yes we already were doing this at our house but never thought to call them subs – of course they are!)   🙂 Excellent hot summer food!

Cut cucumbers in half then scoop some of the middle out with a spoon and then make a sub. Either leave stripes or score the length of the cucumber peel with a fork to distinguish different fillings. Use turkey, cheese, lettuce, egg, cream cheese – whatever you wanted to have on your sub, sans bread

From member Alyssa
Just thought I would share a really yummy recipe we are having for dinner tonight with tons of fresh produce from our CSA share! This can be varied a million different ways to use whatever is in the box!
1lb ground beef
2 summer squash- grated
3-4 carrots- grated
can or black beans
fresh ginger and garlic grated to taste along with soy sauce and honey
Head of lettuce
brown rice

Cook up the meat, add beans, then add in all the grated veggies and cook down. Add in soy sauce, honey, grated ginger and garlic to taste. (we like a lot!)

Serve meat/veggie mixture in a lettuce leaf with rice. My husband loves to add red pepper paste or sriracha or whatever Korean hot pepper spice thing he happens to have in the fridge.

So delicious, so fast and easy, and so tasty!!!! You could even use a pre made sauce from the Asian section of the grocery store to make it even faster, we just love us some fresh ginger and garlic. Plus we have some amazing local honey that I love any excuse to use.

Parmesan Garlic Zucchini Chips- FrugalLivingMom.com

Serves: 1-3

Ingredients

• 1 lb (about 4 cups) thin sliced Zucchini
• ⅛ tsp salt
• 1 ounce of finely grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 garlic clove finely grated or ⅛ tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Instructions

1. Note: I cut my zucchini on a mandoline slicer. Thin is the best.
2. In a medium bowl place the sliced zucchini
3. Add salt, Parmesan cheese, garlic and vinegar
4. Toss to coat.
5. Arrange slices on dehydrator trays
6. Dehydrate at 135 degrees for 5-10 hours or until crispy or in a 230 degree oven for 1 and a half hours, checking every 10 minutes after an hour to make sure they don’t burn.

You can do a very similar thing with cucumber chips…but you soak them in salt and vinegar first.

About Corn

We grow a lot of corn, acres of it 😉

There are SO many varieties if corn it is a little crazy. Besides the fact that there is white, yellow and bi-color (aka “butter and sugar” corn), there is also different categories based on sugary content, hybridization and of course, GMO. You already know we do not grow any GM anything, so that means no roundup ready or BT corn either. The SU or standard sugary varieties include the old-school Bantam and such, while the hybridized Se (sugary enhanced) varieties are bred to have more sugar content – this is mainly what we grow. Then there are the Sh2 (supersweet) and sweet breeds varieties, bred to be mostly sugar with a tougher pericarp to hold up for weeks at the supermarket. FYI: I really dislike all of the shrunken types, even when fresh.

AND that’s why you need to eat our corn the day it was picked!

Farm Dirt

This is the time for squash and cucumber preserving, so let us know if you need a case; we will give you a hefty CSA break 😉

We got some much needed rain on Sunday evening…enough to actually count and boost the little babies on the farm that do not have access to irrigation. I was explaining to a member this week that the crops we can reach with water are thriving (think squash, cukes, the tomatoes look really good, though not turning red as fast as we would like), and the crops that are on our early and driest land are struggling. Directly seeded crops like radishes and carrots have germinated poorly or unevenly, the chard pretty much stopped growing, and we are less productive on the farm because so much time is spent moving irrigation pipe around. At any rate, we are back at it this week, trying to catch up with the schedule since we don’t have to run around trying to water everything 🙂 Glenn is out planting corn and laying plastic today, the guys started picking lots of beans,  the blueberry netting is finally up…

Meanwhile, we could use several nights a week of ½” of rain to catch up. Let’s hope for some more lovely growing weather!

Eat well,

Geneviève Stillman