CSA Week 6, 2024

CSA Week 6

Possibly corn, cucumbers, squash, blueberries, beans, and ….
Are you planning on making lots of pickles? Or just having a cucumber binge? Now is the time to get bulk cukes for whatever you are making. There is plenty of squash too! Time to make all your quickbreads for the freezer 🙂 Let me know what market location or a CSA location where you see us to pick up as many half bushel boxes you like this week and we will give you the CSA discount! Fill up your freezers and pantries now for a rainy day or just for the good economy of it 🙂

Lemon cukes are so cute! These fun little heirloom cucumbers go back a couple millennia – Pliny the Elder describes these cucumbers as “shaped like a quince and a golden color” in his Naturalis Historia…that’s a ways back! I am not sure about his recipe for stewed cucumbers though, that sounds a little slimy, I don’t know.
We were looking forward to tomatoes for you this week, but apparently there was a three day flush and now not so many. They are out there, no worries, it’s gonna happen 🙂

If you are building up cucumbers, throw them in your food processor/blender with whatever you think goes together for a refreshing gazpacho. No, you do not need to salt cucumbers when you are making soup, LOL.
Suggested ingredients:
4 cucumbers
a celery stalk or two
a bit of onion, unless you really love raw onion, then use it all 😉
1 cup Greek yogurt
1 garlic clove or a couple scapes
3 tablespoons EVOO
S & P to taste
Garnish with chopped nuts, bits of ham, or shrimp if you like.

Where are your recipe ideas peeps? What have you been doing with your produce? Here’s another invitation to share 🙂

Here’s a recipe recommended by Tonya: https://damndelicious.net/2014/04/02/zucchini-fritters/

https://www.eatingbirdfood.com/zucchini-noodle-spaghetti-salad/ – this one calls for cucumber, summer squash, onion, etc.

MaryEllen recommends this: https://seasaltandsailorstripes.com/swiss-chard-chicken-sausage-and-potato-saute/

Green Bean and Summer Squash Salad

Last year member Laura sent me this: Here is a lovely green bean and summer squash salad from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking, “which is a bit of a veg bible for me”.

• 6 or so young zucchini or yellow squash
• bunch green beans, trimmed
• olive oil
• lemon juice—about 1/2 lemon
• parsley—about two tablespoons
• salt
• pepper

Boil zucchini whole until tender but not soft (“slightly resistant when prodded with
a fork”). Drain, cool a bit, and slice into thin rounds. Blanch green beans for 1-2
minutes and drain. While still warm, toss beans and zucchini rounds with “a liberal
quantity of olive oil,” lemon to taste, and a good grind of pepper. Add parsley and
salt to taste just when ready to serve. This can also have boiled sliced new
potatoes added if you have them.

Zoodles and cheese

– Any vehicle for butter or cheese is awesome in my book! I have been making my regular, old-school cheese sauce (you have your own recipe right? Make a white sauce, add lots of cheese, season with some cayenne, garlic, pepper, dry mustard…) and 100% squash noodles for mac and cheese these days. No one is missing the pasta. Do not forget the salting and draining process! Below is a recipe concocted last year…kind of cheater sauce with the mascarpone. After a fair amount of experimentation, I add the seasoning to the sauce, skip the pasta, and simply squeeze extra moisture out of the squash, skipping the sauté and just bake the squash noodles in the cheese sauce until bubbly. One less pan to clean 🙂

I made a summer squash/zoodle salad this week with a simple dressing and fresh herbs I had on hand.
Julienne or spiralize 3 huge squash I had on hand (likely equal to like 5 normal squash), lightly salt and let drain in colander while you make dressing.
Dressing (yes, it looks like all my other dressings, lol:

•  1/2 cup favorite oil
• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 Tb Dijon
• S & P to taste (I probably added about another 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4++ freshly ground pepper)
• optional- freshly snipped herbs (or break out your dried if you want) dill and parsley and or basil

Thanks to those who sent me some recipe ideas! Where are yours? 🙂

Tonya says they loved this zucchini recipe! I am looking forward to trying this one: https://damndelicious.net/2014/04/02/zucchini-fritters/

Member Laura sends me this: Here is a lovely green bean and summer squash salad from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking, which is a bit of a veg bible for me.

Zoodles and cheese
– Any vehicle for butter or cheese is awesome in my book! I have been making my regular, old-school cheese sauce (you have your own recipe right? Make a white sauce, add lots of cheese, season with some cayenne, garlic, pepper, dry mustard…) and 100% squash noodles for mac and cheese these days. No one is missing the pasta. Do not forget the salting and draining process! Below is a recipe concocted last year…kind of cheater sauce with the mascarpone. After a fair amount of experimentation, I add the seasoning to the sauce, skip the pasta, and simply squeeze extra moisture out of the squash, skipping the sauté and just bake the squash noodles in the cheese sauce until bubbly. One less pan to clean 🙂
I had a bunch of milk about to turn so made a big batch of ricotta, which meant it was time to make lasagna. Yes, I made it with summer squash that I ran through the mandoline to make perfect “lasagna” layers, yes, gotta salt and drain these for a good half hour, and then assemble as usual. Do not cover when you bake it and if it looks wet, bake it longer to dry it up a bit.

We are back into some beautiful corn, still picking lots of beans, LOADS of cukes and squash – reminder, this is the time to put stuff by.

If you are headed out to the farm for berry or any other picking, please remember to wear a hat and sensible shoes or boots and absolutely to not attempt to to drive into any of our fields.

Lots of birds, bugs, bears, Bambis and butterflies on the farm! The Chimney Swifts are very busy feeding babies who make a lot of noise when the parents drop down the chimney with the food delivery. Last night I at least 2 Long Eared Owls last night, just outside my window…I do not usually hear them in our yard! It was cool! Usually the Screech and Barred owls are in the yard proper, while the Great Horned and others hang out a little farther out.

Hummingbirds and butterflies are all over the yard and farm – especially in the cut-flowers, where there are plenty of blooms for all. We’ve had enough deluges the the larger puddles in the fields are attracting amphibians and also predators. Fait found this young’un (guessing 3 years old) in a puddle – assuming it was attracted by the frog buffet. Meanwhile, this year’s bear cubs (two or three of them) have been having a most excellent time pigging on corn, running up and down the plastic, ripping holes in the plastic and pulling out the irrigation tubing, yippee! Sooo much fun to be had wrecking the place. Sigh.

Eat well,

Geneviève Stillman