CSA Week 7, 2018

CSA Week 7

This week you MAY have A LOT OF WATER in your box!!! OK, just kidding, but everything is more than just  a little water-logged here at the farm.You may also have corn, squash, cukes, beans, greens, tomatoes, blueberries, peppers, onions? eggplant?

Onions! Yes, we just started pulling onions and they are sweet, pungent, and juicy. Right now they have the green tops still attached, but once the tops start to collapse, we will pull them all and let them dry a few days in the field, then collect them all, cut the tops and cure in a greenhouse. They will last all winter after that. We won’t be drying anything in this weather 😉

I am seeing a few eggplants coming in, so I imagine they will appear to you soon. I will cover the eggplant next week, but if you get something that looks like it might be eggplant, it likely is:)  As for peppers: look for your standard green bell, but we also have white, yellow, orange, lilac, and purple flavor. What about red you say? Did you know that red peppers are just ripe peppers? Yep, the yellow and orange were also green first too!

We grow A LOT of peppers! Mostly you will see sweet bell types, but you may also see sweet banana/Italian frying types like Carmen, Italica, and Mama Mia Giallo- in shades of light green, dark green, yellow and red,  Lipstick – a pimiento shaped red one that ripens to red early, St Nick and Hungarian Round- thick walled, squatty red, and some ‘blushing beauty” Romanian types.. It’s turned into a sickness passion here to grow any peppers, but especially hots! IF we put any in your box/bag, you would most likely see jalapeno, Hungarian Wax -hot banana looking, and Poblano- dark green, pointy but looking somewhat like a bell pepper. You can read more about hots we grow here.

Ratatouille!

Such a perfect time to pull out your melange recipes! With the squash, peppers, tomatoes, possibly eggplant – let’s go! Here’s my super simplified version:

There are as many recipes for ratatouille as there are French chefs.  My cousin, Fred, makes it the best but here is one way to make it.  I like to use different colored squashes for effect.  I have also done a grilled version where you brush the sliced veggies with olive oil and grill for a few minutes.  Then you chop the veggies and add to a bowl with your tomatoes, extra olive oil and seasoning and toss!.  It isn’t necessary to peel this vegetable when it is young and tender, so the decision is yours.

Chop an onion and bell pepper, cube an eggplant, 2 zucchini or any other type of summer squash, and 2 tomatoes.

Heat about 3 Tb oil in a large frying pan.  Sauté the onion and pepper until fragrant. Add  eggplant and squashes and sauté to lightly brown.  Season (this should include at least 2 cloves of minced garlic), cover and cook ~10 mins over medium heat.  Add tomatoes and  tsp. basil or lots more if it’s fresh, 1/4 tsp. thyme, and 1/4 tsp. oregano. Partly cover and cook another 5 mins or so.  Great with Parmesan cheese and toasted bread.

Geve’s Favorite Summer Pasta (scale back as needed)

• 4  tomatoes chopped
• 1 lb Brie cut/torn apart (Reid is not a huge fan of Brie, so I make this with mozzarella too)
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• handful of basil torn apart or chopped
• 3/4 cup favorite olive oil
• S&P
• 1-2 pounds your favorite pasta

Combine everything except the pasta in the bowl you are going to serve it in, cover and let come together for a few hours at room temp. Cook your pasta according to directions, drain and toss hot pasta with the tomato, brie, oil dressing/sauce. Enjoy!

*Variations on a theme, I have added chopped, blanched greens to this, sauteed squash, squash noodles…you cannot go wrong!

Vegetarian Chili
Quick Lemon Summer Pasta
Zucchini Recipes
Summer Tian

MERCY!

We are all set for torrential downpours!

We’ve had a few raspberry pickers which is GREAT! If you come out to the farm bring our waders. 😉 Yes, Just kidding, but DO wear boots or some kind of waterproof shoe, as the farm is very muddy. While we are totally sick of the water and all the bad things that come of it like hyperactive weed growth, vast puddles, rotting raspberries, runoff, split tomatoes, fungus, disease, not generating solar power, spoiled farmer’s markets, waterlogged people… here’s whats good: full corn, swelling apples, ponds are full, huge blueberries, we are not moving irrigation pipe around, rainbows, no pollen on the solar panels, the lawn looks great…

Lots of bird activity! The second and even third of Barn Swallow nestlings have hatched and most of them fledged. They are starting to congregate in social groups and before long they will all gather up on the electric wires and migrate for the winter. Seeing them go leaves me with a pang of sadness for the fleeting Summer. While they are finishing up, the Goldfinch season is in full swing. They nest late, when the milkweed and thistle are blooming, using the fluff to line nests and then the thistle seeds to feed their young. I can tell you we have 5 nesting pair of Barn Swallows in our barns and sheds, I could not venture to guess how many Goldfinches are here on the farm. Glenn says hundreds 🙂 The Red-tail Hawks had their young out for “flight training”. They are especially vocal with them, always causing me to put down what I am doing to take a look. Cue the iconic eagle cry from every Western…that’s really a Red-tail vocalization!

We undercut the garlic this week and it looks great! This is great news, as our crop was lousy last year. After it cures a little, you should see some.

Eat well,

Geneviève Stillman

Coming up: Peaches, eggplant, garlic, onions…