CSA Week 5
You may have these things in your box: lettuce, kale, summer squash, radishes (Cherrybell, French Breakfast, OR Easter Egg), corn, beans? Blue or raspberries?
We are picking blueberries and raspberries now and it looks like some of you may receive them this week for the first time or again. Please refer to last week’s boxletter for how to handle your raspberries, should you receive them. Summer squash season is the time to explore recipes, make good stuff to freeze, gorge on the seasonal freshness! Honestly, I grilled a squash for each person at dinner and it was ALL GONE. Deliciousness!
I wrote about corn last week, but on behalf of the farm and your farmer, I would like to recap that not only Stillman’s the first corn in the state, YOU were the first CSA in the state to get corn in your box! You also received the first beans in the state! Did you know there are quite a few CSA that do not include sweet corn OR fruit in their shares…but you can sign up for a sweet corn and/or fruit share for additional money. A good friend of ours charges more than $700 for fewer weeks that our CSA and if you want you can buy an additional corn & fruit CSA share for another $400. Based on what I see go in a weekly share, a meaningful percentage of the cost must go toward administration. We think this is great!!! No criticism here, but to point out that our members, if they sign up early, pay hardly any admin costs, and all members get fruit, corn, beans picked for them, etc…we don’t’ have any membership fee, yet we welcome all to the farm to enjoy a stroll through the fields and harvest berries, or what have you, we also do not have any work share hours required ?
Why am I telling you all this? We believe you are part of one of the best CSA programs in the state, possible all of New England! First corn, first peas, first beans, fruit included, ALL grown by your farmer. Keep this information in mind as we are looking to grow our membership (for next year) a little. We are not good at blowing our own horn, or looking pathetic…but we try hard to support our friends in need AND we have another child going to college next year. We also know that we have a FANTASTIC value CSA and hope you know that too, and will share with your friends. We are thinking to create some specialized CSA like “Heirloom Tomato CSA” that is just about awesome tomatoes and perhaps the “Gourmet CSA” that includes microgreens, mesclun, and bunches of herbs. Oh wait, many of you have received mesclun
?Now that you are in our CSA, we truly hope you will engage to the fullest, chat with us, come to the farm, Facebook and Instagram us, etc, etc. We are in it together!
Recipes
Summer Squash Sauce – JC (Lunenburg CSA)
You can use it as a summer sauce on top of spaghetti or serve it as a side with fish, pork or chicken.
Ingredients:
- 1 zucchini
- 2 squashes
- 1 onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 can of diced tomatoes with basil
- olive oil
- sea salt
- pepper
- fresh basil
Slice the zucchini, squash, garlic and onion. In a sauté pan heat about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the zucchini, squash, garlic and onion to the pan, sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add the can of diced tomatoes, sea salt, and pepper to taste and let simmer until vegetables soften. Top with fresh chopped basil and serve.
Parmesan Fried Eggs with Bitter Greens Martha Stewart Living 🙂 Faith and I thought this sounded perfect!
- 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan
- 2 large eggs,
- Kosher salt
- freshly ground pepper
- 2 cups baby bitter greens (such as kale, amaranth, dandelion, or mizuna)
- 1/2 lemon
- 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
Heat a small nonstick skillet over medium until a shred of cheese dropped in begins to sizzle. Spread 1/4 cup cheese in an even layer over bottom of skillet. Heat without disturbing until cheese begins to bubble, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Crack 1 egg directly on top of cheese. Cook until edges are just set, about 2 minutes. Cover and continue cooking until white is set but yolk is still runny, about 1 minute, 30 seconds more. Season with salt and pepper. Run a spatula around edge of egg and cheese to loosen. Transfer to a plate with spatula. Repeat with remaining 1/4 cup cheese and egg. Top eggs with greens. Squeeze lemon over top and drizzle with oil; season with salt and pepper and serve. (I bet delish with mesclun or microgreens too)
On the blog: radish leaf pesto, lettuce wraps, zucchini chips, search lasagna, vegetarian chili…
Simply click the in the upper right of our website and type in whatever you are looking for, i.e. “chard recipe”
Also check out Stillman’s member blog and recipe for Swiss chard and ricotta pizza
Farm Dirt
Glenn planted even more corn this week – it is a relief that the corn planting will come to an end soon. It can be tough to schedule because you get too much heat and it comes all at once, you get too much dry and it fills out poorly; you get too much rain and cold and it comes late, or you cannot plant at all. When farmers grow only for the main harvest, to be stored for human or animal consumption, it is less nuanced than when farmers need to have corn for the fresh market from July through September. That’s why Glenn plants weekly and differing day-length varieties.
We also seeded the beans we grow for drying this week. I am hoping we can acquire a super small combine for the beans this year, but that will be an expenditure that we would need help with. Now, when MOST of the dry beans we see at the supermarket are GMO, it would be nice to continue to offer NO-GMO beans, but harvesting and shelling by hand is very time-consuming, and expensive. If anyone has any ideas about how to achieve this, we are all ears.
This week we saw the first crop of Barn Swallows fledged and mom and dad mudding the nest anew. We love to watch these skillful flyers and love them more for the flies and moths they eat on the farm. ? The second nesting of Bluebirds is well underway and we all look forward to having the second round of happy sounding, busy birds following us around the farm and hanging out in the berry fields.
The whole farm is now a toadery, or frogery, or something …we’ve got teeny-tiny toads and the smallest tree frogs hopping around everywhere. Adorable. There are also loads Monarch and Swallowtail butterflies flitting about (many other species too) – so much to look at these days!
Eat well, Geneviève Stillman
Next week: corn, lettuces, kale, summer squashes, berries, cucumbers. Kohlrabi?…
